Posted on 04/08/2006 5:01:15 AM PDT by Libloather
Murtha tells City Club the war is lost
Pa. congressman outlines failures
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Donna J. Miller
Plain Dealer Reporter
U.S. Rep. John Murtha's booming Marine colonel's voice filled the tight spaces between Greater Clevelanders packed into the City Club Friday to hear him protest President Bush's war on Iraq.
He repeated the message he began trumpeting in November: that American military efforts in Iraq are failing and will continue to fail, while costing taxpayers $450 billion by the year's end.
The 37-year decorated Marine and 32-year congressman from Pennsylvania said:
Iraqis with 80 percent of them wanting the U.S. out need time to solve their own civil war. "It took 100 years to get stability in our country, with its own civil war."
"We needed to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people." Instead, more than 40 percent of them say it is all right to kill Americans.
"We needed to be able to pick up the trash, restore power and get the people working again." Instead, oil production remains below prewar levels; electricity is available for just 10 hours a day in the sweltering desert climate; 30 percent of the population is without drinkable water; 60 percent are unemployed.
Troops are undermanned, underequipped and dying at rates higher than during World War II and the Vietnam War. "I visit the [veterans hospitals] every week. The troops don't know what their mission is any more." And 8,500 of them have returned with shattered bod ies or brains and the permanent "shadow on your soul" that fighting a war creates.
Murtha took questions from several luncheon attendees who worried that Bush may be planning to invade Iran. The ranking and longtime member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee nearly shouted, "we will not" be entering Iran.
He also said that the subcommittee would not approve funding the construction of permanent military bases in Iraq. The audience broke into applause.
Murtha criticized Bush for using fear of terrorism to maintain public support for the war, when real dangers exist here.
U.S. ports are not secure, but they could be in one month, if the money that has been spent on the civil war in Iraq was spent on ports, he said.
Asked to predict the next threat to America that might require military force, Murtha said he's concerned about China and its increasing need for oil.
"And if they think that we can't respond because we are overextended in Iraq. . ." He shook his head.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
djmiller@plaind.com, 216-999-4852
He sees China as a threat because it takes work away from Johnstown. He wouldn't know if it was a military threat if they were invading California.
In the Reserves which is commendable, but he was a congressman the entire time he was being promoted. Any chance the boards were influenced? It reminds me of that phoney John Lehman being a reserve Naval Officer when he was SECNAV and getting his NFO wings without going to flight training and later getting his Pilot wings for a few flights in a Helo. NEVER went through flight training to achieve either goal.
Obviously, because California is being invaded. So is Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and even my home state of Tennessee......
Treasonous SOB.
Its precisely this sort of thinking that ditched South Viet Nam.
Rep. John Murtha May Face Ethics Investigation
Jim Kouri, CPP
One of the mysteries these days is the about-face of a supposed Democrat war hawk, Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania. Considered a supporter of the Iraq conflict, the decorated former Marine suddenly came out with statements calling for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and that the war is not winnable.
After the liberal media feasted on his sudden burst on the national scene, Murtha became the new lightning rod for the antiwar, anti-American movement. Recently, he said that the US military was worn out and unable to protect Americans should a security crisis emerge. And the media again jumped all over the Murtha comments. John Murtha replaced Wesley Clark and John Kerry as the left's favorite veteran since they only love warriors opposed to war. Murtha is someone few Americans knew let alone cared about until he became the big thing in the media's relentless goal of undermining "Bush's war."
Meanwhile, another Democrat, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, a respected member of the US Senate and a former vice presidential candidate, returned from a fact-finding mission in Iraq. He told of the progress he had seen and wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal about his positive view of US operations in Iraq. Other than some radio talk shows, Senator Lieberman was all but ignored by the mainstream news media, preferring to run Murtha quotes or air Murtha soundbites.
Why did Murtha suddenly change his mind? Was this a calculated effort to win the news media over? Is this something he hopes will insulate him from something that is brewing within the Beltway?
Well, according to investigative journalist Sher Zieve, the House Ethics committee is considering investigating Rep. John Murtha for House multiple ethics violations. The investigation would center on Rep. Murtha’s involvement with his brother’s firm KSA Consulting.
The story, which originally ran in the Los Angeles Times on 13 June, surrounds the 2005 appropriations bill that funded $20M to companies for which KSA Consulting lobbied. Murtha is a leader on the House Defense Appropriations Committee. An aide to Murtha, Carmen Scialabba, also works for KSA.
Further reported by the LA Times is that KSA directly lobbied Murtha’s office for funding on behalf of 7 of its clients and that a Murtha aide advised a defense contractor that it needed to retain the services of KSA Consulting.
Zieve also dug up a recent editorial appearing in Investor’s Business Daily that stated: “The newspaper Roll Call reported that there might be a House ethics committee investigation of Murtha's apparent improprieties. But, is that possible now that Murtha has become the media's ‘hawk with a conscience?’ Come to think of it, could Murtha have been thinking about a possible ethics investigation when he decided to throw himself into the public limelight last week?”
My own BS meter is showing that Murtha conducted a calculated and probably successful operation to neutralize Republicans if they should make an issue of his ethics deficiencies. The LA Times article in June was written while Murtha was considered a war hawk. Now that he's become an "enlightened" anti-war spokesperson don't expect to see followup articles about any ethics violations or criminal acts by Rep. John Murtha.
Why do you think Senator Jon Corzine went on the attack about Bush and Iraq? He gave a $600,000 gift to his ex-girlfriend who just happened to the president of one of the largest government employee unions in New Jersey. The union endorced his and worked for him during the NJ governors race. He also voted on a piece of legislation that benefited only him and a few of his business buddies. So what happened to Senator Corzine? He got elected governor of arguably the most corrupt state in the Union.
Americans will only hear about Murtha's lapses of integrity in the alternative media. As long as he calls for troop withdrawals and makes ridiculous statements about the US military, he's insured himself against the mainstream news media reporting on his ethics problems. Besides, the media only cover Republican politicians accused of misconduct. John Murtha is just another sleazy politician. Nothing more. Nothing less.
CNSNews.com) - Members of the press have given extensive and glowing coverage to Rep. John Murtha's criticism of the war in Iraq, but have overlooked a number of other controversies the Pennsylvania Democrat has experienced over the past 25 years. This includes his reported role as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the Abscam bribery scandal of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Murtha has denied any wrongdoing, but Cybercast News Service has learned that one of Murtha's former allies, a Democratic congressman who served on the House Ethics Committee in 1981 and says he lobbied colleagues not to censure Murtha, now believes Murtha lied to him about his role in Abscam.
Since Murtha's Nov. 17, 2005, call for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, one CNN anchor has called him "one of the most highly respected members of Congress," the Associated Press has referred to Murtha as "one of Congress' most hawkish Democrats," and ABC News has noted that he is "a decorated marine who served in Vietnam."
But a search of the Nexis online database by Cybercast News Service found only three newspaper articles over the past two months connecting Murtha with the FBI's Abscam (short for "Arab scam") sting operation that led to the arrest of several congressmen for accepting bribes.
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "Murtha was one of eight members of Congress lured to a Washington, D.C., townhouse by a team of FBI agents posing as representatives of a fictitious Arab sheik. They handed out briefcases filled with $50,000 in return for helping the sheik gain residency in the United States."
Noting that Murtha "is not squeaky clean," the Brattleboro, Vt., Reformer reported that the congressman "did not take the cash" offered by the agents. Instead, "he asked the fake sheik to consider investing some money in his struggling home town, Johnstown."
The Washington Post referred to the incident as "an ethical scrape" in which Murtha was "named as an unindicted co-conspirator and testified against two House colleagues."
But, a videotape of a Jan. 7, 1980 Abscam-related meeting involving Murtha shows that the congressman's rejection of the offered bribe was less than definite. "I'm not interested. I'm sorry," Murtha told the FBI agent, but added that he meant "at this point. See Video.
"You know, we do business for a while, maybe I'll be interested, maybe I won't," Murtha said on the FBI videotape.
The congressman told the undercover FBI agent that he was a member of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct and acknowledged: "If you get into heat with politicians, there's no amount of money that can help."
In November 1980, the Justice Department announced that Murtha would not face prosecution for his part in the scandal. "I did not consider that any money was offered, and certainly none was taken," Murtha told reporters. "The FBI who taped the entire conversation knows damn well no money changed hands."
Eight months later, the House ethics panel also chose not to file charges against the Pennsylvania Democrat.
A July 30, 1981, article in the Washington Post quoted a committee source as saying that several allegations of misconduct against Murtha were rejected on a "near party-line vote." Since the panel was made up of six Democrats and six Republicans, seven votes were needed to file any charges.
Serving on the House panel in 1981 was Rep. Don Bailey (D-Pa.), who told Cybercast News Service that he was responsible for preventing the committee from punishing Murtha. "I saved his (posterior)," Bailey said.
"I worked hard, and I argued," and members of the committee "agreed with me," Bailey stated. "Part of my argument was that the FBI was overdoing it and there wasn't evidence that [Murtha] was doing anything wrong."
In 1982, as a result of congressional redistricting, Murtha and Bailey were forced to run against each other in a Democratic primary. Murtha emerged the winner.
In 2002, Murtha's ethics again became an issue in the congressional election. Bailey issued a public letter, the contents of which have been published on the Internet and confirmed by Bailey. In the letter, Bailey admits that his opinion about Murtha's involvement in Abscam had dramatically changed by 2002.
"I was, to be honest, critical about how you misled me about Abscam where you convinced me you had voluntarily told federal agents about the offer of money to you," Bailey wrote Murtha in the letter.
"I learned later, after I had successfully defeated the ethics charges against you, that you had merely manipulated the system to cooperate with federal agents to avoid prosecution," Bailey added.
On Jan. 9, Bailey told Cybercast News Service that he now believes Murtha was "pretty damn stupid" during the Abscam sting.
"The idea that somebody is going to trot out $50,000 in cash in front of you and you don't know that is wrong is pretty damn stupid to me," Bailey said. "What bankers or investors run around with $50,000 in cash?"
Just hours after the July 1981 House Ethic Committee vote sparing Murtha from charges, E. Barrett Prettyman, Jr., special counsel for the panel's Abscam investigation, abruptly resigned. At the time, Prettyman refused to discuss with the press his reasons for stepping down.
When contacted by Cybercast News Service regarding the investigation, Prettyman called the Murtha situation "very interesting," but declined further comment, citing the need to maintain attorney-client privilege.
Similarly, when Prettyman was interviewed by the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call in 1990, the former special counsel declined to comment on why he had resigned. But when pressed on whether the resignation was due to the Ethics Committee's vote on Murtha, Prettyman said that would be "a logical conclusion."
In his Friday, Jan. 13, response to the Cybercast News Service investigation, Murtha confined his reply to the controversy surrounding his military service and did not address the accusations surrounding Abscam.
"Questions about my record are clearly an attempt to distract attention from the real issue, which is that our brave men and women in uniform are dying and being injured every day in the middle of a civil war that can be resolved only by the Iraqis themselves," Murtha wrote in an email response.
"I volunteered for a year's duty in Vietnam. I was out in the field almost every single day. We took heavy casualties in my regiment the year that I was there. In my fitness reports, I was rated No. 1. My record is clear," Murtha added.
Murtha has thus far refused to release his full military records.
'One-man wrecking crew'
Since the Abscam scandal, Murtha has worked to limit the power of federal law enforcement officers.
In 1997, he spearheaded two measures -- one to prohibit non-members of Congress from filing complaints with the House Ethics Committee, and another to reimburse members and regular citizens for legal fees if they are ultimately cleared in a Justice Department probe.
This drew fire from Gary Ruskin, who at the time was director of the Congressional Accountability Project. "When it comes to institutional policing of corruption in Congress, John Murtha is a one-man wrecking crew," Ruskin said.
In response, Murtha argued that the legal fees amendment would "serve as a warning to the Justice Department to no longer interpret House rules to suit its own needs."
The Fiscal Year 2005 defense appropriations bill also created problems for Murtha. He helped write the bill, and it reportedly contained millions of dollars in federal funding for at least 10 companies represented by KSA Consulting -- a lobbying firm that includes the congressman's brother, Robert "Kit" Murtha, as a senior partner.
Murtha has denied any wrongdoing, and an Ethics Committee investigation into the KSA Consulting matter may be conducted later this year.
'Instantaneous hero'
Anyone who calls for the withdrawal of U.S. military forces in Iraq "like Murtha and (peace activist) Cindy Sheehan becomes an instantaneous hero," Cliff Kincaid, editor of the conservative Accuracy in Media (AIM) Report, told Cybercast News Service, while "the media regard supporters of the war as fools and dupes."
To many in the media, Kincaid noted, the failure to find stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq "was absolutely convincing evidence this war was dishonestly sold.
"They're not going to let that happen again. In order to get back at the administration, they're going to try to undermine the policy with constant gloom and doom and negative news," Kincaid said.
However, Jim Naureckas, editor of Extra!, the bimonthly magazine of the liberal group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), disagreed that Murtha was receiving special treatment from the press.
"For someone who is considered, at least on military issues, to be a fairly conservative Democrat, to come out and say what he said, that's a pretty newsworthy thing," Naureckas told Cybercast News Service, referring to Murtha's call for U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq.
"Up until Murtha's statement, very few people in the opposition party had signaled that getting troops out of Iraq was a priority, and the people who had were generally on the left end of the party and could be more easily marginalized," Naureckas said.
Meanwhile, Bailey -- Murtha's former ally turned antagonist -- told Cybercast News Service that he is not bothered by the establishment media's decision to ignore the congressman's link to Abscam or any of Murtha's other troubles.
Murtha may be "a wise old sage" by now, Bailey said, pointing to what he called Murtha's real area of expertise -- proposing "pay increases in the United States Congress.
"He does that well," Bailey concluded.
Dont we have a Republic, isnt democracy just mob rule?
Bush should correctly say" We are spreading Free-markets "
get your terrorist butts out!
If the Pubs were smart they would make sure that changes.
If the Pubs were smart they would make sure that changes.
he should be spread on fields
I hear that his re election is in the bag.
The real issue is that Islam and Democracy are incompatible. Arabs as people as good decent hard-working souls, but their dominate religion is an evil cult. As long as Islam is a major religion, peace is not possible in the world.
Are you people gonna vote him in again????
If you do, your nuts!!!
They should, but they won't. Murtha knows how to play the game. Is on all the right committees where it is much easiler to load up on pork than it is on the floor of the house.
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