Mad Murtha Disease Still Running Rampant
Jack Murtha still can’t control his disease. Writing in this morning’s Arizona Republic, Murtha tells us once again that it’s “time for a change in direction” and that “our military is suffering” and that the future of our country is at risk.” Sound familiar? He goes on to say:
I said over a year ago, and now the military and the administration agree, Iraq cannot be won “militarily.”
That’s a bald-faced lie and he knows it. The Bush administration believes that Iraq can’t be won by pursuing a military-only track but that isn’t to say that the military won’t play a significant role in winning Iraq. The Bush administration believes that their policy of engaging on the economic, military and political fronts will win the war and thus far, they’ve been right strategically.
Does Murtha think that the Iraqis who’ve volunteered for military duty will train themselves? Or that Zarqawi will just go away without a bayonet at his throat? I’d also defy Murtha to get Gen. Casey or Gen. Abizaid to agree with his ludicrous statement. It doesn’t pass the laugh test. They’d laugh him out of the building in no time.
It is time for U.S. forces to redeploy from Iraq in an orderly and rapid fashion and for our military footprint to be converted from a pervasive presence inside Iraq to a powerful quick reaction force outside Iraq.
Don’t you just love this? Murtha says that we need to redeploy with a “powerful quick reaction force outside Iraq.” I wonder if that still means redeploying to Okinawa like he said earlier. I wonder if he bothers to notice that the Iraqi military is taking the lead more each day and that we’re turning control of policing towns, areas and provinces over to the Iraqis. He can’t have noticed that we’re well on our way of accelerating training of Iraqi troops. Here’s what the Washington Times’ Rowan Scarborough reports with regard to troop training:
Gen. Casey repeatedly has indicated his troop-level needs will be determined by two yardsticks, the expected success of this week’s elections, plus the fielding of more than 210,000 Iraqi Security Forces troops. In that regard, the general said much of Iraq’s army should be able to “take the lead” by the end of 2006. This means its battalions should be able to plan and execute counterinsurgency missions. But they will still require embedded American advisers, and logistics and intelligence support. Gen. Casey said “we’re going to start seeing” local police officers “take charge of maintaining internal security across Iraq.”
He adds:
U.S. commanders say fewer foreign fighters are carrying out the war’s suicide bombing attacks. The decrease is credited to better patrols along the Syrian border and village-by-village sweeps up and down the Euphrates River. Gen. Casey said suicide bombings went from 60 in June to 26 in November.
Does this sound like the time for the U.S. to change course? Quite the opposite. It’s time for them to stay the course with what’s obviously working.
In closing, it’s time to retire Murtha via the vote if he won’t retire on his own. His carping isn’t fueled by a genuine difference of opinion but rather because he thinks this is a great political ploy that will help Democrats recapture the House.
He couldn’t be more wrong.
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRing
May 18th, 2006 at 8:58 am
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