Free Republic

Why The Hell Would Obama Bow To Tampa Mayor? Hey, what's that on the ground? Oh, it's just my dignity U.S. President Barack Obama bows to Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio at MacDill Air Force Base on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010 in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo)

"America is still the abiding alternative to tyranny. That is our purpose in the world." Ronald Reagan "Freedom's never more than 1 generation away from extinction We didn't pass it to children in bloodstream it must be fought for" President Obama's weak response to terrorism not only goes against the most basic of American values, but it has also struck fear in the hearts of those looking to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East. Many activists are afraid the weakness that President Obama has shown with Iranians and other terrorist regimes will lead to more terror attacks. Dr....

If the first year of President Barack Obama's foreign policy were a law firm in Charles Dickens's London, it would have a name like Bumble, Stumble and Skid. It began with apologies to the Muslim world, a doomed attempt to beat Israel into line, utopian pleas to abolish nuclear weapons, unreciprocated concessions to Russia, and a curt note to the British..It continued with principled offers of serious negotiation to an Iranian regime too busy torturing, raping and killing demonstrators, and building new underground nuclear facilities, to take them up. Subsequently Beijing gave the world the spectacle of the American commander...

President Obama's push to revamp the terror watch list, improve airport screening and hold the intelligence community more accountable for tracking suspects does not go far enough, some lawmakers say, arguing that more specific steps need to be taken to avoid a repeat of the attempted Christmas Day bombing. After National Security Adviser James Jones warned that President Obama's preliminary review of the attempted Christmas Day airline bombing would "shock" Americans, the most startling aspect of it may have been that the administration was pledging to do what seemed obvious to many -- at least in hindsight. The president's push...

Hundreds of Al Qaeda militants are planning terror attacks from Yemen, the country's foreign minister said Tuesday. Abu Bakr al-Qirbi appealed for more help from the international community to help train and equip counter-terrorist forces. His plea came after an Al Qaeda group based in Yemen claimed responsibility for the failed Christmas Day airliner bomb plot. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, alleged to be behind the attempt to blow up an American-bound aircraft, spent time in Yemen with Al Qaeda and was in the country only days before the failed attack. Al-Qirbi said: "Of course there are a number of Al Qaeda...

A visit to North Korea by U.S. envoy Stephen Bosworth ended in failure Thursday to convince the North to return to multilateral nuclear disarmament talks. "We identified some common understandings on the need for and the role of the six-party talks and the importance of the implementation of the 2005 Joint Statement," Bosworth told reporters. "It remains to be seen when and how [North Korea] will return to the six-party talks." He added, "This is something that requires further consultations among all six of us." But Bosworth claimed he had "very useful" meetings with senior North Korean officials. Further bilateral...

At the top of Friday’s Hardball on MSNBC, host Chris Matthews discovered the reason for President Obama’s political difficulties in recent months: “President Obama has his chin out on just about every hot issue out there....He’s exposed and vulnerable. His poll numbers are dropping. Is he just too darned intellectual? Too much the egg head?” Later in the show, Matthews talked to Atlantic Media’s Ron Brownstein and USA Today’s Susan Page about Obama’s great flaw. He began by wondering: “I’m not attacking intellectuals because I do appreciate their contribution – but when politicians begin to get a little too intellectual,...

Original article from Thursday (19), links to the Japanese "Sankei Shimbun" website. FReepranslation is provided as a summary; the original Japanese version directly by the author governs and takes precedence over the unofficial English.Troubling developments.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday. That stance comes in the midst of forceful reservations about a possible troop buildup from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official. In strongly worded classified cables to Washington, Eikenberry said he had misgivings about sending in new troops while there are still so many questions...

(IsraelNN.com) The world is against Israel because of its own moral weakness and not because of alleged human rights violations, according to Rabbi Yaakov Medan, rabbi of Har Etzion Yeshiva, located in Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem. “Islam is strong, and it is convenient for people to go with strength,” the rabbi explained in an interview with Arutz-7. He added that the world’s preoccupation with individual rights, as well as the infiltration of Western culture into Israel, are “illnesses” that have led to “an erosion of obligations to the country and of the significance of Israel as a nation.”

“Here a question arises: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse. The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved.” -Nicolo Machiavelli, "The Prince" In wake of the disclosure that Iran's been secretly developing (at least one) secret underground uranium enrichment facility (sounds like spies were caught) or face more harsh words and stern warnings from the "outraged" international community, Iran offers the following response: Iran...

President Obama will chair a special nuclear-disarmament meeting by the United Nations Security Council. The White House bills this as a historic first, but it is typical of Mr. Obama's emphasis on style over substance. He will appear before the body with the weakest foreign-policy record of any new U.S. president in recent memory... In the Middle East, Mr. Obama's unprecedented obsequiousness in dealing with the Muslim world has generated no tangible returns... In Afghanistan, the president has hit turbulence within his own party, and as the going gets tough, he seems ready to repudiate his "stronger and smarter" strategy...

WASHINGTON -- President Obama says he has no plans to ask the Justice Department to end its criminal investigation into the harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists during the Bush administration. Seven former CIA directors have asked the president to do just that. In a letter to Obama on Friday, they warned that the probe could discourage CIA officers from doing the kind of aggressive intelligence work needed to fight terrorism. Obama tells CBS' "Face the Nation" that he appreciates that the former CIA chiefs are wanting "to look after an institution that they helped to build."

<p>LONDON -- Ppolitical fallout from Scotland's release of the convicted Lockerbie bomber has spread to London, as questions arise about whether the U.K. government played a bigger role in the decision than it publicly acknowledged...The political stakes for U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown mounted after a son of Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi, Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, issued a statement thanking "our friends in the British government who played an important role in reaching this day." He said he believed the decision to release Abdel Baset al-Megrahi would further improve relations between the U.K. and the oil-rich North African nation.</p>

MOSCOW, July 4 (RIA Novosti) - The speaker of the Russian parliament's upper house said Saturday the United States could give up its plans to deploy a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

WASHINGTON – Days from his first Moscow summit, President Barack Obama declared Thursday that former Russian President Vladimir Putin "still has a lot of sway" in his nation and needs an in-person reminder the Cold War is over. On next week's trip, Obama will meet not only with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev but with Putin, the prime minister who hand-picked Medvedev as his successor. Said Obama: "I think that it's important that even as we move forward with President Medvedev that Putin understand that the old Cold War approaches to U.S.-Russian relations is outdated. ... Putin has one foot in...

EDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. (snip) Iranian authorities have detained several local employees of the British Embassy in Tehran, a move that Britain's foreign secretary Sunday called "harassment and intimidation" and reflected a hardening of the regime's stance toward the West. Iranian media said eight local embassy staff were detained for an alleged role in postelection protests, but gave no further details. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said "about nine" employees were detained Saturday and that four had been released. The...

North Korea has been busy, busy, busy since the election of our weak President. This week, they have sharply increased their war rhetoric. On Wednesday they issued this threat: "If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all." And on Thursday they promised a "fire shower of nuclear retaliation" if the U.S. attacked them. The media is pretending that it isn't happening, whistling in the dark, but how can anyone avoid noticing that since Obama's failed policies have been introduced, the evil forces...

....Overseas, the coolest president in history was giving a speech. Or, as the official press release headlined it on the State Department Web site, "President Obama Speaks To The Muslim World From Cairo." Let's pause right there: It's interesting how easily the words "the Muslim world" roll off the tongues of liberal secular progressives who would choke on any equivalent reference to "the Christian world."... There is an Organization of the Islamic Conference, which already is the largest single voting bloc at the United Nations and is still adding new members. Imagine if someone proposed an Organization of the Christian...

...a gaggle of Johnnys - notably former Clinton Defense Secretary William J. Perry and other worthies who should know better - are telling the American people that it is safe and responsible to do the national equivalent of jumping off a bridge. They contend that the United States can prudently get rid of most of our nuclear arsenal, en route to what they say is a desirable end-state: a "nuclear-free" world. For a sense of how surreal this recommendation is, consider the prospect that Pakistan's virulent Taliban may be within weeks of joining the nuclear "club" by taking over the...