From: "Mark" 

P.S. In a nutshell John, your philosphy is that we should never have gone
into Iraq, we should get out ASAP and we should work from a "law and
order" and defensive posture (a 9/10 mind-set in other words).

I disagree, I will never agree, so we really shouldn't do these arguments
any more, cause I doubt you're moving either 

"Mark"  wrote in message
news:46463765$1{at}w3.nls.net...
> Yes, I see that Dem footprint all over the whining:
>
> 1) Kansas Governor makes overstated claims about no help when we can see
> with our own eyes that the rescue is in progress.
> 2) Yesterday an AP article in my local paper with a few more governors
> (Dem) chiming in about how the United States is in deep trouble because of
> Bush
> 3) Some retired general (lots of them out there undermining their still
> active duty brethren aren't there?) claiming in a Saturday radio rebuttal
> (fancy footwork on that Howard!!! good for you bad for Petraous's mission,
> bad for the troops in general, and bad for the USA) that we need a new
> direction so we can have our troops back here to protect us. We have a new
> friggin direction and Petraous is carrying it out -- shut retired general,
> please, pretty friggin please.
>
> What a bunch of hooey -- I am not interested in cleaning up the brain
> matter more efficiently on our streets and in our malls after an attack,
> I'm interested in killing them where they are, instead of cutting, running
> and buying new ambulances as they follow us here (and already are).
>
> "John Cuccia"  wrote in message
> news:dtpb435svr6fk9gef18m21b6adv5fmf71m{at}4ax.com...
>> On Mon, 7 May 2007 20:36:39 -0400, "Mark"
 wrote:
>>
>>>The valid point is this Bob: because the Iraq war is currently unpopular
>>>in
>>>national polls, the governor chooses a disaster for her citizens to get a
>>>cheap shot in at their expense
>>
>> No.  The real valid point is that the Iraqi quagmire has depleted both
>> the regular Army and the ANG.  All 50 governors have been trying to
>> get someones attention for the past several years (and in case you are
>> unaware, that number includes both Republicans and Democrats):
>>
>> http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-070513govs-guard-story,1,
3999163.story?coll=chi-news-hed
>> Not long after that meeting, all 50 U.S. governors-the commanders in
>> chief of their states' National Guards-signed a letter to President
>> Bush imploring him to immediately begin reoutfitting their depleted
>> National Guards. But little changed, and the Guard now has only 56
>> percent of its required equipment, the lowest level in nearly six
>> years, according to the Government Accountability Office.
>>
>> and
>>
>> In late 2005, a GAO report found that almost every state's National
>> Guard had just a fraction of the equipment it was supposed to have.
>> Another GAO report issued just months ago took the criticism further.
>> "The high use of the National Guard for federal overseas missions has
>> reduced equipment available for its state-led domestic missions," it
>> concluded. The top commander of the National Guard, Lt. Gen. Steven
>> Blum, testified to Congress last month that the continuous use of its
>> forces for overseas missions has "resulted in a decline of readiness
>> for units here at home."
>>
>> Missing equipment-much of which has been shipped to Iraq or destroyed
>> there-is a large part of the problem. Certain states are worse off:
>> Arizona has just 34 percent of its allotted equipment; New Jersey and
>> Idaho 42 percent; and Louisiana, ground zero for the worst natural
>> disaster in modern memory, remains at less than 50 percent.
>>
>> Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell, a Republican, wrote in March to the
>> House Armed Services Committee that her state's National Guard was
>> missing the kinds of vehicles it would need to dig out from a
>> late-spring northeaster or to evacuate residents in the wake of a
>> flood. The California National Guard, routinely called up in the event
>> of earthquakes and any subsequent looting, is missing 700 Humvees, and
>> it has only half the high-water vehicles it should and less than a
>> third of its required stockpile of machine guns.
>>
>> In Illinois, the GAO estimates that the Guard has just 45 percent of
>> its authorized equipment on hand and that it is particularly short of
>> trucks, earthmovers and other equipment critical to emergency
>> response.
>
>

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