MURTHA: I CANNOT TELL A LIE…THE SURGE IS WORKING…..BUT!
Democrats like John Murtha are so invested in defeat and retreat in Iraq it’s shameful! After visiting Iraq as part of an official delegation, Murtha had to announce that “it looks like the surge is working.” Why? Because it is! This is the same John Murtha and the same Democratic party that declared the Iraq war lost only months ago and announced that the surge would not and could not work!
Of course right after making his announcement, Murtha got the call.
(SFX OF PHONE RING)
Murtha: Hello, Murtha here.
Caller: YOU STUPID IDIOT! WHAT DO YOU MEAN SAYING THE SURGE IS WORKING. ARE YOU A COMPLETE MORON!
Murtha: Oh, Hi Nancy. Gee, I’m sorry, it just slipped out.
Pelosi: Look Johnny boy, If you don’t get out an announcement clarifying your statement to say the surge is not
working by 3:00pm, I’ll have your balls sealed up in a can diced pineapples so fast you won’t have time to
scream Del Monte!…GOT IT!
Murth: Okay, Nancy…keep you pants on. (SFX OF PHONE HANG UP). Let’s see, I may need to call John Kerry for help
on this one.
So what does John Murtha do within 4 hours of saying the “surge is working”? He issues a statement clarifying his statement from earlier that basically says, even though the military part of the surge is working, the political part is not and therefore we still must have the troops out of Iraq as soon as possible. Is anybody really buying this any more? The fact is it has taken some time for the surge to have an effect militarily and it will take some more time for it to have an effect politically, but signs are indicating that the political part is working too. There is actual sharing of oil revenues between the provinces, without central government mandates forcing it to happen. There are refugees returning to the country. Former Bathists are returning to public office and mainstream society. That is not to say that it could all change tomorrow, but why not cheer for success now? Why not?
For Democrats the reason why is the surge is not working for THEM politically. They are invested in defeat in Iraq and have placed themselves in the position to gain politically if America suffers a defeat in Iraq. And you wonder why I’m pulling for the Bush surge to work.
Murtha couldn’t lie. He had to say the surge is working because all the evidence is there that it is, but Murtha is no George Washington.
Murtha: I cannot tell a lie, I chopped down the cherry tree….BUT only because the tree was not bearing fruit and that tree will never bear fruit so we must redeploy all the cherry trees………..
The Other Side Says: December 7th, 2007 at 2:15 am
iraq is the third most corrupt country in the world. how long are we going to have to wait for iraq to have political success? what does political success mean when the goal posts are being moved? we invaded a country that didn’t know democracy and expect them now to embrace it. yeah its going to take time for political reconciliation, a long time.
we’ll have to wait for the next administration to make the important decisions instead of waiting and hoping for success. buck is supporting the surge because he hates democrats, now thats partisanship.
Buck Says: December 7th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Iraq is the third most corruput country in the world? What does that mean? Who’s keeping score?
It’s Democrats that keep creating this moving target. We invaded a country that didn’t know democracy and THEY ARE EMBRACING IT. Millions of Iraqis, risked their life to vote and a new democracy in the middle east is being born.
Nobody ever said it would be easy, the argument should be, is it worth the cost. I say, yes.
Our goals since winning the initial battle were to A.) stabalize the country militarily and politically and B.) Help create a military and political system that can stand on it’s own.
We are working on both goals concurrently and having some success after a long season of little or no success and even failure….NOBODY EVER SAID IT WOULD BE EASY!
But is it worth the price. YES!
The Other Side Says: December 8th, 2007 at 2:06 am
the administration severly underestimated the amount of force required to stabilize iraq:
“It’s hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army. Hard to imagine.” –Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, testifying before the House Budget Committee prior to the Iraq war, Feb. 27, 2003
“As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” —Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, responding to a U.S. soldier serving in Iraq who asked him why troops had to dig through scrap metal to armor vehicles, Dec. 8, 2004
Eric Shinseki said we needed far more troops then were alloted.
i know i’m restating the mistakes, but this shows the ineptitude that led us to current day iraq. bush has moved the goal posts (what were those benchmarks that he said in janurary needed to be met?) and now we call security the success to end all successes. the central government is weak and filled with corruption (Nonstop Theft and Bribery Stagger Iraq, The New York Times Dec. 1, 2007). we need to keep score because that will show the true nature of iraq, not what bush sees.
stop blaming the democrats, how did they move the goal posts?
The Other Side Says: December 8th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
iraq has moved from killing people, because of refugees fleeing and ethnic cleansing stopping, to corruption. we pour billions of dollars into iraq and its being lost. the security gains are important for stability, but there also needs to be progress made in other places as well.
nutslikebush Says: December 11th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
TheOtherSide,
this is what I understand you to be talking about.
reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL1539791
Kolran Says: January 6th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
“iraq is the third most corrupt country in the world” -theotherside
You wanna clarify? Clarifying would be good. As I count it might make the top 40, but certainly not 3rd. First place I would give to North Korea, who is starving it’s citizens to develop nuclear capabilities. 2nd place might go to egypt who recieves the most financial support from the united states, over israel. I might give Syria 3rd place. I’m sure there are plenty of countries in Africa with warlords, aids, and armies who draft kids. Those countries could fill up the next 7 spots. The united states would make the top 20 with all the scandals in recent years. Pakistan would probably rank right around Iraq, maybe higher because the country is practically split between tribal extremists groups and a ‘trying to appease’ government. Let’s see, China’s polution levels and problems with their exports should put them high on this ‘list’. Hmm… Mexico’s poverty rate is probably higher than Iraq’s considering the large oil reserves in the middle east. So PLEASE clarify ‘corrupt’ and let’s rethink the list. From what I know, corrupt is a way of thinking, right now Iraq is trying to be a democracy. Are democracies corrupt in your mind? Then I guess Iraq would be in the top 3. If that is seriously what you mean though, you’re a… communist
The Other Side Says: January 8th, 2008 at 2:01 am
wow kolran. you not only made assumptions without looking at my source, but you also put words into my mouth.
the list isn’t based on what you think is corrupt. the new york times wrote an article where it used results from an independent analysis. somalia and myanmar were judged worse. read the article then get back to me with some complaints.
you base your entire assumption on the idea that iraq is a wonderful, budding democracy. the article begs to differ. and iraq isn’t a democracy yet, look at the inability of their central government to reconcile and make progress. just because the violence is decreased doesn’t mean that iraq is stable.
Kolran Says: January 8th, 2008 at 4:38 am
I can’t find the article… and the new york times part would explain why it’s negative.
The Other Side Says: January 8th, 2008 at 6:23 am
if you google it in the exact form in my post, it will appear.
nutslikebush Says: January 8th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
The mistake that Americans make about Iraq is to think that they are nationalistic or political like Americans are. Iraqis care far more about what their religious leaders are telling them than what politicians or national leaders are telling them. Our military and government officials didn’t understand that the elections in Iraq mattered much less to Iraqis than what Sistani or Sadr were instructing their followers to do. Hopefully our leaders and military are catching up and doing their homework, but the slow learners are gathered at the top of both institutions. If we want to reach people in Iraq or any other muslim country we can only do it through the portal of Islam. Deep down in their hearts, they do not trust political institutions, militaries, or foreign, non-islamic countries. Why should they, if they know their history? But the take home message is that the Iraqi government is the weakest influence in Iraq, whether you consider it a democracy or not.
Kolran Says: January 9th, 2008 at 1:41 am
alright http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/world/middleeast/02baghdad.html?ref=world that’s it? ok, so, your completely right. Remember that article a while back (from this side) about WE NEED TO PULL OUT (OF DC). Are we going back to that argument? Either pulling out of Iraq or Washington DC because of crime rates?
buck Says: January 10th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Nuts,
There is no doubt the mindset of Iraqis is different from ours here in the western world. BUT there is certainly some degree of nationalistic pride. Anecdotal though it may be, support for the Iraqi National soccer team brought Iraqis of all persuasions together. Also, if the elections “didn’t matter” to the Iraqi people why did Kurds, Shias and yes, even Sunnis,show up, risking death, to participate? The birth of a nation, a democracy especially, is not a easy thing. Something so powerful could never be and should never be easy to obtain. The ethnic strife in Iraq is part of the process and it must be.
Finally, you couldn’t be more wrong about the “portal of Islam” being our only path to reach people in Muslim countries. That is the very essence of this war on terror that we are fighting. The radical Islamo-faciast want Islam, their brand of Islam, to be the end all, be all of every Muslim nation and eventually every nation on earth. Thats what they tell us so why not take them at their word? This war on terror is about fighting for the right of individuals to live freely, worship freely and prosper in a country that is concerned about their welfare here on earth, not in the hereafter.
The Other Side Says: January 10th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
buck, our idea of living freely, worshiping freely and prospering are obviously different from there’s. as a result, we need to find a route in which we can affect them and change their beliefs. if that route is religion than so be it. but the mere fact of voting doesn’t show that iraq has fundamentally grasped democracy.
nutslikebush Says: January 12th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Buck,
I think the Iraqis who lived in Iraq at the time of the elections voted because their religious leaders (especially Sistani) told them to do it and who to vote for. Enormous numbers of the votes came from Iraqi refugees living in 14 other countries where voting took place. They may have had different motivations than those living in Iraq. As for those living in Iraq, however, remember, it was Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani who forced the issue and made the elections happen. The CPA and Bush administration initially were dead-set against elections because they had planned to appoint a group of returning Iraqi exiles (with Karzai or Chalabi as Prime Minister) to rule the country. But Grand Ayatollah Sistani prevented that and forced elections (under the threat of a Shia rebellion). My point is, they didn’t vote for democracy; they voted for religion. During the whole process I wondered how much Americans generally knew about what was going on. None of the relevant information was in the media at all.
As for Islam being the main problem – remember that the so-called “Islamo-fascists” rarely kill non-muslims. By far most of their targets are muslims. Muslims don’t like the radical jihadis any more (and probably less) than you or I do. I think that Islam is as crazy as any religion is, but I think that if you want to communicate with people who are entrenched in a religion you have to find a portal within their religion to reach them. In truth, just like Christianity (or any other religion) it can be interpreted as a peaceful religion if one has a mind to interpret that way. I do think that calling people islamo-fascists risks overgeneralizing and aiming hatred at the victims as much as the perpetrators. Nothing good will come of portraying the problem that way. The only hope we have for success is to totally change the way we are thinking and discover how to penetrate their belief system and plant particles of our culture there – and then hope they go viral. Their religion is designed to resist our infection, but we have to outmaneuver its immune system. From my perspective, Americans seem to be clumsy (and ill-informed) in our approach to international situations. That has been at the root of the series of bad decisions our leaders have made in recent years. Ironically, the people who seem most determined to spread democracy to Muslim countries seem to understand neither Muslims or how to spread democracy. Turkey showed us how it is done. http://www.meforum.org/article/216
nutslikebush Says: January 12th, 2008 at 1:57 am
Buck,
I should also add that the Kurds showed up to vote because they want independence from Iraq. They voted for Kurdish independence in the same election in which they voted for national leaders. And they didn’t risk their lives to vote because Kurdistan didn’t have the same sort of violence going on as the other parts of Iraq. The Kurds will break away from Iraq once the oil issues are settled.
nutslikebush Says: January 12th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Buck,
Religion is to the mind of the religious as an operating system is to a computer. You don’t have to like it, but if you want to work with it and run new programs on the system, you had better understand it. The better you understand it, the better you can hack it too. Aren’t we really trying to hack the Muslim world, after all?
Kolran Says: January 13th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Hack it? I suppose that would be good analogy if you viewed the Muslim world as a united force.
nutslikebush Says: January 14th, 2008 at 4:12 am
Good point Kolran.
Kolran Says: January 15th, 2008 at 12:35 am
Thanks, you have some great points yourself that I cannot argue with because I cannot begin to pretend to understand the mindset of people living in the middle east. Living in a society in which religion takes priority over your life is quite different than our lives in the united states. The Islamic religion, when it comes right down to it, is a violent religion. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT MUSLIMS ARE VIOLENT. If they do things out of hate: it is evil. If they try to serve Allah to better the world then it is not evil. Really, every act is totally differen’t depending on perspective. Sitting here in America, able to order pizza if I get hungry, the acts in Iraq seem barbaric. To them, it may be a necessity.
It is so hard to understand evil that even the greatest ancient thinker’s definitions are sometimes sketchy. If someone dies of ill intent, it is evil. If someone dies of natural intent it is not evil. If someone thinks they are doing the right thing and commits an act of atrocioty in someone else’s eyes, is it wrong? How can we possibly judge that? Majority rules? In that case, China has us licked…
-K.F. (it’s good to be back)
WT Says: March 20th, 2008 at 12:30 am
The irony is that Murtha suggested a surge in 2004 and was called a traitor by the administration for suggesting it. Who should be held accountable for the 3 year delay?