where's the beef?

Newspapers today carried a story that according to a u.s general there are 50 elite Iranian troops training militants in the Baghdad area. It was heralded as a "startling assertion" that added weight to the claim that Iranians were "meddling in Iraq".....no doubt, lending support to the idea that war was coming between our two countries. In an effort to assess the potential threat poised to America, I logged on to the internet and discovered that our country has US troops in 156 other countries throughout the world.  We have bases and troops in 63 countries and established seven new bases with troops since 2001. We have more than 255,000 troops in other countries. So where's the beef?  My parents taught me that "what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander".

 

I am not defending Iran because the activity is stupid, but our focus on other countries is also stupid.  Our military industrial complex which President Eisenhower warned us about has gone global. Now we are caught up in an unending cycle of military oversight around the world....and the US taxpayers are footing the bill. No wonder our domestic problems remain unsolved. We simply do not have enough money to address our own needs. Sadly, the democratic congress we elected recently does not have the sand to tackle this problem. Insstead of cutting off funds for military adventures the democrats have folded in the face of political reality because they fear a backlash should they be blamed for our loss in Iraq.

 

We should remain clear on this point,however. President Bush brought us into this mess and our meddling in Iraq has awakened a sleeping giant. The Muslim world wants us out of their territory, which we invaded on the premise of "weapons of mass destruction" being developed in that country. We have since learned that pretex was a myth and we were hornswoggled into a war with no ending. We are in their land and I find it ironic that we protest the rather feeble efforts by a few Iranians to train militants against our troops. So where's the beef?