President Bush is breaking The Guard

9 thoughts on “President Bush is breaking The Guard”

1. What is going on in this administration (it’s not Republican…they’re in a class all their own) is an effort to completley and fundamentally alter the very nature of constitutional law and the Bill of Rights in favor of their core constituency monetary interests. Thank God we have an opposing Congress since Nov 06.

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2. ….that Shrub would hold the National Guard in higher since he is, after all, a (decorated?) war veteran of the Alabama National Guard.

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3. http://www.ngb.army….

   FIRST… they may not go.

   “The units are not scheduled to begin deployment until December, officials said, and some may not go at all. “The units will only be deployed if conditions on the ground dictate it,” a DoD spokesman said.”

   SECOND… most have never seen combat before.

   “While all of these units have deployed in the war on terror, most of the soldiers in the units have not. DoD officials said that more than 60 percent of the soldiers in these four brigades have not deployed before.”

   THIRD… the units from Ohio last served in Kosovo for seven months in 2004 and 2005.

   “The 37th Infantry Brigade Combat Team served in Kosovo from August 2004 to February 2005. The brigade includes soldiers from Ohio and Michigan.”

   I want to get this damn war over as quickly as we can but that doesn’t mean leaving before we’re finished. Let’s win and THEN cut and run.

   **SEMPER FI**

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   1. FIRST… they may not go.

      George Bush will never in a million years end this war of his own volition. They’ll go, and they’ll have a tour schedule of 15 months.

      They can’t protect us here if they’re over there in a shooting gallery.

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4. As a former Naval Officer, I am having a hard time seeing “Win”.  The Middle East is in turmoil, are men and women are dying for what? America? Hmmm, I don’t think so.  The cost of war is tremendous and our children at home are being educated at rates less than most of 1st world countries…

   “Winning” – please define what that is and then let’s use your definition to continue the discussion.

   “Winning” – Bush can’t get generals to accept the job of War Czar – so far three have turned him down – “winning” Things that make you say HMMMMMM!

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   1. A couple of excerpts from Wikipedia that maybe apply…

      In modern language, these rules hold that to be just, a war must meet the following criteria before the use of force (Jus ad bellum):

      – recapturing things taken
      – punishing people who have done wrong

      A contemporary view of just cause was expressed in 1993 when the US Catholic Conference said:

      “Force may be used only to correct a grave, public evil, i.e., aggression or massive violation of the basic human rights of whole populations”

      Comparative justice: While there may be rights and wrongs on all sides of a conflict, to override the presumption against the use of force, the injustice suffered by one party must significantly outweigh that suffered by the other;

      Legitimate authority: Only duly constituted public authorities may use deadly force or wage war;

      Right intention: Force may be used only in a truly just cause and solely for that purpose-correcting a suffered wrong is considered a right intention, while material gain or maintaining economies is not.

      Probability of success: Arms may not be used in a futile cause or in a case where disproportionate measures are required to achieve success;

      Proportionality: The overall destruction expected from the use of force must be outweighed by the good to be achieved.

      Last resort: Force may be used only after all peaceful and viable alternatives have been seriously tried and exhausted.

      Note that these are only the most typical conditions cited by just war theorists; some (such as Brian Orend) omit Comparative Justice, seeing it as fertile ground for exploitation by bellicose regimes.

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      —————-

      In recent years, some theorists, such as Gary Bass, Louis Iasiello and Brian Orend, have proposed a third category within Just War theory. Jus post bellum concerns justice after a war, including peace treaties, reconstruction, war crimes trials, and war reparations. Orend, for instance, proposes the following principles:

      Just cause for termination – A state may terminate a war if there has been a reasonable vindication of the rights that were violated in the first place, and if the aggressor is willing to negotiate the terms of surrender. These terms of surrender include a formal apology, compensations, war crimes trials and perhaps rehabilitation.

      Right intention – A state must only terminate a war under the conditions agreed upon in the above criteria. Revenge is not permitted. The victor state must also be willing to apply the same level of objectivity and investigation into any war crimes its armed forces may have committed.

      Public declaration and authority – The terms of peace must be made by a legitimate authority, and the terms must be accepted by a legitimate authority.

      Discrimination – The victor state is to differentiate between political and military leaders, and combatants and civilians. Punitive measures are to be limited to those directly responsible for the conflict.

      Proportionality – Any terms of surrender must be proportional to the rights that were initially violated. Draconian measures, absolutionist crusades and any attempt at denying the surrendered country the right to participate in the world community are not permitted.

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5. Where’s our army?

   If the National Guard is fighting in Iraq, I’m assuming that our professional armed forces are stretched too thin in Afghanistan, Korea, Iraq and other oversea bases.

   Have the other branches of our armed services experienced decreased recruiting numbers?

   The reason I ask is I only hear about those in the National Guard since they are the ones that have to give up their lives to fight.

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   1. I read an article the other day that outlined how thinnly strecthed our armed forces are.  It’s a little scary.  The only branch not having a recruiting problem is the airforce.  But the article said we need another 90K troops to handle our obligations that we have now.

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   2. The Army is also deployed to Iraq, plus its normal strategic deployments in S. Korea and elsewhere.

      Part of the problem you have with an ongoing occupation is that your troops need regular rotations.  One rotation is active duty, the next is a downtime and resupply, and then there’s a retraining rotation.  So you can only realistically get 1/3 of the active Army involved for a long period of time.

      When you’re keeing 120,000-160,000 troops on the ground in Iraq at one time, you need the backup of the National Guard.  We keep hearing about the Guard because they don’t have the same grade of equipment as the Army, aren’t trained as well, and aren’t expected to serve the term that active-duty troops are given.  The Guard also doesn’t get the benefits of active-duty troops, nor the pay scale, nor the medical support.  On top of that, we need the Guard on duty in our various states to help support in the event of natural disasters – and increasingly, they’re unable to do so because they or their equipment is in Bush’s Sandbox.

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