murtha's no lefty, but he is right

[niyad]

Murtha’s No Lefty, But He’s Right
by Robert Scheer

Nancy Pelosi is to be congratulated for her backing of John Murtha for the position of House majority leader. To be sure, this was partly payback to a political ally of the speaker-designate. Far more important, however, it was the first installment on a huge debt owed to the voters who swept the Democratic Party into control of both houses of Congress, based primarily on their frustration over the dismal war in Iraq.

Because of his credentials as a highly decorated Marine veteran and stalwart Pentagon supporter, U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) was more effective than any other member of Congress in crystallizing the changing American position on Iraq when he dramatically wrote last year, “It is time to bring them home.” Not intimidated by the president’s “cut-and-run” smears, he said what most Americans have come to believe: The war is not “winnable” and it is time—now, not in 10 years—to let Iraqis make their own history and to get American troops out of the line of fire.

By contrast, his opponent for the House leadership position, U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), disagrees with 60 percent of the voters in continuing to support President Bush in this ever-deepening disaster. As recently as Monday, Hoyer continued to hold an allegedly moderate position that is as divorced from reality as the disgraced former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld: “You can transfer authority to the Iraqis ... but we need to do so in a way, hopefully, that will not create greater carnage,” he told MSNBC-TV.

What gibberish. In fact, as realists from all sides of the political spectrum, including the president’s father, argued before the war started, taking Baghdad was inevitably going to stoke the always smoldering nationalist and religious fires of the Middle East that now engulf Iraq with apocalyptic fury. The toll on Tuesday alone: Scores of scholars were kidnapped from the Education Ministry in a plot reportedly aided by policemen, while 82 others were killed or found dead from clashes, murders and bombings around the country.
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http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1115-32.htm