You might have read about (or are personally experiencing) the massive snowstorms hitting the Plains states. So what does that have to do with Iraq? From the NY Times:
Colorado and Kansas were trying to find enough helicopters capable of hauling hay bales weighing up to 1,300 pounds, said Don Ament, Colorado's agriculture director. Many helicopters in the state's National Guard fleet are in the Middle East.
That is supposed to be the primary role of the Guard: natural disaster, backup for enforcing civil order, and threats against the country itself (I refuse to use that Orwellian-sounding concoction, "the homeland"). It shouldn't be a way to permanently increase the size of the active military without reinstating the draft: the guardsmen sign on for that, but they actually have other, very important things they should be doing. Consider this the domestic equivalent of the deterioration of our foreign policy apparatus.
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I was a little surprised that this didn't come up more often during the Katrina fiasco. How different might that have turned out if our Guardsmen were actually back at home and able to help their fellow citizens in that time of great need rather than stuck across the globe dying in some worthless scrap desert?
Re Joshua
The reason why Guardsmen (and women) are dying in some worthless desert is because that worthless desert has the second largest oil reserves in the world.
Oil, like Communism, is a red herring. See, that would be a rational goal. Morally bankrupt, but rational. What makes you think this administration's goals are rational?
SLC -
I have to agree with joshua in a way here. A comprehensive plan to secure Iraqi oil would certainly NOT have involved the slide into chaos that Iraq has undergone. Although the assorted oil companies of the world would love unfettered access to Iraqi resources, they simply cannot operate in an environment of anarchy. Just being the most powerful force in the vicinity isn't enough.
No, the Neocons just wanted a war almost for it's own sake. There were vague ideas about obtaining oil and/or spreading democracy, but really they just wanted to show how they could kick ass. That was decided long before any of the justifications were thought of.
You might was well sat that a creationist thinks that the world was created because of percieved flaws in carbon dating, or because they were convinved by 'flood geology', when you know that they are creationists a priori, and any attempt at justifing it is just window dressing.