I don’t see how a former general can be so consistently out-of-touch. On tonight’s installment of Hardball with Chris Matthews, Barry McCaffrey has actually claimed that aid to tsunami victim has “stretched our military to the breaking point.” This is ridiculous. This relief effort is a mere calisthenic, relative to fighting a war.

I do, however, agree with ret. gen. Wayne Downing, who says that this has put a tax on our airlift capacity. But that is merely employed as a fast response stop-gap measure, until the NGOs can get up-to-speed. In a few days, our military will again have full mobilization capability.

I’d like to note here, that I do hope we are devoting sufficient resources to force protection. While it would be incredibly stupid for the Islamofascists to make a strike against our forces in the region during this crisis, stupidity seems to be their stock-in-trade. I would hate to see another U.S.S. Cole incident.