Nancy Pelosi was invited by the Christian Science Monitor to answer a few questions. She agreed, probably for the last time.
“We have to make responsible decisions in the Congress that are not driven by the dissatisfaction of anybody who wants the war to end tomorrow.”
All it takes for a case to go before the ICJ, sometimes called The World Court, is for one member of this United Nations body to accuse another of breaking international law. I was wondering which country’s leader among many would have the cohones to present the case. I read that spokespersons for Condi Rice called ballsy German Chancellor Angela Merkel a liar in regard to the case of Khaled el-Masri:
“German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged privately to her that Mr. Masri’s abduction was a mistake, an admission that an admission that aides to Ms. Rice have denied.” (LINK) Masri is the German citizen who American agents kidnapped in Macedonia, and then tortured in a secret Afghan prison.
House Democrats pushed their government eavesdropping bill through two committees Wednesday with only minor changes, setting the stage for a confrontation with the Bush administration.
President Bush said that he will not sign the bill if it does not give retroactive immunity to U.S. telecommunications companies that helped conduct electronic surveillance without court orders.
Bush said the bill, which envisions a greater role for a secret court in overseeing U.S. surveillance of overseas communications, would “take us backward” in efforts to thwart terrorism.
President George W. Bush on Wednesday warned the Democratic-led Congress not to “weaken” the power of US spy agencies to eavesdrop on communications between alleged terror suspects.
But the House of Representatives’ judiciary and intelligence committees both defied the president and approved a new bid by Democrats to revise a law extending authorization for warrantless wiretaps.
The new measure would revise the “Protect America Act” hastily passed under fierce pressure from Bush and the intelligence community before Congress broke up for its summer recess in August.
When President Bush was putting together his Coalition of the Willing — or, in some cases, the Coalition of the Not Very Willing but We Better Do It Not to Offend America — France was a notable nonstarter for the invasion of Iraq.
Although France sent troops to Afghanistan, this shrugging “non” was greeted on this side of the Atlantic with all the sympathy and understanding of a great nation — that is to say, with one thunderous Bronx cheer from sea to shining sea.
Only hours after announcing in late August he would resign, embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales talked to Ruben Navarrette, a columnist with the San Diego Union Tribune.
Gonzales told Navarrette he wanted to be remembered “as someone who did the best he could … based on what was right and what was just.”
That sounds like a fair yardstick for measuring his public service. But there was more about Alberto Gonzales not yet known.
It’s an old kids’ hide-and-seek game message, and Hispanic leaders are sending the call out to Republican presidential candidates: Come out, come out, wherever you are!
There must be some logic to building the United States’ — and the world’s — largest embassy in the world’s 44th largest nation, coming somewhere after Nepal and Uganda.
The State Department may phase out or limit the use of private security guards in Iraq, which could mean canceling Blackwater USA’s contract or awarding it to another company in line with an Iraqi government demand, The Associated Press has learned.
Such steps would be difficult given U.S. reliance on Blackwater and other contractors, but they are among options being studied during a comprehensive review of security in Iraq, two senior officials said.
US President George W. Bush’s administration tortures detainees in defiance of international law, former US president Jimmy Carter charged Wednesday.
“I don’t think it, I know it, certainly,” Carter told CNN television when asked if he believed the US administration allowed the use of torture.
Carter rejected Bush’s statement last week that the United States does not torture terror suspects.