This will be a big week – the health care debate kicks off in the Senate and President Obama announces a major escalation and strategy in Afghanistan. Let’s put the Thanksgiving weekend to bed, in the meantime.

• As many as 9,000 new troops could arrive in Afghanistan and deploy in the southern provinces almost immediately. Meanwhile, the same “serious” foreign policy people will use the same arguments about human rights and freedom necessitating the continued bombing and occupation of a foreign country, arguments only ever employed when cheerleading for more war.

• The big “will they or won’t they” question on whether the United Arab Emirates will bail out Dubai should come to a head early this week. The Financial Times reports that the UAE will step in, at least to provide some capital injections, but the Times of London reports otherwise, that they will not bail out all projects in the emirate. Add that to the list of intrigue for tomorrow.

• The Chilcot inquiry on the war in Iraq continues to turn up embarrassing information. Britain’s ambassador to the UN questioned the war’s legitimacy on Friday. Meanwhile, Tony Blair’s legitimacy should be just about dead at this stage, yet he appeared on US television this morning like it wasn’t just revealed that he decided on war in 2002 even though he was told it was illegal and that Iraq had no access to WMD.

• The Justice Department decided that the Administration could pay ACORN for services rendered before any bans on funding took effect. I feel a wingnut freak-out coming on.

• Switzerland voted to ban minarets on mosques over the weekend. It’s getting harder to reconcile stereotypes about Europe’s open society with their prevalent xenophobia and anti-immigration policies.

• I saw the LA Times’ Andrew Malcolm criticize the President for delivering a statement on that deadly rail crash in Russia, a day before the Russians provided evidence showing it as an act of terror. Malcolm, Laura Bush’s former press secretary, hasn’t updated his post.

• Has the President of Pakistan turned over the nuclear arsenal to the Prime Minister? Does this reveal a certain fragility in the President’s authority?

• The Treasury Department will ask mortgage companies really nicely, and they mean it this time, to permanently modify mortgages. I’m sure the banks that destroyed the economy and got a bailout for their trouble will respond well to shame.

• Kathleen Parker isn’t too keen on that GOP “purity test.”

• Jacob Weisberg tells me that Obama is having a more productive first year than any President since FDR. This shows how the stimulus has been simultaneously undersold and oversold. It did include a lot of policies that are unquestionably positive developments – building a smart electrical grid, expanding broadband access, green energy investments, high speed rail – but it also wasn’t big enough and didn’t do enough to reverse the unemployment trend. I think Weisberg’s article says more about the lack of accomplishment by modern Presidents in the legislative arena than anything.