Can we defend our prosperity?

It is because we are a prosperous nation that we can devote precious resources to things like clean energy initiatives, healthcare for the poor, and welfare for the unemployed. Moreover, every prosperous nation - including our own - has been attacked for that prosperity. Our ability to be generous and compassionate depends on having enough wealth to literally give much of it away. Poor people are not generous because they have nothing to give.

With these facts in mind, look at the chart published by the House Armed Services Committee (please click to enlarge):

Remember that food travels by ships that need protection from piracy. The seas are still just as large as they were 20 years ago, and we have only half the ships we did when Bill Clinton was president. We cannot support ground troops without fighter squadrons and strategic bombers.

And the world is not safer than it was in 1990 ... it is far more dangerous.

A weakened America means an ever more dangerous world.

I am glad he's dead

The death of Osama Bin Laden is an important milestone. We can reasonably disagree as to whether we should have put more effort into finding him several years ago. Will his death make him into a larger-than-life symbol? Will the firefight in which he died be recounted as some heroic last stand? Or will he - accurately - be seen, at long last, as a coward who hides behind an unarmed woman to avoid getting shot?

Facts will not deter radicals ... they never have. OBL is no longer a wanted man. However, we have not seen the last of radical Islam. Their grievances are contrived and arbitrary. They cannot be negotiated with, nor can they be reasoned with. They can, however, be defeated. And we have taken one, symbolic, and important objective. There are many others, but it is right to celebrate this achievement.

To the men of the JSOC, congratulations and well done!