Jack Murtha, An American Patriot

JACK MURTHA, AN AMERICAN PATRIOT -- (Senate - November 18, 2005)

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, yesterday, as all of us know, JACK MURTHA, one of the most respected Congressmen on military affairs, one of the most respected Congressmen on national security issues, a former marine drill sergeant and a decorated Vietnam veteran, spoke out on our policy in Iraq. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Congressman Murtha is not the point. He did not come to this moment lightly. Any one of us who knows Congressman Murtha or anybody who has worked with him over these years, Republican or Democrat, respects this man, respects his personal commitment to our country, respects his understanding of these issues, and understands he did not come to that moment lightly.

He spoke his mind and he spoke his heart out of love for his country and out of absolute and total unconditional support for the troops, of which he was once one.

I do not intend to stand for, nor should any of us in the Congress stand for, another Swiftboat attack on the character of JACK MURTHA. It frankly disgusts me that a bunch of guys who never chose to put on the uniform of their country now choose in the most personal way, in the most venomous, to question the character of a man who did wear the uniform of his country and who bled doing it. It is wrong. He served heroically in uniform. He served heroically for our country.

Have we lost all civility and all common sense in this institution and in this city? No matter what J.D. HAYWORTH says, there is no sterner stuff than the backbone and courage that defines JACK MURTHA's character and his conscience.

DENNIS HASTERT, the Speaker of the House, who never chose to put on the uniform of his country and serve, called JACK MURTHA a coward and accused him of wanting to cut and run. On its face, looking at the record, looking at his life, JACK MURTHA has never cut and run from anything. JACK MURTHA was not a coward when he put himself in harm's way for his country in Vietnam and he earned two Purple Hearts. He was a patriot then and he is a patriot today. He deserves his views to be respected, not vilified.

JACK MURTHA did not cut and run when his courage earned him a Bronze Star, and his voice ought to be heard today, not silenced by those who would actually choose to cut and run from the truth.

Just a day after Vice President Dick Cheney, who himself had five deferments from service to his country because, as he said, he had other priorities than serving his country, just 1 day after he accused Democrats of being unpatriotic, the White House accused JACK MURTHA of surrendering.

JACK MURTHA served 37 years in the U.S. Marine Corps. JACK MURTHA does not know how to surrender, not to enemy combatants and not to politicians in Washington who say speaking one's conscience is unpatriotic.

The other day we celebrated what would have been the 80th birthday of Robert Kennedy. When Robert Kennedy opposed the war in Vietnam, despite the fact that his brother and the administration he was in had been involved in articulating that policy, he talked about how there was blame enough to go around. He also said the sharpest criticism often goes hand in hand with the deepest idealism and love of country.

CHUCK HAGEL showed that he has not forgotten that when he said: The Bush administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and should not be demonized for disagreeing with them.

Too many people seem to have forgotten that long ago and too many of our friends on the other side of the aisle somehow think that asking tough questions is pessimism. It is not pessimism. It is patriotism. It is how one lives in a democracy. We are busy trying to take to Iraq and take to Afghanistan and take to the world the democracy we love and we are somehow unwilling to fully practice it at home.

We have seen the politics of fear and smear too many times. Whenever challenged, there are some Republican leaders who engage in the politics of personal destruction rather than debate the issues. It does not matter who one is. When they did it to JOHN MCCAIN, we saw that it does not matter what political party one is in. When they did it to Max Cleland, we saw that it does not matter if one's service put them in a wheelchair. And when they did it to

JACK MURTHA yesterday, perhaps the most respected voice on military matters in all of the Congress, we saw that some in this administration and their supporters will go to any lengths to crush any dissent.

Once again, some are engaged in the lowest form of smear-and-fear politics because I guess they are afraid of actually debating a senior Congressman who has advised Presidents of both parties on how to best defend our country. They are afraid to debate the substance with a veteran who lives and breathes the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans that sent our troops to war without adequate body armor, without adequate planning, without adequate strategy.

Maybe they are terrified of actually leveling with the American people about the way that they did, in fact, mislead the country into war or of admitting that they have no clear plan to finish the job and get our troops home.

Whether one agrees with Jack Murtha's policy statement yesterday is irrelevant. The truth is there is a better course for our troops and a better course for America in Iraq. The Senate itself went on record this week as saying exactly that. Every Senator in this body voted one way or the other to express their feelings about Iraq.

I intend to keep fighting, along with a lot of other people, to make certain we take that better course for the good of our country.

American families who have lost or who fear the loss of their loved ones plain deserve to know the truth about what we have asked them to do, what we are doing to complete the mission, and what we are doing to prevent our forces from being trapped in an endless quagmire. Our military families understand--I mean, all one has to do is visit with them when they come here and they talk about their sons, their husbands, and their fathers who are over there. They are concerned and want an open debate about what will best support the troops and how to get them home the fastest with the job done the most effectively.

The only way to get it done right in Iraq, the only way to get our sons and daughters home, is for all of us to weigh in on this issue. We also need to be mindful that as the White House yet again engages in a character assassination to stop Americans from listening to the words of a military expert and understanding the consequences, we need to understand the consequences of the road we have already traveled because when one looks at the road we have already traveled, it makes it even more imperative that we have this debate and engage in this dialogue.

It is a stunning and tragic journey that on many different occasions even defies fundamental common sense and leaves a trail of broken promises. From the very start, when we were talking about what it might cost or not cost, when an administration official suggested it would cost $200 billion, he was fired, not listened to. When people wondered how we would pay for the war and we were told the oil will pay for it, while others were saying the oil infrastructure was not sufficient to pay for it, they were not listened to. When the administration could have listened to General Shinseki and actually put in enough troops to maintain order, they chose not to. When they could have learned from George Herbert Walker Bush and built a genuine global coalition so we had the world with us, not most of the world questioning us or against us, they chose not to. When they could have implemented a detailed State Department plan for reconstructing post-Saddam Iraq, they chose not to. When they could have protected American forces and prevented our kids from getting blown up by ammunition that was in the dumps of Saddam Hussein and in the various locations our military were aware of, they chose not to. Instead of guarding those ammunition dumps and armories, they chose not to. When they could have imposed immediate order and structure in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam, Secretary Rumsfeld shrugged his shoulders and said, Baghdad was safer than Washington, DC, and they chose not to take action.

When the administration could have kept an Iraqi army selectively intact, they chose not to. When they could have kept an entire civil structure functioning in order to deliver basic services to Iraqi citizens, they chose not to. When they could have accepted the offers of the nations and individual countries to provide on-the-ground peacekeepers, reconstruction assistance, they chose not to. When they should have leveled with the American people that the insurgency had in fact grown, they chose not to. Vice President Cheney even absurdly claimed that the insurgency was in its last throes.

All of these mistakes tell us something. They scream out for a debate. They scream out for a dialogue. They scream out for a policy that gets it right.

We are in trouble today precisely because of a policy of cut and run where the administration made the wrong choice to cut and run from established procedures of gathering intelligence and of how it is evaluated and shared with the Congress; to cut and run from the best military advice; to cut and run from sensible wartime planning; to cut and run from their responsibility to properly arm and protect our troops; to cut and run from history's clear lessons about the Middle East and about Iraq itself; to cut and run from common sense. That is the debate some people appear to want to avoid in this country.

Instead of letting his cronies verbally blast away, the President ought to finally find the will to debate the real issue instead of destroying anyone who speaks truth to power as they see it.

It is time for Americans to stand up and fight back against this kind of politics and make it clear that it is unacceptable to do this to any leader of any party anywhere in our country at any time. We can disagree, but we do not have to engage in this kind of personal attack and personal destruction.

I hope my colleagues will come to the floor and engage in this debate. Our country will be stronger for it. That is what we ought to do instead of attacking the character of a man such as Jack Murtha. Believe me, that is a fight nobody is going to win in our America.

I yield the floor.

http://thomas.loc.gov/