Can some one explain the difference between the Hunter vote

[HeeBGBz]

And Murtha's call for getting out of Iraq.

I'm in a bit of a debate with a neocon about why Dems didn't vote on the Hunter vote.

I came in on the cspan hoopla the other night about halfway through it and I don't know enough of the details. I do feel compelled to argue the damn thing though.

[moc]

1. Hunter's resolution called for "immediate" withdrawal and Murtha's did not

Murtha's resolution was a much more complex, nuanced proposal that involved redeploying the troops to the countries surrounding Iraq as an "over the horizon" force that would be available if needed. In this way, Murtha believes the Iraqis would have the incentive to assume control of their own country.

I'm sure there are other differences as well. Like Hunter's resolution was a political stunt and Murtha's was the result of many months of careful consideration and consultation.

[maveric]

7. Duncan"I never met a defense contractor I didnt like" Hunter called for...

withdrawl? Something doesnt smell right here!

[El Supremo]

2. Hunter's bill was one lousy sentence.

With no provision to stage a pullout over time and protect our troops. It was also nonbinding.

[Susan43]

3. Sure, see for yourself.

Murtha resolution

Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of American in Congress assembled, That:

Section 1. The deployment of United States Forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date.

Section 2. A quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S. Marines shall be deployed in the region.

Section 3. The United States of America shall pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy.

Hunter resolution

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.

And here is the link to what Murtha had to say.

http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/pa12_murtha/pr051117iraq.html

[HeeBGBz]

10. Ooh, thanks for this

I love exactness and links to throw down.

[ashling]

4. Can someone eplain the difference between the Hunter Resolution

and a 3 wk old rotting wildabeest carcas?

Answer: there is more substance to the Wildabeest.

[HeeBGBz]

20. Hehee.

Humorous truths.

[Neil Lisst]

5. Hunter's bill was a straw man, set up to be knocked down.

It's like a kid saying "Mom, can we talk about maybe some time getting a puppy," and Mom shouting "YOU WANT A FULLY GROWN MALE PIT BULL, AND YOU WANT IT NOW, OR ELSE?!! LET'S GO TALK TO DAD ABOUT THAT!"

This was a move to try to give the appearance that the Murtha proposal was being addressed, all so it could be swept away.

[Lex]

6. I bumped my thread with the texts of the two for comparison.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5402127&mesg_id=5402127

[HeeBGBz]

11. I appreciate that

I was looking for previous posts on this, but I couldn't find what I needed.

[HeeBGBz]

8. Thanks! You've all inspired me!

Off to speak em up.

[Patsy Stone]

9. It was meant to be a "Vote of No Confidence"

They threw the issue of withdrawl up so they could vote it down and "show" Murtha that they wanted to stay. Of course, the argument that forcing the troops to stay shows support for the troops is ridiculous.

The Dems didn't vote yes because the plan Murtha detailed was much more nuanced and didn't call for immediate withdrawl. They want to bring it up as a real resolution to enjoy vigorous debate and come up with a real plan for getting out.

[Susan43]

12. Exactly! Good post.

I have noticed that with the reps it is impossible to talk nuance. Everything with them is either black or white. It's very frustrating!

Rather than use the resolutions as an opening for 'vigorous' (good word) debate, they took Murthas resolution twisted it and used it for attack. I guess we should be used to this by now, but damn (!) it is still frustrating. I joke around saying that the reason that the Murtha resolution bugged them so much is he used the word diplomacy.

[DavidBowman]

13. Not true

Murtha's resolution called for immediate withdrawal. It is binding and the Republicans' bill was not. Also, the GOP bill was a stupid stunt.

[Spazito]

14. Could you point out where it says 'immediate withdrawal' anywhere

in the wording of Murtha's resolution?

Murtha resolution

Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of American in Congress assembled, That:

Section 1. The deployment of United States Forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date.

Section 2. A quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S. Marines shall be deployed in the region.

Section 3. The United States of America shall pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy.

[DavidBowman]

17. Yoho!

"The deployment... is hereby terminated and forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practiable date."

That means that the troops in Iraq would, as of the moment of the bill's passage, be taken off combat duty, and removed elsewhere as soon as logistically possible.

What Murtha said later is disingenuous. It was an effective measure as far as moving the debate goes, but it did call for an immediate withdrawal. I'm a lawyer and I read statutes all the time, and the words of the statute are what counts. This measure would've failed as surely (albeit with slightly more support) as Hunter's did.

[Spazito]

18. That may be your interpretation but it is not what the bill says

it says "redeployed at the earliest practicable date." That is NOT immediate and to say it is is, to say the least, disingenuous, imo.

[DavidBowman]

21. Yeah, hrmm

You're not reading it correctly, or you don't know what deployment means. It means to set troops up to be ready for combat. So, the deployment ends in Iraq at the time of the bill's passage. That means the guns are put down.

He then describes the redeployment as a quick reaction force, or redeployment elsewhere.

Pick up a dictionary or something.

[Spazito]

24. I certainly know what deployment means, the key words are

"at the earliest practicable date" which would not be immediate but would be as soon as practically possible which, you know as well as I do, will be far slower than immediate. They will not be 'putting their guns down' upon passage of the bill. Again, that is disingenuous to suggest.

BTW, deployment actually means:

b : to place in battle formation or appropriate positions
2 : to spread out, utilize, or arrange especially strategically

It does not mean to ready the troops for combat.

[DavidBowman]

26. Are we reading the same thing?

The redeployment is what takes place "at the earliest practicable date." The current deployment ends immediately upon passage of the bill.

I think you're being deliberately obtuse.

Also, if that definition of "deployment" that you cite doesn't amount to "readying the troops for combat," then you and I don't understand words the same way. Only I understand them better. It's actually my profession.

[Spazito]

28. LOL, yes we are reading the same thing, it is interesting my perspective

is the same as the author of the bill whereas yours is the perspective of the author of the republican bill. My author has more military experience than either you or I, of that I am very sure.

[DavidBowman]

29. Yeah

I don't know anything about Hunter, or whether our perspectives are the same. Has he sounded off about the Murtha bill, or are you just guessing?

I parse words in statutes for a living, no matter which dipshit politician wrote them. And you can make an argument in court that the author's intentions impact the reading of the law, but the number one source is the law itself and the words that it uses. It will always trump the intentions of the drafters.

Anyway, both resolutions were symbolic, so who gives a crap? I don't think we can come to any accord here. Kick it all nasty this Thanksgiving, dogg.

[Spazito]

30. LOL, at last we are in agreement, well, partially anyway

Murtha's bill and his speaking out has now made the debate about withdrawal of troops a mainstream topic and that is all to the good, imo.

[DavidBowman]

31. At the very least

It lights a fire under Bush's ass.

[Spazito]

33. Yep, one could call it a Thanksgiving bonfire, lol n/t

[Susan43]

19. WRONG!

Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of American in Congress assembled, That:

Section 1. The deployment of United States Forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date.

Section 2. A quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S. Marines shall be deployed in the region.

Section 3. The United States of America shall pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy

I can see why you might think he meant immediate withdrawal, but if you read what he put on his website on the 17th it will clear it up.

http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/pa12_murtha/pr051117iraq.html

[DavidBowman]

22. It repeats exactly what I said

On his website:

"My plan calls: 


To immediately redeploy U.S. troops consistent with the safety of U.S. forces."

What do you think this means? He uses the word "redeployment" because "withdrawal" doesn't sound so nice.

[Mr_Spock]

37. You could dispute that it means not out of the region

...and he was also using a 6 month timeframe which is not "immediate" IMHO. But I'm not going to argue if you disagree - just poining out different ways his resolution and words have been interpreted by myself and others.

[Patsy Stone]

15. That's the way the headlines read, but that's not what he said.

"The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring them home," said Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a former Marine intelligence officer in Vietnam and the senior Democrat on the House appropriations subcommittee that oversees military spending."

"Murtha said troops should be withdrawn in stages, so their safety is not jeopardized. He suggested that all 148,000 could be withdrawn within six months, but that a "rapid deployment force'' should be kept somewhere else in the Middle East."

Even this article, where these quotes came from use "immediate withdrawl" in the headline. I don't know why, unless that is the spin du jour.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/17/MNGV2FPT755.DTL

[Lex]

16. Murtha said on Chris Matthews last Friday night he DID NOT

advocate "immediate withdrawal."

[DavidBowman]

23. Right

He means "immediate withdrawal as soon as is logistically possible." It's a semantic game.

[Susan43]

25. Murtha on Hardball last Fri.

Only the Congress of the United States can speak for the soldiers. I think we need to change direction in Iraq. I think we need to redeploy our troops beyond the horizon.

This resolution they‘re going to introduce today calls for immediate withdrawal. That‘s not what anybody is saying. We need a thoughtful suggestion, a thoughtful resolution, which concludes this war as quickly as possible.

I see no progress at all that‘s being made. So I came to the conclusion, after almost a year of thought, that it had to be changed.

Now, we provide everything the troops needed. We‘ve made sure they had all the equipment they needed.

When though they went into this war with not enough people for the transition to peace, they come into it with less than the number of people they needed, and also they came in without the body armor they needed, the up-armored Humvee.

They completely miscalculated the degree of resistance they would run into. State Department told them, CIA told them—they ignored that.

The former plan called for a lot more troops and they whittled it down because they thought they could win this thing on the cheap. They said oil would pay for this.

Now let‘s compare this with his father. His father had a legitimate coalition. He had 500,000 with 100,000 coalition troops. $60 billion—and I was chairman of the committee at the time—went through our committee, was paid for by the international community. Japan, Germany, France—all of these other countries helped pay for it.

He decided not to go into Iraq. He liberated Kuwait with the U.N. resolution and he decided, “I‘m not going to go into Iraq.” Why? He didn‘t want to rebuild it. He didn‘t want it reconstruct it and he didn‘t want to occupy it. He had an exit strategy.

There is no exit strategy. The path to victory—victory is not a strategy.

I sent a letter to the White House, Chris, in September of last year and I got an answer in May, saying what I suggested they ought to do.

They don‘t reach out. His dad reached out to everybody, reached out to Republicans and Democrats...

...MATTHEWS: How is that different than what the Republicans are pushing as this kind of bogus resolution they‘re pushing today?

MURTHA: It‘s ridiculous. It‘s an immediate withdrawal without any kind of a plan at all. All they‘re trying to do is prove to the American people a political message.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10140542/

[DavidBowman]

27. So

How does that contradict what I just said?

[Lex]

32. Murtha: "Immediate withdrawal?" "That's not what anybody's saying,"

Or more precisely:

"This resolution they‘re going to introduce today calls for immediate withdrawal. That‘s not what anybody is saying."

[DavidBowman]

34. So what?

He's contradicting himself. Politicians do it all the time. Read the statute and you tell me what it means. Look, I've made my arguments about this above, and I need to go talk to my neighbor's dog for a while, so have a good one and stop acting so crazy.

[Lex]

35. Uh. Shift arguments much?

Buh bye.

[DavidBowman]

36. Use adolescent conversational cliches much?

My argument hasn't changed all bloody thread. Read them, and then re-read them. Think about them, and gain knowledge or whatever. Then go to your mother and confess everything.

Everything.

[Lex]

38. You: "Murtha's resolution called for immediate withdrawal."

Murtha: "Immediate withdrawal?" "That's not what anybody's saying."

You: "So what? He's contradicting himself."


Which is it, Murtha called for immediate withdrawal or Murtha is contradicting himself?

Those are 2 separate and distinct arguments.

[Name removed]

39. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lex]

40. Murtha never called for immediate withdrawal in his resolution.

Your premise is faulty.

Calling me names will not help correct your faulty logic.


Oh and P.S. A "resolution" is far different than "legislation" in the U.S. House.

[DavidBowman]

41. Whoa!

We're going around in circles, here. I have laid out my case upthread that the legislation indeed calls for immediate withdrawal. I don't have much more to add to it. I advise you to read it, preferably with a glass of hot milk. If you are then through wasting time and playing the damned fool, you can write back and I might be bothered to patiently explain where you went wrong again.