Hack's Christmas Wish

SFTT:

As we enjoy our holidays in our comfortable homes, our over-committed defenders are stretched around the globe to the breaking point and beyond. This Christmas, almost half a million U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are defending freedom in places the average American can't even locate on a map...

It's a no-brainer that we should all support our warriors, who are paying such a high price on our behalf this year. But with that support comes the responsibility of thinking citizens to ask hard questions, such as:

Why are our forces defending other countries' borders while ours remain vulnerable? Why, for example, is our own homeland virtually undefended while we have almost 200,000 regular, Guard and Reserve troops securing Japan, South Korea and Germany - strong, prosperous counties that at this point would have no problem protecting themselves?

And how long can our badly stretched defense team continue carrying this senseless heavy burden? And what's going to happen next year in Iraq when 250,000 soldiers and Marines rotate in and out of that tar pit in one of the largest unit swaps in U.S. military history?

Hopefully, our Christmas 2004 stocking will be stuffed with a smarter, more rational redistribution of our most precious assets - our men and women in uniform.

What do I want for Christmas dinner next year? A lame duck. Then maybe we'll get a more rational foreign policy altogether.

ntodd  ¶ 10:15 PM