Mitt Romney wants to expand the girth and grandeur of the American Armed Forces.
Why not instead bring as many of our troops home as possible? Texas Governor Rick Perry shot down his last chance of competitiveness in New Hampshire when he offered to send troops back into Iraq, if he were elected President.
The United States can command a leading military role in the world without pushing into every region and frontier. The armed forces are stretched too thin as it is, with legislators now calling for our intervention into the intratribal rivalry of Syria. We have done what we could in Iraq, and the fraught faultlines of tribal rancor and corruption-laced political pandering from Kabul have turned the Central Asian Graveyard of Empires into a menace of decay and down-trodden nation-building for our Marines.
We need to get out of Afghanistan, and now. The future President of the United States will have to press against the militaristic, neocon element in this country, one which insists on forcing a moribund mission of democracy at any costs across the globe.
This nation is tired of fighting wars that cannot be won. Our military are damaged and discouraged, coming home to a nation not adequately provisioned to transition and equip them for successful civilian life.
I only hope that the jangling "jingo" rhetoric of Governor Romney will subside and dissipate in the wake of repealing onerous regulations, cutting domestic spending, and reducing our national debt when he takes office in January.