Michael Yon over on Facebook links to two must-read articles about Afghanistan. One is an analysis piece for the Associated Press, the other an article in Foreign Policy dealing with the specific inability of the British army to gain control, and the transfer of a good part of the fight to the military. Both pieces are sobering and call for a review of our effort in Afghanistan.

Michael Yon has made it clear that he doesn’t think General McChrystal’s strategy is working – that while our troops and allies are doing some good work, the basic strategy of trying to provide security first and attacking the Taliban second is not bearing fruit. Yon considers his exclusion from Afghanistan likely due to his criticism of the effort – and asserts that such actions by the authorities betray their own concerns about the success of the mission (that they are, in effect, trying to hide the truth of the matter).

I can’t render any hard and fast judgment on that though Yon has my respect for the honesty and courage of his reporting since the entire War on Terrorism began. When he says something, it must not be dismissed out of hand – there’s something to it. The distinct impression I get is that our troops – as usual – are behaving magnificently – doing all we ask of them and as much as soldiers have ever accomplished. But war isn’t just fighting – it is politics by other means, and the concern is that on the political side, we’ve set ourselves up for defeat no matter what our troops do.

My view is that the flaw stems from the fact that President Obama, in announcing the surge to Afghanistan, pledged less force than the military apparently asked for and what might prove quite fatal for the whole enterprise, he pledged to start drawing down our forces in 2011. He announced when the war would end – and thus provided the Taliban a time line for when they will be able to start advancing, again. For the Taliban, it has been a matter of just enduring until we start to leave.

For the Afghan people, the fact that we have not pledged to stay for as long as it takes puts them in a difficult position: they don’t support the Taliban, but they also know just how savage the Taliban will be with those who opposed them. As we’re not pledged to protect the Afghan people indefinitely, it becomes for them a calculation: will the Taliban be defeated before America leaves? One can only assume that events on the ground have convinced the Afghan people to, at best, sit on the fence – but fence-sitting on their part is a strategic defeat for us; a political defeat which does not appear amenable to a military fix.

It must be kept in mind that our victory in Iraq’s Anbar province was predicated upon convincing the Iraqi people that we would not leave until the job was done. The actual start of our victory somewhat predated the surge and was well under way by the time we maxed out our forces in Iraq. President Bush was convincing on this – and knowing we wouldn’t abandon them as we had in 1991, the people of Iraq decided to jump off the fence and help us route the terrorists. Obama’s decision about Afghanistan was just about the worst he could have taken – even ordering an immediate withdrawal in 2009 would not have been as bad as ordering a half-effort with the end date pre-marked on the package.

So, what do we do? The only way to retrieve the situation – with or without a command shake up, which may be necessary – is for Obama to clearly and forthrightly state that given the changed circumstances, the 2011 draw down date is suspended indefinitely and we’ll fight on in Afghanistan as long as it takes for victory. That plus a possible command change – with possible changes in tactics on the ground – would open up the prospect of getting the Afghan people enthusiastically on our side, thus allowing us the real power to defeat the Taliban for good.

It is highly questionable if Obama can do this – or would be willing to do it, supposing he felt strong enough with his base to drag them kicking and screaming in to an enhanced effort in Afghanistan. Obama is already a much diminished figure on the left – calling for longer and bloodier war is not the way to refurbish a tarnished image. But this is part of the job of being President – not always thinking of the political calculus, but of doing what is best for the nation as a whole.

Make no mistake about if, if our effort in Afghanistan ends in anything other than a semblance of pro-American government in Kabul, then disaster would follow. The terrorists would be emboldened not just in Afghanistan, but around the world. The immediate effect would be stepped up attacks around the world and in the United States – the long term effect would be an unwillingness of more moderate Moslems to work with us. No one wants to back the side which will cut and run, leaving its allies to be beheaded by victorious Islamists.

We’ll now see if Obama has the stuff in him of an American President. The stakes are high, victory or defeat hangs in the balance. The decision is entirely President Obama’s – no one can make it for him, and no one can hide the consequences of his action or inaction.

Excellent set of short videos exploding the myth of overpopulation:

So, the TEA Party is a bunch of fiscal conservative, social libertarians who can’t get along with social conservatives? Think again – from Inside Catholic:

…True, there are many conservatives who believe that the most pressing moral issues of our day — such as abortion, marriage, and education — must be addressed at the federal level. I used to be one of them. Libertarian constitutionalists like Paul, however, have long argued that these matters are best addressed by state and local governments. It is a subsidiarist position aimed at restoring the proper balance between local and national rights and duties, while the federal government is restricted by the Constitution. Thus the practical aim of the pro-life movement coincides with what ought to be the philosophical aim of the Tea Party: to overturn Roe v. Wade as an unconstitutional decision and return the legislation of abortion to the states.

The same may be said for any number of similar issues. Consider, for instance, the debacle of Proposition 8 in California, which voters approved by a large majority in order to ban same-sex marriage. The California courts moved promptly to strike down the will of the people. It seems highly unlikely that principled libertarians in the Tea Party movement would reject the outcome of a legitimate democratic process and opt instead for fiat rule from the bench…

Those of you unfamiliar with Catholic social teaching might be unfamiliar with the term “subsidiarist” – it comes from “subsidiarity” which is a core, Catholic belief about how society should be governed. As staunch as we are about traditional marriage, a adamant as we are on the subject of abortion, as insistent as we are about school choice, the bottom line for our social, economic and political belief is that power should reside as far down the ladder as possible. We believe that it should “subside” first with the individual, second with the family, third with the local community, fourth with the several States, and only dead last with the federal government.

Is there a libertarian who is going to insist upon imposing gay marriage by judicial fiat? Not at all – in fact, to demand a judicial imposition of anything except enforcement of voluntary contracts is pretty much out of bounds for any libertarian. And no social conservative in his right mind is going to demand federal action to, say, clean up the immorality of a place like San Francisco. We know our job is to convert such pagan strongholds – and then allow the growing wisdom of the local people re-adjust law and custom in accordance with truth.

While the ultimate desired outcome between libertarians and social conservatives might, at times, be quite different, the methods of obtaining the outcomes are the same: individual liberty and strictly limited, constitutional government. This is why I said some time ago that I would, indeed, back a libertarian advocate of gay marriage against any statist, liberal Democrat in a liberal district – my desire is to preserve and extend freedom because in such an arena I am confident that Truth will eventually rule. A libertarian who disagrees with me will give me my chance (and I will be ok with my libertarian friend/opponent continuing to argue against my view in the public square). On the other hand, a liberal-fascist merely wants to permanently shut me down.

The TEA Party is made up of stalwart, American patriots – men and women who claim their proper descent from Washington, Jefferson and Adams. Not by blood, but by spirit and learning they have become the children of our Revolutionary forefathers. Just like those forefathers, there will be the endless debate about the best means to the end – but no argument that the end worked for is liberty. Try as they might to split the forces of Revolution, the left simply cannot convince the broad majority that social conservatives and libertarians should be enemies – we know allies when we see them, and we know from the start that allies don’t necessarily agree all the time.

Where is the bottom?

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 25% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-six percent (46%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21…

This is now several days of polling at Rasmussen post-speech. It looks like that was more of a disaster than I initially suspected. I honestly expected a bounce for him on it – you know, the old “rally ’round the flag” stuff you get whenever a President concentrates on an issue.

Not only no bounce, it looks like what he said made matters worse!

Looks like Carter has been redeemed – he’s no longer going to be rated our worst President.

The Europeans have got one, you know? I think they borrowed it from Bernanke. You remember, back during the start of the recession good, old Bernanke stood before the majestic Ponzi Tree, clicked his heels three times while sacrificing a live goat before a statue of John Maynard Keynes and, presto!, a trillion dollars appeared. With which money he then bought up all the bad assets in America (well, a lot of them, anyways) – and things have been going swell in our economy ever since.

Right?

Seems that our European cousins have got themselves in to a similar fix. With the appearance of the Lehman Bear in the Greek bond market, the Europeans knew they were in a fix. But, wise men that they are, they have Bernanke on speed dial and thus were able to borrow the Ponzi Tree (Bernanke will want it back, of course – there is that tricky thing of keeping our markets afloat until November 3rd, ya know?).

Tyler Durden, notes that, so far, the Europeans haven’t gotten as much out of the tree as Bernanke (the theory is that it might be illegal to sacrifice a live goat in Europe – discussions are now running along the lines of perhaps having the goat married to a transgendered couple in the Netherlands as a substitute), but even in their less experienced hands, about $55 billion in magic money has been shaken lose. They’re looking forward to getting hundreds of billions out of it, all told.

They’ll be using the magic money to prop up government bond sales in Europe. This will make everything all better because everyone knows that when you use magic money to buy up worthless bonds from bankrupt nations, the whole problem disappears forever and will never trouble anyone ever again. Think of it in terms of a crushing burden of debt which can never be repaid suddenly becoming a little butterfly – swooping to and fro, never to land anywhere.

And that, boys and girls, is how they fix a problem in our modern world. Go sleep tight and worry not in the least – the capable people who brought forth the economic crisis are on the job fixing the problem.

Bureaucratic idiocy on display:

Sixteen barges sat stationary today, although they were sucking up thousands of gallons of BP’s oil as recently as Tuesday. Workers in hazmat suits and gas masks pumped the oil out of the Louisiana waters and into steel tanks. It was a homegrown idea that seemed to be effective at collecting the thick gunk.

“These barges work. You’ve seen them work. You’ve seen them suck oil out of the water,” said Jindal.

So why stop now?

“The Coast Guard came and shut them down,” Jindal said. “You got men on the barges in the oil, and they have been told by the Coast Guard, ‘Cease and desist. Stop sucking up that oil.'”…

Why? Their papers aren’t entirely in order – the Coast Guard can’t be sure that every “i” is dotted and “t” crossed…and rather than just start working on that stuff while sucking up the oil, they ordered the whole thing shut down…until every thing is neat as a pin, bureaucrat-wise.

This is the failure of the Obama Administration – not the the oil leak happened; not that BP has failed to completely plug the leak…but that pettifogging nonsense like this hamstringing the effort. This is why the people are frustrated and angry, and Obama’s public support continue to drop.

And, know what?, I think he hasn’t a clue about it…

Okay, I certainly have my own beef with Google, but without that, one can’t help feeling a bit… disturbed (perhaps that is the right word) at what Google is doing to the people of this country.

Google Inc.’s collection of data via Wi-Fi networks was the subject of a conference call among law enforcement officials from 30 U.S. states, according to Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

“We’re looking to establish where, when, why, for how long and for what purpose there was this collection of information on wireless networks,” Blumenthal said yesterday in an interview. The call included representatives of the states’ attorneys general.

The discussion reflects widening concern among law enforcement over the way Google handles user information. The company said last month it mistakenly gathered data from open wireless networks while it was capturing images of streets and houses for its Street View service, a product that lets users view photographs of an area online.

So are you concern that Google might be collecting-storing information about you?

Can’t think of anyone better…

Why will it come? This article has the details – I’ll nutshell it:

The tax credit temporarily kept afloat a housing market which is still over-priced. Now that this has expired, the combination of foreclosed properties held by banks (the “shadow inventory”), tighter loan requirement, Fannie/Freddie continued insolvency (you did note they were de-listed from the NYSE, right?), and another huge wave of ARMS to adjust in 2011/12 ensures that down is the only way housing prices can go.

All of this, of course, has been discussed here and at my personal blog over the past few months. I just wanted to re-state and re-emphasize it: the second leg down for housing is coming (in fact, its already here – I’ve seen big drops in housing prices in Las Vegas, already; my guess is that my own house is now worth $150,000.00; a drop from about $170,000.00 a couple months ago) and there is no way to stop it. If Obama and Co renew the tax credit – still a possibility – all they’ll do is delay the ultimate crash a trifle.

In the long run, while this crash is bad for the economy and bad for people who already own homes, the drop in prices will make home ownership a real possibility for ever more Americans. Once we do throw out the cretins currently running our government, we’ll be able to implement some rational economic polices and get things moving again – but without the steep rise in housing prices we had over the past 20 years or so.

That is all done with – and done with, I think, for good; the demographics just don’t allow the huge demand which fueled the bubble, and stricter underwriting makes it less likely that people will buy houses on speculation. A better America will emerge out of this morass of debt and incompetence. Not while Obama is President, but once he’s gone – then its off to the races for us, as America comes roaring back.

Fascinating bit of news from Politico:

…Several Senate Republicans told POLITICO that they don’t favor privatizing Social Security, as Angle has supported. Small government conservatives said it doesn’t make sense to eliminate the Energy and Education departments – as she’s called for in the past. And some recoiled at the thought of pulling the United States out of the United Nations, a position Angle has touted.

“They were suggested about 18 years ago, and many times subsequently,” said Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) who disagreed with all of those views. “Some candidates from time to time, perhaps attempting to show a sense of anger, outrage or whatever, express what I would characterize as very extreme views that do not have much basis in either practicality or what is going to occur in the evolution of our country.”…

So says the hack’s hack, Richard Lugar – Lugar is just what has been wrong with the Republican party. It is because of people like him that we’re still stuck the white elephants like the Department of Energy – why we’re still fooling around with a hopelessly corrupt and anti-American United Nations. Why we’re nearly bankrupt – because Republicans like Lugar would never allow the conservative, populist base of the GOP to have it’s way.

Well, in Sharron Angle, that base is demanding a say – and it scares the bejabbers out of the political class. More so in the Democrat ranks, to be sure, but never let it be said that our Republican party wasn’t infected with the Establishment Disease.

We’ve been too timid – we need to get Angle in to the Senate just to impart some back bone in to the Senate GOP. It is time to run through the whole government and swing the axe quite mercilessly. How else are we going to balance the budget? Cross our fingers and hope that the Money Fairy comes through for us? I don’t think so.

Additionally, I think that while the DC GOP has started to move a bit towards the people (and more so in the House than in the Senate), they are still a bit out of touch in there. With millions of gallons of oil spewing in to the Gulf and the entire United States government proving itself incompetent to stop it, now is the time to make the case for eliminating whole departments of government.

We can win – we have shown that no issue is a “third rail”. President Bush won in 2004 while campaigning on privatizing Social Security. The establishment thought we had to get behind ObamaCare or become unpopular. The establishment was scared to death of Arizona’s border security law. The establishment figured that a softening of the conservative message would work best in places like New Jersey.

Screw the establishment – we’re sending Sharron Angle and others like her to DC; and we’re going to demand smaller government, not just boilerplate, conservative speeches. It is time for a change – real change.