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for what it's worth, i did not see in murtha's words anything like a plan--but then there is no plan with the bushpeople either--however the latter are in the curious position of being able to not have a plan, and to use not having a plan to jusitfy the continued involvement of american troops in iraq and then move to attempt to erase questions about the legitimacy of the war itself.
like ustwo tries above, ever the bellweather of conservative "opinion management sugestions"...
i think that the way out would have to be for the americans to involve other countries in the reconstruction effort, such as it is, and to roll out of iraq. i do think that bushwar has created the potential for real chaos in iraq, and that it continues to do so--for example, some representatives of the iraqi sunni community have been arguing that they see the united states as acting in the factional interests of the iraqi shi'a community by continuing to conduct raids in sunni-dominated areas...if anything like that is true, then it seems clear that the americans are finding themselves actors within what could be the preliminary actions in a civil war, and this quite easily. what the americans do not seem to be in a position to do is act according to a logic that would stabilize much of anything--that is they are not outside the logic of faction, they are instead being either used or understood as (or both) an extension of faction.
but this whole argument supposes that the problem someone like murtha would have been reacting to is tactical or strategic even on the ground now--i am not sure that this is accurate----the real problem for the bushpeople is that they cannot contain the damage being caused them and their illegitimate war by the problems the administration created for itself by virtue of its shabby and false case for war.
it is pretty simple: if the "evidence" upon which congress acquiesced/decided (your choice) to follow the administration into fulfilling the dreams of the project for a new american century in rewinding the first gulf war etc. was--o let's put this in a neutral-ish manner--manipulated, then it follows that the decisions made on the basis of that information are or should be nullified, yes? is congress in a position to recind its authorization of the war? is this what the bushpeople are really afraid of? if that is what they are trying to avoid, then theatrics like this vote at least make sense....
but the implications of this scenario continue: if the above is true, then it also follows that the americans , thanks to the actions of the administration itself, find themselves in a highly problematic military engagement which has resulted in 28-30,000 civilian casualties, an action which, BECAUSE OF THE FRADULENT CHARACTER OF THE INTEL UPON WHICH ITS JUSTIFICATIONS WERE BUILT now cannot be distinguished from a sustained act of state terrorism. because what is terrorism? the use of military tactics--which include a problematic definition of the notion of combattants---in an---um---"extralegal" context.
that is the position this administration now finds itself in--and it has nobody to blame but itself. that is why it finds itself now twisting in the wind, as a function of its own actions, its own choices, its own arrogance, its own abuse of power.
while the right scrambles to figure out mechanisms of damage control (trying to reframe the problems the adminsitration made ofr itself over the case for war by narrowing the operative questions to an absurd degree, for example--see the "dichotomy" thread for a nice little example) and also to argue, more or less as ustwo does above, that the situation created by the american military now operates as a justificiation for continuing regardless (and then following with a rehearsal of the right's favorite canard about vietnam, the famous "protestors stabbed the military in the back" line, which curiously echoes the line of the brownshirts in the 1920s about world war 1--look it up)---the fact is that the right cannot manage this situation which their boy bush and his band of incompetents have created for themselves and for all of us. they cannot control the debate, they cannot shape the terms, etc.
the chickens are coming home to roost.
i dont see this as a good thing, mostly because i can easily imagine that the administration now finds itself in a position that would appear to legitimate a refusal to even consider a coherent exit strategy on political grounds. because it does not like the way in which it own actions are coming back to haunt it, the administration will dig in here and make political trench war out of this in order to save its own political hide. meanwhile, more and more people will die.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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