Hey! Just Who's Hand Is In My Pocket, Anyway?

To quit the caves of Kandahar, to brave the backstreets of Baghdad, to triumph in the temples of Tripoli, to pander in the provinces of Pakistan These are the questions that try men's thoughts. They're also the questions that congress will comment on ceaselessly. Americans must gestate on the guilt and the guile of the generous germs of greed and grit. If any of this makes any sense to you, you are reading far too much into it. But the question of whether or not to continue to fight four wars, to continue to protect and serve Europe, the "near east", Japan and the "far east" are fair and honest. For instance, did you know that while we slug it out in those caves of Kandahar, Afghanistan, China is the country with the exclusive rights to all the copper in Afghanistan. But China isn't paying for any of the war effort. In fact they're loaning us the money to fight the war, plus interest. Now I don't mean to suggest that we should have been given first refusal on any natural resources, but shouldn't we? I mean it seems to me we've earned some consideration. I'm beginning to think this Karzai or whatever his name is, you know, the president of Afghanistan, is somewhat less than an honorable man. And even though I understand that his first concerns should be for the best interests of his own country, I think maybe his first concerns are for his own best interests. And I understand the real concerns about Pakistan and it's nuclear baggage, and the downtrodden in Libya and how much we've invested in the  building of a successful nation in Iraq, but shouldn't we be a little more concerned about building our own nation back up, and a little less concerned about the rest of the world. As I've said before,
I think Europe and Japan can afford to protect themselves without our stationing troops there. And no, I'm not suggesting isolationism. What I am suggesting is that we spend our hard earned money and the lives of our young men and women a little more judiciously. I think most Americans are willing to let Washington slip it's hands into our pockets to pull out the cash it needs to operate, we just don't like them thinking it's all theirs.