Bringing Home the Guard

By Michael Blanding, AlterNet. Posted November 7, 2005.

More than 2,000 US soldiers have now died in the Iraq war. Polls show more than half of Americans are in favor of withdrawal of at least some troops from Iraq. Yet, Congress has done little to make that a reality.

A bipartisan bill demanding an exit strategy remains stalled in committee. Last week, former presidential candidate John Kerry -- whose position on troops has shifted more than the desert sands -- issued only a tepid call for a withdrawal of 20,000 troops by Christmas. At least that's better than most of the Democrats' so-called leaders: Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Harry Reid and Howard Dean have been silent on the issue. It is little wonder, then, that the Pentagon recently "temporarily" increased the number of troops in Iraq from 138,000 to 160,000.

Fed up by the inaction of politicians on both sides of the aisle, a new group is bypassing Congress to take the issue directly to the voters. Calling itself HomeFromIraqNow.org, it is sponsoring a binding initiative in Massachusetts to stop future deployment of National Guard troops overseas. If passed, it will prevent the governor from allowing troops to be called up without a specific law passed by the state legislature -- at the same time urging the governor to use all possible means to bring home those troops already outside the country. If successful in Massachusetts, HomeFromIraqNow.org hopes to repeat the feat in some of the other 23 states that allow citizen petitions, creating nothing short of a national referendum on the war itself.

"There is no popular support for the war," says Harold Hubschman, the group's cofounder and chairman. "There needs to be a way for people to vote on the issue." The initiative focuses on the National Guard because it is one of the few areas of the military that state government can exercise control over. While in the U.S., National Guard troops are under the command of the governor; only when they are federalized do they come under control of the president.

Staying at Home

The basis for the initiative is a Supreme Court decision from 1990, when the governor of Minnesota refused to allow National Guard members to be sent to Central America for a training mission. In its ruling, the Supreme Court affirmed the right of the federal government to call up National Guard troops. But it also said that governors could refuse a federal request if a deployment would impair its ability to serve or train for emergencies at home, a loophole that governors could use to keep troops on the home front.

"Nobody can dispute that there are public safety and security issues today being hampered by National Guard deployment to Iraq," says Hubschman. "There are weather-related crises. We are under threat from terrorism. We need the National Guard to help us with those issues."

The best argument for recalling the National Guard, of course, is the recent botched response to Katrina, in which more than a third of Louisiana Guard's troops and equipment were overseas while victims waited days for troops to be mobilized from other states. Last week, a Congressional report slammed the Army's use of the Guard to fight foreign wars, saying that such "heavy reliance on National Guard forces" is simply "not sustainable over time."

More than 70,000 Guard members are now deployed overseas -- the largest use of those forces since World War II. Yet the report found that because of years of under-funding and abandonment of equipment in Iraq, Guard units now have an average of only 34% of the equipment they need to respond to an emergency or terrorist attack at home. Some items -- such as radios, night-vision goggles, and trucks -- have been completely depleted by the war.

The lack of equipment and training puts troops called to active duty in particular jeopardy. "It's just insanity when the government determines you should be called to active duty, but you have been laboring for years under outdated equipment," says Staff Sergeant Andrew Sapp, a member of the Massachusetts National Guard who just returned from an 18-month deployment north of Tikrit. In addition to ailing equipment, he says troops in his chemical hazmat unit received inadequate training for their duties protecting a base from sniper fire and mortar attacks.

The 48-year-old high school teacher was not naive about the possibility he might be called up to active duty some day. But seeing the buildup to Iraq was like "watching a train wreck happen and not being able to stop it." "I always thought if I were called up for active duty, the circumstances would be dire enough that we would really be talking about the national defense," he said. "We are not imperiled by Iraq. At some point, the citizens have to ask themselves if they are willing to sacrifice the people in their community."

Since returning to Massachusetts this month, Sapp has broken ranks by joining Military Families Speak Out, an organization of soldiers and family members that has been helping HomeFromIraqNow.org gather signatures to put the National Guard petition on the ballot for next November. The coalition faces a daunting task, needing to submit some 66,000 signatures to city clerks by November 23 in order to certify the initiative.

"It's going to be a challenge," admits Hubschman, who has run past ballot on such issues as universal healthcare, representational voting, and cable company deregulation. Unlike other petitions he's worked on, however, this one is being staffed completely by volunteers.

Michael Blanding is a freelance writer living in Boston. Read more of his writing at MichaelBlanding.com.

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