"...a sick social experiment...." That is well stated. Our military has gone way, way beyond its original mandate and what is should be reasonably doing today. Our military is extremely overextended and this global military empire is tremendously expensive and a big reason we are $20T in debt. The net result, other than the debt, is heartache, failed expectations, and a huge friggin mess.

Unfortunately, the military seems led by people who cannot learn a damned thing from this experience and, unfortunately, receive way too damned much money from our US Congress. I know several military officers. Good guys and friends, all that. At the same time, they have an entitlement mentality regarding the US Treasury and my tax dollars, and do not think there is any place on Earth that they should be stationed and keeping an eye on things. They believe that they are entitled to a bottomless pit of money to play global geopolitical engineers and strategists, and blow up things, kill people, take out leaders, and so on, as they see fit. No doubts.

The opinion of a taxpayer such as myself, who foots the bill for this insanity? Not worth considering, as it's coming from an outsider who does not really know how the world works, like they do. I am from a military family, but our military needs to be reigned in, and we need to start living within our means. We also need to keep our nose out of other nations' business. We can't fix every damned problem in the world. We also should not be saddling our future generations with a mountain of debt b/c we have neocons who think they are in charge of policing the world. Sorry kind of a rant, we have bad leadership in this country and the military sees bad guys around every corner. and we're broke.