Maybe Dems will "Stay the Course"

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This doesn't sound like anyone is expecting anything to change with the
"new" Congress:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061111/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/national_guard_iraq_2

Nat'l Guard units face 2nd tours in Iraq

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is developing plans that for the first time would send entire National Guard combat brigades back to Iraq for a second tour, the Guard's top general said in the latest sign of how thinly stretched the military has become.

Smaller units and individual troops from the Guard have already returned to Iraq for longer periods, and some active duty units have served multiple tours. Brigades generally have about 3,500 troops.

The move — which could include brigades from North Carolina, Florida, Arkansas and Indiana — would force the Pentagon to make the first large-scale departure from its previous decision not to deploy reserves for more than a cumulative 24 months in Iraq.

For some units, a second tour would mean they would likely exceed that two-year maximum. The planning was described by Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, who commands the Guard, in an Associated Press interview this week.

[Note: Who does not have a seat on the JCS.]

In a related move, the Pentagon is preparing to release a list of active units — and perhaps reserves as well — scheduled to go to Iraq that would largely maintain the current level of forces there over the next two years, another senior defense official said on Thursday. There are about 152,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

[Is it completely forbidden to even ask nowadays what the slightest possibility
about when the Iraqis are going to take care of themselves?
]

That official requested anonymity because the plan has not been made public.

The Pentagon routinely notifies units to prepare for deployment, knowing it is easier to cancel a move overseas than to suddenly make such a large troop movement.

It was not clear whether this week's resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld would affect deployment plans. President Bush has selected former CIA chief Robert Gates, who has criticized U.S. policy in Iraq, to replace Rumsfeld, but he has not yet been confirmed by the Senate.

"We are doing contingency planning for one or two (units), and we have contingency plans for more than two if necessary," Blum said on Wednesday. The North Carolina brigade, he said, is being considered since it was one of the first to go to Iraq after the war began in 2003.

Blum also said defense officials have been discussing whether they need to adjust their policy that limits the deployment of reserves in the war to 24 months.

[It's not a policy, it's something called a "Law" and Congress has not changed it.]

"When that policy was originally formulated, I seriously doubt anyone thought we would be where we are today, at the level of commitment that is necessary today," he said.

Just last month, defense officials said the Marines are drawing up similar plans that would for the first time send some reserve combat battalions back to Iraq for a second tour.

Under the authority by which Bush ordered a call-up of the Guard and Reserve after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, troops could be mobilized an unlimited number of times[?!] as long as each mobilization is no longer than 24 consecutive months.

[I doubt Partial Mobilization under the President alone was to mean 24 month
deployments in perpetuity. Does anyone remember the concept of FULL
MOBILIZATION through a DECLARATION OF WAR BY CONGRESS? BTW, what
year are we in right now?
]

Until now, Pentagon officials have interpreted that as 24 cumulative months.

[Checks....balances.....broken.......]

While the ultimate goal for the National Guard is to deploy one year overseas and spend six years at home, Blum said the current demands could force soldiers to deploy as often as one year every three or four years.

[In perpetuity?].

Blum said he believes that Guard combat brigades are prepared and willing to make a second trip to Iraq if needed.

[Can I take an anonymous poll on that one?]

Blum said the first units to deploy in the war — such as the 30th Infantry Brigade from North Carolina, the 76th Infantry Brigade from Indiana, the 53rd Infantry Brigade from Florida, and the 39th Infantry Brigade from Arkansas — would likely be among those first called for a second tour.

"Logic would lead you to go back to the ones that went first, and start going around again," said Blum. "But that's probably not exactly how we'll do it" because the decision will depend partly on what types of units are needed.

Blum also said the Pentagon will no longer break up the brigades and send them to war in smaller units. He said the Guard wants to keep brigades together because they are more effective working as a team.

All of the National Guard's combat units have been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan as a full brigade except South Carolina's 218th Infantry. Smaller groups of its soldiers have been mobilized periodically for homeland defense and numerous missions abroad, including Iraq.

Blum said the remainder of the 218th is preparing to go to Afghanistan next year, if needed.

Sigh....Just a thought --is Blum retiring soon, too? Interesting timing for
this to come out on Veteran's Day.
 
Yes and once they fully commit our military they can then ask for a little help from our friends at the UN to deal with this little problem of "guns" America has. Unlikely? Perhaps but I bet the backroom stragtegists at VPC, Brady et.al. have discussed this possibility.
 
I think what we're more likely to see is another domestic disaster (natural or
otherwise) in which the NG and Reserve are overseas and you end up with
outsiders coming into a locale who exercise the heavy-handed approach we
all saw in NOLA last year.

Despite the new laws supposedly protecting citizens from gun confiscation,
etc, all it takes is a freshly penned Executive Order that waves all that
away with a scoffing hand.

It's obvious given how this country's war powers are being misused that the
Constitution and the laws derived from it are of little relevance today.

Likewise, even at THR we have people who are more concerned about whether
civilians should be able to possess cannons, WMDs, and multimillion $ hardware
(yeah, just tack that onto the home mortagage :rolleyes: ) rather than how the forces
who actually possess them are being used by their own government!


Garrison the globe with the Active Duty? Shoulder shrug.
Activate the NG and Reserve in perpetuity? Shoulder shrug.
Send in armed people from who knows where to police a domestic situation?
Stops, looks around, suddenly becomes concerned if it's in their backyard
Wakes up one day and learns of a new Executive Order serverely restricting RKBA?
Gets mad, but will comply.

Why? Because as a people Americans have abrogated rather than delegated
(but retained)
their oversight to the use of state force to the government.
This is why for a number of days now I have attempted to point out the
serf mentality that has all but taken complete hold among people.

When it comes to state force they have already sold their oversight of it
to their feudal lord in return for the protection for which the serf hungers.
People on the right often complain of the "nanny state" that the left promotes
that infantilizes one segment of the population and keeps them attached to
the government breast for life, yet at the same time they ignore their own
suckling of the other breast for security. Yes, people, there are two of them
and there's a political left and a right for a reason.

So when the people no longer exercise authority over the use of state force,
the state will eventually exercise authority over them.
 
The Pentagon is developing plans

Of course they are. That's what they do.

They have detailed plans to
Get out of Iraq
Stay in Iraq
Bust up Iraq
Merge Iraq with Turkey
Invade Mexico
Invade Canada
Invade Cuba
Leave Cuba
Build a new Panama canal
Protect the UN
Help the UN move to some other continent
Leave Korea
Invade N Korea
Obliterate N Korea

You name the scenario, and someone in the Pentagon has already planned it and is keeping the plan updated.

Anything comes up, pull up the plan, dust it off, give it an updated news spin, and execute.
 
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