John Murtha -- Angry Little Man
Thursday, February 15, 2007 at 08:56PM Well, he's at it again. Ranting Democratic Congressman John Murtha is having a bill drafted with the intent of undercutting President Bush's planned troop surge in Iraq. Rather than expressly preventing the surge by cutting off funding, the bill would make it more difficult to send reinforcements while disallowing the Pentagon from keeping troops in Iraq beyond their deployment. The net result would be an inability to keep enough troops in Iraq to constitute the surge. Oh, and all in the name of protecting the troops.
I for one am growing tired of the rhetoric on the Left whereby they claim to support the troops but oppose the war. If they oppose the war, they oppose the troops fighting the war. There can be no distinction. It would be like me saying that I support the Chicago Bears but oppose the Super Bowl. Simplistic you say? Well, not really. If I support the Bears, I respect and support their goal, which is to win the Super Bowl. If I support the troops, I respect and support their goal, which is to win the war. If I have grave moral reservations about this thing we call the Super Bowl, then I cannot in good conscience support the Bears effort to win it without being profoundly hypocritical. If I have grave moral reservations about the war, then I cannot in good conscience support the effort of our troops to triumph without also being profoundly hypocritical.
From where I sit, the Left has three choices. They can claim to support the troops while opposing the war, which is hypocritical. They can oppose the war and root for American humiliation (the troops end up failing) which is equally vile but at least has the benefit of being honest. The third choice is to recognize that our troops are committed to victory while giving them everything they need to win that victory. This of course includes a united rhetorical front in support of victory. To instead pull the troops out is to be responsible for a mission unfulfilled. The troops would not be allowed to achieve the victory to which their pride and ambition has been wedded.
What about those detractors who don't believe the war is winnable? If the military leadership, in this case General Petreus, believes the war is winnable, he should get the benefit of the doubt until proven wrong. If General Petreus believes we can win but John Kerry and John Murtha don't, I'm throwing in with an actual military general over a couple of politicians pandering to a party base that is committed to an anti-war position.
The leftist Euro-Dems (my new name for the "peace" Democrats) believe that the troops want -- and are best served -- by coming home. What the Euro-Dems are really revealing is how little they understand the mindset of a U.S. soldier. Unlike soft and feeble "progressives," trained soldiers are motivated by honor, duty and courage. They want to succeed in their mission. They find no honor in being coddled or protected by the political class. They want to earn their honor through military triumph. Euro-Dems wanting to pull them away from their mission are actually projecting their own fear and cowardice onto people from whom they couldn't be more different. Most people who have had prior military service are instinctively aware of the difference in nature and values between themselves and the Euro-Dems, which is why former military personnel vote so overwhelmingly for Republicans. These former soldiers smell cowardice and find it's odor to be repugnant. For every Jim Webb or John Murtha, there are dozens of Oliver Norths and John McCains. The fever swamp on the far-left clamoring for withdrawal should understand one thing very clearly. The vast majority of American soldiers are their moral betters.
Update: Captain Ed weighs in and, surprise, cites the Washington Post as also being critical of Murtha.
Reader Comments (2)
Americans overwhelming want oout of the war and the Bush Administration never took seriously our involvement there, It seems everyone believed the myth from Gulf War I; that is, doing more with less, and new electronic gadtrey can lessen the number of boots on the ground. It is hard to blieve that a country with 300 million people can field an army of just about 120, 000 men and women. Most Americans are so disconnected that they think the war is a television spectator sport.
After 9-11 Bush should imposed some sort of draft. Instead we got go to the mall and spebd money and volunteer at some goody too shoes organization. I know it is not popular, but it is irrational to spend $40,000 reenlistment bonuses, and have men and women serve 4,5 or 6 deployments in that country. America must rethink its military from the bottom up or it will never be able to mount a serious campaign campaign again.
The whole thing stinks. The generals, the President and Vice-President and all the talking heads. We need a bigger, meaner, and cheaper military, and it doesn't take a college degree to figure that out. I was a big supporter of Bush but the more I see him in action the more I realize that his opponents might be right!
Want to scare the Iranians? Then enlist 500,000 additional airborne-infantry troops. We won't but the US is undersized for its population and importance in the world.
Danny L. McDaniel
Lafayette, Indiana