Honoring the Troops

When decorated Vietnam veteran Jack Murtha, a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, called for a rapid withdrawal from Iraq last November, I was not sure what to think.  We have created a terrorist-breeding mess, but also removed a tyrant. Leaving rapidly might make the whole thing worse. Then again, staying around indefinitely might be just as bad.  There are no easy answers, mostly because the Bush administration completely ignored solid post-war planning.

Even though I am more equivocal than Murtha, I do know that he is an honorable man who has served his country in much more dangerous ways than the President, Vice-President, or Secretary of Defense.  And now this honorable man has enraged his inferiors.  Smears against Murtha's service have begun, and I am once again ashamed that such shallow people are the leaders of my country.

As James Webb, a secretary of the Navy for Ronald Reagan, pointed out in the Times yesterday, the Murtha attacks fit a pattern: Underlings smear the record of honorable people, while senior member s of the Bush team plead ignorance and feign disgust.  They did it to John McCain, they did it to John Kerry, and now they're doing it to Jack Murtha.

Since Webb worked for Reagan, he is clearly no liberal.  Honest conservatives also see the treachery within the Bush regime.  It is a regime that says we must "honor the troops" as a means of thwarting debate. But when those honorable troops speak their mind anyway, they are treated with such disdain that it is clear that they were nothing more than administration props.

Soldiers are beginning to notice how the president really feels about them.  This year, many Iraq war veterans are running for Congress.  And with only one exception, they are running as Democrats.