Free Republic

PF: In ‘Superpower’ you outline three possible courses for American foreign policy: 1) keeping faith with the old “Indispensable” America that underwrites global stability 2) adopting a “moneyball” approach where the US pursues its narrow economic and security interests, or 3) an “Independent” America where the US gives up trying to solve the world’s problems, but seeks instead to lead by example by investing in America’s security and prosperity at home. While you invite readers to choose for themselves, you personally plumped for the “Independent” strategy – why? IB: “I went for ‘Independent’ because America needs a strategy that doesn't...

Russia is gradually turning its back on Syrian President Bashar Assad, evacuating some 100 expert advisers and their families from Syria and refusing to repair regime fighter jets, an Arab daily reported on Sunday. “Senior sources in the Gulf” told pro-opposition London-based daily a-Sharq al-Awsat that the change in Russia’s position toward the Assad regime stems from diplomatic pressure exerted by Arab Gulf states. It also comes as part of Moscow’s efforts to shake international sanctions imposed on it following a military confrontation with Ukraine, the sources said. Meanwhile, Syrian opposition sources told the newspaper that 100 of Russia’s top...

Natural scientists agree that the climate is changing and that humans bear some of the blame. Social scientists are now attempting to assess the economic and political price societies are likely to pay for turning up our planet’s thermostat. The security policy community is especially eager for an answer. In the academy, the debate over climate change and its security implications gained momentum after researchers from Stanford, the University of California Berkeley, New York University, and Harvard observed that civil wars were more prevalent during years that experience hotter temperatures. The chief explanation for this relationship is that higher temperatures...

Hungarian Jewish leaders are criticizing a new Holocaust museum under construction in Budapest for omitting the culpability of Hungarians in the attempted genocide of the Jews. The museum in Budapest, called House of Fates, is nearly complete, but the planned exhibition focuses only on the last period of the Holocaust in Hungary, starting in 1944, when the ghettoization and deportation of over 500,000 Hungarian Jews was already complete. It fails to deal with the earlier persecution against Hungarian Jews, starting with the passage of anti-Jewish laws in the 1920s, local Jewish community leaders and historians complained. Community leaders said they...

More than a quarter of young people of sub-Saharan origin in France feel discriminated against at work, according to a study published on Friday. The Center for Employment Studies found 27 percent of 18- to 35-year-olds from this group felt they were treated unjustly at work. The figure was 18 percent for those of North African descent and 12 percent for those with a Turkish family background. Among women, the ‘native’ French population, namely those with no discernable migrant background, felt most discriminated against with 19 percent reporting unfair treatment. According to the study, women feel discriminated against on the...

Droits Humains launches petition calling for ‘human rights for everyone’, but critics say capitalised ‘Homme’ means mankind A group of French feminists are saying non to the declaration of the rights of man, which they say is sexist and an outdated example of the French exception culturelle. The Droits Humains collective is calling on France to stop leaving women out of the idea of universal liberties. The declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen was approved by the national assembly in 1789 at the time of the French revolution. The collective wants the French government to immediately...

The National Security Agency and its closest allies planned to hijack data links to Google and Samsung app stores to infect smartphones with spyware, a top-secret document reveals. The surveillance project was launched by a joint electronic eavesdropping unit called the Network Tradecraft Advancement Team, which includes spies from each of the countries in the “Five Eyes” alliance — the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. The top-secret document, obtained from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, was published Wednesday by CBC News in collaboration with The Intercept. The document outlines a series of tactics that the NSA...

About 1,000 Israeli Ethiopian Jews have held a rally in Tel Aviv to protest against institutional racism in Israeli society. Monday night's march passed without incident under the watch of dozens of security officers, a police spokesman said. Demonstrators chanted slogans demanding "social justice" and "the arrest of racist police". Ethiopian Jews in Israel have staged several rallies against alleged police brutality and racism in recent weeks, and some gatherings have turned violent as they clashed with security forces. Earlier this month, a video of two police officers beating a black Israeli soldier sparked a massive protest by Ethiopian Jews,...

It took just a few days after the stunning defeat of Obama's attempt to fast-track the Trans Pacific Partnership bill in the Senate at the hands of his own Democratic party, before everything returned back to normal and the TPP fast-track was promptly passed. Why? The simple answer: money. Or rather, even more money. Because while the actual contents of the TPP may be highly confidential, and their public dissemination may lead to prison time for the "perpetrator" of such illegal transparency .... fast-tracking the TPP, meaning its passage through Congress without having its contents available for debate or amendments,...

THE facility spread out below him, row after row of neatly aligned white tin roofs, looking like candies set against the endless beige of the desert floor. It was called Camp Bucca. To coalition forces in Iraq, it was the primary detention facility for enemy prisoners of war. To Mitchell Gray, then 48 and serving his country for the third time, it was simply the place where the US Army had decided his skills, which included a law degree and a fluency in Arabic, were needed most. He and the rest of his unit, the 45th Infantry Brigade of the...

Vladimir Kara-Murza is a leading opposition figure in Russia. On Tuesday, May 26, 2015, he collapsed suddenly and lost consciousness in his office at Open Russia in Moscow. He was rushed to Pervaya Gradskaya (First City Clinical) hospital where he remains on life support, unconscious with an undiagnosed illness of undetermined origins. Given the sudden, mysterious, and incapacitating nature of the illness, and the Putin regime’s appalling record with respect to the murders and mistreatment of prominent dissidents, there is widespread concern that Vladimir has been poisoned. His doctors have not ruled it out though one can imagine the pressure...

A Russian opposition leader is in intensive care in a Moscow hospital, and a lack of clarity about the cause of his sudden illness has raised fears of foul play. The First City Hospital said 33-year-old Vladimir Kara-Murza remained in grave condition Thursday, two days after he was admitted. The Interfax news agency, citing the hospital’s chief doctor, said he appeared to be suffering from pancreatitis and double pneumonia. …

The Atlantic Council released a new report documenting Russia’s direct involvement in the conflict in the Ukraine based on what it calls publicly available information and open-sourced investigative techniques. Damon Wilson, one of the co-authors of “Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin’s War in Ukraine,” said Thursday at a panel discussion in Washington that the report shows “we don’t have a Ukraine problem. We have a Putin problem.” He characterized the techniques the council in its report used as “a democratization of intelligence gathering.” Maksymilian Czuperski, another co-author, said the group was able to leverage what people share on social media,...

The military targeting of civilian infrastructure, especially of water supplies, is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. Yet this is precisely what NATO did in Libya, while blaming the damage on Gaddafi himself. Since then, the country's water infrastructure - and the suffering of its people - has only deteriorated further. Numerous reports comment on the water crisis that is escalating across Libya as consumption outpaces production. Some have noted the environmental context in regional water scarcity due to climate change. But what they ignore is the fact that the complex national irrigation system that had been carefully built...

Dramatic Battle Violates Ukraine Cease-Fire Published 28 May 2015 RFE/RL has recorded dramatic evidence of the cease-fire in Ukraine being violated, with pro-government forces coming under sustained shelling in the village of Shyrokyne. The attack, filmed on May 24, resulted in one Ukrainian soldier dying of shrapnel wounds and another being wounded. Ukrainian military officials said Russian-backed separatists were using weapons of 120-150 mm caliber, which should have been withdrawn 50 kilometers from the front line under the terms of the February cease-fire agreement, although this could not be independently confirmed. There have been frequent reports of shelling at Shyrokyne,...

Campaigners are urging Facebook to act against what they describe as Russian attempts to silence pro-Ukrainian voices. They say numerous accounts critical of the Kremlin have been suspended following false reports of abuse filed from Russia. Ukraine's president has urged Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to create a special administrative office to deal with the complaints. Addressing Mr Zuckerberg on Facebook, President Petro Poroshenko said: "We have to use all available channels to get reaction from global companies. "Ukraine does need a Ukrainian Facebook office!" Underneath, he shared Mark Zuckerberg's status inviting questions for his regular "Townhall Q&A" session on 14...

Davit Saganelidze, the leader of the parliamentary majority the Georgia's parliament, has expressed his sympathy to the people of Ukraine over Mikhail Saakashvili's appointment as governor of Odessa, calling the appointment a "serious mistake" by Ukrainian authorities. Speaking to journalists on Saturday, Saganelidze noted that "this is a very serious mistake on the part of Ukrainian authorities." "I sympathize with the Ukrainian people, who are very near and dear to my heart, and especially to the people of Odessa," Saganelidze added, commenting on Saturday's announcement by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that he had appointed Saakashvili governor of the southern region....

Alexandrov, 28, says he's a Russian soldier who was captured in eastern Ukraine after being sent there on active duty with Russian special forces to help separatists fighting Kiev. He said he was serving on a three-year contract. "I never tore it up, I wrote no resignation request," he said. "I was carrying out my orders." Yet Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the face of widespread evidence to the contrary, has repeatedly said there are no Russian soldiers in Ukraine — only volunteers who have gone to help the separatists of their own accord.

Meet Gulmurod Khalimov, the US-trained and funded former commander of Tajikistan's special forces, who, as Reuters reports, has now gone to Syria to fight with ISIS. He has a message: "Listen, you American pigs, I’ve been three times to America, and I saw how you train fighters to kill Muslims...God willing, I will come with this weapon to your cities, your homes, and we will kill you." As Reuters reports: Colonel Gulmurod Khalimov commanded the Central Asian nation’s special-purpose police known as OMON, used against criminals and militants. He disappeared in late April, prompting a search by Tajik police. He...

The special request has been already approved by the Latvian government. Latvian Prime Minister, Laimota Straujuma confirmed the permanent presence of the NATO military force in the country. Generals from Lithuania and Estonia are also reported to request NATO deploy several thousand ground troops in their countries. As Lithuanian military spokesman Captain Mindaugas Neimontas said: "We are seeking a brigade-size unit so that every Baltic nation would have a battalion." However, the deployment of permanent forces flies in the face of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation which was signed in...