[NYTr] Murtha's Vietnam Lesson for W: Amerikans Won't Accept "Patience"

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Huffington Post via CubaNow - Aug 27, 2007
http://www.cubanow.net/global/loader.php?&secc=10&item=3192&c=2


The American People Will Not Accept Patience

By Rep. John Murtha

Cubanow.- President Johnson said in 1966, "the solution to Vietnam is
patience."

President Nixon said in 1969, "As our commanders in the field determine
that the South Vietnamese are able to assume a greater portion of the
responsibility for the defense of their own territory, troops will come
back."

Today, we hear the same misleading rhetoric coming from this
Administration. In Vietnam, we were talking about 10 years of patience
and in the end a U.S. military solution did not work. Now, five years
into the war in Iraq, the president continues to seek a U.S. military
solution to an Iraqi civil war. There will be no real progress in Iraq
until key political, economic and diplomatic improvements are made by
the Iraqis.

The facts on the ground in Iraq indicate that electricity is below
pre-war levels (only 2 hours a day in Baghdad), oil production remains
below pre-war production and at least 50% of the Iraqi population is
unemployed.

All Americans realize that stability in the Middle East is important to
our national security. The American people will not accept patience as
a strategy while the Iraqi Government continues to ignore key political
and economic benchmarks.