Ten Fingers, 6 Strings: Murtha Panders

June 12, 2006

Murtha Panders

The anti-war party's new hero, former Marine John Murtha, displayed the operational acumen of a Grateful Deadhead after three days in the acid soaked sun on "Good Morning America" this morning. It appears he was sick they day he was supposed to attend Military 101 class when he became a Marine:

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a critic of U.S. involvement in Iraq, said Monday that now is ‘‘a perfect time’’ for a troop withdrawal. ‘‘People want a change in this country ... a change in direction, and I hope the president hears that and I hope the Iraqis ask us to leave,’’ Murtha said on ABC’s ‘‘Good Morning America.’’
‘‘Even this attack on Zarqawi happened from the air,’’ Murtha said. ‘‘There’s no real need for us to be inside the country.’’

Right John. The only thing we did to find Zarqawi was to fly around in circles until we got a read on his position by locking onto his skull cap and fuzzy beard from 20,000 ft.

Bill Roggio has been providing excellent coverage of Task Force 145 -- a special operations conglomerate specifically aimed with the task of hunting down Zarqawi and other top leaders of the insurgency -- and it remains clear that this was a combined, joint effort, with the money shot being a pair of 500-lbs bombs landing on his head.

Before the Zarqawi became worm-food, Security Watchtower reports that Task Force 145 took out 200 members of Zarqawi's network. Although C.S. Scott's report doesn't specify the actual method of capture or elimination of each of the members of this dubious club, if you put it in context with Roggio's article, it is assumed that ground and air forces combined as one team to execute these operations with tremendous success.

The thing about Murtha is that I think he knows better, but facts are pesky things when you are trying to pander to the delusional "reality-based community."

Posted by 10 fingers 6 strings at June 12, 2006 08:34 AM | TrackBack

Comments

Sure, Congressman. Didn't take any intelligence on the ground to figure out where he was. We just looked down from on high and bombed him.

Posted by: The Colossus at June 12, 2006 09:29 AM

"Even this attack on Zarqawi happened from the air," Murtha said. "There’s no real need for us to be inside the country."

Please tell me he didn't really say that. As you so aptly pointed out in your satirical response, what a fool. You know what the most dangerous thing to the jihadists in the global war on terror is...?

A U.S. soldier on the ground with a radio and a laser designator. Goodnight Charlie Brown.

The fight the war exclusively from the skies theory is part of the problem that infested U.S. policy during the 1990s, and it also helped lend credence to Bin Laden's notion that the U.S. was a papertiger, afraid to make difficult choices and confront these jihadists on the ground.

To everyone else, the writing was on the wall. In General Franks' book American Soldier, he says that "By 1999, I was convinced beyond a doubt that before long the United States would be fighting terrorism on the ground somewhere in CENTCOM's area of responsibility."

In 2000, Franks also noted that "Military planners and diplomats call it big damn trouble down the road."

Here's the real kicker, if we prematurely withdraw from Iraq and a situation in the future requires intervention again, it would be politically impossible for whoever was the U.S. President. There's only one shot to get this right and they're already 75 percent of the way there. Withdrawal now would amount to quitting when the fourth quarter was about to start.

Now is the time to turn on the heat and I'm tempted to agree with some who are calling for another 20,000 U.S. troops to be deployed in Baghdad.

Posted by: C.S. Scott at June 12, 2006 05:30 PM