More mediawhores: Irresponsible on Iraq - Washington Post editorial

[Mass]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/19/AR2005111900951.html

Sunday, November 20, 2005; Page B06

A SERIOUS congressional debate about Iraq is essential at a time when public support for the mission is falling and the danger of failure seems great. Aggressive challenges to the Bush administration's military and political strategy -- even calls for an immediate withdrawal of troops, such as that made by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) on Thursday -- must be part of that democratic discussion. Yet what we've mainly seen during the past two weeks is a shameful exercise in demagoguery and name-calling.



Democrats accuse President Bush of deliberately lying about the grounds for war three years ago. Vice President Cheney responds by calling accusations by the Democrats "dishonest and reprehensible, " while Mr. Bush claims his critics "send mixed signals to our troops and the enemy." Mr. Murtha, a 73-year-old former Marine, was said by the White House to advocate "surrender to the terrorists" and called a coward by Republican members of Congress. He replied by smearing Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush as "guys who got five deferments and never been there, and send people to war."
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The hard truth is that those two objectives may be in conflict. The war is unpopular for many reasons, including the painful human losses, the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, incompetent management of postwar reconstruction and the involvement of some U.S. personnel in appalling practices of torture. Mr. Murtha, deeply moved by the wounded soldiers he has visited, cited several other serious problems, including the wear and tear on the U.S. military and the steady increase in attacks by insurgents.

Yet Mr. Murtha, like other Democrats who advocate an early pullout, grossly misstates the nature of the conflict in Iraq. In a news conference, he contended that U.S. troops "have become the primary target" and have united Iraqis against them. In fact, far more Iraqis than Americans are being killed by the insurgents; Iraq is divided between a Shiite and Kurdish majority -- whose leaders strongly support a continued U.S. presence -- and a Sunni and Islamic extremist minority that seeks to drive international forces out so that it can try to impose a dictatorship on the rest of the country. As Democrats such as Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) have recognized, a premature American departure from Iraq would not end but greatly escalate what is now a low-grade civil war. It could allow al Qaeda to claim a triumph and establish a base for attacking the United States and its allies in the Middle East.

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The only thing I agree in this editorial is "What's needed is more talk about Iraq in 2005." Too bad they dont follow their own advices and do not talk about what was in the different propositions for bringing our troops on or not.

[babylonsister]

1. When will these partisan hacks admit we are creating insurgents

by remaining in Iraq? I can't see us winning this war anyway; we should not even be there. This was the blivet's folly, one that was obviously not thought out to its conclusion. We need to get out before more blood is shed.