San Diego Wild Animal Park
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Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
Charles Krauthammer, Amnesty/Middle East Peace
One Short Amendment
The Amnesty Compromise Needs a Caveat
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, May 25, 2007; Page A19
As the most attractive land for would-be immigrants, America has the equivalent of the first 100 picks in the NBA draft. Yet through lax border control and sheer inertia, it allows those slots to be filled by (with apologies to Bill Buckley) the first 100 names in the San Salvador phone book.
The immigration compromise being debated in Congress does improve our criteria for selecting legal immigrants. Unfortunately, its inadequacies in dealing with illegal immigration -- specifically, in ensuring that 10 years from now we will not have a new cohort of 12 million demanding amnesty -- completely swamp the good done on legal immigration.
Today, preference for legal immigration is given not to the best and the brightest waiting on long lists everywhere on Earth to get into America, but to family members of those already here. Given that America has the pick of the world's energetic and entrepreneurial, this is a stunning competitive advantage, stunningly squandered.
The current reform would establish a point system for legal immigrants in which brains and enterprise count. This is a significant advance. But before we get too ecstatic about finally doing the blindingly obvious, note two caveats:
(a) This new point system doesn't go into effect for eight years -- eight years of a new flood of immigrants chosen not for aptitude but bloodline. And who knows if a different Congress eight years from now will keep the current bargain?
(b) It's not enough to just create a point system in which credit is given for education, skills and English competence. These points can be outweighed by points given for -- you guessed it -- family ties, which are already built into the proposed point system. There are already amendments on the Senate floor to magnify the value of being a niece rather than a nurse. (Barack Obama is proposing to abolish the point system entirely in five years.) A point system can be manipulated to give far more weight to family than skills -- until it becomes nothing but a cover for the old chain-migration system.
As for the bill's provisions about illegal immigration, let's not quibble: It grants the essentials of amnesty. True, there is a $5,000 fine (for a family of five!) attached to registering for legal status in the United States. But the truly significant penalty for illegal immigration is deportation -- which undoes everything the immigrant has built in America. When the feds raid a sweatshop, the fear is not that the agent will grab you and yell, "We are here to collect a fine." The fear is that he will yell, "We are here to deport you back to the subsistence and misery you fled in China."
From the moment this bill is signed, every illegal alien who does not have a criminal record can register with the U.S. government for temporary legal status. Moreover, as soon as the president certifies that certain border enforcement triggers have been met, this cohort of 12 million becomes eligible for the new Z visa -- renewable until death-- which allows them to stay and work and travel and reenter.
This is amnesty -- and I would be all in favor of it if I believed in the border enforcement mechanisms in this bill. If these are indeed the last illegal immigrants to come in, let us generously and humanely take them out of the shadows. But if we don't close the border, that generous and humane gesture will be an announcement to the world that the smart way to come to America is illegally.
In this bill, unfortunately, enforcement at the border is all bureaucratic inputs and fancy gadgets: principally, a doubling of the Border Patrol to 28,000, lots of high-tech sensors and four unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). And 370 miles of fence -- half of what Congress had mandated last year.
Does anyone imagine these will stop the flood? Four UAVs? And how does 370 miles of fence close a border of 2,100 miles? And if fences work (of course they do: look at the San Diego fence), why not build one all the way?
The amnesty is triggered upon presidential certification that these bureaucratic benchmarks are met -- regardless of what is actually happening at the border. What vacuous nonsense. The trigger must be something real. I propose a single amendment, short and very concrete: "The amnesty shall be declared the morning after the president has certified (citing disinterested studies) that illegal immigration across the southern border has been reduced by 90 percent." That single provision would guarantee passage of this comprehensive reform because most Americans would be glad to grant a generous amnesty -- if they can be assured it would be the last.
*****************************************************
Prelude to the Six Days
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, May 18, 2007; Page A23
There has hardly been a Middle East peace plan in the past 40 years -- including the current Saudi version -- that does not demand a return to the status quo of June 4, 1967. Why is that date so sacred? Because it was the day before the outbreak of the Six-Day War in which Israel scored one of the most stunning victories of the 20th century. The Arabs have spent four decades trying to undo its consequences.
In fact, the real anniversary should be now, three weeks earlier. On May 16, 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Nasser ordered the evacuation from the Sinai Peninsula of the U.N. buffer force that had kept Israel and Egypt at peace for 10 years. The United Nations complied, at which point Nasser imposed a naval blockade of Israel's only outlet to the south, the port of Eilat -- an open act of war.
How Egypt came to this reckless provocation is a complicated tale (chronicled in Michael Oren's magisterial "Six Days of War") of aggressive intent compounded with miscommunication and, most fatefully, disinformation. The Soviet Union had reported urgently and falsely to its Middle East clients, Syria and Egypt, that Israel was massing troops on the Syrian border for an attack. Israel desperately tried to disprove this charge by three times inviting the Soviet ambassador in Israel to visit the front. He refused. The Soviet warnings led to a cascade of intra-Arab maneuvers that in turn led Nasser, the champion of pan-Arabism, to mortally confront Israel with a remilitarized Sinai and a southern blockade.
Why is this still important? Because that three-week period between May 16 and June 5 helps explain Israel's 40-year reluctance to give up the fruits of that war -- the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza -- in return for paper guarantees of peace. Israel had similar guarantees from the 1956 Suez war, after which it evacuated the Sinai in return for that U.N. buffer force and for assurances from the Western powers of free passage through the Straits of Tiran.
All this disappeared with a wave of Nasser's hand. During those three interminable weeks, President Lyndon Johnson did try to rustle up an armada of countries to run the blockade and open Israel's south. The effort failed dismally.
It is hard to exaggerate what it was like for Israel in those three weeks. Egypt, already in an alliance with Syria, formed an emergency military pact with Jordan. Iraq, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco began sending forces to join the coming fight. With troops and armor massing on Israel's every frontier, jubilant broadcasts in every Arab capital hailed the imminent final war for the extermination of Israel. "We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants," declared PLO head Ahmed Shuqayri, "and as for the survivors -- if there are any -- the boats are ready to deport them."
For Israel, the waiting was excruciating and debilitating. Israel's citizen army had to be mobilized. As its soldiers waited on the various fronts for the world to rescue the nation from its peril, Israeli society ground to a halt and its economy began bleeding to death. Army Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin, later to be hailed as a war hero and even later as a martyred man of peace, had a nervous breakdown. He was incapacitated to the point of incoherence by the unbearable tension of waiting with the life of his country in the balance, knowing that waiting too long would allow the armies of 100 million Arabs to strike first his country of 3 million.
We know the rest of the story. Rabin did recover in time to lead Israel to victory. But we forget how perilous was Israel's condition. The victory hinged on a successful attack on Egypt's air force on the morning of June 5. It was a gamble of astonishing proportions. Israel sent the bulk of its 200-plane air force on the mission, fully exposed to antiaircraft fire and missiles. Had they been detected and the force destroyed, the number of planes remaining behind to defend the Israeli homeland -- its cities and civilians -- from the Arab air forces' combined 900 planes was . . . 12.
We also forget that Israel's occupation of the West Bank was entirely unsought. Israel begged King Hussein of Jordan to stay out of the conflict. Engaged in fierce combat with a numerically superior Egypt, Israel had no desire to open a new front just yards from Jewish Jerusalem and just miles from Tel Aviv. But Nasser personally told Hussein that Egypt had destroyed Israel's air force and airfields and that total victory was at hand. Hussein could not resist the temptation to join the fight. He joined. He lost.
The world will soon be awash with 40th-anniversary retrospectives of the war -- and exegeses on the peace of the ages that awaits if Israel would only to return to lines of June 4, 1967. But Israelis are cautious. They remember the terror of that June 4 and of that unbearable May when, with Israel in possession of no occupied territories whatsoever, the entire Arab world was furiously preparing Israel's imminent extinction. And the world did nothing.
The Amnesty Compromise Needs a Caveat
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, May 25, 2007; Page A19
As the most attractive land for would-be immigrants, America has the equivalent of the first 100 picks in the NBA draft. Yet through lax border control and sheer inertia, it allows those slots to be filled by (with apologies to Bill Buckley) the first 100 names in the San Salvador phone book.
The immigration compromise being debated in Congress does improve our criteria for selecting legal immigrants. Unfortunately, its inadequacies in dealing with illegal immigration -- specifically, in ensuring that 10 years from now we will not have a new cohort of 12 million demanding amnesty -- completely swamp the good done on legal immigration.
Today, preference for legal immigration is given not to the best and the brightest waiting on long lists everywhere on Earth to get into America, but to family members of those already here. Given that America has the pick of the world's energetic and entrepreneurial, this is a stunning competitive advantage, stunningly squandered.
The current reform would establish a point system for legal immigrants in which brains and enterprise count. This is a significant advance. But before we get too ecstatic about finally doing the blindingly obvious, note two caveats:
(a) This new point system doesn't go into effect for eight years -- eight years of a new flood of immigrants chosen not for aptitude but bloodline. And who knows if a different Congress eight years from now will keep the current bargain?
(b) It's not enough to just create a point system in which credit is given for education, skills and English competence. These points can be outweighed by points given for -- you guessed it -- family ties, which are already built into the proposed point system. There are already amendments on the Senate floor to magnify the value of being a niece rather than a nurse. (Barack Obama is proposing to abolish the point system entirely in five years.) A point system can be manipulated to give far more weight to family than skills -- until it becomes nothing but a cover for the old chain-migration system.
As for the bill's provisions about illegal immigration, let's not quibble: It grants the essentials of amnesty. True, there is a $5,000 fine (for a family of five!) attached to registering for legal status in the United States. But the truly significant penalty for illegal immigration is deportation -- which undoes everything the immigrant has built in America. When the feds raid a sweatshop, the fear is not that the agent will grab you and yell, "We are here to collect a fine." The fear is that he will yell, "We are here to deport you back to the subsistence and misery you fled in China."
From the moment this bill is signed, every illegal alien who does not have a criminal record can register with the U.S. government for temporary legal status. Moreover, as soon as the president certifies that certain border enforcement triggers have been met, this cohort of 12 million becomes eligible for the new Z visa -- renewable until death-- which allows them to stay and work and travel and reenter.
This is amnesty -- and I would be all in favor of it if I believed in the border enforcement mechanisms in this bill. If these are indeed the last illegal immigrants to come in, let us generously and humanely take them out of the shadows. But if we don't close the border, that generous and humane gesture will be an announcement to the world that the smart way to come to America is illegally.
In this bill, unfortunately, enforcement at the border is all bureaucratic inputs and fancy gadgets: principally, a doubling of the Border Patrol to 28,000, lots of high-tech sensors and four unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). And 370 miles of fence -- half of what Congress had mandated last year.
Does anyone imagine these will stop the flood? Four UAVs? And how does 370 miles of fence close a border of 2,100 miles? And if fences work (of course they do: look at the San Diego fence), why not build one all the way?
The amnesty is triggered upon presidential certification that these bureaucratic benchmarks are met -- regardless of what is actually happening at the border. What vacuous nonsense. The trigger must be something real. I propose a single amendment, short and very concrete: "The amnesty shall be declared the morning after the president has certified (citing disinterested studies) that illegal immigration across the southern border has been reduced by 90 percent." That single provision would guarantee passage of this comprehensive reform because most Americans would be glad to grant a generous amnesty -- if they can be assured it would be the last.
*****************************************************
Prelude to the Six Days
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, May 18, 2007; Page A23
There has hardly been a Middle East peace plan in the past 40 years -- including the current Saudi version -- that does not demand a return to the status quo of June 4, 1967. Why is that date so sacred? Because it was the day before the outbreak of the Six-Day War in which Israel scored one of the most stunning victories of the 20th century. The Arabs have spent four decades trying to undo its consequences.
In fact, the real anniversary should be now, three weeks earlier. On May 16, 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Nasser ordered the evacuation from the Sinai Peninsula of the U.N. buffer force that had kept Israel and Egypt at peace for 10 years. The United Nations complied, at which point Nasser imposed a naval blockade of Israel's only outlet to the south, the port of Eilat -- an open act of war.
How Egypt came to this reckless provocation is a complicated tale (chronicled in Michael Oren's magisterial "Six Days of War") of aggressive intent compounded with miscommunication and, most fatefully, disinformation. The Soviet Union had reported urgently and falsely to its Middle East clients, Syria and Egypt, that Israel was massing troops on the Syrian border for an attack. Israel desperately tried to disprove this charge by three times inviting the Soviet ambassador in Israel to visit the front. He refused. The Soviet warnings led to a cascade of intra-Arab maneuvers that in turn led Nasser, the champion of pan-Arabism, to mortally confront Israel with a remilitarized Sinai and a southern blockade.
Why is this still important? Because that three-week period between May 16 and June 5 helps explain Israel's 40-year reluctance to give up the fruits of that war -- the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza -- in return for paper guarantees of peace. Israel had similar guarantees from the 1956 Suez war, after which it evacuated the Sinai in return for that U.N. buffer force and for assurances from the Western powers of free passage through the Straits of Tiran.
All this disappeared with a wave of Nasser's hand. During those three interminable weeks, President Lyndon Johnson did try to rustle up an armada of countries to run the blockade and open Israel's south. The effort failed dismally.
It is hard to exaggerate what it was like for Israel in those three weeks. Egypt, already in an alliance with Syria, formed an emergency military pact with Jordan. Iraq, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco began sending forces to join the coming fight. With troops and armor massing on Israel's every frontier, jubilant broadcasts in every Arab capital hailed the imminent final war for the extermination of Israel. "We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants," declared PLO head Ahmed Shuqayri, "and as for the survivors -- if there are any -- the boats are ready to deport them."
For Israel, the waiting was excruciating and debilitating. Israel's citizen army had to be mobilized. As its soldiers waited on the various fronts for the world to rescue the nation from its peril, Israeli society ground to a halt and its economy began bleeding to death. Army Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin, later to be hailed as a war hero and even later as a martyred man of peace, had a nervous breakdown. He was incapacitated to the point of incoherence by the unbearable tension of waiting with the life of his country in the balance, knowing that waiting too long would allow the armies of 100 million Arabs to strike first his country of 3 million.
We know the rest of the story. Rabin did recover in time to lead Israel to victory. But we forget how perilous was Israel's condition. The victory hinged on a successful attack on Egypt's air force on the morning of June 5. It was a gamble of astonishing proportions. Israel sent the bulk of its 200-plane air force on the mission, fully exposed to antiaircraft fire and missiles. Had they been detected and the force destroyed, the number of planes remaining behind to defend the Israeli homeland -- its cities and civilians -- from the Arab air forces' combined 900 planes was . . . 12.
We also forget that Israel's occupation of the West Bank was entirely unsought. Israel begged King Hussein of Jordan to stay out of the conflict. Engaged in fierce combat with a numerically superior Egypt, Israel had no desire to open a new front just yards from Jewish Jerusalem and just miles from Tel Aviv. But Nasser personally told Hussein that Egypt had destroyed Israel's air force and airfields and that total victory was at hand. Hussein could not resist the temptation to join the fight. He joined. He lost.
The world will soon be awash with 40th-anniversary retrospectives of the war -- and exegeses on the peace of the ages that awaits if Israel would only to return to lines of June 4, 1967. But Israelis are cautious. They remember the terror of that June 4 and of that unbearable May when, with Israel in possession of no occupied territories whatsoever, the entire Arab world was furiously preparing Israel's imminent extinction. And the world did nothing.
Labels: politics
Posted by Sean
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Saturday, May 19, 2007
DC Adventures
It's that time of year again! And I'm off to D.C. in a few hours with the fossas for the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, among other things. See ya on Friday!
Labels: adventures
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Friday, May 18, 2007
Lightsaber
James won a regional poetry contest with this poem. Way to go! Nice color words! :)
Lightsaber
when it leaps to his hand
as it sings through the air
clashing and crackling
when he
Blue and red hum through the air
as
and lunges again
using all the power
wins the
and bends down to pick up
his opponent's
lightsaber.
Labels: fossa
Posted by Anonymous
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Thursday, May 17, 2007
Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Flight(s)
Last week, I left for Nashville on Wednesday to attend a teaching conference, due to return on Thursday evening. This should have taken approximately 5-hours flying each way. By the time I returned home, 20 of the 48 hours I was gone were spent on planes. Half of that sitting on runways. When we got to DFW, there was some “weather” about 20 miles away, so the pilot said that planes were being diverted and that there would be some delays. So, having boarded and left the gate on time, we taxied out to wait in line. Having waited in line about an hour, we finally approached the runway. Just as we were about to take-off, we had a medical emergency and had to return to the gate. Doctors were called, the patient (diabetic) was removed from the plane, and we refueled. Ready to go? No, we had to wait in line again. Then another diabetic was having trouble, but a doctor on board helped to get that situation under control. Thank goodness. Then, the storm hits. No planes are going anywhere, and we are still sitting on the runway. In all, we spent 5 hours sitting on the runway at DFW.
Fortunately, I was with a rather friendly group of Southerners. (Why again is it necessary to say, “all y’all”? I thought “y’all” was inclusive enough….) The time passed surprisingly quickly, but we didn’t get into Nashville until 11:00 local time—way passed dinner. Everything at the
airport was closed, and though hungry, M & I decided to head to the hotel and hope for breakfast.
The conference was wonderful. It was located at the Scarritt Bennit Center, near Vanderbilt University. It was a gorgeous campus—I loved the trees, the gothic cloisters—it was lovely—a very peaceful place after the bustling stress of the airports.
The dining hall was a mini-version of the dining hall at Hogwarts, except they h
ad fried okra! --large stained glass windows, chandeliers, real wooden 100 year-old tables.
Before heading home, we also visited Vanderbilt, home of the Comodores, where they were celebrating commencement. Another beautiful campus, and southern boys who hold the door for you when they see you coming from 50 feet. Wow. It is different in the South.
When the time came for the flight home, M. and I thought we’d left all our bad luck behind. Everything seemed fine, until I noticed that I had almost finished my book—and this was supposed to be a “short flight” from Nashville to Houston. I looked up at M. about the same time as she looked up at me. “Does it seem like this flight is taking longer than it should?” I asked. Her reply? “I was going to ask if you thought we just made a U-turn.” Realization hit us at the same time. Uh-oh.
About 10 minutes later, the pilot announced that due to “weather” over Houston, we were now circling over Georgia and would need to stop to refuel soon. So, we landed in Arlington, LA., to refuel. We stayed there about 3 hours waiting for Houston to re-open following the storm. We were not allowed off the plane, but they did give us 2 packages of peanuts! Missed dinner again...glad I ate that fried okra!(I’d pack an MRE next time, but I’m afraid the security guys would confiscate it due to the matches.) We finally arrived in Houston, missed our plane going home, but were able to catch one on its way to LA. Close enough. As we were taxing out to the runway, there was a sickening thunk. Apparently, the tow bar broke, damaging the nose gear. M. and I burst out laughing, which the other passengers thought was a completely inappropriate response, I’m sure! So, back to the gate we went, so the mechanics could fix the problem.
We finally arrived in LA at 3:00 in the morning. We thought we’d catch a bus back close to home and beg my little brother to pick us up and take us the rest of the way. He loves me enough for that and was willing. But…did you know that the buses don’t run in the middle of the night? We didn’t. So we were waiting…and a police car pulled up. “Ladies, you look out of place. Can we help you?” The next thing I knew, I was riding in the back of the police car on the way to a car rental place, where the officers were so kind as to talk the bad car rental people down from $60/day to $12/day. Wow.
I called my boss, who sweetly asked if I’d like a sub for the day, under the circumstances. I don’t want to get on another plane for a very long time…..but, I’m leaving for DC on Sunday. Yikes!
Fortunately, I was with a rather friendly group of Southerners. (Why again is it necessary to say, “all y’all”? I thought “y’all” was inclusive enough….) The time passed surprisingly quickly, but we didn’t get into Nashville until 11:00 local time—way passed dinner. Everything at the
airport was closed, and though hungry, M & I decided to head to the hotel and hope for breakfast.The conference was wonderful. It was located at the Scarritt Bennit Center, near Vanderbilt University. It was a gorgeous campus—I loved the trees, the gothic cloisters—it was lovely—a very peaceful place after the bustling stress of the airports.
The dining hall was a mini-version of the dining hall at Hogwarts, except they h
ad fried okra! --large stained glass windows, chandeliers, real wooden 100 year-old tables.Before heading home, we also visited Vanderbilt, home of the Comodores, where they were celebrating commencement. Another beautiful campus, and southern boys who hold the door for you when they see you coming from 50 feet. Wow. It is different in the South.
When the time came for the flight home, M. and I thought we’d left all our bad luck behind. Everything seemed fine, until I noticed that I had almost finished my book—and this was supposed to be a “short flight” from Nashville to Houston. I looked up at M. about the same time as she looked up at me. “Does it seem like this flight is taking longer than it should?” I asked. Her reply? “I was going to ask if you thought we just made a U-turn.” Realization hit us at the same time. Uh-oh.
About 10 minutes later, the pilot announced that due to “weather” over Houston, we were now circling over Georgia and would need to stop to refuel soon. So, we landed in Arlington, LA., to refuel. We stayed there about 3 hours waiting for Houston to re-open following the storm. We were not allowed off the plane, but they did give us 2 packages of peanuts! Missed dinner again...glad I ate that fried okra!(I’d pack an MRE next time, but I’m afraid the security guys would confiscate it due to the matches.) We finally arrived in Houston, missed our plane going home, but were able to catch one on its way to LA. Close enough. As we were taxing out to the runway, there was a sickening thunk. Apparently, the tow bar broke, damaging the nose gear. M. and I burst out laughing, which the other passengers thought was a completely inappropriate response, I’m sure! So, back to the gate we went, so the mechanics could fix the problem.
We finally arrived in LA at 3:00 in the morning. We thought we’d catch a bus back close to home and beg my little brother to pick us up and take us the rest of the way. He loves me enough for that and was willing. But…did you know that the buses don’t run in the middle of the night? We didn’t. So we were waiting…and a police car pulled up. “Ladies, you look out of place. Can we help you?” The next thing I knew, I was riding in the back of the police car on the way to a car rental place, where the officers were so kind as to talk the bad car rental people down from $60/day to $12/day. Wow.
I called my boss, who sweetly asked if I’d like a sub for the day, under the circumstances. I don’t want to get on another plane for a very long time…..but, I’m leaving for DC on Sunday. Yikes!
Labels: adventures
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Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Wearing Two Hats
Wearing Two Hats
By Geoff Metcalf
“Many said selfishness was the flaw of our modern age; but then self-conceit emerged from a corner of the deepest hell to join selfishness.”
--Franz Grillparzer
Once upon a time, the military reserve components (National Guard and Reserves) served to supplement the U.S. military. More recently, (as at our founding) they have become a complementary force.
Approximately 80 percent of National Guard and military reservists have served in either Afghanistan or Iraq since 2001. Some of those reserve component troops have been deployed more than once. My old battalion commander told me of an E-9 in Rhode Island who was over ‘there' on his fifth tour!
In World War I, the National Guard made up 40% of the U.S. combat divisions in France; in World War II, National Guard units were among the first to deploy overseas and the first to fight.
Meanwhile, former New Mexico Adjutant General, Major General Melvyn S. Montano is complaining now that because of overstretched deployments, the guard can’t respond to local emergencies. Duh?!
"The National Guard, our nation's first responder to hurricanes, forest fires, tornadoes and other natural disasters, is not as prepared as they should be,'' Montano said in the Democratic Party's weekly radio address.
What the myopic Montano fails to recognize is the state mission is secondary, and that the mission oriented training is for war fighting. State emergencies come after the federal requirements. States may not like that, but hey…that is the deal.
States have been spoiled and grown dependent on the National Guard when tornadoes, hurricanes, forest fires and natural disasters strike. However, those very assets (helicopters, planes, heavy equipment and personnel) are there because of the dual mission of the reserve components.
About a year ago, I observed, National Guard troops serve two masters, and both have been very demanding. The Pentagon tasks Guardsmen to meet national force requirements. The governor tasks Guardsmen in the event of statewide emergency.
Mission-oriented training is imperative to all reserve component units. Once upon a time, reserve component units and individuals were used primarily as ‘supplemental' assets. They were used to replace stateside active-duty troops during overseas deployments. However, as times, assets, reduction in forces (something you can thank the Clinton administration for), and priorities changed, so did the role of the reserve components.
The Clinton administration pruned the military with a chain saw.
• 709,000 regular (active duty) service personnel
• 293,000 reserve troops
• Eight standing army divisions
• 20 air force and navy air wings with
* 2,000 combat aircraft
* 232 strategic bombers
• 13 strategic ballistic missile submarines with
* 3,114 nuclear warheads on 232 missiles
* 500 ICBMs with 1,950 warheads
• Four aircraft carriers
• 121 surface combat ships and submarines,
* plus all the support bases
* shipyards
* And logistical assets needed to sustain such a naval force.
Those military assets have been eliminated by civilian political policy wonks.
Even as Iraq and Afghanistan requirement rely on reserve component commitments, the international geopolitical macro picture suggests that ‘something somewhere' (Iran, North Korea, Syria, India/Pakistan, or even Africa) could require troop activations the Pentagon cannot meet with current force structures.
Some states that face a disproportionate number of state emergency activations could/should explore the benefits of creating disaster mission-oriented special units. But that costs money honey. And a key logistics challenge for both states and the feds is funding.
Frankly, one of the reasons National Guard troops get federal money and expensive toys is the government investment in the potential of utilizing the mixed-use assets. States benefit from the military table of organization and equipment (airplanes, helicopters, vehicles, radios, etc.) without having to actually pay for it. When state troops are federalized, the Pentagon gets to realize the return on its investment.
States score when the Pentagon isn't using reserve component resources. However, when (like now) state resources ARE being tasked by the Pentagon, states can (and will) be challenged with the potential of a statewide emergency with insufficient resources.
The deal is: the military provides the equipment and training ‘on the come’. States get the advantage of the resources as they wait (like firemen) in the hope they won’t be needed. However, when they are needed, they have a very real moral and ethical responsibility to answer that call.
If states don’t like the deal, they could try to opt out. However, there are consequences to reverting to primarily state controlled entities. The most significant is the loss of federal facilities, equipment AND money (just one C-130H costs over $30-Million).
By Geoff Metcalf
“Many said selfishness was the flaw of our modern age; but then self-conceit emerged from a corner of the deepest hell to join selfishness.”
--Franz Grillparzer
Once upon a time, the military reserve components (National Guard and Reserves) served to supplement the U.S. military. More recently, (as at our founding) they have become a complementary force.
Approximately 80 percent of National Guard and military reservists have served in either Afghanistan or Iraq since 2001. Some of those reserve component troops have been deployed more than once. My old battalion commander told me of an E-9 in Rhode Island who was over ‘there' on his fifth tour!
In World War I, the National Guard made up 40% of the U.S. combat divisions in France; in World War II, National Guard units were among the first to deploy overseas and the first to fight.
Meanwhile, former New Mexico Adjutant General, Major General Melvyn S. Montano is complaining now that because of overstretched deployments, the guard can’t respond to local emergencies. Duh?!
"The National Guard, our nation's first responder to hurricanes, forest fires, tornadoes and other natural disasters, is not as prepared as they should be,'' Montano said in the Democratic Party's weekly radio address.
What the myopic Montano fails to recognize is the state mission is secondary, and that the mission oriented training is for war fighting. State emergencies come after the federal requirements. States may not like that, but hey…that is the deal.
States have been spoiled and grown dependent on the National Guard when tornadoes, hurricanes, forest fires and natural disasters strike. However, those very assets (helicopters, planes, heavy equipment and personnel) are there because of the dual mission of the reserve components.
About a year ago, I observed, National Guard troops serve two masters, and both have been very demanding. The Pentagon tasks Guardsmen to meet national force requirements. The governor tasks Guardsmen in the event of statewide emergency.
Mission-oriented training is imperative to all reserve component units. Once upon a time, reserve component units and individuals were used primarily as ‘supplemental' assets. They were used to replace stateside active-duty troops during overseas deployments. However, as times, assets, reduction in forces (something you can thank the Clinton administration for), and priorities changed, so did the role of the reserve components.
The Clinton administration pruned the military with a chain saw.
• 709,000 regular (active duty) service personnel
• 293,000 reserve troops
• Eight standing army divisions
• 20 air force and navy air wings with
* 2,000 combat aircraft
* 232 strategic bombers
• 13 strategic ballistic missile submarines with
* 3,114 nuclear warheads on 232 missiles
* 500 ICBMs with 1,950 warheads
• Four aircraft carriers
• 121 surface combat ships and submarines,
* plus all the support bases
* shipyards
* And logistical assets needed to sustain such a naval force.
Those military assets have been eliminated by civilian political policy wonks.
Even as Iraq and Afghanistan requirement rely on reserve component commitments, the international geopolitical macro picture suggests that ‘something somewhere' (Iran, North Korea, Syria, India/Pakistan, or even Africa) could require troop activations the Pentagon cannot meet with current force structures.
Some states that face a disproportionate number of state emergency activations could/should explore the benefits of creating disaster mission-oriented special units. But that costs money honey. And a key logistics challenge for both states and the feds is funding.
Frankly, one of the reasons National Guard troops get federal money and expensive toys is the government investment in the potential of utilizing the mixed-use assets. States benefit from the military table of organization and equipment (airplanes, helicopters, vehicles, radios, etc.) without having to actually pay for it. When state troops are federalized, the Pentagon gets to realize the return on its investment.
States score when the Pentagon isn't using reserve component resources. However, when (like now) state resources ARE being tasked by the Pentagon, states can (and will) be challenged with the potential of a statewide emergency with insufficient resources.
The deal is: the military provides the equipment and training ‘on the come’. States get the advantage of the resources as they wait (like firemen) in the hope they won’t be needed. However, when they are needed, they have a very real moral and ethical responsibility to answer that call.
If states don’t like the deal, they could try to opt out. However, there are consequences to reverting to primarily state controlled entities. The most significant is the loss of federal facilities, equipment AND money (just one C-130H costs over $30-Million).
Posted by Sean
12:49 PM
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Monday, May 07, 2007
Protecting America's Most Precious Assets
Protecting America's Most Precious AssetsConvoy Duty at Fort Hunter Liggett
Hmmm!Look at that smug soldier defending the village from bad people
Labels: army
Posted by Sean
3:49 PM
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Hope Chest
I recently read HopeChest: A Reunion, compiled and edited by Natalie Nyquist. It was so wonderful to read the varied lives of so many of the contributors of this magazine for young Christian women. It is delightful to hear of the many ways that God works in lives and guides individual paths--such Divine Creativity!
There was one quote in particular that really resonated with me and that I wanted to share. One of the editors of the magazine, Fairlight Meyer, wrote, "One of my pastors frequently points out the false picture of Christianity we sometimes paint for those outside the faith: that we used to experience grief, pain, confusion, fear or other such like they do--before we knew Jesus and He fixed everything--when in reality, we still experience the suffering inherent to broken people on a broken planet, and that's why we all need Jesus."
She goes on to explain about a tragedy that happened in a family close to her, and other serious challenges going on in the lives of friends around her. And she says"...I've been thinking a lot about the Incarnation, and what it means to have a God who, though He doesn't always do what we want Him to do--make it all better or even tell us why---will come to us, and be present in our pain, and even weep with us. And I'm wondering if that might be part of our calling as Christians, too. If maybe our interaction with those outside the faith isn't all about a quick fix or well-framed answer either, but sometimes just about listening and hurting with them and being present."
There was one quote in particular that really resonated with me and that I wanted to share. One of the editors of the magazine, Fairlight Meyer, wrote, "One of my pastors frequently points out the false picture of Christianity we sometimes paint for those outside the faith: that we used to experience grief, pain, confusion, fear or other such like they do--before we knew Jesus and He fixed everything--when in reality, we still experience the suffering inherent to broken people on a broken planet, and that's why we all need Jesus."
She goes on to explain about a tragedy that happened in a family close to her, and other serious challenges going on in the lives of friends around her. And she says"...I've been thinking a lot about the Incarnation, and what it means to have a God who, though He doesn't always do what we want Him to do--make it all better or even tell us why---will come to us, and be present in our pain, and even weep with us. And I'm wondering if that might be part of our calling as Christians, too. If maybe our interaction with those outside the faith isn't all about a quick fix or well-framed answer either, but sometimes just about listening and hurting with them and being present."
Posted by Anonymous
11:32 AM
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