Let the "Kangaroo Court" begin...

I heard some soundbites on a top-of-the hour newscast today from Harry Reid-- he said (paraphrasing) "The first order of business will be to conduct oversight of the White House."

Note that word: Oversight.

READ: "Fact finding hearings," in which Swimmer Ted Kennedy bloviates with a five minute harangue disguised as a question, just to hear himself bloviate.

ibid with the other democrats on the "fact finding hearings."

Make no mistake--the democrats smell blood, and like the sharks that they are, they will not be satisfied until they can gulp down every last drop.

And they're about to enlist the help of some of their friends in "old Europe" to do it:

Just days after his resignation, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is about to face more repercussions for his involvement in the troubled wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. New legal documents, to be filed next week with Germany's top prosecutor, will seek a criminal investigation and prosecution of Rumsfeld, along with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet and other senior U.S. civilian and military officers, for their alleged roles in abuses committed at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The plaintiffs in the case include 11 Iraqis who were prisoners at Abu Ghraib, as well as Mohammad al-Qahtani, a Saudi held at Guantanamo, whom the U.S. has identified as the so-called "20th hijacker" and a would-be participant in the 9/11 hijackings. As TIME first reported in June 2005, Qahtani underwent a "special interrogation plan," personally approved by Rumsfeld, which the U.S. says produced valuable intelligence. But to obtain it, according to the log of his interrogation and government reports, Qahtani was subjected to forced nudity, sexual humiliation, religious humiliation, prolonged stress positions, sleep deprivation and other controversial interrogation techniques.

[SNIP]

Germany was chosen for the court filing because German law provides "universal jurisdiction" allowing for the prosecution of war crimes and related offenses that take place anywhere in the world. Indeed, a similar, but narrower, legal action was brought in Germany in 2004, which also sought the prosecution of Rumsfeld. The case provoked an angry response from Pentagon, and Rumsfeld himself was reportedly upset. Rumsfeld's spokesman at the time, Lawrence DiRita, called the case a "a big, big problem." U.S. officials made clear the case could adversely impact U.S.-Germany relations, and Rumsfeld indicated he would not attend a major security conference in Munich, where he was scheduled to be the keynote speaker, unless Germany disposed of the case. The day before the conference, a German prosecutor announced he would not pursue the matter, saying there was no indication that U.S. authorities and courts would not deal with allegations in the complaint.

In bringing the new case, however, the plaintiffs argue that circumstances have changed in two important ways. Rumsfeld's resignation, they say, means that the former Defense Secretary will lose the legal immunity usually accorded high government officials. Moreover, the plaintiffs argue that the German prosecutor's reasoning for rejecting the previous case — that U.S. authorities were dealing with the issue — has been proven wrong.

"The utter and complete failure of U.S. authorities to take any action to investigate high-level involvement in the torture program could not be clearer," says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a U.S.-based non-profit helping to bring the legal action in Germany.

Of course, what Time Magazine conveniently overlooks is the fact that, aside from being a "U.S. -based nonprofit," CCR is in fact a front for an Amercia-hating Socialist movement that has nothing less than the impeachment of President Bush as one of its main priorities. Additionally, just to edify the readers of Time (who, incidentally will never see this fact reach the light of day), is the fact that one of the co-founders is none other than William Kunstler, who along with Lynne Stewart, defended Omar Abdel-Rahman, the "Blind Sheikh" who masterminded the first World Trade Center bombing of 1993 (lest we forget, Lynne Stewart was recently convicted of aiding and abetting terrorists).

And that's only the tip of the iceberg. Yet all this readily-available information. available to anyone with a computer and a Google search engine, is somehow lost on the resources of Time Magazine, who goes on to report CCR as a mere "non-profit" organization.

The sharks are circling, folks.