"Redeploy" Congressman Murtha!

Murtha: "1,000 al-Qaeda in Iraq." Let's Leave!

Skye, at Midnight Blue dropped in Sunday morning to ask if I was watching that moron Murtha on Meet the Press. I have to admit there are about a million things I would rather do. But being the open-minded sort, who never shies away from dissenting voices, I printed out the transcript and took it to the beach, where it was a beautiful, balmy day with a wonderful high tide and quite a nice surf.

However, wading through the beginning of the transcript I quickly came to the conclusion that in addition to the high tide, there was an massive influx of B.S.

The first thing that struck me was that this was nothing more than a sputtering screed composed of a jumble of barely coherent talking points. Nothing more than the endless repetition of shopworn shibboleths from the defeatist wing of the Democrat Party.

At one point Murtha asks "who have we held responsible for this thing and accountable? Have we held secretary of defense accountable? Have we held anybody in the White House accountable?"

Excuse me, Mr. Congressperson. But We've had two elections in which accountability was a factor. Guess who won? And along with "accountability" the Democrats have freely exercised their right to dissent and to question and protest every single public official. And each of us who blogs on this issues has likewise been verbally harangued in a tiresome fashion time and again based on the same specious reasoning that Murtha and company continue to cling to.

Here's a quickie overview of Murtha-speak from today's transcript:

"There's no plan"... "Stay the course..doesn't solve any problem."...things are "worse today than six months ago."..."It's getting worse".."we're doing it all ourself"..."we need to redeploy our troops"...[we've] "become targets"..."civil war"...

At this point, host Tim Russert reminds him:

in 2004, you had a view that was much different than you had now, and this is what you wrote in your book: "A war initiated on faulty intelligence must not be followed by a premature withdrawal of our troops based on a political timetable. An untimely exit could rapidly devolve into a civil war, which would leave America's foreign policy in disarray as countries question not only America's judgment but also its perseverance." Aren't you now advocating that?

At this point, the sputtering resumed: ..."if you're not winning, if you're losing, and that's what's happening."..."We didn't have a threat to our national security. That's been proven."..."80 percent of the Iraqis want us out of there."..."Reagan did in, in Beirut, like, like Clinton did in Somalia, you just have to say, 'OK, it's time to change direction."

That's right Murtha... everyone knows what happened when we cut and run in Beirut and Somalia, terrorists took over.

And let's drop the 80% of Iraqis want us out line. Sure, at some point most of them do, as most of us do. But we've already had polls taken in Iraq that suggest your plan is the opposite of what most Iraqis want.

Tim Russert couldn't help but bring up the newly restored Karl Rove, who on June 12th chatised Murtha this way:

I want you to think about the consequences of their proposed course of action. If Murtha had his way, American troops would've been gone by the end of April and we wouldn't have gotten Zarqawi.
...
Congressman Murtha said, "Let's redeploy them immediately to another country in the Middle East. Let's get out of Iraq and go to another country." My question is, what country would take us? What country would say after the United States cut and run from Iraq, what country in the Middle East would say, "Yeah. Paint a big target on our back and then you'll cut and run on us. " What country would say that? What country would accept our troops?

And after a bit more sputtering, the aged donkey stumbled upon his ultimate solution: send the bulk of our forces to Okinawa, IN JAPAN! That's 4899 miles as the crow flies and quite a bit further if you are forced to traterroritoryunfriendly terroritory.

Murtha claimed repeatedly that we could still have gotten Zarqawi with our forces positioned outside Iraq. While we may have had some air assets handy, what troops would we have had available on the scene in a short time? None! And we certainly would have no rescue forces nearby in case aircraft were downed, or to respond to any other type of immediate situation.

Murtha's redeployment would be a military disaster of the first order and amount to nothing more than surrender. Once our forces were out, our logistics and bases removed, there is little doubt that we would ever return.

Tim Russert again asked Murtha " if we got out you could leave behind complete chaos, which could become a real haven for international terrorists, another Afghanistan pre-September 11?" And in total contradiction to what he said in 2004 Murtha responded "just the opposite." He later goes on to say that there are "1,000 al-Qaeda in Iraq."

What's that? Did he really say that there were "1,000 al-Qaeda in Iraq?" Yes, and he believes that when American troops "redeploy" that the Iraqis will take care of them.

Well there you have it. About as much of that outpouring from the asinine old fool as I can stomach on such a nice day.

But does anyone think that leaving 1,000 Al Queda and substantially more of Saddam's former murderers to run free in Iraq while Americans are thousands and thousands of miles away in Japan is a good idea?

Does that sound like sound strategic reasoning?

Missed Seeing the classic: "Retreat and Defeat" video? It's right here. And that wonderful GOP video archive is here.