Victor Davis Hanson lays it out:

Afghanistan is a messy war, but so far it has been conducted with a minimum loss of American life while achieving some important goals. We can argue about current strategies, fault what’s been done in the past, deplore the length of the war, lament its cost, or blame each other for its inconclusiveness, but the facts remain that we removed the Taliban, weakened al-Qaeda in the region, fostered a consensual government in the most unlikely of places, and helped to prevent another catastrophic attack on our nation originating from that part of the world — and did all this with a degree of skill that is reflected in losses that by historical standards are quite moderate…

…Afghanistan is a tough, nasty war, but so far, by the standard of past American “police actions,” its monthly toll is light. In some 97 consecutive months of warring, we have lost 869 dead, or not quite 9 a month. In comparison, 909 Americans were killed on average each month in Korea over 37 months, and 469 Americans were killed on average each month in Vietnam over 101 months of conflict. So far, Afghanistan is costing about a hundredth of the monthly fatalities in Korea, and a fiftieth of those in Vietnam.

The key is to remain flexible and adaptable. What worked in 2001 to rout the Taliban with a minimum of human and material losses may not work in 2009 to keep insurgents from attacking the fragile democracy. Often counterinsurgency is not at odds with, but complementary to, ongoing counterterrorism operations. And despite the demagoguery, our efforts in Iraq may not have been antithetical to those in Afghanistan but oddly synergistic, as thousands of jihadists flocked to the “main theater,” where it was much easier for the American military to deal with them — as the enormous jihadist losses in Iraq, and the relative quiet there now, attest.

So now Afghanistan is flaring up, perhaps because Islamists, like U.S. forces, have turned their attention to the original focus after the decision in Iraq. It seems that al-Qaeda’s leaders, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, suddenly are no longer calling for the devout to travel to Anbar to kill the infidel, but instead to come to Waziristan and help the Taliban with the real struggle. And why not, after suffering thousands killed and failing to stop Nouri al-Maliki’s constitutional effort in Iraq?…

Flexible and adaptable doesn’t just apply to the military – it applies to we, the people, as well. We must not concentrate on the daily or monthly casualties, even as we mourn our losses. We must not pay too much attention to what the enemy says or does. We must, most importantly, never take a televised news story from Afghanistan at face value – television is the great falsifier and while film may be dramatic, it rarely captures the full truth. Our job, as civilians, is to remain staunch in our desire for victory – to demonstrate to our brave soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that we’ll give them whatever they need, even if this means, at times, that we’ll give them time and patience above all else.

I am pleased that the bi-partisan Congressional leadership has indicated a willingness to fight on. I am pleased that President Obama says he is listening to the military leadership. I urge the President to make very public demonstrations of our political will to victory, as nothing would help our effort better than to clarify to our enemies that we’re going to keep at this until they are defeated. President Obama has my unflagging support in his efforts to secure victory in Iraq – and my prayers are offered for Obama to rely on God’s love and wisdom in choosing the right course.

Mish has an excellent look at just how, well, irresponsible China and other nation’s are being about printing money to pump up the economy and concludes thusly:

Don’t Mistake Printing For A Sustainable Recovery

It is a mistake to equate Chinese, US, and Japanese printing for any kind of sustainable recovery.

As noted in Gold And The Watched Pot Theory, “Every country wants to grow by ramping up exports in a world of decreasing consumer demand. To achieve that end, every country wants its currency to be weaker against every other currency. Of course that is logically impossible. Besides, the US consumer is tapped out. European consumers are tapped out as well. And tapped out or not, the Japanese consumer just does not want to buy.”

Neither the G-20 nor G-7 did anything to address the massive global imbalances. Something critical is going to blow sky high, when and what remains to be seen.

I agree – and I still figure it for around March. Be that as it may, we’ve got to stop thinking that Chinese growth (mostly fictional, these days) will pull us out of recession or that we can export our way to wealth. The only way we can get rich, again, is to start creating wealth – making, mining and growing our own stuff out of our own resources using our own labor.

Labor and materials are, at bottom, the only wealth there is – we’re 300 million people sitting on 3 million square miles of the richest land on earth…we don’t lack for anything, other than a government willing to get the job done. Oh, and sound money would be nice, too – back to the gold standard we should go…some people worry what this will do to our export trade. I say: who cares? We’ve got a big enough market here at home to absorb far more than we’re currently producing…lets worry about exporting after we’ve satisfied our domestic needs as much as possible.

We can’t borrow or print our way out of this – we can only work our way out.

Gotta give our Democrats a sinking feeling:

Republican congressional candidates have moved slightly further ahead of Democrats this week in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.

The new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 43% would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 39% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent.

That sinking feeling you’re getting, Democrats? Its going to get worse. Much, much worse.

Of course – Bush isn’t President any more. Code Pink: Just another propaganda arm of the left.

Once again, you expected something different?

Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio says he will continue his controversial “crime suppression operations” despite a Department of Homeland Security decision to strip him of authority to arrest suspected illegal immigrants based solely on their immigration status, the East Valley Tribune reports.

“It’s all politics,” says Arpaio, sheriff of Maricopa County.

Arpaio will still have the power to check the immigration status of people booked by his officers, but not the authority to conduct street patrols looking for illegal immigrants…

…Arpaio said he will be able to still conduct the crime sweeps under state human smuggling laws and an obscure federal law that allows local police to arrest illegal immigrants…

Our Department of “Justice”, too busy to check in to voter intimidation, but the government has the time to go after one of the premier law enforcers of the United States? DHS has nothing better to do than this? Oh, wait a second; I think I understand this:

We have to be careful, here…you see, the criminal gangs which ruthlessly exploit the illegals might have their profits cut if we start enforcing immigration laws and so, naturally, the government is engaged in the vital task of making certain the laws aren’t enforced.

Makes sense to me…

Hmmm…

Some Idaho school kids enjoy an early snow day

Just one week ago, we were bracing for a “cool down” from the 80s to the 60s.

Now, it’s getting downright wintry. And in some parts of our viewing area, snow is piling up.

This may be one for the record books, not only how early this heavy fall snowstorm is, but the fact that it appears to have created the earliest snow day in the history of the Blaine County School District.

“We got dumped on last night, you can see that by looking around here. We weren’t quite ready for it. It did cause us some issues in the school district,” Lonnie Barber, Blaine County Superintendent.

Good thing the global warming zealots changed the rules and decided that no matter what happens, it proves global warming is happening…otherwise, the increasing number of stories like this might be difficult to explain away.

What does Obama’s renaming of the war on terror to “Overseas Contingency Operation” and willingness to call dangerous regimes “goverments” mean? I tell you here.

…there is apparently a plan in the works… but don’t think it is really because of Rangel’s ethical problems, and the Democratic Party’s “superior” ethical standards… they’re just trying to save the New York governorship, and Kirsten Gillibrand’s Senate seat.

Sage advice:

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. – Hamlet, Act I, scene 2

Who is afraid of the big, bad wolf of deflation? Not I – nor are people who pay attention worried about deflation…though there is a worry about what the pinheads in government and high finance might do about it:

Deflation is not a threat because deflation is here by any practical measurement. Deflation is also here by impractical measurements such as falling prices. See Humpty Dumpty On Inflation and Daniel Amerman vs. Mish: Reflections on the Great Inflation/Deflation Debate for a further discussion of a practical definition of deflation, a contraction of money supply and credit marked to market, not falling prices.

Moreover, deflation is not a threat in a second sense. Deflation is needed to purge the excesses of the last credit cycle. Attempts to defeat deflation by force will only prolong the agony while accumulating government debt, just as happened in Japan’s two lost decades.

Finally, deflation is not a threat in a third sense. Falling prices are a natural state of affairs because of rising productivity over time. Inflation is a direct (and unnatural) state of affairs caused by the Fed and fractional reserve lending…

…The Real Threat

We are already in uncharted territory, and the risk is what the Fed, Congress, the Treasury department, the Administration, and central bankers globally do to prevent something that needs to happen: the liquidation of malinvestments and debt.

Thus the “real threat” (and risk) is not deflation, but rather the foolish attempts by Keynesian clowns to circumvent what needs happen.

Japan is proof that such efforts are futile. Note that Japan is once again back in deflation, and all the government has to show for its efforts is debt equaling 150% of GDP. Falling prices, lower wages, lower asset prices, and especially debt liquidation are not to be feared, they are a necessary part of the healing process, lest the country stagnate for years.

We borrowed ourselves in to oblivion – over a 75 year period, though at times real wealth creation was enough for us to carry the debt, for a while. But the debt is now overwhelming – the $12 trillion of Uncle Sam’s debt is just a fraction of the debt we’ve built up. Estimates of the total amount owed – including private debt and the un-funded mandates of SS and Medicare/Medicaid – are in ranges of $70 to $100 trillion dollars. The bottom is out of the tub – we can’t borrow enough, now, to fuel enough growth to even service the debt, let alone pay it off…only a massive de-leveraging of the economy will do. In other words, we’re going to have to go through a sort of national bankruptcy.

A lot of banks are going to have to fail; a lot of assumptions about government spending will have to be changed; the manner in which we invest money will have to be corrected; our international trade relations will have to be adjusted to be morally sustainable…and we, the people, are going to have to admit the fact that the wealth we thought we had never really existed…it was all just paper, backed by nothing…we’ll have to get back to work, creating wealth and hunkering down while we do, because we still have to pay off our bond holders (which, fortunately, include a very large number of Joe Average Americans…especially of late, when a lot of us have bought bonds like no tomorrow – yours, truly, included – the bad news is that we’re going to have to pay off the Chinese, too…).

Balanced budgets, low taxes, no new indebtedness save for house purchases (and then only with good credit qualifications; and restrictions on the way home loans can be used so that our homes no longer become speculative chips in a game of financial roulette – no more, to put it bluntly, thinking of our houses as piggy banks to be drawn on for consumption). We’ll also have to start making, mining and growing much more of our own stuff – keep the money in the family, as it were. We can do this – if we genuinely work together…unfortunately, we’ve got a government which continues to have faith in fiat money, usury and class warfare…we’ll have to get rid of that, in the by and by.