Bob's Links and Rants

Welcome to my rants page! You can contact me by e-mail: bob@goodsells.net. Blog roll. Site feed.

Friday, November 18, 2005

Hope?

The transcript of Rep. John Murtha's news conference is here, and I've read it all. I think Murtha's approach is the most useful to come along since the war began, and may offer real hope for stopping the carnage--unlike some of the recent second guessing from the likes of Kerry and Edwards.

I don’t agree with everything Murtha said, and I certainly don’t respect him for his vote for the war in 2002. However, he makes a lot of valid points, as well as great talking points for those of us supporting immediate withdrawal. Chief among these are 1) Things are getting worse; 2) Our troops are the targets and focus of the insurgency; 3) and let’s declare victory and come home–Iraq has no WMD’s, Saddam is out of power–we won. He also calls the war a "flawed policy wrapped in illusion," and says that "The main reason for going to war has been discredited."

Murtha supplies plenty of solid talking points for Democrats looking to change their tune. Even Dems like my senators (Levin and Stabenow) and representative (Dingell), who all voted against the war, have argued that we can’t "cut and run." Murtha provides them with forceful arguments that not only can we, but we have to (although they’d be wise not to call it "cut and run"). While preparing the way for impeachment by pointing out the lies of the administration is important, it is not something that most Dems are in a position of strength to argue, since most of them voted for the war, or at least accepted the WMD lie as gospel (as the Repugs have been pointing out for the past week). But there is nothing hypocritical about pointing out the obvious–-the war is going badly and the occupation IS the problem.

Hopefully Murtha and Republicans like "Freedom Fries" Jones can do what we peaceniks haven’t been able to for nearly three years: bring the troops home!