Saturday, February 17, 2007

Guarding Us

The Blog | Gary Hart: Iraq and Homeland Security | The Huffington Post

"...Most important, the National Guard units in Iraq are not in the United States standing post over our nation's security at home. They are not being trained and equipped for this vital mission. If we are in fact at war with terrorism, we are leaving our homeland flanks totally exposed. The Administration and its supporters have excused this dereliction in security with the hollow slogan: We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here.

This specious argument fails on several counts. The "them" we are fighting in Iraq are overwhelmingly Iraqi insurgents who have no interest in following us home. And the relatively small but growing numbers of al Qaeda in Iraq can do more than one thing at once, as the people of London and Madrid can testify. It is the United States that cannot fight them there using National Guard forces needed to fight them here.

Members of Congress truly concerned with national security will pass legislation requiring National Guard forces in Iraq to be steadily withdrawn and restored to the homeland security mission originally placed upon them by the Constitution of the United States."

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