So much to say...

So little time to say it. So here's a scattering of thoughts, someday (hopefully) to be rewritten with some real effort.

Donald Rumsfeld said you go to war with the Army you have. John Murtha says the army we have doesn't have the resources to accomplish the goal. That's the essence of the debate.

It doesn't matter if Murtha is a coward or not (he's not). What matters is the substance of his ideas. Indication of MSM inadequacy No. 2,453,684: Norah O'Donnell's interview of Murtha on MSNBC and the endless repetition of his lone quote about Cheney's lack of service. MSM just wants a food fight.

The British suffered nearly 60,000 casualties on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, causing them to shift their terrible strategy. Did they do it out of cowardice? Where do you draw the line between reacting out of fear and reacting for strategic purposes? If you are a Bush supporter, any change in policy is out of fear.

Ed Henry, stop saying Dennis Hastert wants to call the Democrats' bluff. I haven't heard the Democratic leadership endorse Murtha's proposal. Plus, if they wanted to see if the Democrats supported the proposal, why would they put a different proposal up for a vote?

And here's a little blast from the past (emphasis mine):

"There's a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people ... and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years. ... We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." -- Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, at a House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, March 27, 2003

"Listen, some things happened that were hard to predict. And some things didn't happen that we thought were going to happen. For example, we thought they'd blow up the oil fields." -- George Bush, on CNN's Larry King Live, Aug. 12, 2004

UPDATE: Some more thoughts...

Should we care that our enemies may claim our departure from Iraq is a victory for them? By that I mean, shouldn't we decide whether our mission is accomplished, not them? Won't they claim victory no matter what?

If we all agree that exiting now would mean that the soldiers we have lost would have died in vain, doesn't that also tell the insurgency that they must keep blowing themselves up so that their "martyrs" won't have died in vain?

UPDATE II:

If the Republicans truly wanted to send the message to our troops and the world that we are supporting the war, shouldn't they have countered Murtha with a bill supporting the mission instead of a dumbed-down Murtha bill to vote against?