Murtha Calls for Immediate Withdrawl

Well I woke up this morning (ok really late in the morning) and flipped on the TV. Quite the hubbub was going on re: the speech that called for "immediate redeployment of troops in Iraq." I bit; I hung around for 15 minutes until John Murtha (D-Penn) came on and delivered a mediocre speech calling for immediate withdrawal from Iraq of all but a [mobile strike force] that could quickly deploy against necessary threats. World orator awards aside, I have some really significant problems with this speech.

Should we be in Iraq? I'm not sure, I wasn't politically active enough to know whether we were right or wrong, but I supported it at the time. Here's what it boils down to, we're there. Hindsight's 20/20, so please stop assaulting me with wishy-washy crap. I supported the war, and I support finishing it in a manner that makes up for the complete incompetence we have carried ourselves with so far. I have lots of respect for those who have been against this since day 1 and still want us out of it. Politicians who hop on the bandwagon depending on public opinion garner no respect from me. Murtha was a longtime Marine, and seems to be an honorable man. I believe he is being truthful in his request to withdraw from Iraq, but I don't think he would have the guts to give that speech if public opinion weren't in his favor. He said the American public is light years ahead of the government, but he forgot to add "and I'm going to be the first to capitalize off it."

John Murtha, if you are going to blindly follow Public Opinion and not offer creative ideas, get a public-speaking coach and a better speech writer.

Now with my knee-jerk anger out, let me address the "plan" offered by Murtha. It's not great, but it did give me an idea on how exactly to approach the situation. He mentioned massive majority amounts of Iraqi's not supporting our presence there. So here's the deal, if Iraqi's don't support our troops we aren't going to do anything of merit, and have Lt. John Murphy walking around M16 in hand probably isn't going to inspire him to our cause. We can win bodies easily, but we need to win hearts and minds. Why don't we prove our commitment to Democracy? Put an issue on the Ballet. "Do you want American forces to remain in the country to help deter those against the peace process?" Give local leaders 8 months to campaign and change minds. Vote on the issue. If we lose, pack up and leave. Come back once every year for 5 years, and ask the people if they would like us to return or if they feel they are getting along fine without us. We can write in exceptions for a small force, or intelligence centers, or whatever we "need" but we should leave if a majority of Iraqi's ask us to, make it 2/3 majority required if your worried about corruption, or other issues that could skew the vote. According to Murtha, 80% of Iraqi's want us out anyway. We can't institute democracy if 2/3 of the people don't want us, we are wasting everyone's time, money, and lives.

So let's put our faith in Democracy, we shouldn't be there to support our own selfish interests, we should support what Iraqi's want and try our best to help them achieve a good result for their people. I think we owe them that after what we've put them through. Why don't we stop thinking about ourselves for 10 minutes and do what's best for the Iraqi people.

Update: Here is the text of the speech.