Wednesday, May 17, 2006

John Murtha’s said some extremely outrageous things the past 6 months but nothing as outrageous as his latest pack of lies. He was barely tolerable when he was hurling lies about conditions on the ground. This latest tripe is the stuff that should get him expelled from the House. Here’s his latest pack of lies:

Rep. John Murtha, an influential Pennsylvania lawmaker and outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, said today Marines had “killed innocent civilians in cold blood” after allegedly responding to a roadside bomb ambush that killed a Marine during a patrol in Haditha, Iraq, Nov. 19. The incident is still under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and Multi-National Forces Iraq.
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“It’s much worse than was reported in Time magazine,” Murtha, a Democrat, former Marine colonel and Vietnam war veteran, told reporters on Capitol Hill. “There was no firefight. There was no [bomb] that killed those innocent people,” Murtha explained, adding there were “about twice as many” Iraqis killed than Time had reported.

Frankly, this is the actions of a traitor or a sellout. He deserves to be ridiculed, excoriated and frog-marched off Capitol Hill, then remanded to jail. No bail. Doesn’t this idiot know the type of damage this inflicts on the Marines? Or is it that he’s so intoxicated with the thought of becoming the next chairman of the House Armed Services Committee that he’ll say anything?

When Murtha’s made prior outrageous statements, I’ve advocated that the Pennsylvania voters should fire him. This goes beyond him advocating “immediate redeployment” of the troops or his claiming that “our troops are living hand to mouth”. This rises (sinks?) to the level of harming the U.S. military at a time of war. That takes it beyond Pennsylvania. Now it’s the nation’s business.

For that reason, I’m asking that the House Ethics Committee start an investigation into Murtha’s actions and that they expel him from the House if he’s found guilty of betraying the soldiers of the U.S.M.C.

The soldiers found no insurgents in the village on the morning of March 16, 1968. The soldiers, one platoon of which was led by Lt. William Calley, killed hundreds of civilians – primarily old men, women, children, and babies. Some were tortured or raped. Dozens were herded into a ditch and executed with automatic weapons. At one stage, Calley expressed his intent to throw grenades into a trench filled with villagers.[1]

The precise number reported killed varies from source to source, with 347 and 504 being the most commonly cited figures. A memorial at the site of the massacre lists 504 names, with ages ranging from as high as 82 years to as low as 1 year. According to the report of a South Vietnamese army lieutenant to his superiors, it was an "atrocious" incident of bloodletting by an armed force seeking to vent its fury.

A US Army helicopter crew famously saved some civilians by landing between the American troops and the remaining Vietnamese hiding in a bunker. The 24-year-old pilot, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr., confronted the leaders of the troops and told them his gunship would open fire on them if they continued their attack on civilians.[2]

With the support of the other two members of the helicopter crew — Spc. Lawrence Colburn and Spc. Glenn Andreotta — Thompson directed an evacuation of the village. The crew members have been credited with saving at least 11 lives but were long thereafter reviled as traitors.