Murtha continues his desperation for defeat and adds insults to Rove
NY Times:
Representative John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat and Vietnam War veteran pushing for a quick withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, on Sunday mocked Karl Rove, the president's senior adviser, for championing the war while "sitting in his air-conditioned office on his big, fat backside."Murtha is a disgrace and dishonest too. "Stay the course" means to stay with the current plan which is working in spite of Murtha's and the anti war left's wishes. Murtha is still angry because his advice to cut and run like he gave in Mogudishu is not being embraced. It is not being embraced because it would have the same disasterous consequences it had after Mogudishu by embolding the enemy and making him believe that strikes like 9-11 would cause the US to cut and run from the middle east. His advice is not being followed because he is just flat wrong and is too stubborn to see it. He has become a pitiful prop for the anti war left and has fallen into the trap of making chicken hawk insults, because, he knows he can't persuade. Insulting Karl Rove is not going to change anyones mind.Mr. Murtha, in an appearance on the NBC News program "Meet the Press," was responding to a speech Mr. Rove delivered in New Hampshire last week attacking Democrats for what he called "that party's old pattern of cutting and running."
When Mr. Murtha was asked on Sunday for his reaction to Mr. Rove's remarks, he said: "He's making a political speech. He's sitting in his air-conditioned office on his big, fat backside saying, 'Stay the course.' That's not a plan."
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Murtha's advice is not being followed because we have idiots in the White House who can't and won't recognize the futility of the "course" they are staying. The current plan is only working if you are one of the self-deluding hawks who think they are fighting this war from their living rooms (and by the way, how is that search for the kidnapped GIs going, guys?). Murtha is speaking the truth no one wants to hear and gets mocked as a quitter by people who never saw combat.
ReplyDelete>>"Stay the course" means to stay with the current plan which is working.<<
ReplyDeleteDude - what are you smoking? Do you think the current plan is working for the two soldiers snatched by the insurgents? Do you think the plan is working for Iraqi civilians being killed one day by insurgents and next day by US troops?
So you think they like the scarcity of potable water and electricity? Do you think the growing numbers of insurgent attacks indicate increasing control of the situation on the ground?
You may disagree with Murtha's analysis - but his purpose is to get US troops out of a no-win siutation and out of harm's way - something none of the draft dodging cowards in the Bush Administration seem to consider.
War are not and should not be won because of a kidnapping of troops. It is totally irrelevat to winning the war. The only military effect of the kidnapping is the added attentiontaht will be given to the area which will clean out more of the enemy.
ReplyDeleteTo even suggest that the kidnapping of two troops shows that the strategy in Iraq is not working shows an ignorance of warfare that is beyond the pale.
Making insulting remarks about those whith whom you have a difference of opinion is not going to persuade them that you are right. The strategy in Iraq is to destroy enemy sanctuaries and kill and capture its leadership. It includes finding and capturing and killing the bomb makers. It involves finding and destroying the enemy weapons caches. It involves persuading the Iraqis to turn in the enemy. It has been successful in all of these objectives.
But, if you think the war turns on the unfortunate circumstances of two of the troops, it is a good thing you are not in charge of our national security.
What is really scary to the left in this country is that we are winning.
Given that I do strongly disagree with your pro-war stance, I would like to respectfully ask in what regard you consider the War in Iraq a 'success'.
ReplyDelete(Also, I agree with you) I'm not sure what the kidnapping of two American soldiers has to do with the success or failure of our war efforts.)
Civilian deaths are up.
Terrorist (and secretarian) attacks in Iraq are up.
American troop levels and casualties remain steady.
Iraqi oil production is below pre-war levels.
Basic services like electricity remain spotty at best.
Billions of US$ have been wasted on projects which have very little hope of being completed (Iraqi clinics, for starters)
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The enemy in Iraq has not won a single engagement. Not one. They are incapable of massing troops without risk of complete destruction of their forces.
ReplyDeleteThe enemy knows he is being defeated. Just look at what was found on Zarqawi's thumb drive.
I have posted many legthy items on the US strategy in Iraq and will endeavor to pull the links to those post together for those who are really interested.
I will also be posting a review of Cobra II. It is a brief that does not address points raised by Franks and others that refute its premise. It is not that it is inaccurate, it just omits information that is inconsistent with the authors' point of view. It is particularly misleading on the question of troop levels requested for the war. My review will go into more detail, but if you have not read the Prolog to Tommy Franks' American Soldier is clear that everyone of the component commanders signed off on the plan as well as the force level before the war began.
If you enter Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch in the search feature and tell it to search this blog, you will find four pages of links to commentary on the US strategy and tactics in Iraq. Here is a lengthy post from October 19, 2005:
ReplyDeleteDid you know that the media has been told what US strategy in Iraq is?
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch in a press briefing on October 13, 2005 said among other things:
As you study the enemy, capabilities, vulnerabilities and attentions, you got to think about his command and control, his leadership, the forces that he controls. You got to think about his resupply. You got to think about his freedom of movement. You got to think about his ability to establish safe havens, and then you conduct operations to disrupt all those things. And the next three separate operations are operations that are currently ongoing to deny the insurgency in Iraq freedom of movement, the ability to establish safe havens, the ability to resupply and as a result, the ability to conduct these acts of violence against Iraqi security forces, coalition forces and the people of Iraq.
I've talked now in the last several weeks about Operation Sayaid, Operation Hunter, if you will, focused on the Euphrates River Valley, still ongoing and will continue. The focus of the operation is to disrupt insurgent activities, deny freedom of movement and reduce the insurgents ability to plan future attacks. We've said all along that the majority of terrorists and foreign fighters that are entering Iraq, we believe, are coming across the Syrian border down the Euphrates River Valley. That's why we've conducted these operations prior to the referendum to disrupt that flow of terrorist and foreign fighters, to allow the Iraqis to re-establish control of their borders and deny the ability for the insurgents to have any safe haven, at least along that avenue of approach. And there have been continual, simultaneous operations -- I briefed them in detail last week -- Mountaineer, River Gate, Lightning Strike and Iron Fist, and that they have indeed had great effect.
What's important on this slide and important in the subsequent slides is these are indeed joint and combined operations. If you look at the number of coalition forces that are involved and the number of Iraqi security forces that are involved, you can see that it is indeed joint and combined. The Iraqi security force now 200,000 strong, over 115 fielded combat battalions. Some of those combat battalions are in the lead of operations. Some of those combat battalions are in -- conduct these operations with the coalition forces, but the operations are indeed very effective.
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Now you say, "Okay, Lynch, you keep talking about these caches. Why should we care?" The enemy's got to have supplies. He's get to have access to munitions to be able to conduct these attacks against coalition forces and Iraqi security forces and innocent civilians in Iraq. And these operations, both in the Euphrates River Valley and Operation Saratoga, are yielding these large finds of weapons.
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So when you say, okay, Lynch, I got it; we're seeing some effectiveness in the operations. What I want to do is highlight why that's there. It's aggressive operations against the leadership of the insurgents: taking out terrorists and foreign fighters, their leaders; taking out Saddamists, their leaders; and continue to work to decapitate the leadership of the insurgency. Effective operations.
Then we focus on the enemy's ability for freedom of movement. We have indeed stopped his ability to use the Euphrates River Valley as an avenue of approach into Western Baghdad, specifically terrorist and foreign fighters. As I've told you before, the overwhelming majority of suicide bombers are foreign fighters. So to be able to stop that avenue of approach, to be able to keep the foreign fighters from coming into Iraq through the Euphrates River Valley has great effect.
We got to be able to search out and take out his munitions, his ability to conduct these operations. And I just showed you two of many weapons caches that have been found, that one that had over a thousand artillery shells. Just pause and think about how many IEDs, and as a result of that, how many innocent lives would be lost if that cache hadn't been found.
So we've disrupted his leadership, we've disrupted his command and control, we've disrupted his freedom of movement, and we, indeed, have taken away his sources of supply. And as a result of that, you're seeing this and not this.
A look at enemy effectiveness
...And it's important to understand -- these statistics -- if you study what's happened over the last three years, there have been an increase in the number of attacks. There's charts that I've shown earlier, that I'll make available to you, that shows you week by week those numbers of attacks, and you do indeed see an increase in the number of attacks. What you don't see is an increase in the effectiveness of the attacks, those attacks that actually caused a casualty. For example, today across Iraq, 27 attacks, and of those 27 attacks, only one has resulted in a casualty -- either it's an Iraqi security force member, a coalition member or an innocent civilian. So if you simply study numbers of attacks as an indicator, you got to peel the onion back to the next level and say, okay, they're doing more blowing things up. Candidly, what we're seeing -- and we think this is tied to their ineffective leadership -- and I would ask that you read Zawahiri's letters because he talks about their ineffective leadership -- they now have significant instances where the insurgents, while trying to emplace an IED, blow themselves up, based on lack of training, lack of capability or lack of focus on their task.
So I'd ask you not to fixate on numbers of attacks. Look at effectiveness of attacks and where those are taking place. You know, 85 percent of the attacks take place in only four of the provinces. The other 14 provinces -- three of those average less than three attacks per day, and the remainder of them average less than one attack per day. So when people say look at the number of attacks you got across Iraq, let's focus on the topic, and the topic is those areas where the attacks are taking place.
Lynch was talking to the press corp in Iraq. Did you see many stories that provided this information? If this information was made generally available, would it under cut the theme that the media is trying to convey about Iraq? Is that why they are not including it their stories?
If you are seriously interested in what the US strategy in Iraq has been take a look at all four pages of links and check them out. You will find a wealth of information on the subject, that has never been refuted.