National Guard for ineffective help in fighting the California fires.

Overheated Rhetoric

Quote :

"California Fires: Sen. Harry Reid blames global warming. Sen. Barbara Boxer says they're President Bush's fault. Rather than participate in a civilized discussion, the Democrats' first impulse is to play politics."

Quote :

"Also on Tuesday, California Democrat Boxer complained that the state's National Guard cannot effectively help during disasters such as the fires because Bush has sent too many men and too much equipment overseas. 'Right now, we are down 50% in terms of our National Guard equipment,' Boxer said during a Senate hearing, 'because they're all in Iraq, the equipment, half of the equipment.' Boxer's stance is a bit more plausible than Reid's nonsense, but it fails to hold up under scrutiny. Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter of California provides the bigger picture and it undermines Boxer's claim. Hunter, who was chairman of the Armed Services Committee for the past four years, notes that the U.S. has '2.5 million people under arms' and 'less than 8% of those people in the war fighting . . . in Iraq and Afghanistan.' Rank politicization of the fires also can be found at the state level, where California Democratic Lt. Gov. John Garamendi said Tuesday that Bush's planned California visit is a 'public relations' ploy that will distract firefighters from their duties. Garamendi would rather have 'our National Guard back from Iraq' than to endure Bush's visit."

http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=278119564469549

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hBcq4mZyfRI

Un-fucking-believable.

10/25/2007 2:37:20 AM

Quote :

"Hunter, who was chairman of the Armed Services Committee for the past four years, notes that the U.S. has '2.5 million people under arms' and 'less than 8% of those people in the war fighting . . . in Iraq and Afghanistan.' "

I would like to point out that this is a misleading statistic. 14% of troops in ALL the armed forces are the actual ground troops that do the dirty work. I don't know how much of that 8% is composed of those 14%, but i'd imagine they're the majority. Which puts a right good many of the people that would ordinarily be here doing stuff, doing other stuff elsewhere.

source: http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos249.htm

10/25/2007 2:49:01 AM

It's stuff like this that angers me over the locking of the "Politicize the CA Wildfires" thread.

George Bush doesn't care about white people.

10/25/2007 2:51:26 AM

Quote :

"'Right now, we are down 50% in terms of our National Guard equipment,' Boxer said during a Senate hearing, 'because they're all in Iraq, the equipment, half of the equipment.' Boxer's stance is a bit more plausible than Reid's nonsense, but it fails to hold up under scrutiny. Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter of California provides the bigger picture and it undermines Boxer's claim. Hunter, who was chairman of the Armed Services Committee for the past four years, notes that the U.S. has '2.5 million people under arms' and 'less than 8% of those people in the war fighting . . . in Iraq and Afghanistan.'"

I'm confused. In the first paragraph, Boxer is talking about equipment. But in the second paragraph they're using Hunter's statistic about people to counter the statistic about equipment...

?

[Edited on October 25, 2007 at 4:16 AM. Reason : ?]

10/25/2007 4:10:47 AM

TSB is apparently now a daily "what insignificant shit did the dems do today that hooksaw wants to vagina bleed about"

10/25/2007 8:04:21 AM

Quote :

"It's stuff like this that angers me over the locking of the "Politicize the CA Wildfires" thread."

aha i gotta send a link to this to kev

10/25/2007 8:42:10 AM

i mean even if it were only 500 troops that is 500 that could have been fighting the fires in CA. After all the national guard is not meant to be used for imperialist ambitions of the federal government. This would have been like George Washington rounding up the NC militia to go on the offensive in Quebec against british troops during the American Revolution.

10/25/2007 10:03:37 AM

or George Washington rounding up 12 thousand men to go after 20 guys in a smalltown who were pissed off on whiskey.



oh, wait.

10/25/2007 10:12:27 AM

at least we could argue that this occurred on our home soil which is what the national guard is there for. China could invade the mainland today and all of our troops would be busy driving Humvees around the sand dunes in Iraq.

10/25/2007 10:16:28 AM

yes but i think we can agree that the chinks wouldn't get past compton.

10/25/2007 10:28:28 AM

Get the fuck out you sarcastic hack.

10/25/2007 10:32:06 AM

shit, i've finally drawn the eye of the great beast

this is me leaving.

this is me leaving.

10/25/2007 10:39:32 AM

Quote :

"TSB is apparently now a daily "what insignificant shit did the dems do today that hooksaw wants to vagina bleed about""

[/thread]

10/25/2007 5:36:12 PM

^ Yeah, that shows that you motherfuckers have got nothing but insults--while some top Democrats continue to insult Americans' intelligence. STFU.

DODD GETS POLITICAL ON CA FIRES

Quote :

"Asked by reporters to elaborate after his speech, the Connecticut senator cited the Bush Administration’s failure to provide sufficient funding to first responders. 'The administration, of course, didn’t fully fund the Fire Act and Safer Bill,' he said, 'so we’re still short. The new system, which we’ve written, is a risked-based system, which California would obviously qualify for.' He also cited over-exertion of the National Guard due to the war in Iraq as causing a shortage in area first responders -- a criticism of the Bush Administration that was also raised by Democrats in May, after a deadly tornado struck Kansas. 'You saw it in Kansas not long ago,' Dodd said, 'you’ve seen it in other jurisdictions here, where because we’ve got men and women in Iraq in the National Guard, we don’t have them back in these states doing the kind of jobs they can do when these tragedies occur.'"

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/10/24/429519.aspx

Where is the National Guard?

Quote :

"But as someone who believes the war in Iraq is a complete disaster and that we need to get our troops out now (http://www.getourtroopsout.com), I look at the natural disaster in California and feel compelled to also ask President Bush and every candidate who thinks it is okay for our troops to remain in Iraq until 2013 or longer - where is our National Guard? It is a sad irony that yesterday, the very day I sent fire crews to California, 300 more New Mexico National Guard members were sent to Iraq. Just when we need them most at home, more of our brave men and women, true public servants, are sent away to a war we cannot win. Never before in our history has our National Guard, a group of dedicated men and women who serve our country and provide critical aid in the time of natural disasters been used, and re-used, for so long to fight a war tens of thousands of miles away."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gov-bill-richardson/where-is-the-national-gua_b_69735.html

10/25/2007 6:05:27 PM

Your threads are boring.

10/25/2007 8:10:05 PM

Didn't you know? The fires were started by al Qaeda.
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Fox_advances_theory_that_CA_fires_1024.html

10/25/2007 8:46:25 PM

^^ Then why do you keep coming back to them, you bald-headed, masochistic fuck?

And BTW, Reid, Boxer, Richardson, Dodd, and some others are liars.

Guard Called in to Fight California Fires

Quote :

"The California Guard has more than 17,000 Soldiers and Airmen available to the governor. Some 34,000 are available in the western region, and nationally, 390,000 Guardmembers are available, the National Guard Bureau reported."

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,154618,00.html

From Army News Service

Fire Response Not Hurt by Deployments

Quote :

"ARLINGTON, Va. — The commitment of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have not affected the Pentagon's ability to direct personnel or supplies to the firefighting effort in California, according to military officials. 'I can tell you unequivocally that the ongoing warfighting activities in [U.S. Central Command] have had no negative effect at all with regard to our ability to provide sufficient forces to assist civilian authorities in fighting the wildfires,' Paul McHale, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, told Pentagon reporters Tuesday. On Tuesday, Democratic California Sen. Barbara Boxer said she believed the state National Guard's ability to fight the fires has been compromised because it is stretched too thin by the Iraq war. But McHale said that 'there is no manpower shortage in terms of actual firefighting activities,' noting that of the more than 17,000 Guardsmen currently available to fight the fires, only 1,500 been brought to active duty. Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said at the news conference that the Pentagon accounted for fire season when deciding which Reserve units to send overseas. The 3,000 soldiers from California who are deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan 'were carefully selected knowing that they would be away during the firefighting season,' Blum said. 'We were very, very careful to not take capabilities away from the state of California that might be useful in fighting forest fires.' Blum said that the National Guard Bureau also mitigated any risk by signing compacts between the states — particularly Oregon and Nevada — whose Guard units could assist in the firefighting effort."

http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,154753,00.html

From Stars and Stripes

10/26/2007 1:15:34 AM

Global warming not a factor in wildfires

Quote :

"Are the massive fires burning across Southern California a product of global warming? Scientists said it would be difficult to make that case, given the dangerous mix of drought and wind that has plagued the region for centuries or more."

Quote :

"'That is a fire-prone environment regardless of whether we are in a climate-change scenario,' said Tom Wordell, a wildfire analyst at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. 'I don't want to be callous, because many people are homeless and suffering, but if you live in a snake pit, you're going to get bit.'"

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-warming25oct25,1,7881915.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

10/27/2007 6:35:50 AM

^ No fucking shit. Thanks for pointing that out.

10/27/2007 6:59:52 AM

^ No fucking problem.

10/27/2007 7:03:35 AM