Governor, anticipating wildfires, wants Guard troops back

HELENA, Montana (AP) -- Montana is at such high risk for a wildfire "blowup" this summer that Gov. Brian Schweitzer wants at least some of the 1,500 National Guard soldiers in Iraq and elsewhere to return home for the wildfire season.

The governor warned Friday the state is like a powder keg because of persistent drought, a shortage of mountain snow and forests full of dry timber.

"I know it's going to be a bad fire year," he said, adding he anticipates a repeat of the 1988 season when 4,122 fires charred 2.2 million acres in the Northern Rockies, including about 793,000 acres in Yellowstone National Park.

"Somebody's going to have a blowup," Schweitzer said in an interview. "Is it northern Idaho, is it eastern Washington or is it Montana?"

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/04/montana.governor.ap/index.html

It will be interesting to see what happens in this case.

Sacrifices have to be made.

maybe voters will learn a little lesson about voting for repugs in their national elections. Neo-cons don't care if all of MT burns this summer as long as Haliburton makes money. Hell it might be part of the plan, take away the NG in MT and privatize the fire service, let Haliburton bring in illegals from Mexico to fight the forest fires.

Vermont wants its troops back to. Could the state governments start speaking up about the missup of the National Guard by this maladministration?

You voted for the "war president," what did you expect?

Shoulda thought about needing your reserves before you all helped re-select him.

Besides, probably many states could use some or all of their reserves back. If you get yours, so should everyone else.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050227/D88GL1KO0.html

This Govnver of Montana did not ever vote for junior.

Should have been clearer.

I was referring to the sheeple in the red state of Montana.

They voted for the chimp, now they will have the consequences if/when the fires come.

Actions = consequences. A revered neocon concept.

Suck it up sheep.

for junior.

clearly the govna has no CLUE what the neocons are all about; suck it up buddy boy. Apparently most of the voters in Montana are clueless too.

No one's around to stop it.

Isn't Bushco always lecturing governors how they should be empowered and take a larger role in running this country, let the federal funding wither on the vine. Isn't this starving the beast. The central credo in the neocon beliefs. Well, he's taking his power back and he wants his troops back to fight a threat to the people of Montanna. I never did understand how the national guard became the global guard anyway. Even if war was declared on Iraq, it was to free the Iraqi people from Hussein and capture and destroy the WMD's. Well Hussein is captured, the WMD's never existed, no timetable has been released on Iraq.

they will use 'em for their own self-interests and that is final - there will be no compromise from those assholes

bush fuck`d them and decide to turn the state really blue.

he won because he knew how to listen to people and he was trusted by enough people to win....just read where his wife had to stop him from wearing blue jeans to the governors reception dinner in washington dc...he`s my kind of democrat...

that would freak people out.

that we can by state referendum say that those who join don't have to participate in a national draft of any sort. That way, if the chimpster yet again goes back on another promise of not reinstating the draft, there will be added protection for men out there from having to sign up, and we can get more into state militias both for fighting fires like this and/or to help us when the time comes for secession.

He does not respect bush.

Many of us in timbered country in the Northwest are very concerned this year. In my part of Oregon, water reserves are far below normal. Ranchers are concerned about lack of water for their own reasons, and just yesterday I was in a discussion about how the forest service should shut down the National Forest to prevent an accidental fire.

The situation is bad. Very bad. We can only hope for rain, and lots of it, before the hot and dry weather begins.

when the tourists start rolling in and memorial day comes around, the forests are usually shut down, because of fire danger. most fires are caused by humans. people that don't live in these conditions have NO idea that you can't throw a cigarette butt out a car window, that you can't build a fire in the forest, that you can't shoot off fireworks on july 4th.

we've had two major fires right here since 1996 and another in 2001 near los alamos. it is scary to watch your world burn up!

but this year, we FINALLY have enough moisture in the trees! first time in over ten years, i think. i will be praying for people in drier places, because i know what it feels like to not know if you'll have to evacuate on a moment's notice due to a change in the wind.....

doing this and I hope other governors follow suit. Can you imagine what a mess there will be when there's another major fire, earthquake, volcanic eruption, flood, etc. It's only a matter of time and we will see how the * admin is endangering our country yet again.

there are bound to be fires there this year. Will Arnie call for the troops to be sent home?

on Federally subsidized Guardsmen :eyes:

Just thought I'd put that out there.

beer drinker... Red Staters loves people like him. I'll vote for him!!!

for the flood season. We need our Guard at home, not in some foreign country dying for oil and Halliburton.

a case that the wildfires are the weapons of Terrorist and all those who accidently or directly set fires are terrorist.

Aren't we supposed to have "Homeland security" whatever became of that idea other than sending millions to Texas to fund lawnmower races.

But figuring who the terrorists/good guys are might be the difficult part. Kind of a MIHOP/LIHOP thingy. I can see forest fires becoming a focal point on the war on terror this summer. Heck, just last year this was talked about quite a bit. Only this time it may be a totally home spun project, in that, well, some nutcase with a twisted sense of patriotism will be starting fires that will be blamed on those dark skinned people over there in order the whip up enthusiasm for the faltering Bush* war. Sadly, the seed has been planted....and there is enough furtile ground (White supremacists) up there in the Big Sky country for this idea to take root. That cagey ben Laden is going to get his wish without doing a damn thing while Bush continues with his Social Security barnstorming crap.


FBI: al-Qaeda detainee spoke of fire plot

PHOENIX (AP) — The FBI alerted law enforcement agencies last month that an al-Qaeda terrorist now in detention had talked of masterminding a plot to set a series of devastating forest fires around the western United States.

Rose Davis, a spokeswoman for the NationalInteragency Fire Center in Boise, told The Associated Press that officials there took note of the warning but didn't see a need to act further on it.

The contents of the June 25 memo from the FBI's Denver office were reported Friday by The Arizona Republic. Davis declined to share a copy of the memo and an FBI spokeswoman in Denver didn't immediately return a telephone call.

The Republic reported that the detainee, who was
not identified, said the plan involved three or four people setting wildfires using timed devices in Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming that would detonate in forests and grasslands after the operatives had left the country.

<more>

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-07-11-alqaeda-fire_x.htm

1. If the Governor gives up the Federal Subsidy and the "Conscription Obligation Fulfillment" - he gets his National Guard back. That is the "militia" referred to in the Second Amendment.

2. Before Desert Storm and the Afghan-Iraqi wars - the National Guard was only called up after conscription had started - and wasn't called up for Viet Nam.

3. The historical (pre- Desert Storm and the Afghan-Iraqi wars) role of the National Guard -- with some aberrations (Kent State and Attica come to mind) was for major natural disasters -- blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, urban forest fires (like in California), tsunamis, etc.

4. I live in a liquefaction zone (i.e., the ground turns to mud for foundation and highway purposes during an earthquake) between the Guadalupe River and Coyote Creek, between the San Andreas Fault (7 miles west) and the Hayward-Calaveras Fault System (2 miles east), and I can look at the urban forest fire zone on Mt Hamilton and the Santa Cruz Mountains. -- I want my California Guard when the ground starts shaking!