Murtha's actual statement:
It's much worse than reported in Time magazine. There was no fire fight. There was no IED that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood. And that's what the report is going to tell.
Now, you can imagine the impact this is going to have on those troops for the rest of their lives and for the United States in our war and our effort in trying to win the hearts and minds.
As a former USMC drill instructor who volunteered for service in Vietnam after his active duty ended, Murtha knows damn well what horrible things happen to good soldiers in situations like Haditha. Most guys who've earned two purple hearts do. Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld sent our troops over with no plan, no objective, and no idea how to end this thing. They just said "Go fight, we'll figure it out later." Now you've got soldiers pushed to the limit making snap decisions under fire in a losing situation. The killing of innocent civillians is a mess that the administration created. Now these soldiers have to live with it for the rest of their lives. It's not like its anything new though-Bob Kerrey, one time Nebraska Senator and Navy SEAL was involved in a similar situation in Vietnam.
Murtha was sounding the alarm bell that Iraq is going south fast, that the administration has it's blinders on tight, and is unwilling to do anything about it. No one questions the resolve, reputation, or courage of the grunts on the ground in Iraq. They've taken an oath to follow the orders of their superiors and not waver from that. They're not the ones screwing up. You might want to read "About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior" by Colonel David Hackworth. It's all about how the top brass, bean counters, and policymakers in the D.O.D. consistently sell out our troops because of incompetence, stubborness, buearacracy, and petty infighting-A'la the Iraq War.
Defending our freedoms? First we went over there find WMDs which we now know don't exist, never existed, and we've got bigger problems in that area with Iran and North Korea anyway. Then the whole thing turned into "We have to get Saddam." Now that we have, Saddam is starring in his own little version of the O.J. Trial and instead of one crazed psychopath terrorizing the country, now half a million are. After Saddam was captured it turned into "Democratic government for the Middle East," a blatant oxymoron. These people don't want freedom, they want either a Shiite or Sunni controlled Theocracy. They want Islam, not democracy, to be the law of the land.
Thanks to our brilliant military planners we now find ourselves where the Russians did in Afghanistan in 1979. This conflict has become a call to Islamic militants all over the world to "Come fight the Great Satan." I don't have the answer for how to get out of Iraq, but I do know one thing. We need a Congress and an administration who is willing to admit that mistakes were made and that different tactics need to be looked at in order to come out of this thing on top. I'm a little sick and tired of the Republicans telling people that they own the flag, they own patriotism, and that they're the only real Americans. I'll wave my flag, say the pledge of allegiance, sing the national anthem, and vote Democrat proudly.
(this makes this thread Pinelands related now, right?)
John Kerry no longer speaks for the Democratic party-all he represents is his haughty, elitist, pathetic excuse for a JFK wannabe self.