November 17, 2005
Blather, Rinse, Retreat
If this man falls... who will pick up the white flag and carry on?
In a suprising move, a man in Washington repeated himself.
What, you don't notice the repeat? The crack investigators of the American Media Establishment failed to notice that Congressman Murtha has mentioned troop withdrawal before.
Interesting how many stories related to this statement relate how Congressman Murtha is a "hawkish" Democrat - either to give his statement some special gravitas, or perhaps simply extract him from the larger pack of Democrats for whom the outcome of the war seems less important than the imminent end of it.
Of note in Murtha's prior arguments - the statement that we should pull out if we do not increase the presence of US forces in Iraq.
"We either have to mobilize or we have to get out," Murtha said, adding that he supported increasing U.S. troop strength rather than pulling out.
Whereas today, Murtha now argues a point counterintuitive from his earlier position - that the presence of US forces IS the problem:
"Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency. They are united against U.S. forces and we have become a catalyst for violence. U.S. troops are the common enemy of the Sunnis, the Saddamists and foreign jihadists."
The question is - why now? After two enormous votes, electing an interim government and ratifying a constitution, and another vote just weeks away, after the clearout of Fallujah, as Iraqi's are increasingly demonstrating skill in maintaining order and dealing with security threats with a deftness that grows with time - why only now are US forces the catalyst for violence? Did this change at some point? Who precisely were the insurgents and foreign Al Qaeda terrorists attacking before? The US Army? The Salvation Army?
And one could easily argue - very successfully in fact - that the new target of violence is indeed not American forces, but Iraqi security forces. Where are the car bombs going off? Police and Army recruitment centers. The Iraqis are bearing the brunt of the violence from the insurgents now - not American forces. The clear attempts to foment civil war in Iraq, to create sectarian violence, directs violence at and among Iraqis, not coalition forces.
And the one thing keeping US and coalition forces in Iraq is the violence - we can question the rationality of anyone who uses terrorism as a weapon, but even Al Qaeda in Iraq and former Baath elements know with certainty that the one thing keeping US forces from drawing down is the very violence that Murtha claims is caused by the presence of American forces. Does Murtha think the insurgents are unaware of American desires to draw down forces and leave Iraq?
The question is then asked - so why does the insurgency continue to fight? Why is Al Qaeda there attacking American forces when the Al Qaeda and insurgent presence and the ensuing security situation mandates that American forces remain? Because the violence destabilizes the government, and the failure of Iraq to synthesize as a nation is the only avenue for each of these two groups to achieve it's goals. The US forces aren't the catalyst for violence in Iraq, but they provide a justification for those predisposed to want to believe it.
The question I have for the newly compunctious Democrats and Republicans - when the nation went to war in the first place, did it ever occur to some of these people to want to win it?
Posted by MEC2 at November 17, 2005 09:29 PM | TrackBack