Pennsylvania Democrat Jack Murtha is, in my book, a despicable man.  No, it’s not his racist or redneck comments that make me think this.  Nor even his notorious porking of the American taxpayer.  It was Haditha–and the fact that Murtha was a Marine.

Jack Murtha was the first veteran of the Vietnam War to serve in Congress, elected in 1974, he is one of the last–if not the last–remaining members of the Watergate Landslide Class of Congress.  He has since represented his Southwestern Pennsylvania district full of small towns built from coal and steel.  It is a gerrymandered Democratic district encircling Pittsburgh and includes a heavy labor population.  It is also fiercely pro-military.

On November 19 three years ago, at the height of the Sunni uprising in Anbar province, there was a firefight reported in the town of Haditha resulting in the deaths of Iraqi civilians.  Immediately fingers were pointed at the Marines, some claiming that this was another My Lai incident, referring to a massacre of innocents at the hands of Americans in Vietnam.

Murtha said at the time:

It’s much worse than reported in Time magazine. There was no fire fight. There was no IED that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood. And that’s what the report is going to tell.

Murtha later added that the incident was “murder”.  Not a killing, but murder.

There was initially great deference to Jack Murtha.  A veteran and a Marine himself, not to mention a powerful member of Congress, Murtha was presumably in a position to know more than had been so far disclosed to the press, and had the life experiences to know what was right and wrong in war.

But soon the story began to crumble.  One by one the charges against most of the defendents–including one from Murtha’s own district–were dropped.  The one Marine, the battalion commander, who was to go to trial had the charges dismissed.  The judge went so far as to issue a stern rebuke to the prosecution for unlawful command influence encouraging the prosecution of a case so poorly evidenced.

But the damage had been done.  Predictably Murtha’s condemnation of his fellow veterans travelled around the world in an instant and added to the crescendo rising against the War in Iraq.  It spurred Al Qaeda, which liked nothing so much as to use a prominent American’s own words against her, and dissuaded Anbaris from cooperating with the American Marines.

A lot of Americans dislike the war in Iraq.  But not a lot of those have been veterans of an unpopular war themselves and should know better.  Fewer still have also been senior members of Congress. 

As a Congressman, his unsubstantiated blame was an unscrupulous political ploy.  But as a Marine himself, his first reaction to blame without evidence fellow Marines of murder, was an unconsionable severing of the bonds of brotherhood.  Jack Murtha is a disgrace.

But there’s good news.  The disgrace is now reportedly down by 13 points.  His opponent is retired Lt. Col. Bill Russell.

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