President Obama's remarks today announcing a drawdown - to zero - of American troop presence in Iraq is not directly New Jersey news.
But more than 100 people with ties to New Jersey have died in the allied wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And at least 539 New Jerseyans died at the World Trade Center attack tied to both wars. For them, for NJ soldiers deployed in Iraq and veterans of 2 wars there, and for the $40 billion spent by NJ on the Iraq War, here is the speech ostensibly ending it, from the President:
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
ON ENDING THE WAR IN IRAQ
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
12:49 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. As a candidate for President, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end -- for the sake of our national security and to strengthen American leadership around the world. After taking office, I announced a new strategy that would end our combat mission in Iraq and remove all of our troops by the end of 2011.
Although they started returning on Memorial day, a parade and ceremonies were held in Trenton yesterday to honor the service of our National Guard troops. The largest deployment since World War II returned with the same number they left to serve. Here is video from the Assembly:And here is some video from the Governor's office where he said:
"Today, we are proud to welcome home our heroes one and all," Governor Corzine said. "You have served our state and our nation with dignity, with honor, and with courage. We can only imagine the adversity you faced and the conditions that made your jobs even more difficult. On behalf of all New Jersey's citizens, we thank you for your patriotism and service and we honor the sacrifices of your families. We are fortunate that you have all returned home safely."
I'll put more comments from elected officials, video and photos from the day below the fold. We're glad to have them all back safe and sound, but just because they've returned safely doesn't mean that everything goes back to normal. Let's hope that our elected officials are as interested in caring for them now that they have returned as they were celebrating their arrival.
Congressman Rush Holt joined Speaker Nancy Pelosi visiting foreign leaders, military leaders, and troops (including NJ National Guardsmen and women in Iraq) in Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, and Iraq on a trip that began last Thursday and saw them return home last night:
Yesterday morning in London, Pelosi and Holt met with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to discuss the international economic crisis, climate change, trade and the United Kingdom's participation in the multinational force in Afghanistan.
This weekend, Pelosi and Holt also met with King Abdullah and Queen Rania of Jordan, the Emir and Sheikha of Jordan, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq, among other leaders.
Promoted from the diaries - a compelling question to ask. - - Thurman Hart
John McCain will visit New Jersey today, first attending a private fundraiser in Bergen County, and then a campaign swing through Teaneck. Veterans for America (VFA) calls on Senator McCain to address issues we've seen during our recent work in New Jersey. About half of New Jersey's National Guard is in Ft. Bliss, Texas, preparing to deploy to Iraq, and thousands of Guard families and employers and dozens of communities are feeling their absence.
In the largest deployment of our national guard since WWII, the federal government needs 3,000 NJ Guard to run two detention centers holding 'suspected insurgents,' the training for which was written about by Wayne Woolley in the Star Ledger last week:
... the 50th Infantry Brigade Combat Team went through what the Army calls the "Oleoresin Capsicum Confidence Course." A chemical more powerful than bear repellent was sprayed in their faces.
... while fighting pain more intense than most said they'd ever imagined, they had to run a gantlet and, along the way, subdue five other soldiers who were posing as inmates at an Iraqi detention facility.
This training is a requirement for every soldier who will serve at a detention center in Iraq or Afghanistan. And for the majority of the 2,800 members of the 50th Brigade, detainee operations will be the main focus of their 10-month duty tour in Iraq, which begins at the end of the month...
The soldiers, he [Command Sgt. Major William Venneman, the top enlisted soldier in the task force] said, also learn to rely on each other to get through the 21-day immersion course in detainee operations. After 11 days of learning the finer points of shackling inmates and learning to break up riots, the soldiers man a detention center populated by paid civilian role players. The mock detainees scream from their cells incessantly and try to fight every chance they get. At the same time, the compound comes under frequent attack.
...The US-led Multinational Force-Iraq (MNF) has claimed the authority to hold the detainees under successive UN Security Council Resolutions, the last of which expires at the end of the year. Prospects for a status-of-forces agreement (SOFA) and related pacts that might fill the legal void are clouded by the Bush administration?s lame duck status.
The detainees - all Iraqis, save for a small number of foreigners - are effectively denied their basic right not to be held indefinitely without charge or trial. Many are young men rounded up in mass, arbitrary arrests. They are promised a review of their cases every six months, though the MNF has told Human Rights Watch reviews are more frequent in practice. Yet on average, detainees remain in custody for more than 300 days, according to MNF figures as of May. The detainees, divided between a remote prison near Basra and a smaller one near Baghdad?s airport, have little access to relatives, who in many cases cannot afford to visit or fear reprisal. Although about a tenth of detainees face charges in an Iraqi criminal court; the vast majority are never charged.
The MNF has argued that the detainees are held as imperative security threats, and are not entitled to criminal due process. International law does indeed allow for administrative detention, but the United States has not even met the basic requirements for holding people under such circumstances. The cases are reviewed by military panels, with no meaningful access to legal counsel and no judicial review - both of which detainees are entitled to under international law...
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Iraq has ratified, requires among other things that detainees face a judge promptly, and have prompt access to legal counsel and family members. Such a commitment should encourage the Iraqi authorities to improve their own poor record on detention and abuse of detainees.
He also mentions regarding children:
There are 360 children among the detainees, down from 500 in May. Many have been held for months, and some for more than a year, often without access to the educational services provided to children at one MNF facility. Those children referred to trial by the MNF are held at an Iraqi facility described by the UN as so overcrowded it threatens the children?s health.
Just a little glimpse of what the NJ National Guard is in for, guarding a population of around 21,000 to 22,000 detainees. Does it look to anyone else like our prison industrial complex is going international with our guard as part of it? (I again recommend this month's Mother Jones' articles on prisons, Slammed: Inside America's broken -- and broke -- prison system.)
Today's Ledger's article by Wayne Woolley talks about the petition to de-federalize the New Jersey National Guard and the move in Vermont's legislature instigated by a Democratic Rep. Mike Fisher:
Fisher introduced a measure in committee this January that argues President Bush's authority to call Vermont's troops to war in Iraq expired long ago and they should be sent home.
and other states:
Since Fisher unveiled his bill, similar legislation has been introduced in Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. Lawmakers in four other states -- Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire and Wisconsin -- are drafting similar measures
as well as the Govs Assn's attempt to keep control of their Guards for domestic emergencies:
The National Governors Association fought the Bush administration for nearly two years to win a repeal of a law last month that allowed a president to call up the National Guard for a domestic disturbance without consulting the state's governor. And governors have lamented that overseas National Guard deployments drain manpower and equipment needed to respond to a domestic crisis.
But Ben Manski, the executive director of Liberty Tree in Madison, Wis., says legislative moves in individual State Houses have the greatest potential to change the way the National Guard is used...
At a recent hearing on the bill, Harvard law professor David Barron said authorization for the war continues as long as Congress votes to pay for it.
which is another reason we need Congress to stop funding the war. The next $105 supplemental will be up probably in the next month.
And Corzine's response:
"I think it is undermining of the basic purpose of the National Guard, which is to protect local and state elements," Corzine said.
But at a public hearing last month, Corzine said he would not formally oppose the upcoming deployment because any state that disregards a Pentagon call-up would lose out on millions of federal dollars.
But Vermont's Rep. Fisher rejects that argument:
I'm blown away that someone would suggest that if we ask that the law to be followed that we would lose funding for our Guard
NJ is getting $20 million in new equipment, but whatever goes to Iraq will not come back. Earlier reporting suggested that our quartermaster is aggressively fighting to keep at least what we need here.
You might remember how 160 soldiers in NJ's Nat'l Guard got their tours extended as part of last year's surge, and that with the training in the South that preceded their deployment to Iraq, they ended up away from home for two solid years.
It's heartbreaking to read today in the Rutgers Observer that at least 91 Rutgers-Newark students in the NJ Guard will be mobilized, many to leave for Iraq in June, when half our guard goes. Because of the new limit on deployments to just one year (which somehow probably ends up being 18 months):
...many of the students that will be called in for duty will have to participate in at least three weeks of intensive training. Because of this they may have to leave sometime in late March or early April.
The irony is that many of these students sign up with the Guard for the tuition money, and they will be forced to withdraw for the Spring semester, delaying by an additional semester (plus their year in Iraq) their chance to complete their education.
Not to mention, there's no telling how many times these students have already been deployed. Are they on their second? third?
(another tilt since, well, it's the Governor! --promoted (shamelessly) by Jay - promoted by Jay Lassiter)
For those of you who missed the teaser vid, we had a nice chat with Governor Corzine yesterday and covered a lot of ground: stem cells (and keeping NJ cutting edge); the NJ National Guard in Iraq (and what it meant for us stateside); and kids healthcare (S-CHIP, charity care).
To make it all tidy and YouTube-able, I had to split it in two bites, so make sure to check 'em both out.
Corzine's most intriguing replies came to questions about gay marriage equality and his near-fatal crash last summer. Props to Blue Jersey regular 'Firstamend07' whose thoughtful question about the corrections budget was too good to leave out of the script!
(If you already saw the vlog trailer, simply fast forward a minute or so.)
Act two (aka the juicy bits) after the fold........
