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Friday, The Times' Greg Miller and Julian E. Barnes reported that the United States has escalated its war against Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies by "deploying Predator aircraft equipped with sophisticated new surveillance systems that were instrumental in crippling the insurgency in Iraq." It's a story whose significance may extend well beyond the benighted hills and valleys of Pakistan's violent Pashtun hinterlands and onto the hustings of our current presidential campaign. Coupled with Thursday's report in the New York Times that President Bush has signed a secret order permitting Afghanistan-based U.S. special operations forces to cross into Pakistan without...

Bush's Lonely Decision September 15, 2008 Now that even Barack Obama has acknowledged that President Bush's surge in Iraq has "succeeded beyond our wildest dreams," maybe it's time the Democratic nominee gives some thought to how that success actually came about -- not just in Ramadi and Baghdad, but in the bureaucratic Beltway infighting out of which the decision to surge emerged. excerpt Consider what confronted Mr. Bush in 2006. Following a February attack on a Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra, Iraq's sectarian violence began a steep upward spiral. excerpt The "Sunni Awakening" of tribal sheiks against al...

Earlier today, there was a thread titled: Mark Cuban's Film for Terror I read it with interest because I've corresponded with Mr. Cuban before and I was surprised to read about the supposed point of view of this movie. The article, by Debbie Schlussel, encouraged people to email Mark. I did. The following is our back and forth conversation. I asked him permission to post it here at FreeRepublic and he said, "Go for it." I'm only leaving out the part where I remind him of who I am and our earlier emails. Please read it and judge for yourself:...

Timing is everything. But for some things, no time is ever the right time. And that applies to "The War Within," in nationwide release Friday. No time is ever the right time for a movie sympathetic to homicide bombers and terrorists. Given last week's rumors--hoax or not--about possible bombings of the New York subways and this summer's actual bombings of London subways, "The War Within" is especially loathsome now. Someone needs to tell that to Executive Producer and Dallas Mavericks' owner Mark Cuban. The movie, about a Pakistani Muslim homicide bomber who blows up New York's Grand Central Station, is...