Murtha says get out now

Originally posted by LA_Maximus
This Democrat is no normal Democrat, he is a Ex-Marine and a combat-vet.

He is one of the few congressman with actual combat experiance and combat medals...37 years in the military, so his words carry alot of weight and We have to take him seriously.

My opinion is, if Bush keeps fighting this war as its currently being fought....holding back our air-power....putting our soldiers on trial after every shoot-out....letting the media leak stories that harm our war effort.....than go ahead and bring them home.

Maximu§

John Kerry was also a well decorated combat vet.

This guy also pushed for an INCREASE in force size a little over a year ago. He tought that we didn't have enough troops there at the time.

www.pittsburghlive.com...

This guy is a Democrat that has been in office over 24 years(You can't drive down a road in Central PA without it being named after him...) He'll say whatever is politically expedient, regardless of where it makes sense or not. This is nothing more than political grandstanding...

Again, the U.S. could only pull out if someone is ready to fill the void (U.N., France, Russia, etc.) Otherwise we could see a humanitarian tragedy on the scale of Cambodia.

Originally posted by Dronetek
Edit: Since you guys like conspiracies so much, perhaps you could explain why it is the major media news outlets seem to be doing as much as they can to damage the president? I always watch the news and ever since the Libby indictment, the news has been almost non-stop "look at these poll numbers!” It seems like every 5 mins they talk about the polls numbers, followed up by Harry ried calling the president names.
The American people voted for this president and support the war. No matter how much the media tried to convince you otherwise.
[edit on 17-11-2005 by Dronetek]

Oh sheesh. The American people do not support the war, that's the point of all the polls that you mentioned! As for the rest, the media has finally woken up to the fact that the White House's case for invading Iraq - in terms of WMD etc - was based on evidence that was badly flawed. The President has also done a lot of damage to himself by appointing people to certain key positions who were completely unqualified for the job. Brown at FEMA is a classic example of this. The guy was in so far over his head he couldn't see the surface. Rove is still under investigation, Libby has been indicted, Cheney is also in deep doo-doo (and keeps lying about the connection between bin Laden and Saddam, which didn't exist) the Government dropped the ball over Katrina, Iraq is a complete mess - why shouldn't the media point out what is actually going on for once?

Originally posted by AtlantisAgain
Negotiate with Turkey to allow the Kurds to have a sovereign nation - arm the Kurds to allow them self-defense

Whoa. Definitely a 'best of the worst' scenario, emphasis on worst tho eh? I can't see how the US can betray Turkey like that tho, even tho Turkey didn't permit US troops to use their territory to launch a ground invasion, the Turks did make themselves bigtime targets of the Soviets by acceptin US ICBMs and pointing them at moscow and the rest of russia. True enough, the Turks and Russians are historical enemies, but that goes back to the days of Sultans and Tsars. Anyway, an independant kurdistan will almost certainly destabilize the entire middle east, because there are kurds in iraq, turkey, and iran (their traditional mother land infact). But, agian, since you're talking about a worst case scenario, middle eastern destabilization is inevitable anyway.

The big question after all that is, is the US going to have less involvemnet and less troop death patrolling iraq for a decade or so, or in fighting a war against a revived Persian Empire.

What amazes me the most is how the US gov't can deal with this Chalabi

I don't understand it either (outside of everyone invovled being horrible crooked, or incredibly stupid, or both), the guy works for the iranians, and, in effect, what happened in recent history is that the iranians were able to play of the americans, get them to destroy the regional superpower and their traditional enemy, and set them up nicely for a US withdrawl, afterwhich they will take over, minimally with a puppet regime.

[edit on 18-11-2005 by Nygdan]

Who got to Murtha?

Since this is a conspiracy forum...

Does anyone find it odd that this congressman Murtha is now saying we should cut and run in Iraq?
Before you jump to conclusions, let us think politics for a moment. Have you heard this man's name ever mentioned before in the media political arena?
It seems to me that the political and media house of cards the democrats have built against the Bush administration is collapsing. Their golden media boy Woodword seems to be throwing a monkey wrench into the whole CIA leak case.
The "Bush lied" theme in regard to pre-war intel is falling apart as there are too many dems who had the same intel and drew the same conclusions...and are on record as such.

The timing of this Murtha thing just seems interesting. Here you have by all accounts a decorated soldier calling for an immediate cut and run? Where has he been all along? This seems out of character. Could it be that he has been mandated by the democrat power structure (make no mistakes, the democrat rank and file is kept in check to the party line waaaay more than republicans) to come out as a "armored trial balloon" to see how the public reacts to a the "we can't win, so let's leave" company line?

Something seems odd with the timing of this whole thing...

Originally posted by Apoc
Who got to Murtha?

Since this is a conspiracy forum...

Does anyone find it odd that this congressman Murtha is now saying we should cut and run in Iraq?
Before you jump to conclusions, let us think politics for a moment. Have you heard this man's name ever mentioned before in the media political arena?
It seems to me that the political and media house of cards the democrats have built against the Bush administration is collapsing. Their golden media boy Woodword seems to be throwing a monkey wrench into the whole CIA leak case.
The "Bush lied" theme in regard to pre-war intel is falling apart as there are too many dems who had the same intel and drew the same conclusions...and are on record as such.

The timing of this Murtha thing just seems interesting. Here you have by all accounts a decorated soldier calling for an immediate cut and run? Where has he been all along? This seems out of character. Could it be that he has been mandated by the democrat power structure (make no mistakes, the democrat rank and file is kept in check to the party line waaaay more than republicans) to come out as a "armored trial balloon" to see how the public reacts to a the "we can't win, so let's leave" company line?

Something seems odd with the timing of this whole thing...

Murtha is beginning a big push from the Dean side of the Democratic Party for pullout. Murtha got 31% of his 2004 campaign income from PACs(over $707,000). He's just paying back the more radicals ones so he can pull in a little more pork and power.

Yeah Soulforge, but the swiftboat vets showed us the truth on John Kerry's war record, so I don't think its fair to compare John Kerry's war record to Murtha's.


Maximu§


[edit on 123030p://555 by LA_Maximus]

Originally posted by LA_Maximus
Yeah Soulforge, but the swiftboat vets showed us the truth on John Kerry's war record, so I don't think its fair to compare John Kerry's war record to Murtha's.
Maximu§
[edit on 123030p://555 by LA_Maximus]

I thought that the swiftboat vets smeared Kerry? And that they were paid for by the Republicans? I'm sorry, but I sensed the cold hand of Carl Rove behind the Swiftboats. Yeuch.

[edit on 18-11-2005 by Darkmind]

At least Murtha is a vet, he's got that going for him. When they weren't calling Cheney, Rumfeld, Wolfowitz et. al. "the crazies" they called them "chicken hawks" never served never would. Of course we can't pull out now it's too much of a mess. Maybe we could come up withan exit strategy! The reason there is so much of a mess in Iraq now is because of the lies of the present regime, they don't deserve to be called an Administration, because quite frankly they could care less about you and me or puppy dogs or apple pie or Chevolet. I take that back they do care about General Motors and Enron and Tyco and Halliberton and Becthel. Actually I'm tired of being lied to, it's been one thing after another. The US has not been in this bad of shape since Richard claimed "I not a crook" and that was a lie too. I hope they can get their next big tax break through for all their billionaire frIends because we really don't need all those food stamps, student loans,and social welfare programs. Hey we already have the highest disparity of income of any country on earth why not increase the gap. How many of their kids are in Iraq? Oh yea, Chicken hawks I forgot.

[edit on 18-11-2005 by polanksi]

When even the usually supportive right-wing commentators like Peter Obourne in the UK are now publicly describing the invasion of Iraq as the greatest foreign policy disaster since Munich (1938 and the agreement with Hitler to dismember of Czechoslovakia) you just know things are not going well for the policy.

First of I was entirely against going to war with Iraq. It was the wrong time for the wrong reasons with the wrong plan.

That said we are there now and we MUST see it through. No matter what we started this mess, and we must clean it up. Otherwise the country will most likely end up much worse then it started, and as other's have said our troops will have been sacraficed for nothing.

We cannot leave, but we cannot continue to push our weight around there either. We really need to get a Iraqi army, airforce, command and control that can handle their own problems. This should be our number one priority and should be where we spend the mass majority of our assets.

They should also be the one directing and dictating strikes once possible. Not us.

If we pull out there will definatly be civil war, If we continue to use a a bulldozer to hammer the nails in the insurgents coffins there will most likely also be a civil war. In either of those scenario's our troop's sacrafices become pointless.


-----------------------------------------------

As for the media, mainly two years ago they were pro-bush. This is for two reasons, The population of the country was and they always pander to the public for ratings (Rating = Money). Also at that time it looked as if Bush would be doing their dirty work. (The owners etc..)

Now the media overall has shifted against bush. This again is for two big reasons. The majority of the public disagree's with Bush's policies and does not support him. Thus they pander to those and have higher rating. Also now Bush is mroe backed into a corner and his hand has been forced more or less in what can be done. Bush now cannot at this time risk invading, or bombing Iran. Many in the media circle publicly want this done. Bush also cannot hold as much of a heavy hand in other area's where they would like him to.

Overall though it comes down to making their stories more listenable to the general public. Time and time again they will only say and "report" on what will give them the best ratings. Anything else isnt worth hearing (by their standards).

No matter what, make no mistake this is NOT journalism. Journalism should be non-biased and lets the reader/listener make their own decisions. Long gone from mass-media are those that practice true journalism. (Fired, layed-off, dead, cant get hired, etc..)

Originally posted by chaudri
Why a sudden surge in voices favouring withdrawal from Iraq?

Because elections will kick off in 2006 and everyone is positioning
themselves. It's all politics. Murtha may be sincere, but as far
as your question about all the sudden voices .... it's because we
are entering a year that will be full of election hype.

Originally posted by soulforge
John Kerry was also a well decorated combat vet.

'Three scratches in three months and out' - scratches that
didn't even require a bandaid ... one scratch was an imbedded
grain of rice that blew back at Kerry when he threw his own
grenade too close to himself and our troops.

After his 3 months in Vietnam - He came back to America, threw
away his 'decorations' onto the White House lawn, and then
launched into the slanderous Winter Soldier testimonies ...
most of them were from NON-vets who claimed to be vets.
All of them lied about America.

This behavior doesn't equate to a decorated vet.
Not by any standard.

Who is Congressman Murtha? He has been in congress for over 30 years and 99.9% of America never even heard of him before this week.
How do you serve 30+ years in congress and nobody ever heard of you before? How do you explain that?

How is it he runs his mouth and you don't see him on TV defending his position. He sent others out to defend it. People said murtha was being attacked. I didn't hear any attack. Why so touchy and defensive.?

Originally posted by shot messenger
Who is Congressman Murtha? He has been in congress for over 30 years and 99.9% of America never even heard of him before this week.
How do you serve 30+ years in congress and nobody ever heard of you before? How do you explain that?

How is it he runs his mouth and you don't see him on TV defending his position. He sent others out to defend it. People said murtha was being attacked. I didn't hear any attack. Why so touchy and defensive.?

Have you read this guy's resume? He was in the military, won the Purple Heart, supports the military, hell the Marines gave him the Semper Fi award a while back. He visits wounded marines in hospitals - something he's been doing for years, not something that he just started doing yesterday. And as for the attacks - Jean Schmidt got up in Congress and called him a coward. It was the worst personal attack since 1856 and the place just exploded in protest until she apologised.
He sounds like a guy who has seen too many wounded young men and women for comfort and wants to stop seeing more.
I will now point out that Bush has not been to a single funeral of a serviceman/woman killed in Iraq, neither has he greated the bodies when they are flown in. No other President in recent years has failed to do this. Why not him? I will also point out that the number of casualties is higher than people think, as non-combat casualties are not being counted. The true total so far is 30,000 wounded in Iraq. I'll get the link citing these figures in a moment.
Don't badmouth Murtha. The man deserves some serious respect.

[edit on 21-11-2005 by Darkmind]

Here's the link. It was in yesterday's Observer. It made my girlfriend, who comes from Oregon, very very angry. Never snort with anger and read and eat a croissant at the same time. Serious crumbs ensued. observer.guardian.co.uk...