February 19, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

NATIONAL GUARD NEEDED HERE

Among the many ridiculous arguments made by supporters of the Iraq war is the claim that we have to fight terrorists there so we won't have to fight them here. Intelligence tells us that most of the people attacking U. S. troops in Iraq are not members of al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups. They're Iraqis trying to drive out an invader. The Bush administration has left a gaping hole in our domestic security by deploying so many National Guard troops to Iraq. We saw some of the effects of that when Louisiana National Guard troops were not available to assist during Hurricane Katrina. This commentary by former Senator Gary Hart is at www.huffingtonpost.com:

Today, more than 40% of our combat and combat support units in Iraq are National Guard and Reserve forces. We cannot continue to maintain and expand our military operations in Iraq without these Guard and Reserve forces. Many of their units have been redeployed multiple times in violation of the agreements Guard members sign when they enlist. We are exhausting not only our regular standing combat troops, we are also exhausting the deployed Guard and Reserve units.

Most important, the National Guard units in Iraq are not in the United States standing post over our nation's security at home. They are not being trained and equipped for this vital mission. If we are in fact at war with terrorism, we are leaving our homeland flanks totally exposed. The Administration and its supporters have excused this dereliction in security with the hollow slogan: We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here.

This specious argument fails on several counts. The "them" we are fighting in Iraq are overwhelmingly Iraqi insurgents who have no interest in following us home. And the relatively small but growing numbers of al Qaeda in Iraq can do more than one thing at once, as the people of London and Madrid can testify. It is the United States that cannot fight them there using National Guard forces needed to fight them here.