The Bush administration this week asked California to send an additional 1,500 National Guard troops to the Mexican border, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied the request, two California National Guard officials said Friday.
The National Guard Bureau, an arm of the Pentagon, asked for the troops to fill recruiting shortfalls for the mission in New Mexico and Arizona. But Schwarzenegger said the request would stretch the California guard too thin if an emergency or disaster struck.
The overall deployment for the border mission would remain at 6,000, the guard officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Schwarzenegger's communications director, Adam Mendelsohn, said the governor felt sending more troops was an inappropriate burden on the state and would disrupt the guard's training schedule. (MSNBC 6/23/06)
Well, I thought this was the case with the first 1,000. But I guess this was some sort of straw that broke the camel for Arnold I suppose. My bigger problem with the National Guard on the border is the effectiveness issue. Are they really doing anything that's worthwhile of our resources? Has anybody explained to the American people what the hell they are doing there? Well, to my satisfaction, the answer is no. Our National Guard is already overburdened with Bush's War, we don't need to have them down on the border with some vague non-strategy.
UPDATE: The LA Times also has a story about this. (H/t to It's My Right to Be Left ) Some Dems have an interesting, and not too unlikely, take on this. This "request" was really just an opportunity to give Schwarzenegger some political cover for the first 1000 troops. It's a little conspiratorial, but doesn't it just sound like a Rove/Schmidt tactic?
Schwarzenegger is running for reelection this year — at a time when his support among Latino voters is sagging. Recent polls show Schwarzenegger has the support of 25% of Latino voters — 7 points below what he received in the 2003 recall election
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Assemblyman Hector De La Torre (D-Southgate) said of Schwarzenegger, "This is a way of letting him have it both ways — having the National Guard there, but at the same time letting him be the bulwark against placing additional troops on the border."
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Bob Mulholland, an advisor to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides, said: "This so-called request [from the White House] was a phony political request to try to give Schwarzenegger political cover: 'Look it. I'm standing up to Bush.' But last week Schwarzenegger was a French poodle in Bush's lap — authorizing 1,000 stressed-out, overextended National Guard members to spend weeks and months at the border, even though many of them have done two tours in Iraq."(LA Times 6/24/06)
Yeah, it's a bit cynical, but isn't that really the problem? We've been forced to cynicysm by manipulative administrations, both in Sacramento and Washington. |
