Trackbacked at Stop The ACLU, Wizbang, Sister Toldjah, Michelle Malkin:
From The Hill:
Speaker-in-waiting Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) threw her support behind Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) for majority leader Sunday, giving a significant boost to Murtha in his race against Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).
“Your strong voice for national security, the war on terror and Iraq provides genuine leadership for our party, and I count on you to continue to lead on these vital issues,” Pelosi wrote Murtha Sunday in a letter obtained by The Hill. “For this and for all you have done for Democrats in the past and especially this last year, I am pleased to support your candidacy for majority leader for the 110th Congress.”
Murtha. Democratic US Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania.
Rep. John Murtha, an influential Pennsylvania lawmaker, outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, and former Marine colonel and Vietnam war veteran, said Marines had “killed innocent civilians in cold blood” after allegedly responding to a roadside bomb ambush that killed a Marine during a patrol in Haditha, Iraq. He made this statement while the incident was still under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and Multi-National Forces Iraq. He made this statement before any facts were known.
John Murtha has already recommended a Vietnam-type cut-and-run plan for Iraq that will leave the Gulf far more dangerous than it is now. This plan looks like a “face-saving” retreat by the United States, just like that one that left Vietnam a Stalinist prison state with tens of thousands of boat people fleeing and dying, and next door in Cambodia, two or three million dead at the hands of Pol Pot.
Our soldiers would have died in vain while Al-Qaeda takes over Iraq. Those people who counted on us to stay and protect them until they can protect themselves will have been left high and dry to the murderous thugs of Al-Qaeda and Iran.
Rep. John Murtha, NBC’s “Meet the Press”, earlier in 2006 repeated his call for “redeploying” U.S. troops from Iraq with something new and disturbing to all Americans. Asked by moderator Tim Russert about sites for redeployment, Murtha replied: “We can go to Okinawa. … We can redeploy there almost instantly.”
Huh?
When Russert expressed doubt about “a timely response” from Okinawa to meet a Middle East crisis, the 16-term congressman from western Pennsylvania and new national security spokesman for his party stumbled: “Well, it — you know, they — when I say Okinawa, I, I’m saying troops in Okinawa. When I say a timely response, you know, our fighters can fly from Okinawa very quickly. And, and — when they don’t know we’re coming.”
Very quickly? A Pentagon spokesman says it would take “under a month” to prepare and send a 4,500-man Marine Expeditionary Force 6,000 nautical miles from Okinawa to Bahrain and then 600 more miles to Baghdad. This is what Murtha considers “very quickly”?
Murtha has a distinguished record of advocating surrender. He made his first tentative moves as a leader in the Tactics of Defeat when (by his own admission) he recommended to President Ronald Reagan that he withdraw from Lebanon following the terrorist bombing of the Marine base on October 23, 1983. In spite of the fact that the mission in Lebanon was largely succeeding, pressure from Congress and “courageous” veterans like Jack Murtha, finally convinced President Reagan to “change course” by pulling the marines out of Lebanon.
Murtha solidified his credentials as the King of Surrender when (again by his own admission) he became instrumental in President Clinton’s decision to “change course” in Somalia. You remember Somalia, don’t you? Operation Restore Hope, initiated by President Bush (41), sent 25.000 troops to Somalia to help provide humanitarian relief to the people. The mission was largely successful and is credited with having saved the lives of half a million Somalis and reducing the ongoing civil war to a small series of skirmishes. Under President Clinton, with the advice of Defense Secretary Les Aspin and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Madeleine Albright, the largely U.S. mission in Somalia was turned over to the U.N. Thereafter, incompetence became the word of the day, eventually culminating in the “Black Hawk Down” incident in October of 1993. President Clinton, heeding the gravely mistaken advice of the Mighty Jack Murtha to, in the words of Monty Python, “Run away! Run away,” began to withdraw the troops from Somalia. His “uncanny comprehension” of military strategy led him to make this recommendation, thereby leaving the way clear for Al Qaeda to begin consolidation operations. Murtha’s recommendation could, therefore, be called one of the most critical factors in the 9/11 attacks. Thanks, Jack, you’re a real hero.
Is this really the guy you want telling us how to win the war in Iraq? Murtha has no plan. He has no idea how to conduct a war. He has nothing to offer but fear and failure – and that’s why Pelosi wants him as House Majority Leader.
Lebanon. Somalia. And now Iraq. Truly Murtha is the King of Surrender.
Pelosi, Murtha, Democrat, Haditha, Al-Qaeda, Iraq, Okinawa, Lebanon, Somalia
1 response so far ↓
1 Ken Larson // Nov 13, 2006 at 8:50 pm
I am a 2 tour Vietnam Vet, recently retired from 36 years in the Defense Industrial Complex after working on many of the weapons our forces are using in the Middle East as we speak.
If you are interested in a view of the inside of the Pentagon procurement process from Vietnam to Iraq please check the posting at my blog entitled “Odyssey of Armaments”.
The Pentagon is a giant, incredibly complex
establishment,budgeted in excess of $500B per year. The Rumsfelds, the Administrations and the Congressmen come and go but the real machinery of policy and procurement keeps on grinding away, presenting the politicos who arrive with detail and alternatives slanted to perpetuate the machine.
How can any newcomer, be he a President, a Congressman or even the Sec. Def. to be – Mr. Gates- understand such complexity, particulary if heretofore he has not had the clearance to get the full details?
Answer- he can’t. Therefor he accepts the alternatives provided by the career establishment that never goes away and he hopes he makes the right choices. Or he is influenced by a lobbyist or two representing companies in his district or special interest groups.
From a practical standpoint, policy and war decisions are made far below the levels of the talking heads who take the heat or the credit for the results.
This situation is unfortunate but it is ablsolute fact. Take it from one who has been to war and worked in the establishment.
This giant policy making and war machine will eventually come apart and have to be put back together to operate smaller, leaner and on less fuel. But that won’t happen unitil it hits a brick wall at high speed.
We will then have to run a Volkswagon instead of a Caddy and get along somehow. We better start practicing now and get off our high horse. Our golden aura in the world is beginning to dull from arrogance.