With the recent news of food and fuel shortages, continued power outages and general misery facing survivors of hurricane Ike, I was curious about what kind of National Guard response there has been.
According to CNN, "the only network traveling with the top military commander touring Southern Texas to assess recover efforts from hurricane Ike," troop deployment in Texas stands at around 6,000.
By comparison, there were 75,000 units deployed in the aftermath of Katrina.
http://www.cnn.com/...
According to the story, this is about "precision warfare against mother nature."
"The biggest difference? There are 6,000 active duty and national guard units here compared to 75,000 in Katrina.
Then [Katrina] they relied on mass force and it wasn't effective. Now, they have more precision information on what is needed and where it needs to go."
I am reminded of Rumsfeld's precision war in Iraq and we know how well that has turned out.
With such a drastic difference in troop numbers, I'm just a tad skeptical that this is only due to greater precision. It begs the question, is fighting two foreign wars affecting the military's relief effort in Texas?
Will we end up needing a surge in Texas, too?