Free Republic

North Carolina remains a strong source of Army recruits despite an unpopular war in Iraq that has left 3,000 troops dead and 20,000 wounded. The state now ranks fifth nationally for new active-duty Army recruits, according to the Defense Department. A U.S. Census survey that shows North Carolina ranks 10th in the nation for the number of men between the ages of 18 and 24. The state in the past year churned out 3,424 new active-duty soldiers. Patriotism, a generation of young adults willing to serve and familiarity with the military were among the key factors behind North Carolina's rank...

The growing doubts among GOP lawmakers about the administration's Iraq strategy, coupled with the prospect of Democratic wins in next month's midterm elections, will soon force the Bush administration to abandon its open-ended commitment to the war, according to lawmakers in both parties, foreign policy experts and others involved in policymaking. Senior figures in both parties are coming to the conclusion that the Bush administration will be unable to achieve its goal of a stable, democratic Iraq within a politically feasible time frame. Agitation is growing in Congress for alternatives to the administration's strategy of keeping Iraq in one piece...

No sooner did Congress authorize construction of a 700-mile fence on the U.S.-Mexico border last week than lawmakers rushed to approve separate legislation that ensures it will never be built, at least not as advertised, according to Republican lawmakers and immigration experts. GOP leaders have singled out the fence as one of the primary accomplishments of the recently completed session. Lawmakers plan to highlight their $1.2 billion down payment on its construction as they campaign in the weeks before the midterm elections. Shortly before recessing late Friday, the House and Senate gave the Bush administration leeway to distribute the money...

(CBS) Veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward writes in his new book of fierce efforts inside the White House to get rid of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a revelation that has caused a tremendous amount of concern at the White House. In Mike Wallace’s interview with Woodward, to be broadcast on 60 Minutes this Sunday, Oct. 1, at 7 p.m. ET/PT, the reporter also claims that Henry Kissinger is among those advising Mr. Bush. Woodward writes that several people inside the White House have pushed to oust Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The ranks of those calling for Rumsfeld’s resignation included the...

GARDEZ, Afghanistan — After completing their deployment to this remote firebase, the Green Berets of ODA 2021 left for home covered in glory. The 10-member Special Forces team, part of the Alabama National Guard, returned to their families in the spring of 2003 with tales to tell of frenzied firefights and narrow escapes. Its commander had nominated each of his men — as well as himself — for medals for valor. The team's performance was heralded as evidence that the Guard could play as equals with the regular Army in the war on terrorism. But the team also had come...

So President Musharraf is military dictator turned tease, making us wait for his book launch in New York tomorrow for more details of the Bush administration’s crudely worded threat against Pakistan if it did not support the war on terror.“Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,” was the graphic warning from deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, though admittedly it came one day after September 11. Armitage has disputed the wording but the fact that such a threat had to be made (followed by a nice little package of $5 billion of aid)...

Anderson Cooper interviews Ahmadinjead. Will he give softballs like Mike Wallace and Brian Williams?

Seeking a deal with Senate Republicans on the rules governing the interrogation of terrorism suspects, the White House has dropped its insistence on redefining the obligations of the United States under the Geneva Conventions, members of Congress and aides said Tuesday. The new White House position, sent to Capitol Hill on Monday night, set off intensified negotiations between administration officials and a small group of Republican senators. The senators have blocked President Bush’s original proposal for legislation to clarify which interrogation techniques are permissible and to establish trial procedures for terrorism suspects now in United States military custody. The two...

Getting Desperate, Bush Plays The Terror Card In a way, you can’t blame him. He can’t defend his record on the economy, health care, immigration or Social Security. He certainly can’t defend the war in Iraq. There’s only one way George Bush and Republicans can possibly win in November — and that’s to scare the hell out of the American people. So it’s no surprise that President Bush gave four speeches in one week, all trying to tie an unpopular war in Iraq to a still-popular (barely) war on terror. If you believe George Bush — and fewer and fewer...

CONSERVATIVES are dreading the November elections. The Republican capture of the House of Representatives in 1994 was one of modern conservatism’s signal political accomplishments. Now the Democrats are poised to take back the House. If that happens, however, conservatives will find several silver linings in the outcome. It would be worse for conservatives if Republicans actually gained seats. The Congressional wing of the party lost its reformist zeal years ago and has been trying to win elections based on pork and incumbency. An election victory would reward that strategy, leaving the congressmen even less interested in restraining spending, reforming government...

STELLARTON, Nova Scotia, Sept. 12 — There are perils to being unattached in the stodgy world of diplomacy. Sometimes it has seemed that all Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice needs to do is show up in public with a man, and people start talking. The single, sophisticated American secretary of state once drew notice for wearing black stiletto knee-high boots with an above-the-knee black skirt while reviewing American troops in Germany, so she is bound to attract gossip. That is particularly true on the dry, acronym-ridden diplomatic circuit of NATO meetings, APEC forums and Asean conclaves, where much imagination has...

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has taken his place among the spirits permanently haunting West 43rd Street. “The basic goal,” New York Times reporter David Barstow said, “is to make it more difficult for a future Fitzgerald to follow the breadcrumbs of phone records and notes and expense slips from reporter to source.” Mr. Barstow, the Pulitzer- and Peabody-winning investigative reporter, was on the phone Sept. 12, shortly before The Times began this year’s round of legal seminars for the staff. The sessions, led by Times lawyers George Freeman and David McCraw, have traditionally offered a brush-up on privacy, sourcing and general...

Exclusive: New U.S. Government Videotape Simulates Terrorist Attacks September 12, 2006 7:41 PM Brian Ross and Asa Eslocker Report: ABC News has obtained videotapes of dramatic U.S. government field tests of new methods to thwart terrorist attacks against U.S. embassies abroad. In the videotape tests, government scientists stage real terror attacks -- slamming trucks at high speed into barriers and exploding bombs near buildings. Multiple camera angles capture the blasts' effects on test dummies, posing as diplomats seated at their desks. The U.S. Department of State spends $2 million a year to develop better boundary security equipment against such potential...

...However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us could have predicted this. Five years later this space is still empty. Five years later there is no memorial to the dead. Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals. Five years later this country's wound is still open. Five years...

The Times' executive editor accuses the Bush White House of stirring up a "partisan hatefest" against the paper over its revelation of an anti-terrorist program that monitored international banking transactions. Deep inside New York magazine's front-page profile of Times Executive Editor Bill Keller (ludicrously called a "true centrist" by writer Joe Hagan) is this gem about his reaction to White House criticism of the paper's exposure of its tracking of international banking transactions for terror clues: "They pissed me off....I think the administration is genuinely distressed that we ran the story over their objections. I think they were embarrassed by...

Just before sunset on Sept. 11, 2001, the worst day America has known, I snuck past police barricades and made my way to the roof of a high-rise building about eight blocks from ground zero - the closest I could get - and stared at the landscape of horror. Smoke shrouded the 16-acre site. Twisted metal columns jutted from an enormous crater, all of it blanketed in white ash. The only flecks of color came from the yellow stripes on the coats of rescue workers. Finally away from deadlines, it was supposed to be my moment to grieve. But I...

It has become grimly commonplace. While the horrific strikes in the United States are foremost in Americans’ minds, other parts of the world — as far away as Bali, but in large cities in particular — have also found themselves the targets of vicious attacks in recent years. The Op-Ed page asked writers who know some of these cities well to describe the events and consider their aftermath.

WASHINGTON - For three years, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald knew the answer to one of the biggest questions in Washington: Who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame? Now that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage acknowledged this week that he was the leaker, the new question is what Fitzgerald has been looking for during a quest that rattled the White House and sent a reporter to jail.

Former president Bill Clinton is blasting the ABC 9/11 docudrama “The Path to 9/11” for being inaccurate and unfair. You’ve got to love the irony of that. Wasn’t he the guy who hired Hollywood filmmakers to create a campaign biopic of his life? Sure, “The Path to 9/11” makes up dialogue, invents scenes and creates a composite character or two, but sometimes you have to craft the facts in a certain way to tell a complicated story. Just like sometimes you have to reconsider what the definition of “is” is when you don’t want people to know you’ve had an...

My fellow members of the American Legion, I have made some serious mistakes and miscalculations in our struggle against Islamic extremism over the past five years. Some of these were made out of anger and impatience in the months after we were so viciously attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. Others were made out of my heartfelt belief that our American values—freedom, democracy, market economics—are the surest path away from the fury and despair that have plagued the nations at the heart of the Islamic world. I still believe deeply in those values. I am still convinced that we are facing...