Free Republic

Hillary Clinton is sharpening her tone on ISIS, calling the terror group’s attacks against Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East “genocide.” “We have enough evidence,” Clinton said at a town hall event in New Hampshire on Tuesday night. “What is happening is genocide, deliberately aimed at destroying not only the lives but wiping out the existence of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East in territory controlled by ISIS.” The Democratic frontrunner said she was asked earlier in the campaign whether ISIS’ attacks on religious minorities — including Christians, Kurdish Muslims and Yazidi women —...

A Russian bomber SU-34 attacked a building near the Syrian city of Raqqa where a rebel leaders' meeting was being held as the Russian Defense Ministry's spokesman Igor Konashenkov said. He pointed out that the headquarters were destroyed in result of the attack. According to his words, the intelligence on the meeting's place was provided by representatives of patriotic Syrian opposition forces. "We maintained a round-the-clock air-reconnaissance for two days in that area. After the rebel leaders' arrival at the place had been confirmed, a Su-34 performed an airstrike at the building. In the result of a direct hit with...

Russia’s oil-dependent economy appears headed for a second year of recession, and Energy Minister Alexander Novak says the blame falls squarely on the Saudis. The Russian gross domestic product fell by 4 percent in November from its level in the same month in 2014, and had shrunk 3.7 percent in October from its levels a year earlier, the Economy Ministry reported Monday. The reason, to no one’s surprise, is the plunge in oil prices over the past 18 months. The global average value of a barrel of oil has crashed from over $110 per barrel in the summer of 2014...

Outraged by what Donald Trump says? You are not alone. No high-polling presidential candidate in the modern era has so intrepidly drawn the ire of so many within the American electorate. And there remains no end in sight. Yet in rendering one voting bloc utterly apoplectic, he has appealed viscerally to another. The balance of middle ground politics is not, shall we say, Mr Trump’s bailiwick. But America is no longer a middle ground country. We are already scared by our division — and it is getting worse. The simple truth is, the more provocative his language, the deeper and...

The economic war being conducted by Russia against Turkey provides some opportunities for the United States if it chooses to take advantage of them. However, according to Al-Monitor, a website that covers all aspects of what is going on in the Middle East, Israel is already poised to make a diplomatic and trade breakthrough with Turkey. Israel has uncovered a great deal of proven natural gas reserves in its offshore Tamar and Leviathan fields. The Jewish state has enough gas to supply its own needs and have plenty left over for export, an astonishing turn of events, as Israel has...

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu accused the head of Turkey's pro-Kurdish opposition party of treason on Thursday for using a trip to Moscow to condemn Ankara's shooting down of a Russian warplane over Syria. Selahattin Demirtas, co-head of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), met foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Wednesday and criticized Ankara for shooting down the warplane near the border with Syria last month. Moscow denies it had entered Turkish airspace. "They take sides with whoever Turkey is facing a crisis with. Demirtas saying in Moscow that Turkey's downing of Russian jet was wrong is a total disgrace...

Kurdish groups meeting in southeastern Turkey called for self-rule on Sunday amid heavy fighting in the region as the army pushed ahead with a security operation in which it says more than 200 Kurdish militants have been killed. The Democratic People's Congress (DTK), made up of Kurdish non-governmental organizations, made the call after a two-day meeting in Diyarbakir. "The rightful resistance mounted by our people against the policies that degrade the Kurdish problem, is essentially a demand and struggle for local self-governance and local democracy," said the final resolution of the meeting, titled "declaration of political resolution regarding self-rule". The...

Putin said to be 'fully mobilized' as Turkey sends rebels arms President Vladimir Putin is fully mobilized to tackle what the Kremlin regards as an unprecedented threat from Turkey following the shooting down of one of its warplanes by a Turkish F-16, the Russian leader's spokesman said on Saturday. In comments which underscore how angry the Kremlin still is over the incident, Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, called the behavior of the Turkish air force "absolute madness" and said Ankara's subsequent handling of the crisis had reminded him of the "theater of the absurd." "Nobody has the right to traitorously shoot...

Nato is moving Airborne Early Warning and Control System (Awacs) surveillance planes to Turkey to protect the country's airspace amid growing friction with Russia. The alliance is deploying the Boeing E-3 Sentry system as part of its defence package to Ankara over the simmering Syrian crisis. Germany has dispatched several surveillance aircraft to the Turkish city of Konya, the ministry of foreign affairs and the ministry of defence told the parliament. However, the number of troops and aircraft to be deployed was not revealed. "Since Germany provides 30% of all personnel, our armed forces will clearly also be affected by...

Barack Obama is preparing for his final State of the Union Address, which he'll deliver January 12. And the president is not looking to slow down as the end of his presidency nears. "I've got 12 months left to squeeze every ounce of change I can while I'm still in office. And that's what I intend to do," Obama writes in an email to supporters. We've done a lot of remarkable things together this year, and it's because of committed citizens like you that this country keeps moving forward. You keep proving the cynics wrong. On January 12, I'll be...

Washington will not share intelligence data on Islamic State positions in Syria and will not accept Moscow's offer to cooperate on rooting out terrorism until Moscow changes its position on Syrian President Bashar Assad's future, the Pentagon said. Ever since the start of the Russian campaign in Syria in late September, Moscow has been offering to share information with the US-led coalition against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), urging Washington to reciprocate. After months of extensive diplomatic efforts by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defense, and the Kremlin, the Pentagon is still refusing to enter the proposed...

MOSCOW (AP) -- A conservative priest who lost his high-level job at the Russian Orthodox Church assailed Russia's "immoral elites" Friday and predicted a national catastrophe if the country fails to allow free public discussion. Father Vsevolod Chaplin, who headed the Moscow Patriarchate's department for cooperation between church and society, was relieved of his duties Thursday and his department was disbanded. The church's Holy Synod explained the move by citing the need to increase efficiency. Chaplin sharply criticized Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill for failing to listen to critical voices and predicted that Kirill would be replaced soon. Chaplin hadn't...

In American politics the nation of Russia, especially as personified in its leader Vladimir Putin, becomes all things to all men.To American leftists, Russia is a neo-fascist, violently nationalist country that ruthlessly suppressed minority groups, especially homosexuals. To the American Right, Putin is the second coming of Stalin who is working to subvert good old-fashioned American values around the world.In line with the latter narrative, a certain Christian Gomez recently published an article on The New American website, the flagship of the John Birch Society, supposedly revealing that the Russian government is the real power behind the ISIS terrorist group,...

urkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Tuesday condemned an attack on the rebel-held Syrian city of Idlib, believed to have been carried out by Russian jets, and said Syria will not be part of "Russian imperialist goals". Relations between Ankara and Moscow are already at their worst in recent memory after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane over Syria last month. This weekend's air strikes killed scores of people in the center of Idlib in northwest Syria on Sunday, rescue workers and residents said. Turkey, which has long called for the ousting of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and supports the...

[Original title too long: BOMBSHELL: US Government Planned And Funded A Failed Muslim Conquest Of Russia As Far Back As The 1950s] Last week I wrote about how open-source documents expose that the CIA worked directly with Saudi princes to create ISIS. In another bombshell revelation, former Top Secret Intelligence Bulletins uncovered by journalist Wayne Madsen reveal that the CIA has been backing Muslim terrorists since the 1950s and even attempted to use them in a failed effort to undermine, overthrow, and conquer the former USSR. Via Infowars: According to its own formerly TOP SECRET Central Intelligence Bulletin, dated December...

Guest essay by Eric WorrallHuffington Post has a plan to address the as yet unanswered question of who will foot the bill, for the renewable transformation green advocates want, in the wake of the Paris COP21 agreement. HuffPost’s suggestion is a $2.9 trillion rise in annual taxes on fossil fuels. How Can We Pay for the New Energy Economy?Many a great idea has been deflated by a simple question: “That’s nice, but who’s going to pay for it?” That question hovered like a cloud over the international climate conference in Paris a week ago. Simply put, the goal of the...

When Russia launched an air campaign to support Bashar al-Assad, it was banking on a ground force of Syrian troops to finish what its warplanes started. However, more than 12 weeks later, Syria’s army and the large numbers of Shia militias that back it have made few meaningful gains on the ground. Meanwhile, Moscow’s jets have added a new layer of carnage, reportedly killing at least 600 Syrian citizens, including 70 in Idlib on Sunday. In Syria’s north and in opposition-held parts of the cities of Hama and Damascus, the destruction wrought on civilian infrastructure and population centres over the...

In a twist on the typically shadowy world of super PACS, a new anti-Donald Trump group is openly seeking donations for an ad that would flog the New York businessman for drawing and accepting praise from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Make America Awesome is also offering to pay commissions to people who bring in big donors. The size of the commissions is not disclosed in the appeal circulated early Friday by Republican operative Liz Mair, and she did not immediately respond to a request for details.

Barack Obamas repeated insistence that Bashar al-Assad must leave office and that there are moderate rebel groups in Syria capable of defeating him has in recent years provoked quiet dissent, and even overt opposition, among some of the most senior officers on the Pentagons Joint Staff. Their criticism has focused on what they see as the administrations fixation on Assads primary ally, Vladimir Putin. In their view, Obama is captive to Cold War thinking about Russia and China, and hasnt adjusted his stance on Syria to the fact both countries share Washingtons anxiety about the spread of terrorism in and...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States and its allies conducted 15 strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria on Sunday, the coalition leading the operations said in a statement on Monday.