SwiftVets.com

[fortdixlover]

Seriously ... is Murtha getting senile, or on the take?

He's gone off the deep end. It's really, really hard for me to imagine that this person was once a heroic soldier.

I'm sorry, it really is.

-- FDL

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/013327.php

Is Murtha Nuts?

Democratic Congressman Jack Murtha seems to have gone around the bend. Check out this exchange from this morning's Face the Nation:

Congressman Murtha, thank you for coming this morning, and I want to start by quoting something that General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said this morning on "Meet the Press." He said he believes the war in Iraq is going, in his words, "very, very well." What is your assessment?

Representative JACK MURTHA (Democrat, Pennsylvania; House Appropriations Committee): Why would I believe him? I mean, that administration, this administration, including the president, had mischaracterized this war for the last two years. They, first of all, they said it will take 40,000 troops to settle this thing right after the invasion. Then they said there's no insurgency. They're dead-enders is what the secretary of defense said. On and on and on, the mischaracterization of the war. They said there's nuclear weapons. There are no nuclear weapons there. There are no biological weapons there. No al-Qaeda connection. So why would I believe the chairman of the joint chiefs when he says things are going well. I ask my staff--when my staff--when they make a statement like this, I say, `Look, look in the latest report that the State Department puts out, the Weekly Report, and tell me how much progress we've made.' So they look at it, and we've made no progress at all. Sixty percent unemployment, the Iraqis want us out of there. Eighty percent of the Iraqis want us out of there. Oil production below prewar level. Water production, only 30 percent of the people getting water. Now our troops are being fed well and being taken care of. They're doing everything they can do militarily. But they're in a situation where they're caught in a civil war. And there's two participants fighting for survival and fighting for supremacy inside that country, and that's my definition of a civil war.

So I don't believe the secretary. I think we're not making progress. We're caught in a civil war. We've lost almost 20,000 people in this war, if you count the casualties and the people who've been killed in the three years we've been involved.

SCHIEFFER: Now I'm going to make sure I understand. I mean, I think I understand what you're saying, but you're talking about a Marine and here you are an ex-Marine. This is a military man. This is not--this is not somebody, some civilian out there at the Pentagon. You're saying you no longer believe what Marine General Peter Pace says when he says he thinks things are going well.

Rep. MURTHA: That's exactly right. Why would I believe him with all the misstatements and mischaracterizations they've made over the last two years? And the public is way ahead of what's going on in Washington. They no longer believe. The troops themselves, 70 percent of the troops said, `We want to come home within a year.' The only solution to this is redeploy. Let me tell you, the only people who want us in Iraq is Iran and al-Qaeda....


It's rather remarkable that a sitting United States Congressman would play so fast and loose with the facts, especially in the context of accusing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of being a liar. Pretty much every "fact" that Murtha hysterically tossed out is wrong.

Murtha's suggestion that the administration said Iraq had nuclear weapons is absurd. (Why don't talk show hosts ever seem to call Democrats on these wild misrepresentations?) Likewise his claim that there is "no al Qaeda connection." In light of everything we now know, that statement can only be described as ignorant. And, even if we charitably assume that Murtha is behind the curve on this one, how about Zarqawi? How about Ansar al-Islam? How about the terrorist training camps? How about the many connections beween Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda that are documented in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report?

Murtha says he can tell we aren't making any progress in Iraq because one of this staffers reads the State Department's Weekly Status Report, which shows that "we've made no progress at all." Maybe Murtha needs some new staffers. Whoever has been describing the State Department's Weekly Status Reports to him forgot to mention a few things. Here are some selections from the most recent Status Report, dated March 1:

Iraqi Police and Coalition Forces conduced a raid resulting in the death of Abu Asma, the Al Qaeda military leader of northern Baghdad.
The Police Chief of Diwaniyah Province...and Col. Larry McCallister, commander of Gulf Region South District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cut the ribbon to officially open the 32nd police station in Diwaniyah Province.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed construction on the $118 million New Power Generation Plant in Basrah Province. The new plant will provide power to approximately 1.5 million residents.

On February 21, the US Army Corps of Engineers completed construction on the $3.4 million Al Abara Substation, an Electric Distribution Project in Diyala Province. The rehabilitated substation is capable of providing power to approximately 60,000 residents.

U.S. and Iraqi troops have stepped up their patrols in Iraq's Baghdad and Babil provinces, and with assistance of ordinary Iraqis, discovered and defused numerous roadside bombs, mine fields and weapons caches.

Total trained and equipped Iraqi Security Forces: 232,100.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Ja'afari claimed that sectarian violence in his country would not derail efforts to set up a new government and said the security situation was as now under control....The number of attacks has dropped sharply over the last few days.

Construction is complete for the Al Basasel School project that 150 students and eight faculty members will utilize in Mosul. The US Army Corps of Engineeers completed constructed on several other educational facilities:

--Renovations on the Malk Al Ashtar school project in Diwaniyah, that will benefit some 2,000 Iraqi students.
--A girls' school housing 480 students in Khairat, Karbala Province.
--Refurbishing of the Imam Ali School in Karbala....This school will serve approximately 960 students.

US Army Corps of Engineers completed a water pump station project that will benefit approximately 100,000 Iraqis in the western part of Mosul.

Construction is complete on two US-funded Village Road Projects in the Basrah Governorate that will provide improved transportation for 6,000 local residents in Taha and Al Khas....

The dinar remained stable against the dollar this week, ending at 1,476 dinars per USD on March 1.

And this is the source that Murtha cites as authority for the proposition that "we've made no progress at all" in Iraq!

Murtha claims the unemployment rate in Iraq is 60%, which is unbelievable on its face. This is a figure that is sometimes cited on far-left blogs, which I suspect are Murtha's source; the CIA's World Factbook estimates Iraq's unemployment rate for 2005 at 25-30%. (The Factbook didn't attempt to estimate the unemployment rate under Saddam.)

Murtha says 80% of Iraqis "want us out of there." This too is silly, if by "out of there" Murtha means that 80% agree with his call for immediate withdrawal. We have linked to a number of Iraqi public opinion polls, like this one, where only 12% of Iraqis wanted American troops to pull out "at once." I don't know where Murtha got his 80%; the closest I've seen is the World Public Opinion survey, done in late January, that is reported on here. In that survey, 35% of Iraqis say they want the U.S. to withdraw within six months, and 35% "gradually over the next two years." (29% want U.S. troop reductions only as warranted by the security situation.) So Murtha's figure is ridiculous unless "wanting us out of there" means wanting us to withdraw over the next couple of years--which is what I want, as, no doubt, does President Bush.

Next comes one of Murtha's most bizarre claims: "Water production, only 30 percent of the people getting water." This seems pretty obviously false; otherwise, 70% of the population would be dead.

Murtha says there is a civil war going on in Iraq. Only, there isn't. Murtha should know what a civil war is; we had one here once. You could tell it was a civil war, because half of the officers in the U.S. armed forces resigned and went south to fight for their "country;" afterward, opposing armies fought in the field. If that happens in Iraq, there will be a civil war. But it certainly hasn't happened yet. Violence, yes; the Middle East is a violent place. But it is simply false to say that there is a civil war going on, as Murtha must know, if he is not completely unhinged.

Murtha's claim that 20,000 American soldiers have been "lost in this war" is loopy, too. That number is pretty close for total casualties, but to suggest that everyone who has been wounded, no matter how slightly, is "lost" is both false and insulting to our combat personnel. If I'm reading these numbers correctly, only half of those wounded are even evacuated from Iraq, and two-thirds of those evacuated are accidental injuries. On any rational interpretation, Murtha's claim that 20,000 have been "lost" is off by a factor of at least four or five.

It's no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention that Murtha has joined the lunatic left. What's disappointing is that journalists continue to treat him as a serious person, rather than as the crank he is.
_________________
"Millions For Defense, Not One Cent For Tribute" - Thomas Jefferson on paying ransom to Muslim corsairs (pirates).

[becca1223]

I think Murtha has got something known as J-FinK.

J-FinK, short for "John F'in Kerry disease...it makes one chronic and delusional!

[homesteader]

Though I do not watch the Sunday shows I heard a promo saying Murtha was going to claim that our presence in Iraq was preventing the Iraqis from effectively dealing with the insurgency. (Maybe someone can confirm that he did in fact make that claim).

So last week our forces were failing in the task of training an effective Iraqi security force.......This week the Iraqis are so effective that the US forces are getting in the way. Nothing the critics say surprises me any more.

BTW...Murtha is inadvetantly right (if he did in fact make that claim) because I am sure when US troops are not around "reading the bad guys their rights" the Iraqis are using "special techniques" to extract valuable information.

[Deuce]

I, too, avoid Sunday 'talk' shows like the plague they are...Deface the Nation, etc...so missed the Murtha. I'm so glad I left PA when I did, lest I be considered in company with the useful idiots! Has Murtha joined the VVAW recently? Now it's so much easier to read you Swifties, or go directly to the source:

http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/Shared%20Documents/news.aspx

when I want to find out what's going on with our "Progress" as Murtha's staffers should! Note also, that is an 'interactive' site, where journalists/staffers could even 'ask questions' if they didn't understand something! God forbid journalists today would ever consider simply going to the source, instead of looking around for the nearest looney-bin leftie to re-write history as it 's happening!

Thanks again, Swifities,
Deuce

[mtboone]

Seriously ... is Murtha getting senile, or on the take?

He's gone off the deep end. It's really, really hard for me to imagine that this person was once a heroic soldier.

I think the term of a Heroic Soldier is a media point of view. I have met the winners of the MOH, Navy Cross, Silver Star and Bronze Star people and never once has they said they were heroic or any thing but just doing their job.

Murtha is a joke to any military people and he seems to gloat about his past.
_________________
Terry Boone PCF 90
Qui Nhon 68-69

[I B Squidly]

Has anyone seen this guy's DD214? Is he really a 'hero'? Benedict Arnold was. They built a monument to his 'Lost Leg' at Saratoga.

Is there any money trail?

I vote senile.....though they seem to be so unhinged in the HateBush Party it's hard to tell.
_________________
"KILL ALL THE LAWYERS!"

-Wlm Shakespeare

[AMOS]

"Is he really a 'hero'?" He doesn't act like one.

[Schadow]

[baldeagle]

I suppose that "pandering to the base" could be classified as "selling out, since one who does so has foregone conscience and common sense for the rewards of re-election and the benefits of incumbency. (not to mention, the accolades of his fellow lefties in the house and in the press)
_________________
"In a word, I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home." --George Washington

[Stevie]

I see.... Murtha spouts extreme leftist crap....

and gets the Kennedy award....


Kennedy....Kennedy.... now just where have I heard that name before????
_________________
Stevie
Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage
morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should
be arrested, exiled or hanged.

[Deuce]

[Me#1You#10]

I had the misfortune to view Murtha's appearance on MTP this morning. I don't know which emotion peaked more, my sorrow that this fellow veteran has elected to become THE icon of defeatism or my anger at the content of his subversive propaganda. Jack Murtha, you are a traitor to everything you once held dear and the willing dupe of an ideology that despises you for what you once were.

[kate]

Murtha on MTP this morning - what a bloviator, ranted around in cirlces, repeating himself over and over. One thing he kept saying, ie the administration is blaming the failures in Iraq on the military ( paraphrased). Did I miss that ?
Dont recall the Admin blaming anything on the military...
He is still in Vietnam, made numerous comparisons

watch it here
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/

transcript here
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/

Transcript for March 19
Gen. George Casey and Rep. John Murtha

Murtha is the 2nd half
small snips~~

[kate]

In other news

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS••••RETIRE MURTHA

DIANA IREY FOR CONGRESS
http://www.irey.com/


post gazette

[becca1223]

Murtha on Meet the Depressed...This is one part that irqed me the most:

MSNBC Transcript for March 19th