The "fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here" argument only holds water if ALL the terrorists in the world are in Iraq. I'd rather our troops were available to fight the REAL war on terror, by being used for enforcement of an intelligent foreign policy, sometimes as a broad deterrence (in the case of N. Korea and Iran, for example) and lethal efficiency when truly neccessary.
In the case of the broken lines that our military is stretched too thin to do any good, let me show you a few facts about our troop levels:
In 2004, there were ~1,426,836 soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines in the US military (which thanks to the Clinton Administration is 1/3 less than we had in 1991). To date, there are 211,028 stationed in Iraq (14.7%), 9,000 in Afghanistan (.064%), 951 in Bosnia (.0067%) and 37000 in South Korea (2.6%). In total, that equates to 257,979 s/s/a/m. So of a 1.4 million-man military, 18.1% have been deployed to "hostile" areas. What about the other 81.9% that are available to use elsewhere? Now these numbers do not include the pilots out of Whiteman AFB and similar who fly sorties out of the US or woldwide bases to support the War On Islamic Facism (who can be redirected to say N. Korea or Iran just as easily). We have SUPERIOR firepower to anyone in the world. Our Carrier Air Groups alone are unmatched. We have the most advanced weapon systems ever devised. We have aircraft that are invisble to radar (or atleast have the radar signiture of a Sparrow). The only way that the US has lost a war is when the media and politicians say we are loosing and the sheeple of America believe them. Personally, I think it speaks louder when our soldiers themselves come home and say "we are making headway" and "of the 13 provinces in Iraq, (2) are not in Allied control" or "we have built an infrastructure in Iraq that would have only been a dream 8 years ago".
Thanks to congressional action in the early 1990's, much of our troop strength has been limited (no more than 100,000 in Europe, etc).
Recently this has begun to change. Congress recently mandated a 20,000 troop increase, and are considering an additional 10,000 to the total troop strength (on the flip side, Rumsfield is fighting that. Why??!?). When Reagan left office, we had more than 780,000 Active Duty s/s/a/m.
Between 1990 and 2002, spending on the military in relation to GDP has diminished significantly. In WWII, the military spending levels were at 38% of GDP. in 2000, it was less than 4%.
Yes, not all the terrorists are in Iraq. But we have killed some 30,000 terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan that were intent on killing Christians, Jews, and Westeners all over the world.
Remember that we have to be perfect in fighting terror 100% of the time, terrorists just need to be right (1) time. The US will get castigated by the UN, the "Blame America First" croud and most of the world if we go above and beyond what "they" think is necessary. It's really time to quit pussy-footing around and kick some ass. A MOAB on Mecca has a nice ring to it.
