Congressman John Murtha is a moron. Sorry.

Murtha wants the US out of Iraq yesterday, and like John McCain, he thinks the fact that he's a military vet lends him credence. Sorry, guys. I admire your service like only a fellow vet can, but the fact that you served only goes so far. McCain played fast and loose with his wives, then went on to a less-than-exlempary senate career. McCain says some seriously stupid things, and I don't give a damn whether he was shot down (he also nearly sank the USS Forrestal), he spouts stupidity. Being a former fighter pilotgives him weight with me, but only so much.(actually he flew an A-4, technically an attack aircraft--I have more respect for attack guys, actually, but I grow weary of hearing him called a "fighter" pilot, as though there's more cachet to being a fighter jockey. I was a ground pounder. I'll take an attack pilot over a fighter pilot any day of the week) I've called fellow SF guys a$$holes, and I'll call McCain the same right here.

As far as Murtha--I don't know. McCain's an a$$hole. Maybe even a moron. Murtha is a step below. What's lower than a moron? A cretin? How about this: An utterly clueless piece of public sh*t. I think that might cover it.

Let's take Murtha's thesis: We need to withdraw from Iraq yesterday.

Ok, no problem. Couple of dozen C-140 flights and we're out of there. Then what?

Yes, we've made major strides (and by "we", I mean the US working arm in arm with Iraqi leaders). There is a constitution in place, there is an Iraqi police force and an Iraqi Army. But the infrastructure is fragile at best. Fragile because anti-Western terrorists lurk around every possible corner.

As I've pointed out in the past, we can certainly pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan (morons like Murtha forget that we're still engaged in Afghanistan). But then what? Both countries will collapse into lawless vacuums that incourage anti-western zealots to head there, train and launch missions. Afghanistan was already such a country. Should we forget everything we did there, everyone who died there and just say f*ck it?

As long as we, the west, retain our resolve, we can keep the anti-western zealots at bay. Unfortunately a lot of western nations have lost their resolve. We're not standing alone by any means, but weekly we lose stand-up allies. The rest will be there when the chips come down, but it would be nice to have them here with us, showing a huge, united front against a terrorism-based way of dealing with issues. Spain, Italy, et al--Don't lose backbone now. Get it back up and let's show a unified HUGE OVERWHELMING western reaction to terror.

I know that there are other flavors of terror than Islamist. There's Irish, Basque and others. But Islamists have taken it to levels nobody else even considered. We have got to crush them. If they have a message, I'll listen to it. But I won't see any more old men pushed off of cruise ships (your mighty warriors must be SO proud of that one) or stewardesses gutted with boxcutters (another proud moment in Islamic history) and aircraft flown into buildings. I've had it, and so has most of America. Stand up with us, ignore cretins like Murtha, and let's crush terrorism once and for all.

The price of pulling back is very simple to quantify: One day your wife/husband/CHILD might become a victim of terrorism.

Period.