Right Wingers Attacking Rep. Murtha

Rep. Jack Murtha is a conservative Democrat. He's to the right of me on a number of issues but I'm for him. I watched him single-handedly take on the Republicans on the floor of the House last fall when he announced that he no longer supported the war in Iraq and that it was time to start bringing our troops home. He's a man who talks to the generals and when generals quietly talk to well-informed representatives like Jack Murtha, who has been in the military and, in fact, was a former Marine himself, you know something's going on. While Republicans villified Murtha on the floor of the House, they were unable to address the many effective points that Murtha was making.

Few things are more important in war than military discipline. The overwhelming majority of our troops in Iraq are handling themselves well but, since the summer of 2003, there have been growing problems. The reality is that the longer a war goes on, the more likely it is that discipline will break down, particularly when policies at the top are in drift; this is true of any military forces in the world. In addition, the civilian leadership in the Pentagon have made blunders that contribute to problems on the ground. Sweeping the events at Haditha under the rug is not the way to handle the issue.

Instead of dealing with the problems of a war poorly run from the White House and Pentagon, right wingers are attacking Jack Murtha for speaking the truth. Media Matters has the story:

Various conservative media figures have attacked Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA) for his recent appearances on ABC's Good Morning America and This Week, in which Murtha addressed the alleged murder of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines at the Iraqi town of Haditha in 2005. Murtha, one of several lawmakers to have been briefed on the military investigations into the matter, said the Marines shot the Iraqis "in cold blood," and, citing sources within the military, claimed that there was an attempted cover-up of the incident. Murtha also said: "It's an isolated incident. But that's why it's so important to get it out in the open and get the punishment at the appropriate places." However, Fox News hosts Bill O'Reilly and Neil Cavuto, among others, attacked Murtha for "bomb-throwing" and "bashing" the military, when in fact Murtha, who had been briefed on the matter, has limited his criticisms to those allegedly involved in the incident and the reported cover-up.

The alleged Haditha massacre was first publicly revealed in an article in the March 27 edition of Time. According to that article: "In January, after TIME presented military officials in Baghdad with the Iraqis' accounts of the Marines' actions, the U.S. opened its own investigation, interviewing 28 people, including the Marines, the families of the victims and local doctors." The Los Angeles Times reported on May 29 that Murtha, Sen. John Warner (R-VA), and other members of Congress "have been briefed on the U.S. military's investigation into the deaths of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians."

I want to add again that there is a personal element in all of this for me. My oldest brother trained at Camp Pendleton and served in Vietnam. Years later, he worked as a civilian at Camp Pendleton. His daughter currently has a boyfriend who is stationed at Camp Pendleton and who recently returned from Iraq. So I have met a fair number of Marines in my life and they're good people. I have met many Marines whose politics I disagree with and two or three Marines who were far too hot-tempered, but almost all the ones I met took their jobs and responsibilities seriously. I have enormous respect for them. But those who know about these things know that Haditha has to be dealt with. It's just the way it is.


UPDATE: S.W. Anderson always has excellent comments but be sure to read his comment just below here. And check out his site.