Murtha predicts US troop withdrawal...

Murtha predicts US troop withdrawal By Joanne Kenen [As I see it, Did any of you watch on C-Span the House debate the other night involving Murtha's non-binding resolution to remove US troops from Iraq within six months? The Republicans put out their own resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal of troops and placed it ahead of Murtha's - in fact, I don't think that Murtha's resolution ever came to a vote! Of course, both parties voted that ridiculous resolution down and the press ran with it indicating that the House of Representatives almost unanimously still want war in Iraq! But we know better - Congress is getting pretty antsy about this war - and Bush knows it. It was a great show of a bunch of old men trying to tell us of how our servicemen felt about the war and that these patriots in Iraq wanted to see it through - and they brought up Viet Nam and the fact that we ‘cut and ran' then, "but never again!" Well, I'm an old man too, I served in the Korean ‘police action' and remember the Viet Nam fiasco quite well also since I was concerned about my sons. I also remember some of my high school buddies who joined the Marine Reserves (before Korea) because they could go to macho meetings and got paid for them! It was cool to smoke cigarettes then, too. Little did they know that when we moved in against North Korea who was invading South Korea that they'd be the first sent into the fight because they were an amphibious unit. (I almost joined with them, but couldn't find the meeting place at Moffett Field and went home.) A year later, faced with the draft, I enlisted in the Air Force - so don't make a hero of me - I was a very ‘reluctant volunteer'! (Actually, that is what they called us in Basic Training, since the Air Force and Navy were overwhelmed with volunteers trying to avoid the draft.) I can assure you that any GI caught in a situation which could cost him his life, all of a sudden doesn't think GI pay and benefits to be that great and would absolutely love to come back home to his family and his lousy job at Wal Mart. Granted, there are some gung-ho guys who just love to get into a fight of some sort or ‘just to be Marines!' - you know, ‘Semper Fi!'. These are the ones who are paraded out by those politicians backing the war as speaking for ‘our boys over there' (an of't used phrase in WWII and later). It would be nice if there were enough of them to make an army, but alas the military has to draw in at least 40%, guys who joined the National Guard to become ‘weekend' warriors to bring in a few more bucks for their families -- and wrongly figured they'd never have to go to war. After all, we do have a full-time volunteer military which will protect us, right? These are supposed to be the ‘Gung-ho' guys - the professional soldiers (sometimes called Mercenaries)! Well, it backfired on the weekend warriors and they are out there fighting for their lives against roadside bombs - a new and novel form of Russian Roulette - lets coin the phrase here, "Iraqi Roulette". You'll never convince me that these guys would feel that we're ‘turning our backs on them' if we suggested that they come on back home to their families and even – Wal Mart. However, it seems that Representative Murtha will not go away as shown in the news tonight. We Democrats are behind him, perhaps a few steps too far behind him, but behind him nevertheless. And I think there are some Republicans who are wondering whose side they're on also. Finally, I note that Bush, while in Ulan Bator, Mongolia - In the wake of congressional unrest over his war policies, thanked Mongolia on Monday for standing with him in Iraq and compared the struggle against Islamic radicalism to this country's battle against communism. Guess you get your friends where you find them. .... AG] WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rep. John Murtha, the Democrat whose call for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq set off a furor last week, on Sunday predicted U.S. forces would leave Iraq before next year's U.S. congressional elections. The Pennsylvania lawmaker, a Vietnam veteran and respected authority on the military, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he expected more people to come around and share his views and that U.S. troops should be withdrawn in 2006. Asked if that meant U.S. troops would be out of Iraq before November congressional elections, Murtha said, "You have hit it on the head." President George W. Bush's approval ratings have been sinking in the polls in tandem with growing public disapproval of the Iraq war and even some Republicans have started to question aspects of the administration Iraq's timetable and strategy. The U.S. House, in an unusually raucous session on Friday, defeated a nonbinding resolution calling for an immediate troop withdrawal. Democrats denounced the vote as a political stunt meant to attack and isolate Murtha. But Murtha predicted that more and more Americans, in government and private life, would come to the same conclusion he had, that U.S. military occupation was making the situation in Iraq worse and that a political solution was needed. "I have never seen such an outpouring in the 32 years I've been in Congress of support and people with tears in their eyes, people walking along clapping when I'm walking through the halls of Congress, saying something needed to be said," Murtha said. "It's not me. It's the public that's thirsting for an answer to this thing," he added." Bush and top administration officials in the past few days lashed out sharply against critics of the Iraq policy. But the president, speaking in Beijing, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were both more muted about their opponents on Sunday although both strongly defended their Iraq policy. Bush, dogged by questions about Iraq during a week-long Asia tour, said "Congressman Murtha is a fine man, a good man who served our country with honor and distinction as a Marine in Vietnam and as a U.S. congressman." Rumsfeld, who appeared on four Sunday talk shows, said debate about war is and should be part of the democratic process, but that Murtha's call for an immediate withdrawal would strengthen U.S. enemies and embolden terrorists. "That would be a terrible thing for our country and for the safety of our people," he said on CNN's "Late Edition." Rumsfeld depicted progress in Iraq in both the political and military arenas. "The Iraqi security forces are doing an excellent job. They're well-respected by the Iraqi people. They're engaged in the fight," he said on FOX News Sunday. Rumsfeld also reiterated his support for the war to topple Saddam Hussein, even knowing now that the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was flawed. But he said Bush had never directly asked him for his views on an invasion. "I wasn't asked," he said on ABC's "This Week." "I'm sure the president understood what my views were." While commending Murtha's record as a veteran and lawmaker, Rumsfeld pointed out that neither Republicans nor Murtha's fellow Democrats had rushed to embrace his ideas.