[redgolum]

My point is that Paul is advocating the same policies he is slamming.

And yes, we should send all the mercs out of Iraq (and yes the Blackwater boys are mercs).

[George W. Bush]

My point is that Paul is advocating the same policies he is slamming.

Well, not precisely. But I won't argue it.

And yes, we should send all the mercs out of Iraq (and yes the Blackwater boys are mercs).

But our efforts would collapse there without them. It is strange to let Blackwater bill us on a cost-plus basis and cherry-pick our most valuable veterans and then charge us $60,000-$180,000 per year for them. Generally, I think we should forbid U.S. citizens from fighting in mercenary units or serving as foreign police. Britain got into a lot of mischief over this decades back too.

Maybe we should just pay our troops better, recruit an adequate level of soldiers to meet our needs. If we stay in Iraq or plan to invade Iran (God forbid), we should have about 100,000 more soldiers. OTOH, if we bring our troops home from around the world, we could do just fine with our current levels of troops, maybe even a slight reduction in numbers.

We've spread ourselves too thin around the world. 700 bases is just ridiculous. We shouldn't be garrisoning the entire world and behaving like the old colonial empires.