Creative Accounting, National Guard Style
Today is the “deadline” for sending “troops to the border” and it is time to take a look and determine if this is simply window dressing in the immigration debate. First, we need to go back to the Presidents Address to the Nation on May 15, 2006 to determine the actual deployment standard:
“By the end of 2008, we’ll increase the number of Border Patrol officers by an additional 6,000.”
“One way to help during this transition is to use the National Guard. So, in coordination with governors, up to 6,000 Guard members will be deployed to our southern border. The Border Patrol will remain in the lead. The Guard will assist the Border Patrol by operating surveillance systems, analyzing intelligence, installing fences and vehicle barriers, building patrol roads, and providing training.”
My plain reading is that 6,000 National Guardsmen are going to the border. Yesterday however, Col. Mark Allen, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau had something different to say:
“2,000 to 3,000 were on the border, most searching for illegal activity” and the the balance of “6,199 troops were somewhere in the four southwestern border states, with many still in training”
“The Guard never intended to have 6,000 troops “with their toes on the border”
So, the National Guard does not know if there are 2,000 or 3,000 soldiers at the border. But worse, up to 4,199 soldiers are hundreds of miles from the border doing who knows what.
We must also remember that these troops are sacraficing their two week Annual Training period, when they would normally practice their combat skills as a unit. So, just what are these troops doing instead of training for the War on Terror:
“California has assigned more than 1,200 troops, Guard spokesman Maj. Dan Markert said Monday. About half will be at the border looking for illegal activity; the other half will be in support roles ranging from plumbers to office workers.”
What kind of “bang for our buck” are we getting for these 6,000 soldiers that will be rotating in and out of the border states every two to three weeks?
“The number that we’d identified originally when we started planning this operation that would — the numbers of badges back to the border, if you will, was 581.”
Yep, all these hoops for 581 “badges back to the border.” We are paying the wages and travel costs (every two weeks) of 10 soldiers to put a single “badge back on the border.” More importantly, these soldiers are performing duties that will be of no use to them in preparing to serve on deployment in the Global War on Terror.
It is very clear that the President has been failed by his advisors in regards to Operation Jump Start.
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Posted by Stop The ACLU Special Contributor on August 1, 2006 11:57 am
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3 Responses to “Creative Accounting, National Guard Style”
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Syndicate Me
Remember, some of these National Guard troops ARE plumbers and office workers, not Infantry or MPs.
Yes, some of them are plumbers and office workers in their civilian jobs.
The vast majority of the National Guard is Combat Arms which is the opposite of the Army Reserve which is majority Combat Support.
That is simply one more flaw in the “plan.” If the President had wanted support personnel he should have tasked the mission to the Army Reserve. Besides, if the Army Reserve had been tasked, as President he has the authority to call them up unlike the Guard which is controlled by Governors.
What do you expect as the National Guard is just a creative way of depriving the people of a well regulated militia. Before the civil war towns controle their own militia according the the secound amendment. After the Civil War they we made the State Guard under state control and then in the early twentieth Century the were made the National Guard under National control. Notice how their control got further and further from the hands of the people. Why do you think that was?
Bush tried to cut back on their numbers of National Guard during an active war which upset state governors of both parties.