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| Home Front: Politix |
| Friendly Fire: John Murtha unites the Republicans. |
| 2005-11-22 |
| BY BRENDAN MINITER Tuesday, November 22, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST Shortly after stepping off a plane at Dulles Airport last week, Rep. Duncan Hunter was on a cell phone delivering a surprisingly stern message to a few reporters. Coverage of the debate in the Senate to "ban" the use of torture, the Armed Services Committee chairman said, was inaccurate and unfair. Mr. Hunter's beef was that it is already illegal for any American to torture someone overseas and such a crime is punishable of up to 20 years in prison, or execution if the torture victim dies. To underscore his point, Mr. Hunter followed up on Tuesday with a press release noting that "contrary to widespread media reports, torture is [already] banned under American criminal laws." The release included copies of the applicable criminal code. Democrats might have seen this as a signal not to push too hard on the war lest they risk uniting a fractured Republican Party. But they didn't heed it. By midweek Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, introduced a resolution aimed at pushing political moderates to oppose the war in Iraq. His plan called for "redeploying" U.S. troops out of Iraq over the next six months, leaving a "rapid reaction force" in the region and then pursuing U.S. goals through "diplomatic" means. It was a crafted political proposal that was meant to be an alternative to "staying the course" while not calling for outright withdrawal. It was a return of "peace without victory." And it backfired. The Murtha resolution was intended to allow Democrats to have their cake and eat it too--to oppose the war while confusing the issue by pretending to support the war's aims of a free and democratic Iraq. Instead of fighting on the ground staked out by Democrats, Republicans chose clarity. Mr. Hunter introduced a simple, one-paragraph resolution calling for immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Late Friday night the House voted the resolution down 403-3. Anyone who thinks that vote was simply cheap political theater and not connected to the larger debate on how to fight the war on terror hasn't been watching Mr. Hunter and the other defense hawks in the House over the past four years. It's not an accident that the House hasn't passed the "torture ban" that John McCain and John Warner pushed through the Senate. Nor is it a coincidence that intelligence reform stalled in the House last year until it was amended to insure that troops in the field would still have the intelligence they need. It's not lost on Mr. Hunter, or on Reps. Steve Buyer, John Kline and many others, that Iraq is the most visible front in the war on terror and is therefore a symbol for whether the political elites of this nation have what it takes to confront global terrorist networks. If politicians can't stomach going after terrorists who openly attack U.S. soldiers, they won't have what it takes to go after terrorists who hide in some of the most remote or ungoverned reaches of the world. It should now be clear--if it wasn't already--that the Democratic Party is the party of withdrawal. Had John Kerry won the election last year, the U.S. would today be packing its bags and preparing to leave Iraq under something similar to the Murtha plan. The fallout from that would be disastrous. "Rapid reaction force" or not, Iraq would descend into political chaos and then perhaps fall under the power of a dictator. Maybe Saddam Hussein himself would return, though there is no shortage of Saddam wannabes in that part of the world. Following that, no U.S. president for a generation or maybe two would have the political muscle to topple a rogue regime anywhere. In the meantime, the U.S. would be on the run, while terrorists and the dictators who nurture them would have the upper hand. It turns out, however, that the politics of national security favor staying the course. Both the president and vice president have hit back hard in this debate, noting the importance of winning in Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday called for an open and clear debate, but he forcefully argued that the war was and remains in this nation's interests because it allows the U.S. to combat terrorists in the heart of the Middle East. He also took on the idea that by invading Iraq the U.S. has made itself more of a target for terrorists. "We were not in Iraq on Sept. 11 and the terrorists hit us anyway," he told the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. And in Congress, fighting the war remains the one issue that continues to rally the GOP. Before Mr. Murtha's resolution, the Republican Party seemed hopelessly split and unable either to cut spending or to make the president's tax cuts permanent. After the Murtha resolution, Republicans quashed the earmark for the "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska (though the state still gets to keep the money for it), passed $50 billion in spending cut, and, of course, soundly rejected the idea of withdrawing from Iraq. Suddenly Republicans seem to understand why they are in the majority. |
| Posted by:O.J. Simpson |
| #3 I TOLD YOU SO!!! This article is BULLSH%T! It says: John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, introduced a resolution aimed at pushing political moderates to oppose the war in Iraq. His plan called for "redeploying" U.S. troops out of Iraq over the next six months, leaving a "rapid reaction force" in the region and then pursuing U.S. goals through "diplomatic" means. It was a crafted political proposal that was meant to be an alternative to "staying the course" while not calling for outright withdrawal. Here is the actual wording: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that: Section 1. The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date. blah, blah, blah. IS HEREBY TERMINATED. IS HEREBY TERMINATED. IS HEREBY TERMINATED. That means what it means. I told you this was how they would play it. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-11-22 17:51 |
| #2 standing up to cowards, liars, and blowhards injects spine even in the the most invertebrate RINO |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-11-22 17:38 |
| #1 Murtha's proposal reminds me of Nixon's "Peace with Honor" withdrawl from Vietnam. Didn't work then and won't work now. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2005-11-22 14:29 |