Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[harrypothead]

MURTHA IS RIGHT
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY "LEADERSHIP" IS WRONG

By: Justin Raimondo

"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public is way ahead of us. The United States and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq, but it is time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We can not continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf Region."

- Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.)

If anyone other than John Murtha had called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, it wouldn't have been that big a deal. Murtha not only supported the war, he has been one of the biggest supporters of the Pentagon in Congress, praised by none other than Paul Wolfowitz for his "wonderful" support for the astronomical sums sucked up by the War Party in their never-ending quest for our tax dollars. It was Murtha who led the congressional Democrats in supporting Gulf War I, and, in his 2004 book, characterized a withdrawal from Iraq as potentially "disastrous" for our credibility in the Middle East and the world. (So much for efforts by the pro-war wing of the blogosphere to label him a peacenik because of his relatively mild procedural criticism of the Bush policy.) Rep. Murtha, like the rest of the country, has been on a pretty steep learning curve when it comes to Iraq in recent months. Furthermore, Murtha, as Andrea Mitchell pointed out the other day on Chris Matthews' Hardball, enjoys the confidence of top military commanders and Pentagon insiders and would not be speaking out if he didn't have their advance knowledge and implicit support – backing he acknowledged in his appearance on Meet the Press Sunday morning.

That's what this controversy is all about: the reemergence of opposition to the war from within the top echelons of the uniformed military, as well as the intelligence community and the Democratic Party. It was the generals, you'll remember, who opposed this war and pointed out our unpreparedness from the very beginning, starting with but not limited to Gen. Eric Shinseki, who was fired for saying we would need 200,000 troops for the occupation. Now that their predictions have come true, in spades, and our armed forces are being chewed up on the battlefields of Iraq, the uniformed wing of the Peace Party is returning for a second engagement, and they're bringing out the big guns.

http://www.etherzone.com/2005/raim112105.shtml

Earlier, White House spokesman Scott McClellan had said Murtha was "endorsing the policy positions" of antiwar filmmaker Michael Moore and proposing a "surrender to terrorists." And the vice president had ripped into Murtha and other Democrats who questioned the prewar intelligence that lured us into the Iraqi quagmire:

"The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory, or their backbone – but we're not going to sit by and let them rewrite history."

It isn't just the congressional Democrats who believe we were lied into war: the majority of Americans now realize the nature and scope of the deception. They know full well it is Cheney who is rewriting history – his own, as Murtha pointed out:

"I like guys who got five deferments and have never been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what ought to be done."

Ouch!