I’ve posted 2 posts over at The Talon (that are waiting to be approved), I’ve completed 6 CENTCOM reports, I’ve written a couple of articles, I called to order cigs which I did not know that there is one brand that is BANNED from Califonia, I’ve swept, I’ve called the plumber…twice, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Now if you’ll excuse, GOOD NIGHT! 
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Digg!
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The Islamist takeover of Gaza is really the first stage in Iran’s new summer offensive against the West.
The Hamas takeover was not factional rivalry that spun out of control. It was clearly a deliberate, planned military campaign. In the Gaza town of Khan Yunis, for example, Hamas fighters destroyed the headquarters of the Fatah-controlled security forces by detonating a one-ton bomb buried in a tunnel under the building. This is more than a civil war: it is a carefully planned, well-executed revolutionary putsch against the Palestinian Authority.
What happened after the Hamas military victory is even more telling. Stories have been filtering out about Fatah supporters being rounded up into prison camps, of Fatah fighters being bound and thrown off of high-rise rooftops or subject to summary executions in the street. Having taken power by brute force, Hamas is making it clear that it intends to rule by fear. Summing up all of these events, a spokesman for Hamas declared, “The era of justice and Islamic rule have arrived.”
This should all be familiar. The same kind of “justice” and Islamic rule arrived in Iran in 1979—and now Iran has finally managed to export its Islamic Revolution into the Sunni Arab world. Gaza is now an outpost of Iranian-inspired totalitarian Islamic rule.
And there is a good possibility that this won’t stop in Gaza. Fatah is a leftover of the old era of the quasi-secular nationalist Arab “strongman.” But Fatah’s strongman Yasser Arafat is dead, both literally and metaphorically: his type is losing out, in the Muslim world, to the revived Islamist movement represented by Hamas. One side in this conflict is tired and dispirited—while the other is fanatically devoted and believes that it has the forces of history on its side.
While jubilant Hamas fighters stormed the last remaining Fatah redoubts in Gaza, Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas responded by calling for new elections. The overall sense coming from Fatah spokesmen is not one of defiance or resolve, but a sense of resignation and despair. “There is no future for us,” one Fatah supporter told the New York Times, while a Palestinian Authority official concluded, “We Palestinians are writing the final chapters of our national enterprise.” It should be no surprise to hear that hundreds of Fatah officials have already fled to Egypt. Fatah is a sinking ship, and the rats who make up its crew are deserting it. At this rate, Fatah will ultimately lose, not only Gaza, but the West Bank as well.
Seeing Fatah thugs dragged into the streets and shot by a rival gang of terrorists may not cause us to shed any tears—it couldn’t happen to a more deserving group of people—but we shouldn’t be deceived into thinking of this as a purely internal, factional struggle. During the first Palestinian intifada, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, most of the people killed by Palestinian terrorists were other Palestinians—those who were considered “collaborators” or advocates of peace with Israel. It was necessary for Arafat to eliminate all Palestinian opposition, so that he could take over the Palestinian territories (with our help, alas) and use them as a base from which to attack Israel.
This time, it is Iran—the main financial, military, and ideological sponsor of Hamas—that is seeking to take over. So, too, in Lebanon, where Iran’s satellite, Syria, is also using factional fighting as an excuse to liquidate opposition—as in the latest assassination of an anti-Syrian politician. Syria seeks to break Lebanon between a new Sunni Islamist uprising in the north and the Shiite Islamist Hezbollah militia in the south—all with the goal of reasserting Syrian and Iranian control.
Add to this the continuing Iranian support for insurgents in Iraq and new evidence that Iran is providing weapons and training to the Taliban in Afghanistan—an act of war against the United States, not to mention the entire NATO alliance—and we can see the whole regional picture. In Lebanon, Iran has used Hezbollah to establish a base against Israel on the north, which is now matched by Gaza as a base against Israel on the South. Iraq is under siege from both sides, with Syrian and Iranian support pouring in to both Sunni and Shiite terrorist gangs—while Iran has now begun to strike out eastward against the US and NATO in Afghanistan.
In short, Iran is bent on regional domination, and it is advancing on all fronts.
This is exactly the picture that emerged during Iran’s last summer offensive: Hezbollah’s rocket war against Israel in July and August of last year. The only thing that has changed in our strategic position since then is that things have gotten worse: Iran has been emboldened to make further advances, while a Democratic victory in the US election has reassured Iran and Syria that America will eventually retreat and abandon the region to their control.
If we’re not going to surrender to this Iranian onslaught—if we’re not going to forget the lessons of September 11 and allow terrorist-sponsoring Islamist regimes to metastasize across the Middle East—we need to start fighting back immediately.
Tired, discredited, and possibly broken by his failures in Iraq, President Bush seems to have given up on providing any leadership against the Iranian threat. Fortunately, we still have Joe Lieberman, who has established himself as the only political figure willing to lead in this crisis by declaring that we should start an air war against Iran in retaliation for its acts of war against US troops in Iraq. What is really new in Lieberman’s declaration is that he has proposed the use of military force against Iran, not as potential future measure to pre-empt Iran’s nuclear weapons program, but as an immediate act of retaliation in response to the war Iran is already waging against us.
Our enemy in that war is already on the offensive in the farthest-flung corners of its would-be empire, from the Mediterranean to the Himalayas—but it is vulnerable at the center. There is still time for an air war against Iran itself, targeting terrorist training camps, nuclear facilities, assets of the Iranian Revolution Guard, and the gasoline supply lines that keep the Iranian economy moving, all with the aim of bringing down the regime.
It’s that—or surrender the greater Middle East to a nuclear-armed Islamist empire headed by Iran.
The article below is a long read, but well worth the effort.
A Strategy for Security?
The attacks of 9/11 exposed the magnitude of the threats we face, and, ever since then, one question has become a depressing fixture of our lives: Are we safe? Scarcely two years ago, many Americans believed that our salvation was imminent, for the means of achieving our security was at hand; no longer would we have to live in dread of further catastrophic attacks. These people were swept up in euphoric hope inspired by the Bush administration’s new strategy in the Middle East. The strategy promised to deliver permanent security for our nation. It promised to eradicate the fundamental source of Islamic terrorism. It promised to make us safe.
The strategy’s premise was simple: “[T]he security of our nation,” President Bush explained, “depends on the advance of liberty in other nations”;1 we bring democracy to the Middle East, and thereby make ourselves safer. To many Americans, this sounded plausible: Western nations, such as ours, are peaceful, since they have no interest in waging war except in self-defense: Their prosperity depends on trade, not on conquest or plunder; the more such nations in the world, the better off we would be. Informally, Bush called this idea the “forward strategy for freedom.”2
By January 2005, an early milestone of this strategy was manifest to all. Seemingly every news outlet showed us the images of smiling Iraqis displaying their ink-stained fingers. They had just voted in the first elections in liberated Iraq. Those images, according to breathless pundits, symbolized a momentous development.
Commentators saw reason to believe Bush’s grandiose prediction of 2003, when he declared: “Iraqi democracy will succeed—and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Teheran—that freedom can be the future of every nation. The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution.”3 At the summit of the Arab League in 2004, according to Reuters, Arab heads of state had “promised to promote democracy, expand popular participation in politics, and reinforce women’s rights and civil society.”4 By the spring of 2005, several Arab regimes had announced plans to hold popular elections.
Even confirmed opponents of Bush applauded the strategy. An editorial in the New York Times in March 2005, for example, declared that the “long-frozen political order seems to be cracking all over the Middle East.” The year so far had been full of “heartening surprises—each one remarkable in itself, and taken together truly astonishing [chief among them being Iraq’s elections and the prospect of Egyptian parliamentary elections]. The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy share of the credit for many of these advances.”5 Senator Edward Kennedy (of all people) felt obliged to concede, albeit grudgingly, that “What’s taken place in a number of those [Middle Eastern] countries is enormously constructive,” adding that “It’s a reflection the president has been involved.”6
Washington pursued the forward strategy with messianic zeal. Iraq has had not just one, but several popular elections, as well as a referendum on a new constitution written by Iraqi leaders; with U.S. endorsement and prompting, the Palestinians held what international monitors declared were fair elections; and Egypt’s authoritarian regime, under pressure from Washington, allowed the first contested parliamentary elections in more than a decade. Elections were held as well in Lebanon (parliamentary) and Saudi Arabia (municipal). In sum, these developments seemed to indicate a salutary political awakening. The forward march toward “liberty in other nations” seemed irresistible and “the security of our nation,” inevitable.
But has the democracy crusade moved us toward peace and freedom in the Middle East—and greater security at home?
Consider three elections and their implications for the region.
7 May 2007
Story by Sgt. 1st Class Kap Kim
2nd BCT, 1st Cav. Div. Public Affairs.
BAGHDAD — On Sunday, a U.S. Army official addressed members of the Iraqi media in regards to revitalizing Haifa Street.
U.S. Army Col. Bryan Roberts, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, 2nd Brigade Combat Team laid out the goals of the “Haifa Street Project.”
“It’s an initiative, in cooperation with local leaders, to improve security, essential services and economic opportunities in Karkh,” he said. “This exciting project will provide a way ahead for secure, stable and prosperous neighborhoods that Iraqis want and deserve.”
The 2nd BCT’s Special Troops Battalion’s Infrastructure Coordination Element will spearhead the initiative. The ICE has been working with neighborhood leaders to improve their quality of life since the brigade arrived in Baghdad last fall.
“The goal of this project is to make [Haifa Street] a safer, cleaner and better place to live, work and enjoy in the center of Baghdad,” Roberts said. “The Haifa
Street Project will be a visible sign of progress that all Iraqis can be proud of and other districts will emulate.”
The project has three distinctive parts, said Roberts. Part one will be projects that demonstrate visible signs of change and a return to normalcy.
“(It will clean up) buildings damaged by fighting, streets littered with destroyed cars, anti-Iraqi graffiti,” he said.
Additionally, parks and playgrounds will be re-opened, said Roberts.
Part two will concentrate on improving essential services. “All residents deserve a healthy, sanitary and safe environment, and we are dedicated to helping make this happen when and where we can,” said Roberts.
The final part deals with security operations. “(Haifa Street) is patrolled day and night,” Robert said. “Coalition and Iraqi forces have forged a strong partnership dedicated to fighting those who would kill innocent Iraqi men, women and children.”
Iraqi Police commander, Col. Baha, whose department watches over Haifa Street, noted that since their constant presence began, murder has dropped from 50 in January to one in March.
As a result of the increased security, Baha said markets are rapidly reopening, children are going back to school and many of the families who fled out of fear have started coming back to their homes.
“The scope [of this project] is huge, said ICE member 1st Lt. William Pendleton.
There are currently 29 different renovation projects in various stages of planning and execution, valued at more than $6.3 million.
“If you see this place now, think about what it will look like in six months,” said Maj. Chip Daniels, the chief of the ICE team.
“You all are a part of history,” Daniels told his team after an assessment mission. “You should be proud to tell your families you are a part of this.”
Photo: U.S. Army Maj. Chip Daniels (left), the team chief for the 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion Infrastructure Coordination Element, and Sgt. Maj. Jeffrey Seidel, talk about which buildings need to be worked on during an assessment of Baghdad’s Haifa Street April 4. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Kap Kim, 2nd BCT, 1st Cav. Div. Public Affairs.
This little story is apocryphal but I think it’s a good way to lead off this book review
A terrorist act is committed by a Muslim group that says it is acting in the name is Islam
The moderate Muslim condemns the act in no uncertain terms but then says that Islam has nothing to do with it, and that the terrorists have “hijacked” their religion.
The reformist Muslim condemns the act in no uncertain terms but admits that the way Islam is interpreted or taught is being used to justify violent terrorist acts.
Islam is a religion badly in need of reform. Moderate Muslims such as the one in our story are in denial. Christianity was reformed hundreds of years ago by movements started by men such as John Wycliffe, Martin Luther and John Calvin. Christianity has it’s tensions with the modern world (the theory of evolution) but is largely comfortable with it.
Islam has never adated to the modern world. Indeed, Islam went the other direction in the 14th century, when theologians such as Ibn Taymiya (1263-1328) who with his followers developed the doctrine of takfir, essentially the Muslim equivalent of the inquisition. It was a “back to the Middle Ages” movement that has lasted to this day.
We simply cannot ignore the plain fact that Muslim terrorist groups use Islam to justify their actions. If we are going to change this situation then Islam is going to have to be reformed. Muslims have to change the way their religion is taught. This means going back and reexamining the basic tenants of the religion. And this means a no-holds barred look at Muhammed.
Robert Spencer does just that in The Truth About Muhammed: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion
What Spencer shows is that if reformers are to succeed they cannot skirt the hard facts of Muhammed’s life. The must squarely confront the way the religion was founded and spread and reconcile these with the modern world. They have their work cut out for them, for their job will be much more difficult than it was for Luther and Calvin.
Here, then, are some of the facts that reformers have the face as laid out by Spencer:
The new faith of Islam was spread by Muhammed and his followers by warfare. Muhammed was personally involved in much of the fighting, and is renouned for his prowess on the battlefield. This would only be of academic consequence were it not for the fact that Muslims are supposed to look at Muhammed as their inspiration, as a model to emulate.
From Spencer’s book, Muhammed the warrior is the single biggest problem that reformers with have to face. There is much killing by the Jewish tribes in the Old Testament, and it’s all sanctioned by God. Much of Joshua, Kings, and Chronicles make for very difficult reading. But neither Jews nor Christians developed an equivalent of jihad that we carried to the present day. The Jews tried to live in peace once they got to the promised land (only the existance of powerful neighbors ensured this didn’t happen) . In its first few centuries Christianity was spread peacefully. The apostles used persuasion, not violence.
Islam, though rests almost entirely on the actions of one person. While the Quran does contain many stories also found in the Old Testament (albeit quite different versions of them), Muslims pretty much ignore all prophets except for Muhammed. Neither Judiasm not Christianity face this “single prophet” problem. When your single prophet spent much of his time as a warrior, this is something that you either reconcile with the modern world or accept violence as part of your religion.
There are other problems too, that reformers must face. Muhammed took many wives, one who was quite young, and he made it clear that women were to have second class citizenship. The part of sharia law where it takes 4 male witnesses to convice a man of rape comes from an incident with one of his wives, Aisha. As a result, it is virtually impossible to convict a man of rape in Muslim societies. Muhammed also ordered that a man and woman convicted of adultery be stoned to death.
If Islam is to join the modern world, and integrate itself into small “l” liberal Western society, it must give up poligamy, marriage to virtual children, stoning, and must grant equal rights to women. In order to do so reformers are going to have to reinterpret many of Muhammed’s actions, or find some way to explain that “that was then, this is now”.
There is also the Muslim “poll tax”, or jizya Muhammed instituted dhimmi status, required for Christians and Jews (all others were to be killed immediately). Apologists for Islam today who claim that Jews and Christians can leave peacefully in Muslim lands “forget” that this is only possible when the former two accept dhimmi status. Those who see the exponential increase in the number of Muslims in Europe as no big deal need to consider this fact. It is projected that Europe will be majority Muslim before the end of the 21st century. At the rate things are going, they’ll try and force some sort of dhimmi status on non-Muslims as soon as they get the chance.
The last thing I’ll mention is the incident of the “satanic verses”, made famous by Salman Rushdie in his book of the same name. Essentially, Muhammed instructs his followers to worship pagan gods for one year as part of a deal he struck with a tribe called the Quraysh. Muslim tradition says that Satan spoke the words instead of Muhammed. If this is true, than it is certainly odd that God would let Satan speak through His prophet. If Muhammed was speaking of his own volition, then it is odd that he would instruct his followers to worship false gods, regardless of the political circumstances.
In theory I think it should not be terribly hard to do this. After all, Christians and Jews believe in the Old Testament, and none of us (save a few kooks) want to make Leviticas the law of the land. We know that they did things differently back then and why they had the laws they did. But we’ve learned how to square them with modern concepts. Although the job of Muslim reformers may be more difficult, it is hardly impossible.
Of course what is easy in theory is difficult in practice. Robert Spencer himself lives at an “undisclosed location”, according to the book cover. Critics of Islam such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Irshad Manji, and Bridget Gabriel have their lives threatened. Theo van Gogh was murdered over a movie he made.
Note that none of the issues that I’ve brought up are relevant to whether Islam is “correct” or not. I am a Christian, and therefore believe that all other ways of seeing God are false. But here we are concerned with Islam as a political tool, as an inspiration to jihad, terrorism, and world conquest. If people want to take Muhammed as their prophet then my argument with them becomes strictly theological.
There is much more in The Truth About Muhammed that I will not be able to cover here. Of the many criticisms of this book, one that I found most curious was the one that Spencer “cherry picks” quotes from the Quran. When reading the book I found that it was not specific quotes that will be problematic for reformers, but rather the general outline of Muhammed’s life. The fact that he spead the faith through the sword, was a poligamist, and considered women second-class citizens is not dependand on this or that quote.
Add this book to your library. It shouldn’t be your only book about Islam, but is is a necessary addition.
Robert Spencer is also the founder and chief writer for Jihad Watch, and reguarly posts videos at Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air.
Update
Raymond Ibrahim takes on Muslim apologist Karen Armstrong over at NRO. Be sure to check it out in order to see what anyone who criticizes Islam is up against.
‘I HEARD A LOUD BOOM’ VP POOL REPORT
Tue Feb 2007 11:19:01 ET
Filed By Mark Silva, White House Correspondent
Chicago Tribune
The vice president left Kabul wearing a black suit and shiny dark cordovan cowboy boots – having just become the highest-level Bush administration official to have spent the night in a war zone – the unscheduled overnighter at Bagram Air Force Base. The vice president spoke on the record with the pool about the attack — speaking, seated on a desk, in his Airstream, silver-skinned on the outside and leather-seated and wood-paneled on the inside, cabin set up inside the C-17 military cargo transport that had ferried him to Pakistan and Afghanistan and out as well.
He suggested that he never felt threatened, and that no policy of the US ought to be affected by such actions aimed at shaking the stability of the Pakistani govt.
There will be a transcript. The following is from my tape, but I caution that it was loud inside that C-17 – we sat out in the cargo bay with the rest of the administration, military and Service – so I’ve related the comments from tape and notes I feel most certain about, which is all of the substance of it:
“I was provided quarters overnight,” he said of his Bagram stay. “It seems to me it was 10 occlock in the morning. I heard a loud boom… The Secret Service came in and told me there had been an attack on the main gate.”
He was moved “for a brief period of time” to one of the base bomb shelters near his quarters, the VP said. “As the situation settled down and they had a better sense of what was going on, I went back to my room.”
Asked about Taliban claims of responsibilty, he asked who said that, what did they say. Told that a Taliban was quoted by name as saying Cheney was the target, and asked what this sort of activity says of the overall situation there – and if it might be a way of playing to Taliban tactics of bolstering its own standing among the people, the vice president said, slowly, and calmly: “I think they clearly try to find ways to question the authority of the central government” there. “Striking at the Bagram (base) with a suicide bomber, I suppose, is one way to do that… It shouldn’t affect our behavior.”
Pooler’s notes:
For whatever claims the Taliban spokesman may be making about having targeted the VP with the bombing at the gate at Bagram, the VP and his retinue were a long way from that gate, well inside that massive base. Take that for whatever it’s worth.
The first we heard of the attack was the sirens of the base fire trucks leaving from their station, which was pretty close to the hub of the VP’s activities there, including the military transport that he had used to fly in and out of Islamabad and Afghanistan – see the special-edition commemorative pool report on “The Spirit of Strom Thurmond.”
The VP was preparing to leave Bagram this morning when the attack occurred, and the Service certainly picked up its step on our staging and sweeps as the base went to code red after attack.
On the flight out of Kabul, a senior administration official spoke to the pool insisting upon anonymity but allowing tapes – and there will be a transcript of that as well.
The president wanted the VP to make this trip because of “the continuing threat that exists in this part of the world,” the sao said.
“I’ve seen some press reports that Cheney went in to beat up” on Karzai, the sao said. “That”s not so.” The idea of going in and threatening someone “isn’t valid.”
There have been successes, more al Qaeda killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan than anywhere else.
“That doesn’t mean there’s no threat. That doesn’t mean a rosy scenario. There’s a lot of work to be done.”
At Cheney’s luncheon with Karzai, the Afghan leader told a story of meeting with tribal leaders and trying to get them to cooperate. “The only question they wanted to ask me, was, ‘Is the United States with you?” Karzai said, according to this account.
People are concerned about the US commitment to the region, and Democrats in DC talking about withdrawal from Iraq make them concerned – though that debate back home had no bearing on the VP’s decision to come here, sao said. “That would have devastating consequences to what we’re trying to do” in this part of the world.
Karzai was reportedly “upbeat” – with all the money and troops that the US is committing to Afghanistan, the sao said, “It’s all taken as a sign” of commitment.
“They worry about that… If they see weakness on the part of the US… They worry about our commitment.”
The proposals of people in the US to withdraw from Iraq have “consequences in this part of the world,” the official said. “The al Qaeda strategy is based on the notion that they can break the will of the American people.”
Asked about Cheney’s suggestions that talk of withdrawal lend comfort to the terrorists, in the context of his comments last week in the Pacific and his remarks about Speaker Pelosi, the official said no, what was meant was, “It would validate the al Qaeda strategy.” Not aid and comfort them.
It was an 18-minute flight from Bagram to Kabul, landing there at 12:19 pm, and the VP was there for a little over two hours. See the Kabul pool, but we had been told the VP would meet with Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai for about an hour – and it seemed to last a little longer, though we were outside holding.
At 2:13 pm local, the armored dust-covered motorcade of the VP left the grounds of the palace and sped through the slalom of cement and sandbag barricades that line the approach, and he boarded the C-17 under partly sunny skies.
END
Well. You say America is the cause of ALL the problems in the world today? This is what those of us who know better have to say to you from 18 Doughty Street:
Well done.
Last week I received a phone call from a very nice man. He is from The St. Petersburg Times in Tampa, Florida. He wanted an interview, so we talked for a while. Not a long while, but a while just the same.
Today he has written his article, and he has quoted me in it. He did quote me accurately, but it was only one line. I understand he only has so much space to write his story, and his story was not about me. He was doing a story about CENTCOM.
Blogs are CentCom’s new target.
By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE, Times Staff Writer
Published February 12, 2007Since 2005, CentCom officials have jumped into the blogging fray, facing the realities of a new electronic age in hopes of combating misinformation on the Web, or just getting its own news out.
A three-person team monitors blogs – Internet journals with commentary from ordinary citizens and, often, links to news articles – that concentrate on CentCom’s area of responsibility, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan. [Read more.]
Either way, I am very excited! This is my first mention in a large newspaper. Hopefully I can write some articles that are worthy of some new readers. Anyone have any ideas of issues I have not yet covered? If so, leave me a comment or an e-mail. Thank you, and have a great day.
Officials Change Some Guard, Reserve Mobilization Practices.
Army National Guard soldiers will now serve a maximum of 12 consecutive months on active duty under mobilization changes announced by Pentagon officials yesterday.
The new timetable means mobilized units will train, deploy, do the mission, come home and demobilize all in 365 days, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said.
But the changes also mean some Army Guard soldiers who’ve already been mobilized 18 or more months for service in Iraq or Afghanistan are eligible for involuntarily recall.
This would’ve been be near impossible under previous practices, which limited individual involuntary mobilizations to 24 months cumulative under the president’s Sept. 15, 2001, partial mobilization order.
The new rules, which affect units mobilizing from this point forward, manage ground reserve-force mobilizations on a unit basis rather than an individual basis, Mr. Gates said.
They also allow adjutant generals to certify some predeployment training, a step designed to reduce post-mobilization training, which has been as long as six months.
Guard soldiers have long complained they spent much too much time at mobilization stations duplicating training completed at recent unit assemblies.
Believing that some involuntary recall of Guard soldiers was inevitable, NGAUS and many Guard leaders hailed the changes as long overdue.
However, they cautioned that the changes will also increase the urgency of the Army Guard’s need for equipment reset and full-time manning, both of which are critical to premobilization training.
Officials said the “planning objective” for Army Guard and Reserve units remains one year of being mobilized for every five years demobilized.
‘Surge’ Extends Guard Brigade’s Iraq Mission.
At least 4,000 Army National Guard soldiers may spend up to an extra four months in Iraq as part of the president’s troop increase announced Wednesday.
The Minnesota Army National Guard’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division will have its Iraq tour extended up to 125 days, the Defense Department said yesterday.
The announcement affects about 3,000 Minnesota Guardsmen. The extension until August also impacts more than 1,000 Guard soldiers from Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, North Carolina, Nebraska and other states who are deployed with the brigade.
There are currently about 25,000 Army and Air Guardsmen in Iraq, according to the National Guard Bureau.
The Pentagon announcement of the 1st Brigade’s extension came one day after President Bush announced in an address to the nation that he had committed more than 20,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq, most of them to Baghdad.
The Minnesota National Guard is reaching out aggressively to support affected families, said Lt. Col. Kevin Olson, a Minnesota Guard spokesman.
Those efforts include military family life consultants working with struggling families and a full-time mental health coordinator who, Colonel Olson said, is energizing mental health providers across the state to support the families of deployed Guardsmen.
Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, NGB chief, told reporters Wednesday that Guardsmen would be ready to serve if called upon to support the president’s new strategy.
More than 350,000 Army and Air Guardsmen have been federally mobilized for a wide array of missions since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Defense Secretary Calls for More Active-Component Soldiers, Marines.
The active-component Army and Marine Corps should grow by 92,000 personnel over the next five years, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said during a White House news conference yesterday.
“The president announced last night that he would strengthen our military for the long war against terrorism by authorizing an increase in the overall strength of the Army and Marine Corps,” Mr. Gates said. “I am recommending to him a total increase in the two services of 92,000 soldiers and Marines over the next five years.”
The breakout is 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines.
The move comes only a year after the Army tried to cut Army Guard end strength by 17,000 soldiers. There has been no discussion of increasing the Army Guard.
Army and National Guard Bureau figures indicate that four Army Guard soldiers could be added for the cost to train and maintain one active-component soldier.
Mr. Gates’ plan will make permanent the 30,000 temporary increase in Army end strength and 5,000 increase in the Marine Corps. Then the services will increase in annual increments of 7,000 for the Army and 5,000 for the Marine Corps.
The Army has a current end strength of 512,400, with the Marines at 180,000. Under Mr. Gates’ proposal, the Army’s end strength will grow to 547,000 and the Marines to 202,000.
Army and Marine officials said the services cannot grow forces overnight. Currently, the active-component Army recruits 80,000 young Americans each year with the Marines bringing in 39,000.
Communications Department Seeks Seasoned Writer.
The National Guard Association has an immediate opening for an experienced staff writer. Selected candidate will contribute to NATIONAL GUARD, the association’s monthly magazine, NGAUS NOTES and the NGAUS Web site.
Duties include writing short news stories and covering a variety of hearings on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.
For the magazine, the successful candidate will contribute at least one substantial feature story each month and assist in editing and producing the final product. Some travel is required.
Candidates must have five years of reporting experience. Familiarity with the military and the National Guard is preferred.
Interest in writing about military/legislative topics a must. Car required. Salary: low- to mid-40s. Excellent benefits include health and dental coverage and a 401k plan. Convenient Capitol Hill location.
Please send cover letter, resume and three writing samples to:
Communications Department
National Guard Association
One Massachusetts Ave.
NW Washington, D.C., 20001.
Fax: 202-682-9358.
E-mail: Chris Prawdzik.
Please enter “Application” in the subject line if sending e-mail.
This Week in Guard History.
Jan. 8, 1815: Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson, himself a former Tennessee Guardsman, leads a force of Army regulars, volunteer militia, pirates and others in a successful defense of New Orleans from the British Army in the last act of the War of 1812.
Among his militia troops is a unit from Louisiana. Known as the “Battalion of Free Men of Color” its ranks include African Americans, Mulattos, Creoles and Choctaw Indians. Louisiana, a new state in the Union, had under its French colonial government a black militia organization, which was disbanded upon statehood. It is reorganized for the current emergency.
The battalion saw action during the campaign, giving a distinguished account of itself; but once the invasion threat ended it was again disbanded. No nonwhite soldiers would serve in the Louisiana militia until after the start of the Civil War.
NGAUS History.
NGAUS kicked off the biggest blood collection program ever conducted by one organization in May 1966. The association asked Guardsmen to contribute 250,000 pints of blood to support U.S. troops fighting in Vietnam.
The National Guard “Blood for Defense” project was sponsored by NGAUS, with a full endorsement and cooperation from the Defense Department, Red Cross and National Guard Bureau.
Urging all Guardsmen to sign a pledge a give a pint of blood, Maj. Gen. James F. Cantwell, NGAUS president said, “The National Guard has been contributing in a number of ways to the success of our military operations in Southeast Asia.
Now, the ‘Blood for Defense’ program offers still another means by which we can give vital, continuing support to the men who are fighting the Viet Cong.”
Donations were channeled to the 56 Red Cross regional blood centers for processing.
