US News
Military 'unprepared for domestic attack' says report (Roundup)
By Rich Bowden, M&C Staff Writer Feb 1, 2008, 11:15 GMT
(FILE)The President of the United States, George Bush with members of the US Boarder Patrol and the US National Guard, during his trip to Arizona, Monday 09 April 2007. The military is unprepared and the National Guard lack necessary resources to deal with a catastrophic attack a report released yesterday has said. EPA/Gary Williams
(M&C) - The military is unprepared and the National Guard lack necessary resources to deal with a catastrophic attack a report released yesterday has said.
A study from the Commission of the National Guard and Reserves said, while contingency plans were being made for overseas interventions where necessary, no similar level of preparedness existed at home.
The study found the lack of readiness for a chemical, biological or nuclear attack was “an appalling gap that places the nation and its citizens at greater risk.”
“Right now we don’t have the forces we need, we don’t have them trained, we don’t have the equipment,” the commission’s chairman, Arnold L. Punaro, a retired Marine Corps general, said in an interview with the New York Times. “Even though there is a lot going on in this area, we need to do a lot more.”
General Punaro added, “There’s a lot of things in the pipeline, but in the world we live in, you’re either ready or you’re not.”
The General admitted that to prepare the military for such a catastrophic attack would cost billions and he said the commission had called upon the Congressional Budget Office for a cost estimate.
However the NYT reports that Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr. of the Air Force, commander of the United States Northern Command responded to the study by saying the Pentagon was committed to establishing a rapid response force over the next year to deal with such a catastrophe.
The three-tiered response force would total about 4,000 troops said the general, including first-response forces, medical and logistic troops.
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Older Talkback
page: 1
If we did get attacked with biological or chemical weapons, what good is a national guard force going to be anyways??? What would we expect them to do???
The attack proves that this force would not be a deterrent. That being the case, what would be their role, after an attack?
Who are the national guardsmen supposed to defend us from??? Are we to believe we will suddenly be attacked by a military force somewhere?
Let's look at a similar place...say...Iraq...or Afghanistan....the combatants don't wear uniforms....who exactly are the national guardsmen going to shoot at?
My Senator, Ron Wyden says it is necessary to have F15 fighters stationed in Portland OR to defend against terror. Now, this is just me, but I don't recall ever reading that Al Queda has an Air Force or a Navy, so I'm a little dismayed at how an F15 is effective here, ya know?
This is another one of these 'we have everythingt o fear including fear itself' libnazi messages. It says we have somme kind of shortcoming, but really doesn't explain why it actually IS a shortcoming.
I'm sure this is all wasted on the libnazi dildo above, but that's what thinking individuals do.
Sure we need them...as long as we elect a president who will fail to act until they arrive on our soil.
How can we suceed when we allow several million jihadists into our nation who than operate as 5th coulumnists for the jihadists in their cells?
Deport all muslims now where they can be happy in their sharia nations where nobody has rights except muslims.
I am so disgusted seeing these people allowed into my nation who than turn around and rape the Medicaid and Public Aid systems at my expense.
When has a nation ever in world history allowed their enemy to immigrate inside their borders during time of war?
I guess Congress never heard of the Trojan horse?
Hungarian Crusader
The American Republic is an old idea that was shuffled under the rug by greed, and untrustworthiness. Religion crept in like a disease and destroyed the foundation of government. Now it is time for all Americans rich and poor to rebuild the foundations of government in America and cast out the business and government that has ruled for so long and has made others suffer. Judah Ben-Hur as President without fear will take on the 'beast' and chain it to its fate. Obama and others will do no more than any other. Race color makes no diference in ruling a nation. Its what is truly in the heart that counts. 2012 will make the difference for America one way or another!
We have a 'coke head' of a President that Ran from Nam, to The Air National Guard and did nothing there. We also have a Vice President that differed his enrollment to the draft 3 times. They showed their non-experience in running a war. How can you run a war when the both of them Ran from Nam ? Showed the world what they knew of getting things done when a major hurricane hit the south and took 5 days to get water to a football stadium. Stayed away from it all on 9/11 because they knew what was about to happen. they have not found out yet, who flew a drone into the Pentagon. These two along with their backers in government affairs, have shown the world how they respond to disasters with-in the US.............Others outside the US have taken note, again !
And so it is.....................
I have to wonder about what is happening to the land of the free and home of the brave. For over fifty years we lived under the cloud of fear of a nuclear holocaust because we had to defend ourselves against the atheist
communists intent on a takeover of the world. Now that communist China rules the world economically, and has greater than ever military might, with nuclear weapons and anti-satellite missles, communism as a mortal enemy is a non issue. All of the countries where we just had to go 15,000 miles away to defend democracy and kill women and children and other enemy, now have communist governmnts. This is not necessarily a result of what we didn't do, like we didn't kill enough people, but because we chose very bad stategy to achieve our desired results. As a direct result of our blundering Laos, Cambodia, and all of Vietnam are communist.
That doesn't matter because we can trade economically with them, I was told by someone. What really matters now is that we must be fearful of faceless, nameless terrorists, not communist nations, even ones with nuclear weapons. Russia is a great friend. After 50 years or so of more terrorism and fear, are the current enemies going to morph into friends?
The US soldiers are really brave (except of course for the criminals in their ranks). The US generals are incompetent at best. The US commander in chief is as ignorant as a mule surrounded that he is by liars and criminals. The USA has become a underdeveloped country and the laughing stock of the rest of the world. A superpower? My foot.
Patriot............
Tell me this, how can the poor help the rich to rebuild the US ?? It takes millions to become a President. That money comes from the rich, which by the way, they have done a super job in destroying the middle class. Middle class is defined on your credit rating. The poor really do not vote nor do they have the money to buy a candidate to say 'we need help'. The high loss of jobs that did pay good and paid a good tax to the government are gone, never to be returned to the US............
Yes there is a money pit in the middle east !
I'm not picking on you Patriot, just how do you intend to fix it........
And so it is..................
Domestic Attack...............
There is only so much military to go around these days !! As The Non Existence State of Israel has found out with their own terrorist problem, they like us was created by their own governments. The future problem will be how do you guard a public bus or market for that matter ?? You can't and never will be able to, true?? You can't and never will win a war over religion. The US has to stop borrowing money from foreign governments. We have borrowed money from China, a bigger superpower then the US! Again I'm sad to ask what are the strings attached to the money we continue to borrow from them, and the interest rate on top of that.......You 'say we need more troops'. So sad, again the Military is not getting the better educated men and women into the military. The 2 draft dodgers in the White house that 'RAN FROM NAM', are closing the same loopholes they used to escape the draft. The draft is around the corner......The press knows it and the Presidential Candidates know it. But none dare talk about it, because it's a death sentence to their run to the White house. After the election there will be some type of a draft to what degree, that is anyone's guess. If these illegal now in the US want to become legal, they must 'do time on the front line'.
And so it is.....................
Roosevelt once said 'we have nothing to fear but fear itself!' Now, the dem nazi slogan should be 'we have everything to fear including fear itself'. Honestly, if you listen to the dem libnazi's and their drive-by media,they almost never bring anything up unless the sky IS falling.
No, one nation rules economically. The myth that China is, somehow, now in charge is just another in a long line of nations that were going to 'outrun' is over the years. China may end up being the largest economy on earth, but when that happens, what will it really mean?
First it was post war Europe who was going to. Then the commies said they'd bury us. Then it was the Japanese, remember???
Funny thing, the good ol USA just keeps on chugging. Free markets and innovation have supplied the rocket fuel of our economy, which has grown at record paces, since the Reagan revolution took place.
If, for some reason, you think that terror now cows us, take a look at the current president and his will to win, which is the only real measure of it all. The will to win is everything, and without it, or a capitulating policy, this enemy will perceive that as weakness.
On that score, I'm afraid this might be the best president you're going to have, for quite some time. Even then, he has changed the rules, and no one can get elected without a policy of pursuit.
the situation hasn't changed one iota from before 9/11. The US ain't prepared for sh*t. All this stuff about how strong the US is, is nothing more than bluff, bluster and B.S.
None of that makes me wrong.
It's a good question: What, exactly, IS the Nat'l Guard supposed to do in a domestic terror attack? Being an unconventional attack, what role would they serve anyway? Isn't DOHS responsible for coordinating responses to this type of thing?
'None of that makes me wrong.'
Yes it does. You are so very WRONG. Committing acts that are against the teachings of the American Churches, tsk, tsk. Morally wrong, as well as intellectually dishonset. Well, I guess that makes you a GOOD republican. Have you done any toe-tapping in men's washrooms lately?
Look up Communism...........
The DRAFT DODGERS [ Bush & Cheney ] are turning us towards Communism. They have just about gutted our Constitution, there's no looking back. They make us live in the world of fear this and that then go on the gut more of it. The only fear now is the U.S. going under from pressure from above. More and more of the tax base is eroding, heavy borrowing from foreign governments to heavy spending at the top. Yes the rich will get their tax cuts, then we borrow to make up the difference. The collapse is now upon us....The American dollar is falling more and more. High suicide and desertion throught out the Military 30,000 plus from their own figures, that's an entire division. The military is removing WW2 old technology equipment that was stockpiled in the U.S. to use in Afghanistan and Iraq. They took away a cannon from a ski resort that was used in avalanche control in California last week, to use in Iraq. The military is being depleted with not much being resupplied. Hard to resupply the Military when the money is drying up. I remember an add years age of the military showing up in a disaster area in the U.S. with brooms and shovels, that is just about all the equipment they will have soon.. Most of the scholars agree the fall of the U.S. will come from with-in.
And so it is................
...old school.
All this doom and gloom is a waste of time. We have the most experienced, battle hardened, most capable military in the world. In addition, we've actually succeeded in unconventional warfare, a lesson well worth learning, given the circumstances.
No, I'm not buying this crap about America. Anyone can dis old glory, what we need are citizens.
just have to remember sp4 is the hind tit
yup. he sure is. The left behind one. As in he is a relic from the past. But, from his post of 'SP4: My Point, Dickhead....Jan 31st, 2008 - 22:08:39'
he does have a sexual predilection for 'behinds', as well. By the way, that post was deleted for obscenity.
WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives...
In the World War a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows...
Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill...
And what is this bill?
This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations...
...a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.
Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit – fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.
Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends...
The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits – ah! that is another matter – twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent – the sky is the limit. All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let's get it...
Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and 'we must all put our shoulders to the wheel,' but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket – and are safely pocketed.
This remains the same today, Feb. 1, 2008.
'We have the most experienced, battle hardened, most capable military in the world. In addition, we've actually succeeded in unconventional warfare, a lesson well worth learning, given the circumstances.'
And where is Osama and why is he still laughing at you? Why are you still tied down in a minor sand box called Iraq? Let us not forget Afghanistan, where you guys are merrily chasing their own tails. Speaking of tails, what's for supper tonight, SPFool - butt roast?
ought to have an IQ test and then psychological evaluation.
SP4........Battle harden,Yes !! We have not excelled in the non-conventional warfare, the U.S. is narrowly controlling the green zone in Iraq. Again the military hands are tied. The 2 draft dodgers along with Brenner, 'NEVER' went outside of the walls of the Green Zone. I went to look at the equipment yard for the National Guard in my hometown in California. The Unity was home, but their equipment yard was empty. I asked them 'what happened to their equipment'? Which was mostly engineering type of equipment, cranes to bridges. Well they said 'they are not allowed to bring their equipment back'. Other engineering units needed 'THEIR EQUIPMENT' in Iraq. So the Guard Unit has nothing to train on...............So they being schooled by reading book's, then it's down to the rifle range !! But they do have an order to 'RENT' equipment in case of a National Disaster..........
And so it is............
a racket I tell ya.
Now the jerk does not understand what the National Guard is for. Ask the residents of New York following 9/11, jackass.
We have sent all the materials overseas and stripped the Guard and Reserves, as the consumption of war-related materials exceeded all early estimates. The Guard is getting worn out in Iraq after multiple tours, and some of those troops were responsible for maintenance of equipment in their 'home' units and armories. The money that would have sustained the Guard is being spent elsewhere, leaving the Governors without support for local emergencies, let along an outright attack, with the Guard required to support the local police in maintaining order. That includes (depending on the area) assisting with fires, floods, and any other national disasters where the public needs assistance and control in case of looting or other civil disobedience.
=====================
I'll bet he thinks Afghanistan is a 'win', a-hole that he is.
www.usnews.com/articles/news/world/2008/01/31/allies-struggle-in-afghan istan.html
'Make no mistake,' a new report begins, 'NATO is not winning in Afghanistan.' That disturbing warning from the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank, is echoed by two other reports that were also released this week. Afghanistan is at a 'crossroads,' says the Afghanistan Study Group, led by the Center for the Study of the Presidency, which also cosponsored the original Iraq Study Group. And a paper published by the National Defense University concludes that without quick action, 'the prognosis for Afghanistan is grim.'
The reports identify many of the same concerns, which are both urgent and alarmingly broad. Not only is the Taliban enjoying a resurgence, but NATO has been unable to boost its troop levels (except for a temporary additional U.S. troop deployment that is pending), and the number of Afghan security forces remains insufficient.
'The prospect of again losing significant parts of Afghanistan to the forces of Islamic extremists has moved from the improbable to the possible,' concludes the Afghanistan Study Group.
On the reconstruction side, the picture is one in which efforts have been largely sabotaged by corruption and mismanagement. More broadly, the international aid effort is hobbled by a lack of leadership, coordination, and resources.
'To add insult to injury, of every dollar of aid spent in Afghanistan, less than 10 percent goes directly to Afghans, further compounding reform and reconstruction problems,' according to the Atlantic Council report. The fundamental threat, the report adds, is that urgent policy changes 'are required now to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a failing or failed state.'
(This is the same situation as in Iraq, with massive fraud in the ministries - we have tossed billions into the garbage pail in Iraq).
This old chestnut that our armed forces are worn out is hogwash. We have a Navy, and Air force that is unbeatable. We have the most experienced, battle hardened Army and Marine corps in the world.
Our logistics are the best on earth. Our nuclear deterrent is the most reliable on earth. Our battlefield intel capability is the best on earth. We have, successfully, engaged in and learned unconventional warfare, to the limits of out laws.
Articles like this are done for the purpose of advancing an agenda. In the case of a WMD or attack on America, what role does the National Guard really have? They will show up with shovels, guns and bodies, after the fact.
This being the case, I'd say they were unprepared by choice, because our leadership has a need for them in a war elsewhere, greenlighted by the democrats, for the purpose of getting Bush to rid them of Saddam, then blame him for it to gain office.
And the broken record plays on!
That still does not make me wrong.
Yes, the broken record plays on!!!
...doesn't...
page: 1
new world orderFeb 1st, 2008 - 13:50:38
This is the by-product of the brave new world of SPfools and the neoconanderthal leadership running the country for the past eight years.
They manipulated the citizens into believing that an imperialist crusade invading another country, while avoiding the reality of the perpetrators of 9/11 terrorism, was a wonderful thing. National security is a matter that we can just take care of with enough bombs. It doesn't matter that osama bin laden is hiding in a naco-terrorist sanctuary protected by Pakistan, because don't you know, the dictator Musharraf is our dear friend and ally. It doesn't matter if we go bankrupt digging a hole in the sand in the middle east, because the more blood and guts and money that we dump into that pit, the safer we are at home. We don't have to do anything to protect the homeland right here, since if we just kill enough persons 'over there' we can be secure and invunerable in our national borders. So, what me worry about national security? Never a doubt in my mind with the neocons in command.
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