Recent Comments

1. about 10 years ago on Get Fuzzy

   “Your China Plate is a bit gormey” = “Your friend (Satchel) is a bit dim witted”, referring to meeting Satchel at the door. I must say Satchel seems to understand Cockney rhyming slang better than Bucky – or the rest of us.

2. about 10 years ago on Matt Wuerker

   See my reply to Night-Gaunt.

3. about 10 years ago on [Deleted]

   The more commonly held opinion is the it was the Iraqis who refused to negotiate an extension of the agreement. I tend to believe both parties were at least partially responsible: Iraq didn’t want troops answerable only to U.S. (and military) legal systems; and Obama wanted to fulfill his campaign promise to bring the troops home and allowed the lapse of the agreement to be a legitimate reason to do so.

4. about 10 years ago on Matt Wuerker

   U.S. Troops are stationed in over 50 countries worldwide and Status of Forces Agreements apply in all cases. Without such an agreement, the United States refuses countries U.S. protection in the form of resident troops.

   I assume that is because of the terrible complexity of protecting them under a plethora of foreign legal systems.

   The other obvious reason is because the legal systems of some governments are abhorrent to legal rights assured by U.S. soldiers under the protective flag of the United States. Some foreign governments undoubtedly find the rights, priviledges and protections of U.S. law abhorrent and would not station troops here. Occupation troops would be out of the question, of course.

5. about 10 years ago on Matt Wuerker

   Our troops left because they were not supported by a Status of Forces agreement, worked out between Iraq and the U.S. Without such an agreement (almost universal in all countries where we have troops) our troops would have been subject to Iraqi laws should they be involved in a legal matter.