You need an education on the role of National Guard. It's primary mission is to serve as a readily availabe pool of trained soldiers to augment the active force in order to fight and win the nations wars, not provide disaster relief. These helicopters are paid for by the Defense Department, not the States, and therefore, the States don't own them.

Sorry, mate. You twisted the facts in your intent to slap down the article. Here is mission statement directly from the Nebraska National Guard website:

Citizens in Time of Peace

When a natural disaster strikes, whether it’s a tornado, flood, fire or blizzard, State Governors send their National Guard into action. These citizen soldiers become local heroes; saving lives, protecting property, and helping communities get back on their feet.

The Nebraska National Guard is always there to help our communities. National Guard units are located throughout the state and, when needed, can be mobilized to help the citizens of Nebraska.

Soldiers in Time of Need

The National Guard plays an important role in the defense of American interests around the world. The Nebraska National Guard receives the same training as the United States Army.

Overnight, Nebraskans can be in their military uniforms, on their way to protect our nation and its interests as part of America’s Total Force.

Always There, Always Ready.

The national guards are to protect us the "people" from a rouge federal government military. The federal governments sole purpose is to protect our constitutional solvrenty as a nation, our borders!

Actually, having been a recruiter, Danny Eakins is right in his email. The jargon shared by Zealander is nothing more than a feel good sales pitch.

"Danny Eakins" is a paid GOP blogger to desceminate propaganda. The GOP pays a small army of people to spread disinformation. They've admitted this & its easy to see if you spend enough time looking at news online. Most of the time they are the first to leave a comment & its almost always exactly the talking points of the GOP, word for word. I have about 7000 hours of experience over six years following this trend of right-wing propaganda. They don't care about morals, ethics, facts, or laws.

And "Julian Etheridge" claims to be a recruiter, which makes him the least trustworthy & makes a living lying to children to send them to murder & be maimed or killed.

I especially like the avoidance of the issue by these two people (Julian & Danny), which is the taking of vital resources from our country, which could & should be saving lives here, but instead is being used to slaughter people under false pretenses on the other side of the planet for oil companies. These people have no shame.

And "Lewis Goode" is a paid Democrat shill, which makes anything he says suspect.

Danny lies, and he knows it. Typical of a repub, twisting facts to suit their power grabs.
The NG has always been first and foremost, a home defense / disaster response branch of the armed service:

"During peace times, the National Guard is commanded by the governor, In it's "state" role, the National Guard assists local law enforcement agencies during emergencies at the direction of the governor. The distribution of soldiers, equipment and facilities across the state allows the National Guard to respond quickly and efficiently to emergencies statewide."

And, yes, "danny e". is a paid Repug shill.

Hmm, the only two states that have enough equipment just happen to be Bush & Cheney's home states. What an amazing coincidence!

Hmmm, so Wyoming still has 70% of its National Guard equipment and capability?

This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that Wyoming is Richard B. Cheney's home state, would it?

The National Guard or the International Guard?

Where will more lives be saved? We need these helicopters sitting around where they may or may not be used. Or we can positively saving lives. For the humanitarians,how many lives will be lost to genicide or does it matter. It was never mentioned that when we left Vietnam the result was 7 million killed.But it wasn't important or the news would have picked it up. The democrats had been talking of going into Iraq for five years before the vote was cast,so they were going regardless. Instead of having to answer for his wrong doing, "culture of corruption" Harry Reid tells the world we can not win this war.Notice since thedemocrats came out on their was stance just before the election. Since, we are loosing 21 more so
ldiers per month. Even if it were the truth it would be wrong. Just one more obstacle for our troop to hurtle. With Harry it just politics.

"So twenty million human beings were sacrificed to the satanic war god"
Dan Your accusations leave out some important facts. If anyone had the backbone to hold Germany to Stipulation set forth at the end of WWI, WWII would not have occured. Stalin killed as many as 23 million of his own people. Hitler was almost as bad. But the whole world turned a blind eye while Hitler prepared for war.Lucky for us he made several catistropic blunders.

MILITARY helicopters are extraordinarily expensive. They have one purpose: rapidly and safely deploying and retrieving soldiers in combat.

For these state-of-the-art war-fighting machines to sit folded up and idle on some dusty, desolate old tarmac in the U.S. Midwest while soldiers need them overseas is INSANE.

Thus, this anti-war blogger Brian Ross is insane for posting such ridiculous nonsense to his employer's website. I am glad he is not in control of our military resources.

There are plenty of private, semi-private helicopters that can be volunteered or marshaled in the event of a big disaster like a devastating flood.

I found it interesting to note that the Wyoming National Guard is doing quite well with eight Blackhawk helicopters and more than seventy percent of all its authorized equipment on hand. Dick Cheney is a former U.S. Congressman from Wyoming. I wonder if that has anything to do with how well the Wyoming Guard is doing with equipment? It appears, that Cheney takes care of his own--unless your name is Scooter Libby.

Here we go again. I agree that we are too dependent upon the national guard for the war. Thank you Bill Clinton for the peace dividend. If we did not cut the active duty forces in half on top of the 25% cut during the elder Bush years, this would not be an issue.

We need to win in Iraq. Let's stop whining and restart some of the factories being closed down like we did in WW2 and build what we need now. Let's get in this war to win. Then we will be able to take care of home and abroad.

"Thanks for the comments NonZionist"

Hate to sound pesimestic but this war was looking for a place to happen. Been a draw for almost a dozen nations wanting to get involved. Only good thing is we have sent many life-long terrorist to see allah. These were many of the people that have come to Iraq. So they have lost many "professionals".
In the past most were to poor to have easy access to America. Now that is starting to change. Half a dozen suicide bombers here could really cause some devastation and many lives lost.

Remember Bill Clinton giving away two Huey helicopters to buy votes for one of his bills that congress was voting on? After homestead airbase was destroyed by the hurricane,and determined was no longer needed. Bill had it rebuilt for a vote from a congressman. All the time he was cutting up thousands of M-14 rifles. He didn't get them all for I see soldiers using them in pictures from Iraq.

Living in Kansas, I laughed when the govenor decried he absence of NG helicopters and trucks. It is easy for a govenor to call a ready working party that the state does not have to pay overtime for in times of emergency, but by the same token, every state has a taxpayer funded highway department with a boat load of new orange trucks often seen parked at rest stops. The only problem is that you have to pay the state employees overtime wheras with NG personeel the bill goes to DC. It is all about money. Does the state cough up the dough or does the congress.
As for the NG being here for tornado and flood duty, thier primary mission is to support the AD forces. that is why they are called citizen soldiers and not citizen disaster workers.

Ofcourse they choppers are needed in Iraq. It is far more important to kill several thousand Iraqis trying to defend their country from an invader then to save a few square miles of forrest or the handfull of people who live there.

>

No, he's doing his job.

>

Conveient for the United States to enter the war they helped create just as all combatants were exhausted.

Just as it was conveient for the United States to attack Saddam in '90 after he'd been exhausted by a war instigated by the United States, a war in which both combatants were armed by the same United States government.

If any of you believed they did this out to save the world for democracy, then you continue to lend aid and comfort to the true enemies of our country, the ones who are continuing to get us into wars which even the father of our country would've denounced as un-American.

That's right, people. George Washington would've been appalled by this so-called Operation Iraqi Freedom, simply because the war was motivated by the self-interest of an empowered minority, rather than by our interests as a nation.

No, I haven't forgotten about 9/11. Nor have I forgotten that Saddamn Hussein was a secular dictator—a secular dictator supported by the current President Bush's father, his Vice-President and many of his cronies for over three decades.

Secular.

As in not religious,as in not affiliated with the brand of fundamentalist Islam which claims to be the basis of the al-Qaeda movement, as in someone who jihadists would want removed from power.

Such as the jihadists in the Saudi royal family who supported America's first attempt to remove Saddam from power.

I've also not forgotten that the man originially behind al-Qaeda was trained by our CIA and NSA(as were the Taliban).

And, no, Washington probably lacked expirience with folks willing to crash airplanes full of civilians into buildings full of same to get to Paradise.

He was, however, familiar with the acts of terror committed or attempted in his time.

And, with the many excuses and entangling alliances the British made to justify dragging American colonists into a European war which did not concern them or their fellow British subjects, and how such wars and the alliances behind them led to imperialism and to the corruption of the democratic principle.

That was why he spoke out against such things in his farewell address.

>

But, they are supposed to be citizens first and foremost, something which seems to have forgotten over the last two hundred-odd years.

Now, returning to the topic, the National Guard—in its various guises—has been the active-duty military in this country for most of our country's existence, Washington, amongst others, opposing ANY standing "professional" army as running counter to the letter and spirit of the law of the land, and completely contradictory to the democratic principle, this stemming from the use of mercenaries("regimented assassins" as Voltaire called them) in colonial and European wars, including the then-recent American Revolution.

That law, the Second Amendment in particular, would seem to indicate that militias comprised of citizens would be the land and naval forces the President would have responsibility for when called to arms in times of war or national emergency.

That militias of the several States would be subject to immeidate activation in times of domestic emergencies, such as natural disasters.

>

It is so easy to blame the previous President for the mistakes of the current one, especially if they are of allegedly opposing parties.

And, no doubt, Clinton must share some of the blame for the current disaster, as must the elder President Bush and his Defense Secretary, the man who is now his son's Vice-President.

There's plenty of blame to go around, more than enough for each and everyone of us Americans to share in, as we were the ones who put these people in power, knowing what they were capable of.

But playing the blame game, especially along partisan lines, is ludicrous and clouds the real issues concerning our entry into Iraq, the mess we've made of things, and the direction this is taking our country.

Scare tactics and patriotic sound bytes won't resolve the situation in Iraq.

Nor will anti-war sound bytes from people who supported the war when it was a cakewalk, only to turn against it after the people started shooting back and it became clear that our boys wouldn't be home by Christmas, and this war wasn't the blowout against an inferior opponent its backers said it would be.

Pumping up the number of soldiers in Iraq won't fix things, not against people who aren't hesitant about fighting a war of attrition to begin with.

Pulling our people out won't fix things, not to mention the fact it is the last word in gall to say,"we smashed your country and unleashed hordes of gunmen and suicide bombers to terrorize you, but hey, we got rid of the guy we put in to screw you over to begin with, so our job's done. It's your problem now."

These are the easy ways out, people, and, frankly, it's going to take hard work and cooperation from everyone to come up with a solution to clean up the mess we made of things over there for the last three decades.

You evidently didn't keep up with foriegn policy over the last forty or fifty years. If we had a country friendly to us we overlooked their government. If they were unfriendly,we may have dropped a banana peel under one foot. JF Kennedy really got this going. Yes we supplied arms to Iran & Iraq. Trying to keep a balance between them. This in the hopes neither would win or neither would loose.

Documents taken pertained to a terrorist assessment from 2000, before George W. Bush was sworn in as president. These reports from the Clinton administration's response to terrorist threats. A secret assessment that may, according to some reports,be damaging to the former administration.

National Security Adviser Samuel Berger, who was convicted of taking classified terrorism documents from the National Archives, has agreed to turn in his license to practice law.
By giving up his law license, Berger avoids being cross-examined by the Board on Bar Counsel which may require further details of his theft.

GW never promised anyone he would find WMD. How convenient to slip them into Syria. Democrate talked this up for five years. We would have gone there regardless. Haven't heard of any plans that made sense for withdrawal.

"Deployed out of state - mostly in Iraq".

Well I guess Mr. Bush must think out of state, out of mind.

By the way, I seem to be missing the spare tire from the trunk of my car. Paging Mr. Bush....

Let's ignor them and they will go away. We are not fighting a country but an ideology. Most insurgents are from at least half a dozen other countries. This breeding ground began 10 years before we went to Iraq. Don't agree with everthing that has gone on. But don't be a talking head for King George Soros either. Guess you missed the story on National Security Adviser Samuel Berger and his monkeying with the records. Congress had the information on Iraq when they voted to go in and remove Saddam. We can't put him back and leave, word is he's deceased. Turned out to be a tougher task than we thought. Let's just go home. Democrats could make their opinions known on the campaign trail. It's costing at least 21 soldiers lives a month more but we need to exercise our first amendment. Job approval for congress is through the roof also.

You can't divorce religious belief and public service I've never detected any conflict between God's will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other.
Jimmy Carter

Maybe morals don't have any place in politics.

Back to the subject of helicopters- There are large numbers of non-Guard /Military copters that are available for disaster relief. The states should make a deal with these commercial services.

No one complained when Clinton cut the defense budgetfor seven years and manpower by one third in the 90's. His whole plan was to have a citizen soldier. So he could say that he cut govt. spending and reduce the size of the govt. Depending on the State's Guard was Clinton's plan, not a smart one, but now we are having to deal with it, like it or not!

re The publication of forthcoming covert military operations in a time of war is treason.

Treason is illegally invading another country as was done In Iraq and is bein planned for Iran. When are you people going to stop the Treasonus deceit of this administration. You aren't fooling 75 per cent of Americans.

GEORGE W. BUSH IS DESTROYING THE U.$. MILITARY. HE'S ALSO BANKRUPTING THE COUNTRY AND MAKING AMERIKA A PARIAH ALL OVER THE WORLD.

NEVER HAVE AMERIKANS BEEN SO HATED AND DESPISED AS THEY ARE NOW. IT'S BOTH EMBARRASSING AND SOMEWHAT PERILOUS TO BE AN AMERIKAN ABROAD. WHEN I TRAVEL OUTSIDE THE COUNTRY, I NEVER SHOW MY PASSPORT UNLESS I HAVE TO... AND I DISGUISE MYSELF AS A CANADIAN BUSINESSMAN FROM EDMONTON. I EVEN WEAR CANADIAN T-SHIRTS AND CANADIAN LAPEL PINS.

THIS IS HOW BAD THINGS ARE FOR AMERIKANS ABROAD ROME IS BURNING IN IRAQ-NAM... WHILE OUR DRY DRUNK $OCIOPATHIC PRESIDENT RIDES HIS LITTLE BOY BIKE AROUND THE TEXASSS RANCH!

This web site gives stats on the National Guard from 1982 through 1998 and the effect the Clinton White House had on their numbers.
http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/589_national_guard_summary.html

This one tells what unit was deployed and and from what state.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May2007/d20070523ngr.pdf

The National Guard is financed by the states. They are suppose to be under the direction of the Governor. Now when returning National Guardsmen come back, the states have to pay them, but the US Govt has not given enough money to the states for this so those returning troops are broke, and will stay so for quite a while. The use of the National Guard in a foreign country is illegal.
But since another person has written about Clinton cutting the military, we are at Bush's whim, also since the Congress of the US is backing him. The National Guard should never have been used in this action, but oh, well. As I see it, our leaders in Congress have no back bone, and if the people of this country march against him they are deemed in the wrong. So we will fight to live another day.

Here's a thought, make
more helicopters. We can't
go on whining for the next 50 years that assets we need for stateside disasters-of-the-week are being used to combat radical fascist Islamists.

"GEORGE W. BUSH IS DESTROYING THE U.$. MILITARY. HE'S ALSO BANKRUPTING THE COUNTRY AND MAKING AMERIKA A PARIAH ALL OVER THE WORLD."
_____________________________

Lyndon Johnson took out Social Security and paid for the Vietnam war and your bitching about Iraq.

In my opinion, the demagoguery of the great former President Jimmy Carter by the illegal President currently occupying the oval office George Bush and his corrupt and deceitful administration who in my opinion are attemping to place the American people under the rule of an oligarchy form of government in which a few persons hold the ruling power is pure despotism. In my opinion, President Carter who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 has rightly criticized Bush for his inadequecy and dealings as the President of the United States in an array of statements and accounts conducted by this current Bush administration. The former President Carter has been quoted as saying : “ this Bush administration is had the worst adverse effect on the nation and the world in history”. And he went on and explained that Bush had overseen an “overt reversal of America’s basic valves”.

This out right attack by Bush and his administration that Carter is irrlevant is to me demagoguery at its worst. For Bush and his administration to slander a former President of the United States in this manner is repugnant and disrespectful in my opinion, and it is unamerican for anyone to denounce a person of such high morals, great intellect, and a person who has shown the world his devotion to world peace throughout his career and his love for this country and his dedication to the service of humanity. Former President Carter when compare to Bush on any level of intellect, morality, or place in history is quite self explanatory. Bush is the son of a former President who rode the coattails of his father’s political might to become the Governor of Texas. Bush used his Governorship and the help of his father and brother in his quest for the Presidency of the United States. In my opinion Bush did not win the office of the President. He with the help of the elite rich, powerful, greedy, and corrupt individuals and corporations who form the despot Republican Party of the United States stole the Presidency by corruption, fraud, and abuse of the U.S. election laws and the down right deceptions at the voting place thoughout the country. This election process was twarted by the United States Supreme Court which was controlled by the Republicans when they in affect appointed Bush to become President. The comparison between Bush and Carter is like trying to compare a grain of sand with the vastness of the cosmos, there is no comparison. Bush who for the better part of his pre-politician existence was a wild egoist individual who often times bragged about his escapades of drinking and chasing after pretty women. There have been reports of him sniffing cocaine and being caught for driving under the influnce of alcohol as well as being AWOL from military duty. Of course all these things have just been reported and as of this date none have been substantiated or proven, but does cast a shadow over his over all worthiest as an individual.
Comparing former President Carter to the current President Bush is almost laughable if not for the position they are or were in. The former President Carter has recieved the Nobel Peace Prize, an a remarkable record in service to his country and to the world, a President of the United States, a nuclear physics, a carpenter, a poet, and many other thing that are to numerous to list in this short article. Former President Carter’s recent comments concerning the Iraq war being a “major tragedy” hit the nail on the head and was jusified in saying so. These despot Republicans in my opinion are aborminable, loyal, blind, and apparently subservient to Bush and his administration. This Bush administration and his Republican coharts has plunged this country in the biggest mess in history. The press and the TV talking heads is trying to cast all the focus onto Prime Minster Blair of Great Britain to minimize the role of the Bush administration part in the Iraq war. George Bush the “Decider” and his Republican coharts are using as one of their defenses, is to be more correct in their actions because the world thinks because Great Britain is backing them when in reality Great Britain has a vested interest in Iraq going back many years and that interest is the same as the United States, oil, oil, oil..... and that is what this war is about plain and simple. Anyway anyone twist the facts it is these elite, rich, and power hungry despots Republicans and their coharts who will go to any extreme to justify their greedy thrist for power and the almighty dollar. President Carter is right that the combination of Bush and Blair giving their support to this tragedy in Iraq has strengthened in efforts, and has made opposition less effective and has prolonged this war and increased the tragdy that has resulted. Bush and his administration’s environmental policies are quite distrubing faith-based initiative funding has made a mockery of the environmental issues and separation of church and state. These U.S. Congresspersons that are currently serving in Congress sure are not doing much to hold this administration’s feet to the fire in my opinion, and it sure is nice and past time for someone to speak out and tell the truth about the going on in Washington D.C. and within this corrupt Bush administration.

This Bush administration has taken this country in my opinion, on a radical departure from all previous administrations policies by the endorsement of the concept of pre-emptive strike against another country, and has usurp the power of Congress to declare war in violation of the U.S. Constitution in my opinion. Former President Carter has honestly and rightly criticized Bush and his administration for having a “zero peace talks” in Israel and have “ abandoned or directly refuted” every negotiated nuclear arms agreement, as well as evironmental efforts by other President.
It seems this Bush administration policies are quite different than President Carter’s administration by currently allocating funds to religious institutions, even those that channel those funds exclusively to their own particular group of believers in a particular religion. It seems to me that Bush as President does not honor the premise that all prevously elected Presidents have honored that of separation of church and state. Back in the 1970’s when Carter was President he proposed a ten year program that would eliminate this country’s need for foreign energy supply and dependence. If this nation and the American people had the foresight back then to implement this ten year program we would not be in this terrible mess we’re in today depending on people that hate us to provide us with energy such as gas and oil. I salute former President Carter far all his has done for America and the world. He is a great man, and much much more, and George Bush the “Decider” can’t hold a candle to him, or for that matter every rise to the greatness of Jimmy Carter. William in Alabama.

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