So the dogpile is on Murtha now?

As advertised a few days ago, I' m posting an article from a reader, who posts as Timmah420 in his comments. While this may surprise a few, this is a rebuttal against the attacks on Rep. John "Jack" Murtha, from a more liberal perspective. The reason I'm posting it is because I believe that a decent, two sided look at things is better than always having one side rant about stuff.
Trackback at Don Surber's place
So here it is.

So the dogpile is on Murtha now?
(ensure you click the "read the whole post!" link to see the whole thing)

I've heard all manner of crazy crap about Murtha since the day, the very morning he came out in favor of pulling the troops out. What a circus the GOP has created to distract from his real goals and issues. It started with a simple statement. "They don't deserve to continue to suffer. They're the targets."

In essence, this is what a real pro-lifer is about. Someone with a compassionate soul and a realistic, war-tempered mind. Someone who can cut through the swaths of white noise constantly generated by the countless lackeys and hatchet men employed by the white house. One of which is the opportunistic Colonel Danny Bubp. I'll get back to that.

I think a few more of his words bear repeating, before I examine the issue further.

"A flawed policy wrapped in illusion," and said the continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is "uniting the enemy against us." and then, apparently in reference to Cheney et al, ""I like guys who've never been there who criticize us who've been there," Murtha said. "I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and sent people to war and then don't like to hear suggestions that what may need to be done."

Because that's what this really boils down to. American soldiers dying because of a bad idea of a war, based on false or cherry picked intelligence, orchestrated by people who missed out on their world history courses. If Bush or Rumsfeld had bothered to look at the history of occupations in the middle east, they would know why Afghanistan is becoming an ever increasingly violent opium state and why things keep going downhill in Iraq.

Then again, it seems that fewer and fewer people were involved on the actual decision making to go to war here. Rumsfeld himself admitted on ABC’s “This Week,” telling George Stephanopoulos that he “didn’t advocate invasion” and in fact, “wasn’t asked” about the decision.

I seem to remember Colin Powell saying much the same thing. So let's see here Bush didn't clear it with his Secretary of Defense OR the Secretary of State... So who exactly pulled this trigger? Halliburton? Sounds like a veritable orgy of incompetence if you ask me. Then again Rumsfeld may simply be trying to distance himself from the invasion, but neither bodes well for the subjects at hand, the American soldiers and the Iraqi civilians.

At any rate the smear machine lurched into full gear that day, starting right on the floor with Rep. Jean Schmidt, who, in a dazzling impersonation of the wicked witch of the west, attacked Murtha, reading a letter from a colonel calling Murtha a coward. There have been so many attacks on him thus far, but this initial one was so raw, so representative of what was to follow, I prefer to stick with it.

I posted earlier on this website, Colonel Danny Bubp's history of missing every combat engagement ever conducted in his some 20-30 years of service. Looking closer at the record, he's spent more time fighting for right-wing, Christian approved crusades, starting his career back in 1999, when he became pro-bono legal counsel for an Ohio group lobbying to put monuments to the 10 commandments in public schools.

His association with Jean Schmidt goes back much farther than Murtha, back to when Schmidt was in the political fight of her life with a Paul Hackett, another veteran of real combat, specifically he had just returned from Iraq. Bubp appeared in full military uniform at a Schmidt rally and once again, attacked a veteran who HAS been there, for criticizing Bush. "I served for eight years under a president who loathed the military," Bubp said, referring to Clinton. "But we never said a word about it."

That takes some brass ones. One would imagine the soldiers stranded in Mogadishu would have liked to have had a few choice words with Clinton then, but how would Bubp know?

Following that personal attack, that was so odious, that the floor erupted in dissent, and Schmidt was forced to take back her remarks lest she be censured, was a vote put up by republicans, jokingly thought of among the GOP as the Murtha bill. One only needs to read the proposed bill by Murtha and the GOP "re-write" to see what a joke the vote was.

Murtha's bill
---
Whereas Congress and the American People have not been shown clear, measurable progress toward establishment of stable and improving security in Iraq or of a stable and improving economy in Iraq, both of which are essential to "promote the emergence of a democratic government";

Whereas additional stabilization in Iraq by U, S. military forces cannot be achieved without the deployment of hundreds of thousands of additional U S. troops, which in turn cannot be achieved without a military draft;

Whereas more than $277 billion has been appropriated by the United States Congress to prosecute U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan;

Whereas, as of the drafting of this resolution, 2,079 U.S. troops have been killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom;

Whereas U.S. forces have become the target of the insurgency,

Whereas, according to recent polls, over 80% of the Iraqi people want U.S. forces out of Iraq;

Whereas polls also indicate that 45% of the Iraqi people feel that the attacks on U.S. forces are justified;

Whereas, due to the foregoing, Congress finds it evident that continuing U.S. military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the people of Iraq, or the Persian Gulf Region, which were cited in Public Law 107-243 as justification for undertaking such action;

Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That:

Section 1. The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date.

Section 2. A quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S Marines shall be deployed in the region.

Section 3 The United States of America shall pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy.

And here's the GOP "rewrite":


The GOP version:

RESOLUTION

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that
the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.

Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.

---

Nothing but another round in what, to republicans is just a political game. Something to play off as a victory, even though in reality, the victory is for the dems, if the republicans weren't afraid a commonsense bill like Murtha's would pass, why wouldn't they just vote on it, unedited? No, they're afraid and for good reason too. The majority of the American public wants us out, the soldiers, increasingly want out, the rest of the world wants America out (recent polls show even China has a higher world standing, opinion wise, mostly due to the war) and just recently, even the Iraqi leaders we put in office want us out.

And considering we have used White phosphorous on civilians, a substance that the pentagon decried Saddam for using, calling it a chemical weapon in a *recently declassified pentagon report* it looks like it's just going to get worse.

So what's it going to take? Just how much blood will quench our thirst for vengeance for the nearly 3000 dead at the WTC attack? Is a nearly hundred thousand dead civilian count, a 2000+ dead soldier count, and an over 83,000 detained enough? Can we put a stop to this madness now?

I will attempt to do what Murtha did, that day that seems so long ago now, I am pleading with American sensibilities, and I am pleading for a return to common sense. To a day when it would be silly to suggest Americans were torturing in secret Romanian prisons. When it would be laughable to suggest they used chemical weapons on civilians. When there was less empty-eyed flag waving and more soul.