United for Peace of Pierce County, WA - We nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative diplomacy.

The announcement this month that a Washington State National Guard unit back will redeploy Iraq did not occasion much comment, though it coincided with the fifth anniversary of the invasion. -- On Saturday, Mark Jensen of UFPPC reviewed a few news articles about the redeployment and connected the news to a number of discussions of the use and misuse of National Guard troops over the past several years, including a recent book by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and the October 2006 law giving the president the authority to commandeer National Guard troops over the wishes of the state governor to respond to “a serious natural or manmade disaster, accident, or catastrophe,” vague language that could cover almost any circumstance.[1] -- Naomi Wolf, author of The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2007), warned last year about the latter. -- In an article entitled “Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps,” she said that the change enables the U.S. president to “suspend the rule of law” at will: “The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 gave the president new powers over the National Guard. This means that in a national emergency — which the president now has enhanced powers to declare — he can send Michigan's militia to enforce a state of emergency that he has declared in Oregon, over the objections of the state's governor and its citizens. -- Even as Americans were focused on Britney Spears's meltdown and the question of who fathered Anna Nicole's baby, the New York Times editorialized about this shift: ‘A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night . . . Beyond actual insurrection, the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or any “other condition”.’ -- Critics see this as a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act — which was meant to restrain the federal government from using the military for domestic law enforcement. The Democratic senator Patrick Leahy says the bill encourages a president to declare federal martial law. It also violates the very reason the founders set up our system of government as they did: having seen citizens bullied by a monarch's soldiers, the founders were terrified of exactly this kind of concentration of militias' power over American people in the hands of an oppressive executive or faction.” -- Given this background, the low-key treatment that the mainstream media gave to the news may be a bad omen....

TACOMA, Washington -- Mobilization orders were received on March 17, 2008, by a Washington State National Guard brigade.[2]

The 81st Heavy Combat Brigade Team will deploy to Iraq for the second time in the fall of 2008 after exercises at Washington’s Yakima Training Center in July, mobilization in mid-August at Fort McCoy, Wis., and more training in Kuwait.

On March 21, the Seattle Times noted that the Seattle-based unit “draws soldiers from all over the state” and also includes about 900 Californians. Hal Bernton said that the brigade’s “yearlong tour will involve security, force protection, and other missions.”[3]

For most of the National Guard unit’s members, the redeployment means a second tour in Iraq: “Lt. Col. William Palmer, who commands about 500 soldiers in the 1st Squadron, 303rd Calvary of the 81st, estimates about 60 percent of the brigade served during the first tour and 40 percent has joined the Guard since then,” Bernton wrote.

A just-published book calls misuse of the National Guard one of the lessons the U.S. can learn from the Iraq war.

The final chapter of The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict (W.W. Norton, 2008), co-authored by Joseph Stiglitz, recommends that “The military should not be permitted to call upon the National Guard or the Reserves for more than one year, unless it can demonstrate that it is not feasible to increase the requisite size of the armed forces.”

The Nobel Prize-winning economist and co-author Linda Bilmes, an expert in government finance at Harvard, explain: “We are supposed to call upon the Reserves and the National Guard in times of emergency. Five years into a war, we cannot credibly claim that in Iraq it is still an emergency. We have already seen the consequences of a first-responder National Guard that is overseas instead of able to take action quickly at home. Limiting the deployment of these troops to one year will compel the military to present alternative approaches. . . .

“In the event National Guard or Reserve troops do serve more than one tour, the military would be required to pay double wages on the second tour of duty and triple on a third. Double pay should be given to any individual required involuntarily to extend his or her time in service beyond the originally contracted amount. This will provide incentives for the military not to use the National Guard or Reserves for repeated tours of duty” (ibid., p. 196, emphasis in original).

In 2005, during the brigade’s first deployment, Washington Governor Chris Gregoire was urged my members of military families to call on President George W. Bush to release Washington National Guard troops from service in Iraq.[4] An aide met with a delegation from Military Families Speak Out, Gold Star Families for Peace and Veterans for Peace.

In March 2008, on the day that the Washington National Guard confirmed the mobilization orders for the brigade’s redeployment, the governor signed into law an act ensuring that their spouses will get “precious time to connect during challenging times” — language from her office’s press release —, and, should they be killed in Iraq, “special plates [that] will recognize and honor those men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice.”[5]

The occasion presented an opportunity for her to speak out about the misuse of National Guard troops in Iraq.

In August 2006 a bipartisan effort on the part of the nation’s governors was led by then-Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to block a provision in a House-passed defense bill authorizing the president to take control of the Guard in case of "a serious natural or manmade disaster, accident, or catastrophe" in the U.S.[6]

David Broder of the Washington Post said “Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, the senior Democrat, called the proposal ‘one step away from a complete takeover of the National Guard, the end of the Guard as a dual-function force that can respond to both state and national needs.’”

But despite the concurrence of all 50 state governors in objecting to the change in the law, the effort to block it failed.[7]

A commentator noted in January 2007 that “The change adds to tensions between governors and the White House after more than four years of heavy federal deployment of state-based Guard forces to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, four out of five guardsmen have been sent overseas in the largest deployment of the National Guard since World War II. Shortage of the Guard’s military equipment -- such as helicopters to drop hay to snow-stranded cattle in Colorado -- also is a nagging issue as much of units’ heavy equipment is left overseas and unavailable in case of a natural disaster at home.”

As the Republic has been morphing into an empire, the nature of the National Guard has been changing.

Under the United States Constitution (Article I, Section 8; Clause 15), the United States Congress has the power to pass laws for "calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions."

But the National Defense Act of June 3, 1916, provided for the nationalization of the National Guard, regarded as part of the “militia of the United States.”

In 1987, the Montgomery Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act provided that a governor cannot withhold consent with regard to active duty outside the United States because of an objection to the location, purpose, type, or schedule of such duty; this was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1990.

As Gov. Vilsack of Iowa said in 2006, we are now “one step away from a complete takeover of the National Guard.”

--Mark Jensen is a member of United for Peace of Pierce County (WA) and of the faculty of Pacific Lutheran University.

WASHINGTON STATE NATIONAL GUARD UNIT GETS RETURN CALL TO IRAQ
By Michael Gilbert

The Washington National Guard confirmed Wednesday that its 81st Brigade Combat Team will be called up in August for another tour in Iraq.

The mobilization order came a couple days ago, but officials delayed a public announcement in order to notify soldiers and their families and clarify the details, the brigade commander, Col. Ronald Kapral, said Wednesday.

The order comes as no surprise. The Department of Defense placed the 3,800-soldier brigade on alert last October.

“I think it brings a sense of reality,” Kapral said. “When the unit is put on alert there’s always that possibility that things could change.

“Now there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind. The brigade needs to get ready. The brigade needs to mobilize on this certain date.”

The 81st -- with about 2,900 soldiers from Washington and 900 from California -- went to Iraq in March 2004 and returned home in March 2005. It was the largest Washington Guard deployment since World War II.

This time, soldiers will go to their annual monthlong training exercise at Yakima Training Center in July, then on to mobilization at Fort McCoy, Wis., in mid-August. After that, they’ll go to Kuwait for a last round of training before heading north into Iraq.

Officials declined to go into specifics of the brigade’s mission but said generally the soldiers will protect convoy routes and forward operating bases.

It’s similar to the mission the brigade performed in Baghdad and Balad, north of the capital, on its last tour.

Under the Pentagon’s current policies for guard and reserve call-ups, the brigade would spend no more than 12 months on active duty.

About 2,900 citizen soldiers in the Washington National Guard have received orders to serve in Iraq, a call-up that underscores continued reliance on the Guard to help wage the five-year-old war there.

The Seattle-based 81st Heavy Combat Brigade Team, which draws soldiers from all over the state, will report for active duty in August. Its yearlong tour will involve security, force protection, and other missions.

This will be the second trip to Iraq for the 81st Brigade, which was deployed there in 2004-05.

The soldiers returning to Iraq will be a mix of veterans and new recruits. Lt. Col. William Palmer, who commands about 500 soldiers in the 1st Squadron, 303rd Calvary of the 81st, estimates about 60 percent of the brigade served during the first tour and 40 percent has joined the Guard since then.

The brigade, reinforced by additional Guard soldiers from California, was involved in a wide range of security and other missions during its 2004-05 deployment. Ten Guardsmen were killed during that deployment, which began with many soldiers on patrols in unarmored Humvees and trucks that were vulnerable to roadside bombs.

"I rode from Kuwait to Balad in a vehicle with sandbags on the floor and no doors. But that's what we had," said Palmer.

This time around, the soldiers will use a better-armored fleet that includes the M1151 Humvees and the M1117 armored security vehicles. These will be a big improvement over the vehicles available at the start of the previous deployment, Palmer said.

During the previous tour of active duty, the soldiers of the 81st were mobilized for 18 months, including stateside and Iraq duty. This time, the total tour of duty -- including training that will begin in August in Wisconsin -- will be 12 months, plus whatever personal-leave time a soldier has accrued.

For soldiers' families, the tour means another long period of separation. As deployments have become a routine part of service, the Washington National Guard in recent years has beefed up its support staff to help families prepare for the departures, network with them when soldiers are in Iraq, and assist them when the soldiers return.

"I feel upset when I heard the news but hope with time I will overcome the sadness," said Lisette Hernandez, wife of Sgt. Carlos Lazo, a Lynnwood medic.

"This first time was the hardest year of my life. There were days when I felt depressed and I could't get out of bed. At the same time, I felt very proud of what he was doing."

Lazo, who turns 43 today, came to America from Cuba in 1991. In civilian life he works for the state Department of Social and Health Services. During his previous tour in Iraq, he took part in the 2004 battle of Fallujah, helping to evacuate the dead and wounded as U.S. forces struggled to take control of the city.

"I am going to be missing my family, and everyone is going to be going through that," said Lazo. "But I feel proud to serve the country that welcomed me 17 years ago, and my company, which is like a family."

The Seattle-based 81st Brigade, the largest in the state, was formed in 1968. It draws from a wide range of civilians, including students, police officers, hospital workers, teachers and business people.

Family members of soldiers serving in Iraq urged Gov. Christine Gregoire on Monday to call on President Bush to release Washington National Guard troops from service in Iraq.

The family members, who oppose the war, said the heavy use of guardsmen in Iraq is diminishing the state’s response to natural disasters and creating long-term hardships for the part-time soldiers and their families.

Their meeting with an aide to Gregoire follows similar efforts in at least two other states.

Members of the same groups -- Military Families Speak Out, Gold Star Families for Peace and Veterans for Peace, among others -- rallied in Salem, Ore., last week to press a similar resolution to Oregon’s governor and lawmakers.

In Vermont, the majority of residents participating in the state’s annual March 1 town meetings endorsed a call for their governor to ask for the return of the state’s deployed guardsmen.

And in Montana, Gov. Brian Schweitzer asked the Pentagon last week to send home 1,500 of his state’s guardsmen and their helicopters, so they’ll be available for what is expected to be a difficult fire season.

The families who met in Olympia on Monday with Antonio Ginatta, an executive policy adviser for Gregoire, presented a mix of political and practical considerations. They contend the president’s primary reasons for war in Iraq “have been proven false or declared invalid.”

Long deployments are straining police and fire departments and other public safety agencies, many of whose members are part-time soldiers, they argue.

“We need to be looking at the devastating effect these deployments, the unprecedented use of the Guard and Reserve, has had on families,” said Stacy Bannerman of Kent, whose husband is a Washington guardsman in Iraq.

Others who met Monday with Ginatta included Susan Livingston, whose brother, Spc. Joseph Blickenstaff, died in Iraq in 2003 while deployed with the first Fort Lewis Stryker brigade. His family is also active in the anti-war effort in Oregon, his home state.

Ginatta said he will present the group’s concerns to Gregoire and told the families they could expect to talk more with the governor’s office.

“The reintegration of our troops, getting them back into our state with as seamless a transition from combat to kitchen, is very important to the governor,” Ginatta said. But he added the groups’ demands “raise some very heavy federal questions that we have to look at.”

The National Guard generally works at the direction of governors unless the president calls units to active-duty service.

About 3,200 Washington guardsmen are in the process of returning home after a year in Iraq with the 81st Brigade Combat Team. It was the largest deployment of the Washington Guard since World War II.

But members of the groups that met in Olympia on Monday say their message is still relevant because U.S. troops are likely to be in Iraq for several years and Washington’s part-time soldiers might be sent back.

OLYMPIA -- Gov. Chris Gregoire today signed a bill that allows more unpaid leave for military families before or during deployment.

“I am pleased to sign this and to thank those who are sacrificing so much for our country. This bill will give military families an opportunity to connect before and after deployments,” Gregoire said. “By doing so, these families already facing uncertainty are better able to stay intact and healthy.”

The legislation provides that during periods of military conflict, employees are entitled to up to 15 days of unpaid leave before their spouse is deployed or while their spouse is on leave from deployment.

The bill also increases from 15 to 21 the number of days each year a state or local officer or employee who is a member of the Washington National Guard or Reserves is entitled to a military leave of absence from employment.

“As an Iraq War veteran, I know this bill will help Washington’s military families have precious time to connect during challenging times,” said Sen. Steve Hobbs, D-Lake Stevens. “I am happy we can help families who are already sacrificing so much.”

This measure will align Washington with California, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, and New York, which have enacted similar legislation.

Gregoire also signed into law a bill that authorizes the state Department of Licensing to issue a special license plate to the parents of members of the U.S. armed forces who have died while in service to their country.

“These special plates will recognize and honor those men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice,” Gregoire said. “I am honored to sign this bill and grateful to these families for their sacrifice.”

The idea for the bill came from the Washington state chapter of the Gold Star Mothers, an organization created in the 1920s whose membership is limited to mothers of armed forces members who died while in service to their country, or as a result of that service.

The organization was named after the gold star that families hung in their windows in honor of the deceased veteran.

According to the Gold State Mothers’ Web site, more than 20 states have initiated such a plate. Some states have made plates available only to mothers. Others, like Washington, make plates available to both mothers and fathers.

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- The nation's governors on Saturday launched a bipartisan drive to block a move to expand the president's authority to take over National Guard troops in case of natural disaster or homeland security threats.

At a closed-door luncheon on the opening day of the annual summer meeting of the National Governors Association, the chairman, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), told colleagues that a provision in the House-passed defense authorization bill would end the historic link between the states and their Guard units.

Huckabee and the association's vice chairman, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D), plan to ask all the governors at the session to sign a letter of protest Sunday aimed at killing the provision when House and Senate conferees meet next month on the bill.

Huckabee told reporters that the move to shift control of the Guard to the president during national emergencies "violates 200 years of American history" and is symptomatic of a larger federal effort to make states no more than "satellites of the national government."

Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, the senior Democrat, called the proposal "one step away from a complete takeover of the National Guard, the end of the Guard as a dual-function force that can respond to both state and national needs."

The provision was tucked into the House version of the defense bill without notice to the states, something Vilsack said he resents as much as the proposal itself.

Under the provision, the president would have authority to take control of the Guard in case of "a serious natural or manmade disaster, accident, or catastrophe" in the United States.

Huckabee said he does not know if President Bush wants that authority, but said "the administration is supporting this."

He and Vilsack said they believe the provision was a reaction to Hurricane Katrina, when Bush debated taking control of National Guard units from Louisiana and Mississippi to end confusion about who was responsible for security in storm-devastated areas.

Vilsack called that a "misguided reaction." He said he had long since proposed an alternative that would give command authority to a federal official at the site of any disaster, while retaining a governor's authority over troops in his state.

Calls to a spokesman for the White House National Security Council staff, where the plan reportedly originated, were not returned.

Huckabee, who is considering a presidential bid in 2008, said Congress and the administration -- run by fellow Republicans -- have moved far from what he called the "traditional states' rights position" of conservatives.

In addition to the National Guard, he cited the new "Real ID" legislation, requiring states to ascertain the citizenship status of everyone seeking a driver's license. Huckabee said that, in effect, "they are trying to make every entry-level employee in our [department of motor vehicles] offices an immigration officer, and they're giving us no money to train them or hire them. It is a disaster in the making."

During the afternoon, the governors heard Tommy G. Thompson, the former secretary of health and human services and former governor of Wisconsin, warn that the country's health-care system is heading for financial breakdown within seven years -- unless it is converted to a system of health maintenance with an emphasis on preventive care. He said governors must start diet and exercise programs in their states and take other steps to reduce the cost of chronic disease, because "Congress will not do it."

Huckabee, who shed 110 pounds two years ago out of health concerns, has made that issue his theme for his year as chairman of the organization.

A little-noticed change in federal law packs an important change in who is in charge the next time a state is devastated by a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina.

To the dismay of the nation’s governors, the White House now will be empowered to go over a governor’s head and call up National Guard troops to aid a state in time of natural disasters or other public emergencies. Up to now, governors were the sole commanders in chief of citizen soldiers in local Guard units during emergencies within the state.

A conflict over who should control Guard units arose in the days after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. President Bush sought to federalize control of Guardsmen in Louisiana in the chaos after the hurricane, but Gov. Kathleen Blanco (D) refused to relinquish command.

Over objections from all 50 governors, Congress in October tweaked the 200-year-old Insurrection Act to empower the hand of the president in future stateside emergencies. In a letter to Congress, the governors called the change "a dramatic expansion of federal authority during natural disasters that could cause confusion in the command-and-control of the National Guard and interfere with states' ability to respond to natural disasters within their borders."

The change adds to tensions between governors and the White House after more than four years of heavy federal deployment of state-based Guard forces to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, four out of five guardsmen have been sent overseas in the largest deployment of the National Guard since World War II. Shortage of the Guard’s military equipment -- such as helicopters to drop hay to snow-stranded cattle in Colorado -- also is a nagging issue as much of units’ heavy equipment is left overseas and unavailable in case of a natural disaster at home.

A bipartisan majority of both chambers of Congress adopted the change as part of the 439-page, $538 billion 2007 Defense Authorization Bill signed into law last October.

The nation's governors through the National Governors Association (NGA) successfully lobbied to defeat a broader proposal to give the president power to federalize Guard troops without invoking the Insurrection Act. But the passage that became law also "disappointed" governors because it expands federal power and could cause confusion between state and federal authorities trying to respond to an emergency situation, said David Quam, an NGA homeland security advisor.

"Governors need to be focused on assisting their citizens during an emergency instead of looking over their shoulders to see if the federal government is going to step in," Quam said.

Under the U.S. Constitution, each state's National Guard unit is controlled by the governor in time of peace but can be called up for federal duty by the president. The National Guard employs 444,000 part-time soldiers between its two branches: the Army and Air National Guards.

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 forbids U.S. troops from being deployed on American soil for law enforcement. The one exception is provided by the Insurrection Act of 1807, which lets the president use the military only for the purpose of putting down rebellions or enforcing constitutional rights if state authorities fail to do so. Under that law, the president can declare an insurrection and call in the armed forces. The act has been invoked only a handful of times in the past 50 years, including in 1957 to desegregate schools and in 1992 during riots in south central Los Angeles after the acquittal of police accused of beating Rodney King.

Congress changed the Insurrection Act to list "natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident" as conditions under which the president can deploy U.S. armed forces and federalize state Guard troops if he determines that "authorities of the state or possession are incapable of maintaining public order."

Backers of the new rules, including U.S. Sens. John W. Warner (R-Va.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) said the changes were needed to clarify the role of the armed forces in responding to serious domestic emergencies.

Mark Smith, spokesperson for the Louisiana Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said local and state emergency responders know what their communities need during a crisis better than officials in Washington.

"The president should not be able to step in and take control of the National Guard without a governor's consent. The Guard belongs to the states, has always belonged to the states and should remain a function of the states," Smith said.