The U.S. Army currently has only two combat-ready brigades, says Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno. The good general, along with Army secretary John McHugh, blame this on sequestration.

This is good. Perhaps the U.S. Army will fight fewer foreign wars. Yet, the Conservative Action Alert I received says: “The federal government leaving the U.S. Army underprepared is a threat to national security and proves the folly of the thoughtless, wide-but-shallow sequester cuts. Congress needs to reign-in both welfarism and militarism, but they ought never allow national defense to be gutted.” Gutted? The military has been anything but gutted, as I recently wrote about here. And then we are referred to the Constitution charging those in Washington to “provide for the common defense,” as if fighting foreign wars has anything to do with the common defense.

The Best of Laurence M. Vance