"The Defeat-o-crats"

Of all the colossal blunders and missteps of the current Bush administration, by far the colossal-est is the invasion and occupation of Iraq, a sovereign nation which we knew at the time posed no clear and present danger to the U.S. (in fact one could make a strong argument that due to our destruction of its military capabilities in the Gulf War and the daily patrols of the "no-fly zone" it was one of the world's smallest threats to us). This single act has significantly damaged our country economically, militarily, morally (congress just passed legislation essentially giving the president the ability to spy unchecked on any citizen, to suspend habeas corpus, and to approve torture; can you say alien and sedition?), and diplomatically, perhaps permanently.

This is the first in a series of posts regarding the occupation of Iraq. I thought I'd start with a link to this very well done op-ed piece from yesterday's Washington Post, written by Representative John Murtha. It does a great job of simply laying out the current situation in Iraq, from a 30,000 ft view, with unvarnished facts.

But of course we know rule #2 in the RadCon playbook is to tar & feather the messenger when you don't like the message, and are at a loss to intelligently refute it. So when Rep. Murtha originally came out with his plan months ago on how to start moving in a positive direction in Iraq, rather than have a constructive discussion he was attacked as a "cut-and-runner"; some even implied he was a "coward".

Now I don't know if the man's a saint or a sinner, but let's look at his CV: 37 years in the Marine Corps. Birthday is June 17. 32 years in Congress as a staunch supporter and defender of the military. In fact, he states in that 32 years he's always supported the president on matters of war. Until now. Just like 7 former generals.

The issue is not the rapidly deteriorating situation in Iraq. The issue is that the meaningless yet clever slogan crowd keeps declaring victory is near and the current course the only right one.

So read the piece, then you decide. Look for more interesting links in the next few days.