A helpful suggestion...

for the incoming Commander in Chief of the United States military forces.

I was surprised to read recently, that today, 63 years after the end of World War II, we are still essentially occupying Germany with 50,000 (!) United States troops. Goodness!

Somehow, I don't think the Germans pose a credible threat to us (unless, of course, they are hiding WMDs and Hitler is hanging out in a spider hole with bin Laden). The "if we don't fight them there we will have to fight them here" argument falls flat these days (as does the "if we withdraw our troops we will all be speaking German" bromide). In fact, we still have 30,000 troops in Korea. North and South Korea have been in unification talks, and have even competed under one flag in athletic competitions - but I guess it would be "waving the white flag of surrender" to call it a day in the Peninsula (maybe we need a "surge" to "get the job done"?). In fact, we may have more soldiers there than they have guys named "Kim" who claim to be "9th degree black belts" and "trainers of the Korean Army" and "Olympic gold medalists" here teaching Tae Kwon Do in strip malls and giving black belts to ten year olds. In any case, the numbers are close.

But the bottom line is that empires are expensive. We have soldiers, sailors, and marines in more than 700 bases in more than 130 countries around the world. Of course, the Somali pirates don't seem to notice. But having this worldwide network of military bases to supply, manage, and man costs a lot of money. If anyone doubts that, just ask those who are paying for it (that would be the Communist Chinese, who are loaning us all the cash). In case the pols on Capital Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue haven't noticed, money is a little tight these days.

And then there is the gaping hole in the actual security of the United States - the illegal immigration that is permitting millions of foreigners to freely come and go into the U.S. with absolutely no control and no questions asked. When they enter illegally, we don't know if they have a university degree or a criminal record. We don't know if they are in demand for their skills or wanted as fugitives. If terrorists wanted to literally walk right into the United States, there's plenty of opportunity. Entire families do just that every day. The border patrol seems to be out-manned, and in some cases, outgunned.

The solution is looking us right in the face. It's all in the math.

The U.S.-Mexico border is 1,969 miles long and largely unmanned. But we have 50,000 troops in Germany making sure the Germans stay within their borders - even though E.U. membership means they're actually allowed to leave their borders. The makers of American foreign policy might be shocked to learn that the Berlin Wall has been torn down now for nearly 20 years (maybe they're still waiting for the memo from "Intelligence", or maybe there isn't a comic book edition of modern European history for the folks in Washington yet). Newsflash: we don't need to spend millions upon millions of dollars maintaining 50,000 troops in Germany.

Let's move these soldiers to the U.S.-Mexico border! 1,969 miles guarded by 50,000 troops means we can place one soldier every 207 feet!

Not only would this stem the flow of illegal immigrants and narcotics into the U.S., it would also stem the tide of U.S. dollars flowing out of our wallets and then out of the country. And, as a bonus, think of the benefits to local economies! Instead of providing jobs to Germans, we could provide jobs to Americans. There would be industries and towns along the border that would spring up.

Of course, there is a down side for American politicians, as the Republicans would have to pay Americans or legal immigrants to nanny their basically-abandoned children and scrub the floors of their palaces, and the Democrats could no longer count on the illegal aliens to supplement the dead and insane for their Democrat party votes (no doubt the folks at ACORN are bilingual). But in the long run, I think it would be a great idea to have a real border, keep American soldiers and American money in America guarding America (how novel!), and let the E.U. maintain its own military defense budget and supply jobs to their own people instead of making the U.S. taxpayer do that.

If this plan works, we could also stop providing military defense to Japan, and maybe we could even get some manpower and money to rebuild our coastlands. Instead of building an embassy in Iraq the size of Vatican City, maybe we could sell it and beef up the manpower, budget, and oversight over the Army Corps of Engineers and finally rebuild the paper-stuffed rotten levees that cost our local economy billions of dollars due to their shoddy work.

We could also use a few new roads and bridges here in America. You could rebuild a lot of infrastructure with 50,000 men and all the money we're throwing away in Germany.

But I don't expect Barack Obama to recall any soldiers to the U.S. I think he'll wait until we literally have no money to pay the 50,000 soldiers in Germany. To roll back the empire gracefully for the benefit of our own citizens would take statesmanship that I'm afraid is lacking among both major parties. Personally, I think President Obama will join conservative talk show hosts in ordering American troops into new bases in places like Greenland and Antarctica. You just never can tell what all those un-American Danish-speaking Eskimoes and suspicious waddling penguins are up to without American military supervision. WMDs? Oil? Independence of American oversight and micromanagement? So I don't expect a lot of "change" unless it is forced by absolute economic necessity - and even then, they'll probably just print more money anyway.

Besides, are these politicians capable of dividing 1,969 by 50,000 and converting the answer into feet? That would require actual thought. Just don't let the Army Corps of engineers do the math!