Free Republic

Hizballah terrorists killed 220 American Marines, 18 sailors, and 3 soldiers on 23 October 1983 by driving a bomb-laden truck into their barracks in Beirut. America then retreated from Lebanon, its tail between its legs. Hizballah and Iran -- the nation that created Hizballah and still arms, funds, and supplies it -- won that round. The two -- and Syria, which supports both Hizballah and Hamas -- are now in the warmup stage for the next round. For those who missed the first lesson in March, there are two schools of foreign policy in the Republican Party. There are those...

Joseph P. Kennedy, the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain and Senator [Esward] Kennedy's father, was awed by the strength of the Nazi military machine. Like most Americans in 1938, he believed the world's democracies had to co-exist with the Nazis. "The horns of the dilemma are economic chaos and war and any step to prevent either of these is worthwhile taking," Joseph Kennedy was quoted as saying at the time. He further angered the British and many Americans by predicting in a newspaper interview, which he thought was mostly off the record, that democracy was finished in Britain and perhaps...

Bush job approval on handling Iraq now at 51% PRINCETON, NJ -- A majority of Americans continue to support U.S. military involvement in Iraq, and a slight majority now say they approve of the way President George W. Bush is handling the situation there. Views of the Iraq situation are partisan, with almost 9 in 10 Republicans supporting the war, while two-thirds of Democrats oppose it. Other segments of the American population who give more than average support to the U.S. involvement in Iraq include conservatives, men, and whites. Half of Americans believe that the Iraq situation is an...

US president Bill Clinton's administration knew Rwanda was being engulfed by genocide in April 1994 but buried the information to justify its inaction, classified documents made available for the first time reveal.Senior officials privately used the word genocide within 16 days of the start of the killings, but chose not to do so publicly because the president had already decided not to intervene.Intelligence reports obtained using the US Freedom of Information Act show the cabinet and almost certainly the president knew of a planned "final solution to eliminate all Tutsis" before the slaughter reached its peak.It took Hutu death squads...

A curious thing seems to have happened since Saddam Hussein's regime was overthrown in Iraq. America no longer feels like a country at war. It isn't over by a long shot. There's a bloody insurgency around Baghdad that still needs putting down. Al Qaeda is still out there somewhere, sinister and nebulous as ever. Afghanistan is mostly lawless, and we're still exchanging barbs with Iran and North Korea. But it feels different now. The barbarous acts of terror in Madrid had a far greater impact in Europe than in America. The Terror War has the vibe of a stand-off...

Ted Kennedy delivered another stemwinder last week, accusing the Bush administration of lying its way into Iraq for political gain. Ho-hum. Nothing new there. But one paragraph caught my attention. In trying to buttress his charge that the president twisted intelligence about Saddam Hussein, Kennedy cited "Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a recently retired Air Force intelligence officer who served in the Pentagon during the buildup to the war." He quoted her as follows: "It wasn't intelligence — it was propaganda … they'd take a little bit of intelligence, cherry-pick it, make it sound much more exciting, usually by taking it...

Running the Planet: Not just a job, but an (endless) adventure Many potential new wars are in play among the neoimperialist foreign policy glitterati, still flying high after the Iraq invasion. It wasn't an obvious and immediate national or international tragedy—after all, the world didn't end, did it? No WMDs were unleashed on our troops or American cities. Because, well, there weren't any, even though the danger (but not, mind you, the "imminent" danger!) they posed was the major excuse for the war in the first place. But, hey, look what it did to Qaddafi, the essential post hoc justification...

5million Returning To Home Countries In AfricaMonday, 16 February 2004, 9:33 amPress Release: United Nations UN Refugee Agency Anticipates Millions Returning To Home Countries In Africa With more than 5 million African refugees and internally displaced people preparing to return home, the United Nations refugee agency announced plans today to hold a ministerial-level meeting next month on comprehensive regional approaches to repatriation and sustainable reintegration on the continent. The Dialogue on Voluntary Repatriation and Sustainable Reintegration in Africa will bring together key ministers, donor governments and other partners at the UN headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss peace processes...

Blair under fire again for WMD claims GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN CLAIMS that weapons inspectors have uncovered massive evidence that Saddam Hussein had a network of clandestine laboratories have landed Tony Blair in trouble for the second time in a month after they were rubbished by the United States’ top man in Iraq. Paul Bremer, unaware the claims had been made by the Prime Minister, said the comments sounded like a "red herring" put about to undermine the coalition by someone opposed to military action. Once Mr Bremer realised the remarks were Mr Blair’s, he softened his criticism, but it was too...