Founding fathers dissed

To the Editor:

Here's where we have about half a million US military personnel deployed outside the US (forgive me if I miss a country or two): Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Antigua, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, BosniaHerzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Cote D'Ivoire, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, East Timor, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Liberia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Mexico, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia Montenegro, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Trinidad - Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, UAE, UK, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Most Americans can't pronounce or spell the names of some of these countries, or find them on a map, or explain why we are there. Admittedly, many of these places have only a few Marines to provide security for our embassy personnel (a legitimate deployment), but in each of 30 of these places we have more than 100 US military personnel, and in a handful of these places we have more than 30,000 US military personnel. I suspect our Founding Fathers, who inveighed against "Standing Armies" (see the Declaration of Independence), would despair at us having half a million troops stationed in 135 countries around the globe.

Cordially, Chuck Esposito

Suches, Ga.