No free pass for Murtha

No free pass for Murtha. I am not giving up on my condemnations of this man.

I will point out that I spoke out against the war. I spoke out because:

1: I felt the mess we ended up getting ourselves into could have ended up being a bigger mess then it actually turned out to be. Thank God I was wrong.

2: We did not have sufficient international support for the endeavor. We had WORLD SUPPORT for Afghanistan. We would have been better off keeping the front lines in Afghanistan with international support then charging off on our own in Iraq.

3: I did not think the American people would have the stomach for the effort in Iraq. We might be powerful but we are not that powerful. We do not want the draft, we love our volunteer Army. We needed all the help we could get and in Iraq the support was not there.

But what was Mr Murtha thinking when he voted for the Iraq war? No free pass for that man. That man lived through Vietnam and the anguish that war caused for our nation. That man had experience.

I would have expected him to learn from that experience. But he did not. If a common truck driver can come to these conclusions (and I only get paid to drive the truck) why did this man come to the conclusions he did? (He's paid to think!) While I was speaking against the war on the CB in truckstops people like him stepped up to the microphone and spoke up for our foolish rush into this endeavor. I had people, who had not served a day in the service, questioning my patriotism and threatening me with bodily harm because I dared question the wisdom of people like Mr Murtha.

While I shouted for constraint at the top of my lungs, people that owned the bullhorn preached war. People in Congress that back then could have listened to people like me thought they knew better. They voted for war.

And now they want to tuck tail. They led us in and now they have no vision for getting us out. What, they thought this was going to be easy? They led us in and now when the going gets rough they want to lead us headlong into retreat?

Lead us into "cut and run" if you want Mr Murtha, decorated Marine that you are, go ahead and lead us there. But this voice is going to speak out now and speak out against you in the future. I will predict this. If we "cut and run" we better get used to it. If we run now we may never stop running.

Hopefully, with some wisdom, we can find a way out of the mess we got ourselves into. We can only hope to clean the mess up as best we can. Mr Murtha wants us to turn our backs on the mess. He helped make the mess. He should have to help clean it up.

Now when should we leave Iraq? When the Iraqi people ask us to. But if them people continue to march to the polls in the face of suicide bombers... if them people are willing to deal with the awful shit we hoisted upon them... and if they continue to ask us to stay? We stay. If they see a way to a better tomorrow with our help? We help.

When they see a way to a better tomorrow with us gone we pack up our bags... and hopefully throw people like Mr Murtha out of office.

I do not care how many pieces of colored ribbon we hung on his chest. He was a good soldier. He was a good Marine while he was saluting. When it came time to lead he failed us. He ran scared against public opinion and he should have seen it coming. As long as that man had the gun in his hand he was a hero. But put once we put him in charge?

Perhaps this is too harsh. He did lead so long so well. But old age is just catching up with him. He's got past the "with age comes wisdom" stage to where age equals befuddlement. I am trying to be kind.