this all started with a statement made by rep. john murtha to reporters on thursday. this is part of what he said:

“I believe with the U.S. troop redeployment the Iraqi security forces will be incentivized to take control. A poll recently conducted — this is a British poll reported in The Washington Times — over 80 percent of Iraqis are strongly opposed to the presence of coalition forces, and about 45 percent of Iraqi population believe attacks against American troops are justified. I believe we need to turn Iraq over to the Iraqis. I believe before the Iraqi elections, scheduled for mid-December, the Iraqi people and the emerging government must be put on notice. The United States will immediately redeploy — immediately redeploy. No schedule which can be changed, nothing that’s controlled by the Iraqis, this is an immediate redeployment of our American forces because they have become the target.

All of Iraq must know that Iraq is free — free from a United States occupation, and I believe this will send a signal to the Sunnis to join the political process. My experience in a guerrilla war says that until you find out where they are, until the public is willing to tell you where the insurgent is, you’re not going to win this war, and Vietnam was the same way. If you have an operation — a military operation and you tell the Sunnis because the families are in jeopardy, they — or you tell the Iraqis, then they are going to tell the insurgents, because they’re worried about their families.

My plan calls for immediate redeployment of U.S. troops consistent with the safety of U.S. forces, to create a quick reaction force in the region, to create an over-the-horizon presence of Marines, and to diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq.”

it was a direct call for the immediate withdrawal of troops from iraq. that’s a bold move, no matter what you may think of that proposed strategy. although i think that murtha’s war hawk reputation is overstated, he’s not advocating the exact same strategy as michael moore. it would be convenient for us to characterize him that way. it would also be wrong, scott mcclellan. even though mcclellan tried to make the case that it was only murtha’s argument that was being discredited, not the man himself, i don’t think he managed to sell that to anyone still listening to him.

some of what rep. murtha said made sense, at least in the previous excerpt. he’s not a raving moonbat like michael moore. i do have a serious problem with immediate withdrawal of the troops from iraq, whether that means tomorrow, or six weeks from now. the administration has made what i believe, and many others believe, to be a strong case against this approach. iraq will be left worse than we found it, should we decide to leave iraq before it can defend itself. i would also like to question this assertion by rep. murtha in the full text of his remarks to the press on thursday: “ I said over a year ago now, the military and the administration agrees now that Iraq cannot be won militarily. ” i’m not buying this argument. at least in the public statements by current members of the administration and the military now in iraq, i just don’t see the general consensus for this POV in either group. there are improvements we need to make in our approach to post-war iraq. i don’t dispute that. i also think that our successes there have been woefully under-reported.

so the house republicans decided to take a vote on the immediate withdrawal of troops from iraq, to make the democrats go on the record on how they felt about what murtha was suggesting in his comments to the press. i like this move. did it smack of a political stunt? yes. but it accomplished something very useful, in spite of the partisan sniping that took place in the pre-vote debates on the house floor. all but three democrats voted against immediate withdrawal, which should have been expected and probably was. this was a turning point in the whole argument over the war in iraq. i think this because now that the house has decisively rejected immediate withdrawal, we can now move on to the question of what more we need to be doing to help the iraqis run their own country.

i believe that murtha’s broader point is correct– that we need to give the iraqis an incentive to kick us out of their country. while timetables for withdrawal are misguided, we do need to emphasize to them that we will be leaving, and that they will need to secure their own country. the two previous elections and the new constitution are very positive signs that the political process is starting to work. i’m sure that there are other major positive developments there that we don’t know about. there is more work yet to do, and the administration should let us know about the progress that’s being made to address rep. murtha’s concerns and those of the american people. i hope they will.

oh yeah…and ohio state beat michigan. WOOHOO! thoughts on that in the previous post. scroll down for more on that.

hosting some of sunday’s open trackbacks: cao’s blog, adam’s blog, basil’s blog, california conservative, and my vast right wing conspiracy.