Ash,

I’m invested in the US stock market and am fully aware of the issues the US economy faces, the primary problem being socialist policies of the Democrats, esp. their unwillingness to allow exploitation of significant oil reserves, which will very likely come back to haunt them in November.

I’d personally like to see the semi-Nationalized Indy, Freddy, Fannie, be allowed to go down the tubes, so Mr Market can do his Job properly. That said, to describe the US economy as “Ravaged” is simply Gramiscian propoganda.

Also, I never said that the US Military is invincible, that is a straw man argument.

Bottom line is that the US *could* project significant power into the Causcuses, albeit, not easily, and not without significant risk. The point I was alluding to is that the US military is 1) NOT overstreched, they retain significant expeditionary forces IN RESERVE, and 2) even relatively small units of those forces are more than a match for much larger opponents.

Otherwise the Military is NOT having trouble maintining troop levels, the US Marines and Army are at worst, having slight problems INCREASING troop levels.