Even on Fathers’ Day, there was More Murtha Madness. Cut and Run King Jack Murtha (D-France) was back on Meet the Press yesterday to shout that we need to withdraw from Iraq now and to hell with the consequences. He’s been saying for months that we should redeploy out of Iraq to some country in the region from which we can still use our forces to help the Iraqis. When Tim Russert pressed him on just which countries in the Middle East would take redeployed American troops Murtha said there were plenty of them. None of which Murtha would name. But he did suggest – I kid thee not – that we could redeploy to from Iraq to Okinawa. That’s Okinawa, Japan, boys and girls.
Now I’m no George Patton or Tommy Franks, but Okinawa seems a tad far for a base that’s going to launch a rapid response force when the Iraqis are in trouble. Baghdad is at 33°25’ N, 44°30’ E and Okinawa is at 26°34’ N and 127°58’ E. Okinawa isn’t literally the opposite side of the world from Baghdad, but close enough: about 5400 miles and that’s the short route if you overfly Communist China.
The only way forces could get from Okinawa to Iraq fast enough is through a “Star Trek” transporter. Maybe that’s what Murtha had in mind. Beam him up, Scotty.
