Hal Donahue
AMERICA
New York City, invigorating, powerful and proud. Through nearly half a century, this wonderful city on the Hudson beckons to me. Sleeping in a tractor and trailer at a pier, staying in hotels too nasty to rate an "avoid" in guide books, staying with friends on the Upper East Side and in the best suites in the best hotels, I am part of this city and its history. I don't live here, but through the years I am here.
Walking the crowded holiday decorated streets, you are almost overpowered by the shear diversity and outright strength that makes up New York. Some claim that rural and small town America is the home of "real Americans". Not true at all. When America was attacked, New York City and its people bore the brunt, not Mayberry. This amazing city is the heart of America filled with both promise and pain. The streets are jammed with people of a thousand shades and a hundred tongues. This city is America!
Standing in Times Square watching a tribute to veterans, I was struck by the fact that the faces on the street mirrored both the photo collages of our recent war dead and the faces in the waiting rooms at Walter Reed. Both our talented and promising and our outcasts and unusual migrate to the city to thrive and strive. The rest of America appears as neighborhoods of this great city. Is New York the home of "real Americans"? The citizens would deny it. New Yorkers gather from all over the nation and abroad; where they come from and what they are reaffirms that we are all "real Americans," even those "pesky" immigrants. What the nation sometimes forgets but as we found out on 9/11, we are all New Yorkers.
South Pacific, the Broadway revival play that won seven Tony Awards, is running at the Lincoln Center. As a treat, we attended a showing. My thoughts were of classic Broadway tunes and a relaxing break. Surprise! This musical is about war and race and prejudice. As a military man, albeit far removed from WWII and the Pacific, I immediately recognized the themes and indeed many of the individuals and situations. The show was a Broadway hit from 1949 until 1954 and must have held tremendous immediacy and nostalgia for the vast veteran audience of the day. Whether racist or not, the audiences must have left the showings deeply troubled. While praising the service of millions of decidedly lonely and yet resilient military people, the play doesn't hesitate to acknowledge the stain of ongoing racial prejudice in America. They would have left the theater whistling or humming great tunes as we did but also contemplating the unfinished business of race and sex in America.
This weekend leaving the theater amid all the holiday decorations, we walked humming, arm in arm down the sidewalk, I gave a thought to Michener, who wrote the tale, and all those audiences and veterans doing the very same thing nearly 60 years ago. They would be very proud of our nation at this minute. The problems confronting us are nearly as great as those that generation had already faced; but we, the nation, did the right and courageous thing on 4 November and we will do the right things from here on out. Enjoy your holiday season and give a thought to the history of the nation and those who serve. They earned it and so did you. Happy Holidays.
Ethics Trickle Down McCain
Remember Haditha, Murtha and Marines?
Courage and Results
No one is convicted. The right wing spin doctors raise money off the
very name Murtha but what really came out of the Haditha
investigations? Not what you think. Anbar Province in late 2005 was a
hot bed of Sunni resistance and insurrection. Indeed, many in the
military considered the Province to be ungovernable. The fighting was
daily and deadly but on November 19, 2005, in the town of Haditha,
Anbar Province, Iraq an incident took place best described in a New York Times editorial, A Hard Look at Haditha, 4 June 2006:
...A roadside bomb struck a Humvee traveling in the vicinity, killing one of the marines on board, and sometime later 24 Iraqi civilians were gunned down, many in their homes. The victims included women, children and grandparents...
The story of Haditha was first revealed by TIME Magazine on March 19, 2006. In May 2006, Congressman Jack Murtha made the now famous comment "Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."
Effete propagandists and spin doctors like Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh immediately accused Congressman Murtha both of calling the entire military cold blooded murderers and of rushing to judge the marines involved at Haditha. Yet, from the very beginning, Congressman Murtha's clear concern was the stress that constant rotations and daily ambushes were having on the troops in general and the Marines in particular. The other aspect of Murtha's comments is that he saw the increasing Iraqi Civilian causalities for exactly what they were - recruiting tools for Al Qaeda in Iraq and Sunni Insurgents. Those spin doctors politicized the incident by launching vicious attacks against Congressman Murtha, a decorated USMC combat veteran.
Why did they do that? The extreme conservatives in the Republican Party and White House were shocked when Democratic Congressman Jack Murtha, THE military expert on Capital Hill, called for an end to the War in Iraq. Murtha knew that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld had no strategy in Iraq. They only had a slogan: "stay-the-course." In what is called true leadership and courage, Jack Murtha put country before self and called for a redeployment from Iraq and the end to this war. The neo-conservatives in the Bush regime immediately turned toward a wave of personal attacks on every aspect of his life.
When the Marine Corps confirmed what had actually happened in Haditha, a very impassioned Congressman Murtha attacked the failed stay-the-course strategy and its impact on the troops. He reiterated how stay-the-course was actually aiding Al Qaeda. The extreme neo-conservative hate machine saw the perfect moment to strike; the troops be damned. Those effete spin doctors spewed hate and lies against Congressman Murtha on a massive scale which still continues today. However, no one has denied that the incident occurred which only served to exacerbated the situation.
What REALLY became of Murtha's comments is outlined in the New York Times article, Military to Report Marines Killed Iraqi Civilians, 26 May 2006:
In an unusual sign of high-level concern, the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, flew from Washington to Iraq on Thursday to give a series of speeches to his forces re-emphasizing compliance with international laws of armed conflict, the Geneva Conventions and the American military's own rules of engagement.
What does all the above really mean? Acknowledging Congressman Murtha's warning that troops were being pushed too far and that those troops were being placed in intolerable situations meant three things. First, fewer US Marines died. Second, fewer Iraqi civilians died. Third, Al Qaeda's ability to recruit died. The investigations, trials and reviews forced the U.S. Military to modify tactics and rules-of-engagements to reduce civilian casualties which rapidly reduced civilian opposition to U.S. forces. When the Iraqi civilians saw that we clearly were attempting to live up to American ideals and values, Al Qaeda in Anbar was finished. I might also point out that this was happening before the surge.
Why am I telling you this now as the very economic core of America crumbles? Because Congressman Murtha showed outstanding courage and sacrifice. He could be sitting in Pennsylvania safe with no opposition. He chose country over self. It will take strong leadership and dedication to repair the damage done to this country. As Congressman Murtha and Haditha demonstrate, the way may not always be pretty or clear. I want a nation of strong leaders who may not always agree but who always have the best interests of the country first in their hearts and minds. Clearly that is Congressman John Murtha.
