the smedley log - suburban scrawl

The danger of denouncing Murtha

Murtha Disputes Bush on Iraq

In the above-linked piece from Paul Nussbaum, some supporters of the President may mistakenly find ammunition for criticizing John Murtha. But before that kicks back into full swing, people might want to take notice of who they’re criticizing; Murtha isn’t some hard-left peace activist who has no grasp on the realities of warfare (in fact, he’s far from it).

People who try to dismiss him as an extremist miss the boat on what he’s been saying for the past few weeks. What bothers me is that some people are missing that boat intentionally, and they’re happy to lead others away from an honest discussion of what’s happening in Iraq.

Quelling a debate is not the same as winning it. At some point it would be useful for everyone to recognize that. It seems that if we could understand at least that much, we might find ourselves a step or two closer to defeating terrorism.

Murtha is mixing truth with vitrolic rhetoric … he is trying to pull the ‘enemy’ into a indefensible trap. He says many things that are correct but frames them in a way that intentionally provokes. Crafty old goat.

I think that both sides of this debate have valid points, and unfortunately, people on both sides are also using vitriolic rhetoric and trying to trap those on the other side. That doesn’t necessarily invalidate the whole message though.

The mistake people are making, in my opinion, has to do with dismissing the salient points simply because they find other points with which they decisively disagree. And this applies (obviously, I hope) to both sides.

Murtha has raised some valid concerns, among them the way the President seems to be misunderstanding (or maybe just mis-stating) the nature of the resistance we’ve encountered in Iraq.