Bush's war makes us all vulnerable

Imagine a tornado wipes out your town. Imagine a hurricane storm surge inundates your city. Imagine a wildfire burns your town to a crisp. You need help and you need it fast. You need your local National Guard contingent.

But guess what? Guard personnel and their equipment are patrolling Ramadi and Fallujah 10 times zones away. The weekend tornadoes in Greensburg, Kansas, brings this point home. Here’s an excerpt from the Lawrence Journal-World:

During a tour of the town early Sunday evening, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius — who in December asked the Pentagon to replenish Kansas equipment left by the National Guard in Iraq — said the devastation in Greensburg shows why the state needs its equipment back.

"We’re missing about half of our trucks from the National Guard units," Sebelius said. "Clearly trucks to haul this debris away would be enormously helpful. We are missing flatbeds. We are missing Humvees, which are used to get people to safety and security and to haul equipment around. We are missing a number of our well-trained National Guard personnel. The equipment that we continue to harp on that has been sent overseas when our troops are deployed and not restored at the same level could be enormously helpful."