Audio Archive > Cabale News Service > [November 19 2008] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: The Legal 'Pitchforks & Torches' For Dick Cheney And Alberto Gonzales Have Been Sharpened And Lit - Indicted For Border Detention Center Prisoner Abuse
Travus T. Hipp - Cabale News Service[November 19 2008] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: The Legal 'Pitchforks & Torches' For Dick Cheney And Alberto Gonzales Have Been Sharpened And Lit - Indicted For Border Detention Center Prisoner Abuse (November 19, 2008)
In The News: Thanks to another KPIG listener, Christopher M., for the commentary rip.
Pitchforks and Torches - Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales have been indicted for abuse of prisoners at private prison facilities in Texas. They had financial interests in the facilities and were also in a position to make policy allowing the prisoner abuse.
Ayman al-Zawahiri the operational CEO of al Qaeda, has a new tape out. He refers to president-elect Obama as a "House N...". More.
The Iraqi parliament, or more correctly, PART of it, has voted and passed on a first vote a SOFA of some sort with the US, but many on both sides are not happy:
BAGHDAD — Iraqi and American critics of a security agreement governing American troops in Iraq voiced their objections on Monday, a day after the Iraqi cabinet approved the pact and sent it to Parliament for ratification.
In Iraq, opposition has created an unlikely association between the followers of the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, who rejected the agreement out of hand, and some Sunni politicians, including ones who support the deal but are trying to wrest concessions from the Iraqi government.
Ghufran al-Saadi, a Sadrist lawmaker, said opponents had collected 115 signatures, primarily from Sadr supporters and members of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, demanding that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and several cabinet members appear in Parliament to answer questions about the agreement, which governs the presence of American troops in Iraq through 2011. Parliament has 275 members.
The Sadrists argued that the ratification process was unconstitutional and threatened to take the issue to federal court. They also claimed that the public reading of the agreement in Parliament on Monday was not legitimate because the legislative session was too noisy for anyone to hear what was being said.
Among the principal Sunni demands are amnesty for many Sunni detainees in American custody and a national referendum on the agreement.
But while the two groups may both oppose the pact, leaders of Tawafiq, the largest Sunni bloc in Parliament, said they would be open to supporting it if some of their demands were met. “We have our own concerns, mainly because of what is not in there,” said Ayad al-Sammarai, a Tawafiq leader. “If we get a positive response, then things will change.”
A signing ceremony on Monday morning attended by Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador, and Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister, marked the end of the negotiations, which took almost a year; members of Parliament cannot make further changes to what is now an international agreement.
The vote is scheduled for next Monday. If the agreement passes, it will go to the three-member presidency council for approval.
In Washington, officials acknowledged on Monday that the agreement still left some contentious issues vaguely worded, including the extent of Iraqi legal jurisdiction over crimes against Iraqi civilians in which American soldiers are accused.
Representative Ike Skelton of Missouri, a Democrat who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, warned that the agreement could subject American soldiers to Iraqi prosecution and complained that parts of the agreement would be left for joint committees to resolve in the future.
That, Mr. Skelton said, could set the stage for future disputes between Iraq’s increasingly assertive government and American diplomats and commanders. In Full @ the New York Times
40 year criminal Rethuglican senator Ted Stevens loses to Mayor of Anchorage Mark Begich. More on Minnesota, and the Georgia re-run elections.
Turncoat Demoncratic senator Joe Lieberman... all is forgiven.
The last Attorney General of the Clinton administration, Eric Holder, becomes the first of Obama's. His specialty at the DOJ was ethics and corruption investigations.
"All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know ...Until Now." Travus T. Hipp - Cabale News Service
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