A Happier Thanksgiving

Joe – enjoy your Holidays as well.
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I’m wondering if this Status of Forces Agreement would have been agreed to by our Congress. I’m a little nervous that we’re not free to intervene when we see a need to since we’re there but glad for us and the Iraqis to be making concrete moves to get out of there.

Joe-Happy Holidays. Hope I don’t get in trouble witht the war on Christmas folks for that.

Wish our country had the guts to do this.
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Credit card giants have been given two weeks to agree to stop charging exorbitant rates to borrowers or risk losing their operating licences.
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Ministers said they were giving Britain’s major lenders one last chance to prove they were not profiteering from the downturn. The ultimatum was delivered at a four-hour Whitehall summit called after The Independent disclosed some credit card and store card providers had raised interest rates – in some cases to 30 per cent – even though the cost of borrowing had fallen.
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The credit card companies agreed last night to give borrowers who run into trouble paying their bills a “breathing space” of up to two months before they face action. They also pledged to draw up a clear “statement of principles” over their rates by 9 December. It will commit them to give clear information to borrowers, not alter rates constantly and charge “proportionate” levels of interest.
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Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, and Gareth Thomas, the Consumer Affairs minister, told leaders of the industry that they were alarmed by lenders increasing their rates overnight without justification.
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Government sources said they were encouraged by the companies’ initial response, but demanded watertight commitments from them within a fortnight. Ministers warned they were prepared to refer firms that exploited borrowers to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the consumer watchdog.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/two-weeks-to-cut-rates-card-issuers-told-1036887.html

Happy Thanksgiving and Save Travels

Be safe, Joe, and thanks for the good news!
Grown-ups in the White House, soldiers coming home — happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Peace, Joe.
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Has the Bush Administration released an English-language version of the agreement as yet? As of this past weekend, they were balking at allowing reporters to read the actual agreement. Hope it doesn’t contain any untoward surprizelets for the Obama Administration.
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Thanks for all the good words and the funky ones too.

Ask that Karzai fellow exactly what sort of concessions to the Taliban does he have in mind when he opens negotiations.

kathy
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If reports on the SOFA are to be believed then one of the biggest potential problems is that the Iraqis will have more oversight of American troops when their activity might be deemed illegal. That, to me, has the potential of being a powder keg

Since Barack has sworn to get US troops out of Iraq in 16 months, doesn’t this agreement for three years handicap his ability to pull out, or are the three years just a maximum US troops can stay there? Is this another time-bomb Bushie has left for the new administration?

Anyone?

wagonjack
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The SOFA doesn’t hurt Obama at all. It doesn’t say they have to stay there until 2012, it just says they MUST be out by 2012. Just so happens that would be an election year anyway so our troops would have to be out by the next election anyway per the agreement therefore it harms Obama not at all.

According to Juan-not-John Cole, the agreement “stipulates that all US troops will be out of Iraq by 2011.”
Source: Informed Comment: Security Agreement is Passed by the Iraqi Parliament

I’ll be heading to Afghanistan just after Thanksgiving…

Happy Holidays, everyone….

James in LA
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John Cole wrote it up wrong. Here is how its worded in the Reuters article that he links to.
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BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s parliament on Thursday approved a security pact with the United States that paves the way for U.S. forces to withdraw by the end of 2011, taking the country a big step closer to full sovereignty.

Juan that is

sg,
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thanks for pointing that out. However, apparently there is not an English version of the agreement available. That said, Juan-not-John’s post was not that precise. And too, I don’t doubt the agreement will be amended once we have a new, shiny, competent, ethical administration who behaves in good faith according to the US Constitution. Unlike the clusterf^&k we have for the next 54 days (but who’s counting?)

James in LA
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Ackerman takes a whack at breaking it down for us regular folks and explains how potentially the withdrawal date could be moved up by the Iraqis.

What happened to that so-called “civil war” that leftist political advocacy groups like NBC self-described “News” declared existed in Iraq? Can we expect NBC to declare “America’s defeat” when the thoroughly unqualified community organizer offers to surrender unconditionally to America’s enemies in Iraq?

I know it’s low hanging fruit but I’m nevertheless struck by the marvelous logic laid out in textees post. He notes that there’s no civil war in Iraq. Therefore we’ve one and have a stable ally in the region. He then immediately refers to our surrendering to our enemies in Iraq.

So which is it. Is there no civil war? Or are there no enemies?

Or is slogan based nonthought sufficiently out of fashion that it can now be safely ignored?

Paul Dirks
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There used to be a time when textee actually tried defend its statements. Now textee just shows up to start sh!t then bounces. Its no use in every trying to feed that troll because its too cowardly to ever respond. Better to just point at it and laugh and keep it moving.

texte. Hahahahahahaha. *points finger* and laughs some more.

Instaputz is not too impressed with Joe Klein. I guess it might have something to do with Joe’s propensity to go on <a href=”Ackerman“>Hugh Hewitt’s show and shuck and jive for him just like Halperin. Say it aint so Joe lol

sg…I had trouble with your link, so I’m assuming its the Instaputz item that had this: HH: But do gay rights matter, Joe?
JK: No, I mean, I don’t think that they matter nearly as much as this other stuff.

First, I don’t listen/read Hewitt. It encourages him too much. And I’m not fond of the tendency toward punditocracy national reporters get into. It’s destroyed journalism by making them entertainers.

That said, JK’s statement was little artless, perhaps, but I don’t put it up with the sycophantic sludge that spewed from Halperin’s mouth, who all but gave Hewitt a big, fat wet one.

Again, if/when Klein says something stupid, hit him for it. I’ve no problem with that. Let’s just keep in mind what he’s getting right too.

I worked till late yesterday, so I didn’t have a chance to say it earlier: Happy Turkey Day, everyone! *Goes back to clutching her stomach and groaning in overfed agony*

Since I’m several time zones away, it’s hard to get the timing right, but hope all in the Swamp had a great Thanksgiving. We went out to a restaurant that put together an American T-giving with turkey etc., but not quite the same.
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Safe travels Joe. Look forward to your posts when you return.

Speaking of India, it’s interesting to contrast how the press over there is battering the government’s failures, versus the our own press after 911.
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Indian papers flail intelligence failures in Mumbai attacks
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NEW DELHI (AFP) — Indian newspapers on Friday slammed the government and intelligence agencies for failing to prevent the Mumbai attacks, saying the country’s anti-terrorism forces were ill-prepared for the militants.
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“Mumbai Maimed, Nation Shamed” read the banner headline in the Mail Today, which said the country’s intelligence agencies “had no clue of the impending attack” despite spending huge amounts of money on anti-terror measures.

Source:AFP: Indian papers flail intelligence failures in Mumbai attacks
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In contrast, our own press swooned over Bush’s three-days-late speech (and throwing a baseball) after he had gone hiding incognito after the attack, then went completely prostate, suspending all skepticism for 4 years. Even after the 911 Commission Report detailed all of the Bush Administration’s failures to prevent the attack, the press politely refrained from bringing those failures to the public’s attention, especially the August 8 PDB entitled “Bin Ladin Determined to Attack Inside the US.”
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The US press cowered and transformed into slavish stenographers of the deceptions and outright lies disseminated by the Bush Administration while they systematically set upon dismantling our rule of law, our Constitutional checks and balances, and our constitutional protections against government overreach. They didn’t do their job. It looks like the Indian press is doing theirs.

Oh yeah, if you think my post is too harsh, please, watch the following documentaries:
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TORTURINGDEMOCRACY.ORG
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and
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FRONTLINE: bush’s war | PBS
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There was no excuse for a free press to prostrate themselves to George W. Bush as they did.

Here’s how Time framed the 911 hearing about the infamous PDB — us “critics
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Chances are, Condoleezza Rice’s testimony before the 9/11 Commission has not changed many Americans’ perception of the Bush Administration’s handling of terrorism. President Bush’s National Security Adviser gave a calm and competent performance in defense of the administration’s case that it had done all that could have been expected in relation to al-Qaeda in the months before the attacks. Supporters of the Bush administration will, by and large, accept Dr. Rice’s argument that even an awareness of a general Qaeda threat could not have allowed the custodians of the nation’s security to anticipate its precise timing or nature, and therefore that it could not have been stopped. More importantly, they’ll also be more inclined to accept her account of the steps take by the administration to remedy the problem, first and foremost the claim that invading Iraq was the first act of a long-term program designed to eliminate the threat of terrorism by exporting democracy to the Arab world.
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Critics, however, won’t have been disabused of their claim that the strategic mindset of Rice and other top officials had left the administration’s focus before 9/11 on issues such as missile defense at the expense of grasping the immediacy of the terror threat. Expect to see discussion about the August 6 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing referred to repeatedly during Dr. Rice’s testimony occupying plenty of headline space for some weeks to come — its very headline “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States” suggests that the President was alerted to the general danger by the FBI and CIA more than a month ahead of the attacks. The classified document, which has been shown to the Commission, allegedly also contains an explicit reference to an al-Qaeda interest in hijackings in the U.S. although Rice insisted it included no concrete warnings. The dispute over just what the briefing contained has prompted the Commission has urged the Bush administration to declassify it, and this call will likely be the next point of contention now that Dr. Rice’s testimony is out of the way.
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Bush administration critics will continue to agree with former terrorism czar Richard Clarke’s claim that the administration’s limited focus on Iraq got in the way of an effective campaign against al-Qaeda immediately after 9/11 — a criticism amplified in hindsight by the extent to which the Iraq invasion has boosted rather than undermined support in the Muslim world for Osama bin Laden’s movement.
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The depth of election-year partisan division, not only on Capitol Hill but also in the electorate, will likely limit the extent to which either Rice or Clarke’s testimony alters the political landscape. Rice’s calm, competent performance, has redeemed the administration somewhat. But calls for declassification of the August 6 briefing and questions over the duration and nature of the joint Bush-Cheney appearance before the commission will keep the fires of Democratic criticism over 9/11 burning for weeks to come.

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Rice Holds the Line – TIME
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Could TIME have *been* any more dismissive in covering up the significance of this briefing? Look at it. Buried in a sea of admiring paragraphs of Rice’s “calm, competent performance,” except for us looney, unreasonable “critics,” us *Democratic” critics, it insures that the actual contents, and the significance, of that briefing is minimized and dismissed as something only partisans would be interested in. We have a sick, sick mainstream press. Worse, even in retrospect my bet is that TIMES reporters would defend this piece.

@sgwhite – FYI, doing some Xmas shopping for my boys and I checked on something for you (note URL in address bar) but no luck.

davemc
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Sorry about the link. I didn’t check to make sure I did it right. The HH interview you referenced is part of it but according to instaputz its just the latest HH interview. Evidently there was one in 2006 that was pretty much exactly like Halperins was the other day. Then evidently in 2007 there was an on air dustup between the two. Then came the most recent one you referenced. Thats why I was saying to click through all the source links so you could see all of the back stories. Here let me try again.
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JK on HH
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By the way I agree that we shouldn’t necessarily hold grudges forever but I am also one of those who believe you shouldn’t just belive someone has had a philosophical conversion unless they have a sustained period of time where they are consistently in opposition to their earlier view.

pourme
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Thanks but eff you! lol

Paul Krugman has a really good article up today. TIME magazine gets a shout out but not in a way I think they would like.

Hey thanks for that Krugman link, sg. That goes to my prior posts about how TIME mag and the msm haven’t acted like a free press in demanding answers for our government’s failures, opting instead to collude in a coverup of real failures. I’d like to trade our msm in for the Indian press, who is demanding accountability for the government’s intelligence failures in the Mumbai attacks.

I distinctly remember throwing things at Klein’s opinion pieces during his “Support Bush’s War” phase. I was amazed to find myself agreeing with him during this election; did not think that would ever happen. Waiting to see if old Klein re-emerges.

cheers Joe – bring us back some good news from Afganistan if you can

” .. I’ll be heading to Afghanistan just after Thanksgiving… ..”
why do things the hard way?
We can pontificate about Iraq’s WMD and make a case for the invasion and slaughter of thousands – without ever having been to Iraq.

While you are in Afghanistan feeling pious and mighty, how many Afghani kids and their mothers will die?
Never mind.
You won’t know any of them and you won’t be unduly bothered.
You and yours are safe.

Mass slaughter of the innocent? “it certainly is a tribute to the remarkable work done by the U.S. military.”

A Happier Thanksgiving

Happy, we are.
You may say that those American Indians – who were helpful to our forefathers who landed here – were really daft, weren’t they?

Besides, don’t we want our kids to witness a spectacle like our leader “granting a pardon” to one turkey while millions get slaughtered?
A “pardon” for what, they may not wonder?
Never mind: The wiles of the fathers are passed on to their sons. One turkey is still with us. At least one American Indian is still with us.
And a few Afghans in sparsely populated Afghanistan will still be around when we are through. And a few Arabs and a few Persians. And a few Australian Aborigines. And a few Mayans. And a few Africans ……

But Joe Klein is a mere cog in the works. And his mission is clear.
Psyche war.