Every time I think about all those National Guard members in Iraq who should be home taking care of this, I get madder and madder. Thank you, BushCo:
With thousands of their citizen-soldiers away fighting in Iraq, states hit hard by Hurricane Katrina scrambled to muster forces for rescue and security missions yesterday — calling up Army bands and water-purification teams, among other units, and requesting help from distant states and the active-duty military.
As the devastation threatened to overwhelm state resources, federal authorities called on the Pentagon to mobilize active-duty aircraft, ships and troops and set up an unprecedented task force to coordinate a wider military response, said officials from the Northern Command, which oversees homeland defense.
National Guard officials in the states acknowledged that the scale of the destruction is stretching the limits of available manpower while placing another extraordinary demand on their troops — most of whom have already served tours in Iraq or Afghanistan or in homeland defense missions since 2001.
National Guard: Enough GIs for Storm Duty
Though thousands of National Guard personnel from Louisiana and Mississippi are serving in Iraq, off
We’re fighting terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight hurricane aftermaths here.
It’s the flypaper effect.