Middle East Money Pit vs. Mugging Old Ladies

In Baghdad, Robert Gates is reassuring troops they will be paid, eventually, no matter what happens in Congress, even as he tells them they may be staying longer than scheduled.

"If folks here are going to want us to have a presence," the Defense Secretary says, "we're going to need to get on with it pretty quickly in terms of our planning."

While politicians fight the Battle of Washington over a pittance for abortion funding and other social issues, the American money pit in the Middle East keeps getting deeper.

More than $1.1 trillion after the Bush Administration promised that Iraq oil would pay for its reconstruction, U. S. money is still pouring in as foreign companies vie to extract profits from the nation's natural resources.

Yet, in all the posturing over a fraction of budget deficits, not a word is heard to question huge American expenditures for what is becoming more and more an illusory War on Terror in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and who-knows-where-else.

Pay the troops by all means, but at the same time start the debate over saving billions by getting them out of harm's way.

Bank robber Willie Sutton once explained his vocational choice by pointing out, "Because that's where the money is." If John Boehner, Paul Ryan and the Tea Party had been advising him, Sutton would have been out mugging old ladies for their Medicare checks.