Newsweek: Why Murtha Is Right

[Ex Lion Tamer]

"The Bush administration is so accustomed to torturing the truth, it can’t face the facts. Murtha’s outburst on Iraq has shown it is time to stop deluding ourselves."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10099807/site/newsweek/

Now if we can just get the Dems to show some backbone.

[fooj]

1. Wow! Can we fly this on a banner over DC?

Geez.......

Peace.

[MercutioATC]

12. That'd be one HELL of a long banner...

I agree with you in principle, though.

[IndyOp]

18. Murtha: It's Time To Stop Deluding Ourselves.

How's that for banner? :)

[redqueen]

2. Good God...

when even the media takes an oppositional stand most dems in congress won't, even the DLC has to admit there's a problem.

:(

[Ex Lion Tamer]

3. Exactly.

Let's see if the newly-styled "war critics" of the Dem party walk the walk.

Spineless bastards.

[redqueen]

10. .

:loveya:

[OldLeftieLawyer]

6. They're not Democrats

They're Republicans in Birkenstocks, trying to pass.

[redqueen]

13. .

:loveya:

[Ex Lion Tamer]

15. You're mostly right.

My mistake.

[ugarte]

4. Somewhere James Dickey is feeling proud...nt

[OldLeftieLawyer]

7. If you haven't,

you want to read "Summer Of Deliverance," about father and son Dickey.

It's wonderful.

[ugarte]

24. Thanks, I'll make a point of getting it...nt

[SpiralHawk]

5. "Torturing the Truth" YES

That will make a great T shirt, Bumper sticker, whatever.

Please send my share of the ROYALTIES to my dear old sainted and grey haired mother; the Republicans are cutting the Social Safety Net out from under her (and thousands of other moms and grandmoms).

[54anickel]

8. Excellent points to toss back at Cheney in that article

Once we had plunged into the Iraq conflict and discovered how out of our depth we were, instead of acknowledging that truth, the administration decided to wring a more satisfactory picture from thousands of prisoners. In some cases—too many cases—this meant brutalizing them to the point of outright torture. As M. Gregg Bloche and Jonathan Marks pointed out this week in an essay published by the International Herald Tribune, the interrogation practices used at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib were derived from old Red Army methods. “The Pentagon cannot point to any intelligence gains resulting from the techniques that have so tarnished America’s image,” wrote Bloche and Marks. “That’s because they were designed by Communist interrogators to control a prisoner’s will rather than to extract useful intelligence.”

As Sen. John McCain points out in this week’s NEWSWEEK, torture diminishes the very ideas that make America great—and different—from its enemies. At a practical level, Representative Murtha notes that “since the revelations of Abu Ghraib, American casualties have doubled.”

[Nothing Without Hope]

22. Watch out for this Presidentialization of McCain

It is damn near everywhere in the major media. I wish he weren't so ambitious; it would be so good to have an "important" Republican Congress member with real integrity.

[NewWaveChick1981]

9. Damn good piece...

Let's just hope all Dems take heed.

[quiet.american]

11. What continues to astonish me is the absolute lack of remorse

Most people would be standing before a black-robed judge about to be sentenced to life in prison for the amount of loss of life and horrific suffering Wolfowitz is responsible for, and most likely, one would read a reference to the sentencing along the lines of "as the judge harshly chastised the prisoner, he still showed no remorse...."

I wonder what mechanism these neo-cons use to completely absolve themselves of any responsibility for the hundreds of thousands of shattered lives they bear responsibility for.

[BJW]

20. are you familiar with Leo Strauss?

father of neo-con philosophy? Has a lot in common with Nazism.

[quiet.american]

23. Howdy -- yes, I'm somewhat familiar with Leo Strauss --

-- and his role as the "father" of neo-conservatism -- however, whatever the political, religious or other philosophy of a person, I always wonder -- how does this person justify to themselves, without all the rhetoric, in the dark of night, when they're all alone, the horror they have caused to other human beings... of course, there's always the explanation of sociopathy -- and actually, I can only conclude this country is now run by the sickest of the sick, a band of psychotic sociopaths.

[katty]

14. finally!delusion, dissembling-bush LOST on FantasyIsland

[Synnical]

16. Notice it's a "Web Elusive" in the International Edition n/t

[AlamoDemoc]

17. Excellent call....I too noticed that

[Synnical]

19. I meant to type "EXCLUSIVE"

But I typed, "Elusive" How telling is that??

From dictionary.com

# Tending to elude capture, perception, comprehension, or memory: “an invisible cabal of conspirators, each more elusive than the archterrorist ” (David Kline).
# Difficult to define or describe: “Failures are more finely etched in our minds than triumphs, and success is an elusive, if not mythic, goal in our demanding society” (Hugh Drummond).

[PATRICK]

21. The point is clear through and through

Murtha is righter than the surface resolution alone. Withdrawal from a hawkish point of view is no big deal considering the stubborn course of this administration is as doomed as Oedipus. NO traditional wise policy course or duty, no power and skill of the committed military is ALLOWED a chance of success by Bush. What will happen in Iraq is likely, in this fixed tragedy going to occur with or without our contributions to the fatalities and the slaughter, but what is happening to the military and the US itself is an open wound that needs to be closed fast, not a blank check for these incompetent traitors' gambit.

The resolution should force Bushco to change or resign from its course in Iraq. They have shown no flexibility at all to make any argument that war supporters can live with, work with, have faith in priorities and use, not abuse, of the central command, the executive branch.

If the vote were to succeed it would have to be vetoed. If show there should be challenge with ample cause to proceed to impeachment, if the main underlying thing underneath all is that Bushco must be pried loose from conducting these affairs. Pretending some good might come from everyone beneath so hampered by the fixed, unhelpful, wrong priorities is a fairy tale people are asked to die for in the ruin of all American interests.

No confidence vote. Get out or change the entire course of the conduct in Iraq and show it is worth another drop of blood. The war in effect is over, lost, dangerous every minute it continues as it is fixed in the abuses of the regime. Why should the Dems support its continuation at all in circumstances they have no power to change? The WH is adamant in not changing its threatening ways, in not winning this war, in not getting its hand out of the cookie jar or its mind out of the sewer.

It is not a question of what ifs or supporting a winning strategy. With Bush in charge he has made it clear in blood and lies there is no hope- for him. And none for our military or Iraq if he is submitted to merely because he holds the CIC command hostage.