GUARDSMEN NEEDED HERE, NOT IN IRAQ.

Byline: SANDY SAND Local View

GOV. Arnold ``the Terminator'' Schwarzenegger picked a terrible time to morph into Arnold ``the Escalator'' in support of his once-again best pal George W. Bush.

Schwarzenegger's endorsement of Bush's troop ``surge'' in Iraq came mere days after Caltech seismologists announced that the ``Big One'' is due to occur at any time. When it hits, who is going to need the California National Guard more than Californians? The Iraqis? I don't think so.

Ask anyone who went through the Sylmar and/or Northridge quakes what it was like to be without power and water for days. Some of us were lucky, and it didn't last for more than a day; others weren't so lucky, and were taking buckets to fire hydrants where the Fire Department was manually pumping out water.

Others waited in long lines on street corners or at schools for water trucks to fill their buckets and five-gallon water bottles. They waited in those long lines because after the power came back on and the electronic cash registers were up and running again, whatever bottled water was left was sold out in an instant.

Since we like to give natural disasters personalities imbued with evil intent, earthquakes maliciously hit the day before we were going to replenish our nonexistent or stale supply of batteries.

Without power, we have no radio, television, cable or telephones, which provide us contact with the outside world and without them we feel isolated. We don't have a clue what's going on, except in our immediate surrounding, and we don't know which -- if any -- streets, highways, freeways, hospitals or anything are open and providing services.

Assuming the pipelines that carry water down from Northern California or from the east of us are not broken, the reason we don't have water after a large earthquake is because we have no electricity to run the pumping stations.

We need the California National Guard here, protecting us in the event of a natural disaster, whether it be from earthquake, wildfires or flooding from either rain or the bursting of one or more of the state's antiquated dams.

It wasn't that long ago that Schwarzenegger pounded his chest and bellowed that California's infrastructure is falling apart, and pleaded for legislation and bond measures in the billions to repair these things before they catastrophically fail.

So why would the governor pick now to endorse Bush's surge in Iraq plan? To increase his street cred with the Republican base?

Schwarzenegger hasn't spoken with the president for months, nor has the name ``George Bush'' passed his lips, at least not in public. When the governor was campaigning for re-election, he asked Bush to stay away, fearing that the president's low approval ratings would hurt him, not help.

Somewhere along the line, Schwarzenegger, along with many other governors, has forgotten that they, not the president, control the 50 states' National Guard units whose main purpose is to protect the individual states and its citizens.

A few states' governors have not forgotten and are battling the White House with everything they have to get their guardsmen back home where they belong.

Our state is among the three highest contributors of guardsmen to Bush's war in Iraq. Our state is also in peril from the threat of major earthquakes, one due to hit at any time and one that is already 30 years overdue.

We don't know when the quakes will hit; we do know they will. Schwarzenegger's reckless endorsement of a troop surge puts every person in California in jeopardy, and leaves us all to fend for ourselves in the event of a widespread disaster.