W not militaristic enough for the Washington Post

Today's lead editorial in the Post berates the moron-in-chief for proposing to eventually, someday, bring some of our military, currently on permanent vacation in Europe and Asia, back home. The Post reminds us of all the bogeymen out there that we should be wetting our beds over--China and North Korea in particular, and suggests that we need to keep our troops closer to "today's battlegrounds."

Insisting on continued and expanded American hegemony over the globe, the Post gives this amazing argument:

Europe is less tense, but a U.S. presence is important nonetheless. The conflicts of the past decade have been in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq; Africa is of increasing concern; none of these is closer to Kansas than to Germany.

Look out, Topeka! Here come Gerhardt Schroeder!

I've just started reading Chalmers Johnson's The Sorrows of Empire. As he did in Blowback, Johnson starts out by describing the enormous extent of the American military empire--some 725 (acknowledged) bases worldwide, including huge installations in Germany, Korea, and Japan. He describes how people in the military, in business (General Dynamics, Boeing, Halliburton, etc., etc., etc.), and in Congress (aka the "Iron triangle") depend on this massive muscle-flexing atrocity. And here Bush makes a fairly meaningless proposal in order to steal a few votes, and the Post is ready to jump on perhaps the most militaristic president ever for not being militaristic enough. Darn that Bush for being so sensitive in such a time of peril! It wouldn't surprise me if Karl Rove wrote the editorial for the Post; it's exactly the type of "criticism" these guys want. It helps to prevent people from seeing Bush as the right-wing nut job that he really is.