And just what IS our soldiers' and Marines' job in Iraq?

David Sirota is pissed-off, pissed-off he tells you! by an op-ed in Sunday's Washington Post where Democrats in the US House are not falling in line behind Congressman John Murtha's Iraq funding proposals. Many amongst the so-called progressives seem to believe Murtha's plan will shorten our troops' stay in Iraq.

I beg to differ.

Before endorsing Congressman Murtha's plan wholeheartedly consider this, will it get the 120,000 or so troops already in Iraq out?

As I am given to understand Rep. Murtha's proposal, it's primary purpose is to stop any further "escalation", or "surge" of additional US ground forces into Iraq; nothing about bringing anybody home. And, anyway, Murtha, as a career Marine, should relize that Pentgon planners will find a work-around to any limit of warm bodies in BDUs.

As for giving our soldiers and Marines in Iraq the training and equipment to better do their job, one must logically ask:What is their job?

That's pretty easy.

The job of our soldiers and Marines in Iraq is simple: Kill the so-called insurgents, surpress the insurgents' captured or wounded comrades, repress any complaints by the insurgents' surviving families, and oppress everybody else.

What a noble calling.

There are only two ways the United States will get out of Iraq: Either our forces suffer a devastating and humiliating combat defeat, and the prospect of that ever happening is slim to none, or a general mutiny.

If significant numbers of our troops in Iraq mutinied, and it could just be by refusing to leave base, then this whole house of cards would come tumbling down. It was a general mutiny by enlisted seamen and some sympathetic officers in Kaiser Wilhelm's Imperial Navy which effectively took Germany out of World War I.

If we follow Murtha's logic, what incentive is there for ever leaving a country whose people have grown very tired of our presence? If we give the troops already in Iraq the equipment and training to do their job better, why leave? And, anyway, who would most benefit from an increase in funding for the equipment, so that our young men and women in Iraq can kill more with less? The military-aerospace-security-complex of course.

Murtha's plan is worse than no plan. It is legerdemain, a cheap card-trick to keep those who want to be there, there.

Soldier save yourself.

If the American boots on the ground in Iraq's job was to hand out chocolates and flowers, then, good, give'em all the training and equipment they want. But it's not.