Words from John Murtha
 

You know who he is, so I don't need to provide his resume. His words are worth reading.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0727-36.htm

I agree with almost everything he says but he can't go saying stuff like

"It was just reported to me that the vast majority of Army units in the United States are at the lowest state of readiness, which means they are not ready to deploy to combat anywhere in the world due to shortages of personnel, equipment and training. "

He is putting his own country at risk letting the world know these things. I like what he says, but he is a camera hog. He loves attention.

You just might be right on that.
I don't think he's "grand standing" or compromising the country.
He's a "straight shooter". Might be that those words came from him being alarmed about the situation we've been put into.
btw...most other countries already know how "stretched" we are. Pretty obvious when military quotas aren't met month after month and the standards reduced. Not exactly "rocket science".

No, but didn't Rivera get kicked out of Iraq for a time for drawing deployment data in the sand? One does have to be careful when talking about such things...I don't think these comments will put our guys at risk but I wouldn't want to give any specifics!

I'm not familiar with the Rivera issue.
Murtha didn't say anything that isn't widely known to anyone that buys a newspaper or has internet access.

... and to further depress a person:

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_ro...raq/index.html

(I hope it opens; salon requires a subscription for some things, but I think offers a free day pass)

Genuine Risk,
Now I'm even more depressed. Thanks a lot.
I can't believe that average Americans can't see through this charade.
It's kind of like, "We can't stop now because the 2,500 Americans who gave their lives would have died in vain."
As if throwing another 2,500 lives would somehow bring them back to life.
Was it worth the cost?
I say NO!!!
But I'm ready to hear from those that think it is, and of course, real reasons, no dancing...just the facts Jack.
DTS

People see through it but they don't care. It doesn't affect their lives. They have been very clever of making it appear like there is no war going on. No sacrifice was made by anyone. I wrote an op-ed piece for the Middle East edition of Stars and Stripes and the responses I got from most soldiers was that they felt americans just didn't care.

Bold Ruler,
Do me a favor, ok?
Next time you write a piece, tell them that there are many Americans that DO care.
I heard the same kind of crap during Viet Nam. We can't stop now or all those lives would be in vain.
Then, I got a chance to stand in front of the memorial, find ten of my friends names, not counting several others that died later from agent orange and living crippled for the rest of their lives. Ed M. was a colonel. He got blown up by an improvised device. Spent the remainder of his life on fake legs, right arm blown off below the elbow, and a disfigured face with no ear on the right side, and a glass eye on the same side. Interesting fact is that the same people he was training during "Vietnamization" were the ones that did this to him. After his many operations, he became a college professor teaching Asian studies. He also counseled many vets.
Then he founded a program that brought vets back to Viet nam to distribute medical aid...revisit the place where he was blown up.
He spent many years in search of the answer to a question that haunted him.
WHY?

Unfortunately, he died last year at 56 in his shower. His son found him.
Ed's name isn't on the wall.

So, just do me a favor, ok? Tell those that you write your articles for that there are people that DO care about them just as much as I cared about Ed,
and Bill, and Stan, and Joe, and....so many more.

Names on a wall will never replace the lives they cost.
NEVER!

Why? Search your souls before putting out a response.

That op-ed was about raising the gas tax 5 cents per gallon and using the billions raised to help soldiers and their families. Before it ran I had to change a paragraph, or rather include one that sort of gave Bush a little credit. Stars and Stripes is owned by DoD and they have freedom but you won't see anything criticizing the administration on their pages.

The americans we polled were willing to do it, but the WH refused to raise the gas tax. It actually got a little ugly with them. One of the many reasons I can't stand them.

BR,
You and I are on totally different planets.
Of course I know that "Stars and Stripes" is the propaganda tool for the armed forces. Paid for by the Department of Defense (previously called Dept. of War).
A nickle a gallon to help families???
Get real!
Wouldn't it be better to have those that serve come home and live with their families, support them themselves, rather than be flown back in flag draped coffins that aren't seen on network news, or mangled bodies at Walter Reed?
A nickle a gallon???
Why not just bring them home to be with their families rather than perpetuate the charade? The "real" costs will be huge!
As Murtha said, it's time to re-deploy. And he does care about our military, and so do I.
The question that Murtha asked is "how"?
I continue to ask "why"?

It wasn't that simple. The op-ed partially had to do with increasing the death benefit, but also had a little to do with trying to put the president in a box of raising the tax or looking like he didn't support the troops. The real point was to get the death benefit raised and it worked.

Send me a private message with your e-mail and I will send it to you . There were numerous political angles to it and I had to fight with some of the lower staffers at the White House over getting it in the paper. The death benefit was raised though and now families can get up to $500K with their policy and the $100K benefit combined.

That's very interesting, BR! And why am I not suprised that when suggested that Americans sacrifice a little bit for their boys and girls overseas, the WH refused. But then, they could have asked the American public to do anything after 9/11 and what was their suggestion, "Go shopping." Thanks. Thanks a lot. But I guess it's hard for a bunch of rich men to fathom having to sacrifice anything. Not like most of them ever served or anything.

I don't own a car, so big help I'd be, but I'd have been happy to pay it. (I pay more in my electric bill every month so that an amount of kilowatts equal to what I use in a month has to be purchased from alternative power sources, like wind. I think it comes out to an extra $2-$5 a month)

The line they basically inserted into my op-ed was. "Whether we like it or not, we are a nation at war, and as President Bush has pointed out "War has no certainty, except the certainty of sacrifice".

Put my name on it, but they had to put their sentence in. I still laugh because they never asked for any sacrifice from anyone except the soldiers families.

Oh my God. And the man still won in '04. I just don't understand anything about this world.

Have you seen McCain's recent bending-over on Bush's "I'll ignore the torture ban if I feel like it" stuff? And people think he's the best hope for the Republicans? If that flippy-floppy McCain is the best the 'Publicans can do... but then McCain has a habit of bending over for Bush, so why am I surprised?

For all of his "maverick" image he tries to cultivate, McCain has the same problem Gore and Kerry did-- he obviously wants the Presidency too much. I start to smell eau de desperate on him...

McCain knows what he is doing. I have met him and he is a good man. You have to play the game or you go nowhere. I would vote for him over Hillary, but not Mark Warner. McCain is a Teddy Roosevelt type. I believe what businesses said about Roosevelt was, "We bought him, but he wouldn't stay bought". That is McCain, he will play the game and then be a much different guy if elected.

If McCain gets the nomination, which I don't think he will, he will win easily. Right now I think Rudy Giuliani is the likely Republican nominee. The DLC (Democratic Leadership Council) is convinced it will be Guiliani v Clinton, and most think she can't beat him. The DLC is secretly hoping for George Allen, who has a shot if the right wing wackos have their way in the primaries. Giuliani though has somehow found a way to become the rightwing wackos guy. With his views on social issues I just can't believe it, but social issues have really taken a backseat to terrorism with the rightwing nuts.

I guess American lives are more important than Iraqi lives.

Folks like it or not, we made a decision, it is a mess. If we leave, huge numbers of innocent folks will die. We are being asked by leaders on both sides to stay because they know what will happen if we leave. You see cameras of people shouting at us to leave, but the people who have access to information know what will happen if we leave.

It has turned into Sunni v. Shiite. This is where the vast majority of deaths are occurring now. And BTW, we are still in Afghanistan also. Should we leave?

Our troops are doing what I consider the ultimate in altruism. We are preventing people from being slaughtered whole sale. And these are people that do not even realize it. The troops will never get the credit they deserve. They are saving innocent people that quite possibly hate them.

It has turned Sunni v Shiite and it is not the business of America. Let them have their Civil War and figure out who they are as a nation. America lost 600,000 men (2% of the population at the time- equivalent to 6 million today) to figure out what it was. You can't tell countries what they will be, they have to figure it out themselves.

As for Afghanistan, we should stay there, in fact we should have never gone to Iraq and we should have put all our resources into Afghanistan. It would be much more of a success had we. The problem is the idiot neocons and their friends couldn't make the money off that war. FACE IT, the Iraq war was planned long before 9-11, some feel it was planned in the mid 90's after the first Iraq war, back when we had a competent Bush as President, not his son.

I agree with you about Afghanistan and that Iraq was planned long before 9-11; 9-11 just provided a convenient excuse (and a way to dupe most of America into believe Hussein has anything to do with it. I find it funny how so many Americans will say they don't trust politicians, and then blindly accept everything those politicians tell them).

But I have to respectfully disagree on McCain-- I can't get behind anyone who is willing to accept the absolute gutting of the torture legislation that he pushed to pass. Torture is not acceptable under any circumstances and to me a man who is willing to play the game until he's in office on torture is a man who will continue to play the game once he's in office. I don't buy the whole "different man once in office" thing. TR was considered a lunatic by his own party BEFORE he was President. He didn't play along; they made him VP to shut him up. Plus, McCain is a social conservative, regardless of what he tries to imply.

Did you see the TIME cover story on Teddy Roosevelt? Very entertaining reading.

I don't think Giuliani will make it past the primaries, unless he does an about-face on his social liberalism (and I wouldn't be surprised to see him do just that). AND-- I think if the Dems would grow some cojones and bring out all the assorted dirt on Giuliani prior to 9-11, he might well have trouble in the general election. Buddy-buddy with Kerik, marched in parades with his mistress, announced his marital separation to the press BEFORE he'd mentioned it to his wife, his own son won't speak to him, putting his buddies into six-figure positions overseeing the dispensation of the 9-11 money (later forced to back down on that)-- there's plenty of ethical problems with Mr. G, but I don't think the Dems have the backbone to play as dirty as the Republicans have played the past few elections (and very successfully, I must add). They say the only reason Schumer beat D'amato in '98 is he was willing to climb down in the gutter with D'amato.

For the record, I couldn't care less about politicians dalliances, but dude, say something to your wife BEFORE you go to the media... tacky! And lots of Americans do seem more interested in politicians sex lives than in their policy decisions, don't they?

(Though it was very satisfying to see Livingstone brought down by Larry Flynt. I do enjoy seeing hypocrites brought down.)

John Kenneth Galbraith left his readers with a "sadly relevant fact: "Civilization has made great strides ... But it has also given a privileged position to the development of weapons and ... the reality of war. Mass slaughter has become the ultimate civilized achievement. ... War remains the decisive human failure."

Some wars are necessary though, however most aren't.

Maybe in the past. I sure hope "civilization" has evolved beyond that.
In these times, it is my opinion that ALL wars occur due to choice.

It comes down to the realization...fight first, talk later...or talk first and prevent fighting later. That's the decision.

"Those that ignore the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them."

Will humans ever learn this? I certainly hope so.
In the words of the Dylan song, "Where Have all the Flowers Gone?"...
"When will they ever learn?"

You don't live in the real world. Just look at the world today, people fight in the name of God and other ridiculous things, just like they always have. What do you do if North Korea attacks another country, talk to them? What if you live under a dictator in Africa, are you going to talk to him or try to get rid of him? There are bad people out there, unfortunately some of the people that claim to represent the good are often part of the problem.

Afghanistan is Iraq on a much smaller scale. It is just as chaotic. Afghanistan's EARLY success led to the belief the same could be done in Iraq. Afghanistan will go long run just like Iraq, right or wrong.

I guess I really don't live in the "real world".
Last time I looked, North Korea hasn't attacked any country since 1948-9.
Africa? We're talking about recently independent countries after many years of European colonialization. Don't know of an African country attacking any first world ones.
Are we talking about Israel justifying the carnage in retaliation for two kidnapped soldiers?
Explain "good" and "bad". Sounds like black and white, and, as we both know there are only shades of grey.

I don't agree with what Israel is doing or what the US is doing in Iraq.

However, the US war in Afghanistan was 100% necessary. There is no talking with them. Please give me your solution about how we were going to deal with Afghanistan?

As for N. Korea, what is your solution if they attack, just have a nice chat with them? LOL.

Please tell me how Israel is supposed TO TALK to Hezbollah? Sorry but this group has got to be totally disarmed for anything to stop for the long haul. And HOW IS talking with the Euros and the China/Russia (we love this stuff, cause they do) is going to end this thing with any REAL MEANING FOR THE FUTURE.

Who is not in the real world here?

Hezbollah is not even there fighting. They left a few people to kill some Israelis and ran off to Beirut

This is a great Newsweek piece and explains why Israel will fail. Israel should get out of the Stone Age thinking and start moving to other countries. Give back all the land, eventually these crazy extremists will use a nuclear weopon and blow up all of Israel anyway. This notion that there is holy land is absurd.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14066288/site/newsweek/

Nothing suggests that Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbullah leader, is stupid enough to stand and fight a conventional war. Sure, he will sacrifice zealots as cannon fodder in the south. But he and the senior ranks have already retreated into Beirut. Israel can destroy much of Hizbullah’s stockpiles and bunkers near the border. But that will buy, at best, no more than a couple of years’ respite. Staking out a strip of land, whether by Israel or by some international force, will not bring peace. The one certainty is that the assault on Lebanon will bring a surge of recruits to Hizbullah, which will now be as powerful a magnet for young Shiite firebrands as Al Qaeda is for their Sunni cohorts.

OK... we share similar opinions regarding Israel and Iraq.
Afghanistan was seen as the harbor for Al Queda training courtesy of the Taliban. Osama was cornered at the border area near Pakistan. Then, the troops were called off. How come? I don't have the answer. I hope you know more that I do. Attention was diverted to the invasion of Iraq.
The current state of affairs in Afghanistan is that the Taliban again controls the two districts outside of Kabul. War lords control the north. The opium crop (the only economic cash crop) is the biggest ever.
So...was it 100% necessary? I don't think so.
Was it a 100% failure? I do think so.
Solution? Immediate American withdrawl. Democracy does not come from the barrels of guns of invaders, only from the free will of the people.
Democracy CAN NOT be imposed.

Now, about North Korea. How about diologue without the other five nations that Bush wants to include? Just diplomats from the US and NK sitting down at a table. North Korea has indeed "postured". That comes from their failed economy, starving populous, and isolation. My guess is that they feel that THEY are the ones that expect to be attacked. They haven't attacked anyone. Their bogus "missile program" is easily seen. It's a bit pathetic.
So, on that one, I say open a door rather than slam it.

I think that was Pete Seeger, actually. I grew up listening to the Kingston Trio's cover of it (my dad loves the Kingston Trio).

Seeger? Seger? Seager? How spell?

GR,
Now that I think about it, you're right...Pete Seeger.

Afghanistan need to be completely cleaned up. It would have been if not for this ridiculous war in Iraq. The problem with Afghanistan is that you really don't want terrorists running it because it has similar to the equivalent of oil there. The opium trade alone could fund worldwide terror. The US needs to help them build an economy based on something else.

As for letting Bin Laden go, the problem is Pakistan. Pakistan is really not that friendly to the US. Pakistan is a much bigger problem than people think.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13990130/site/newsweek/

Seeger. Thank you. I'm terrible at remembering names and their spellings, especially!

I don't know how the US is going to build an economy in Afghanistan. The task is far greater than the rebuilding of New Orleans (and we know how that is going).
In Afghanistan, there is no highway system, limited electricty, and poor soils.
The only crop that seems viable is opium. That's what the farmers know how to grow to obtain the best return on their investment.
So, I'd like to hear your thoughts as to how we (USA) "clean" it up.
To me, it's a task that is far larger than our willingness to do so, and we DO in fact have domestic issues that need to be addressed.

Now, about Pakistan. That one could become a very big problem very quickly.
We tread a very fine line. India is our "check". The US has to play those two cards very carefully.

If you leave Afghanistan alone it will become the capital of the terrorists. It is no different than giving over a land with oil. Tremendous amounts of cash available for terrorists. How do you rebuild it? You have to build their infrastructure and let the people that do it get the money, not Dick Cheney's friends. No other way.

Pakistan is the biggest problem in the world. The media just hasn't caught on yet.

BR,
Do you really think that the US is capable of building a viable economy in Afghanistan?
If so, how?
I'd really like to know. Karzai can't even leave Kabul to tour the country he leads.
Is there a "magic wand" or "special potion" that I don't know about?
So, please tell me how the US is going to do what you propose.

I don't know if they can now. If you took the $500 billion we wasted on Iraq, you could have done it easily. The idiots just chose the wrong country to rebuild. They gave us that lie about rebuilding Iraq with their own oil money and now the money is gone. That said, we might just have to find a few hundred billion and rebuild afghanistan. That, or leave.

Unfortunately, we both see the same hand writing on the wall.
By the way, Afghanistan won't become the capital of terrorism. It's been decentralized to many other countries.
A shame.
Are we winning the "War on terror"?
If so..proof?
If not...other than "stay the course"..how would you alter strategies?

Afghanistan will become the source of money for terrorism.

Are we winning the "War on terror", of course not. This idiot has just made more terrorists. The semi-idiot before him didn't do too good a job himself. He basically pretended there was no terrorism.

The only way to deal with the rise of terrorists is through funding of covert actions in terrorist states. You need countries to root out their own terrorists, the US though will have to fund it. They won't do it themselves.

Personally, I think religious wackos will eventually blow up the world. Probably within the next 100-200 years.

1) I agree with your first point.
2) Your second point needs a bit more realism. The US already funds covert actions in terrorist states. As yet, quite unsuccessful.
3) I think it's a lot less than 100 years. Think less than 10.