OooooooooKinawa!

Hold on - I feel a song coming on!  Let's set Rep. Murtha's new redeployment strategy for Iraq to music.  And since John Kerry's amendment urging a bailout by Christmas got a whole six votes, let's keep him in the mix too:

Ooookinawa!
Where the planes come whistling from the sky
With our redeployed men we can leave right then
And it's just six thousand miles to fly!

Ooookinawa!
Ev'ry night my intel chief and I
Sit alone and talk and watch an AWAC
Makin' lazy circles in the sky.

We know we are here for John Kerry
And to the Iraqis we aren't very scary
And when we say
Yeeow! WTF is it now?
We're only sayin'
Why are we based in Okinawa?
Okinawa, no way.

They say there's a broken light for every heart on Broadway.  However, I kinda suspect my new musical won't be opening there, so I may never know.

Comments

[Dwilkers]

Heh.

Keep the day job TM.

8^)

[danking70]

Quick get a screen shot. TM, pulled a Larwyn.

LOL!

[lurker]

ROFL!

Solyent Red!!

[MaidMarion]

Shirley Jones is still around...maybe you could get her to record it :)

[Tom Maguire]

Keep the day job TM.

There is that.

[Other Tom]

Frank Rich could revert to his real specialty and write a review. Tom, at least we can say you're better at your new avocation than poor Frank is at his.

[clarice]

I can't sing or dance, but I checked my schedule and I'm available, TM.

[richard mcenroe]

I think ya got the opening number for Team America II there, Tom...

[Sara (The Squiggler)]

I love it!

[Sara (The Squiggler)]

Okay, JOM readers, I have been calling for Murtha's defeat for months on The Squiggler. I read today on another blog that the word was the RNC won't actively support Diana Irey in her bid to defeat Jack Murtha. She deserves support. If it is true, what was said, then it must be because they don't realize how much support there would be out here on the Right-o-sphere. We need to tell them! Pronto. Visit Diana Irey's website at: http://www.irey.com and let her know of your support and then send an email to the RNC and let them know too.

[clarice]

Great, Sara..the vets are behind her. Instapundit has more. Plus sees a genuine hottie.

[Paul]

I dunno Sara, I think the RNC figures Murtha to be a tremendous asset to the Republican Party.

[clarice]

***she's a genuine hottie***********

[crosspatch]

It is all part of the Democratic Party's secret plan. The current tactic is called Run From Terror and is part of their longer range strategy concerning The Marathon War.

I noticed in the news tonite that there were 72 bombings in Thailand over the past two days. It must be causing them all sorts of discomfort that we don't have any troops in Thailand to immediately withdraw. Expect the Democratic Party leadership to propose legislation any day now that will create a Joint Withdrawal Force whose mission will be to deploy to Thailand and then immediately withdraw as a sign that we really mean business.

[Sara (The Squiggler)]

LOL, Crosspatch.

Paul ... oh, I'm sure he is a plus for the GOP for campaign purposes, but he still needs to be unseated. In the meantime, he can keep on a ramblin'.

[MikeM]

Murtha's suggestion of redeployment to Okinawa indicates ignorance of more than geography. The U.S. and Government of Japan are under much pressure to decrease U.S. forces on Okinawa. Not to mention that launching air stikes from Japanese territory is kind of a no-no. Strong chance Koizumi's govt. would fall.

[crosspatch]

Kuwait could be a logical place, but it doesn't matter. At this point the issue is moot. I believe things will settle down and Iraqis will get a better handle on things. After two rather busy days in Baghdad, today was relatively quiet. So in 5 days of the security crackdown we have had 3 good days and 2 bad ones. As time passes, I believe the good days will increasingly outnumber the bad days.

[JorgXMckie]

I just watched Murtha's Russert appearance video. Wow! I had a crazy, alcoholic uncle (that is, he was crazy even before the alcohol got him) who made more sense and was better spoken than that. I think his family should check to see if he hasn't had a couple of minor 'incidents' inner skullwise.

[Sara (The Squiggler)]

A commenter at Protein Wisdom just made this remark which I find hilarious to think about:

Needed to check Google Earth before posting this, but:

Baghdad - Okinawa: 4900 miles, most of it over China and Iran, which we would have to fight our way through. Avoiding China and Iran, but assuming we are allowed to fly over Thailand and India makes it “only” 6600 miles.

Baghdad - Maine: 5500 miles, all of it, except for a tiny corner of Syria, over countries that are at least nominally allied with us…

So Murtha’s redeployed “Rapid Reaction Force” would certainly get there faster from Maine…

I can see it all now. Picture this as Sophia of the Golden Girls used to say: An easel on the House Floor, on the easel a nice big map blown up so it is easily read by the TV camera, a well spoken and sensible sounding Congressperson (there must be one on our side) with a silver pointer or better yet a laser light and the simple words, "we are redeploying to Maine!"

[Patton]

Republicans should call for a vote today in the House on the Democrat Plan for Defeating Terrorism: 127,000 man
re-deployment to Okinawa.

[TallDave]

Sort of ironic, considering how many Americans died taking Okinawa. More in a single day than we've lost in Iraq, iirc.

[Clyde]

Did anybody clock the exact time when Congressman Murtha was brain-dead?

What a maroon! How embarrassing for the people in Pennsylvania who elected this boob!

[Florence Schmieg]

And he keep infantilizing the American Military!! That's what bothers me the most. Cracking under stress, broken, etc. Our all volunteer, professional military tasked with the nation's defense! And he highlights the Marines, historicaly the most potent warriors we have. Do we ask a lot of them? You bet. Are they up to the task? You bet. Murtha should get a golden parachute and relax at home.

[JM Hanes]

Sara

Pls. allow me assist with the http://www.irey.com/>Diana Irey link this time.:)

If the protest babe rule holds up, Murtha's in trouble. Hard to believe the RNC can't throw some support her way. I gather Murtha is about as a solidly entrenched as an incumbant can get, but if he keeps up his public appearances, maybe Irey won't need the RNC. If she can maneuver him into a debate, I'll buy the popcorn.

[Slartibartfast]

What the 6600 miles assumes is that countries like India would be just fine with us running ordnance through their airspace.

Dunno why he didn't say "Diego Garcia" instead; quite possibly Murtha's wondering the same thing. 3000 nautical miles in a straight line; a bit more if you need to avoid Saudi Airspace. Putting the troops that far away, though, would be not much different than bringing them all the way home. Even then, though, an attack fighter with reasonably long legs would have to do at least one refuel; more likely two or three.

[ajacksonian]

So nice of Congressman Murtha to finally come up with a solution to Viet Nam! Why, he has been in Congress since 1974, so that is only 31 years to figure out the Viet Nam solution that would have pleased the Democrats: don't actually have real forces there and just rely on 'friends' to send in bombing coordinates while our forces stay safe from far, far away...

Perfect for Iraq! Same thing, no? At least that is what all of those equalizing the two should be supporting...

Personally, I think that Representative Murtha has entered some strange form of time-warp, and US planes can zip through time and space portals to attack *instantly* from far, far away... no flight time, no nothing! Egads, with that capability we can do nearly *anything*!

Or he has gone senile.

I bet on the latter.

Or Congressional Forgetfulness Syndrome. That seems to be pretty rampant out there... maybe Murtha just forgot that something needs be done out there... maybe he could apply this solution to some sort of border security! That's the ticket! All those poor Border Patrol Agents should be nice and safe in Okinawa and be deployed *instantly* when needed to guard the border...

The Murtha Solution: time and space are no problems any more, just put the folks who know what to do far away from the problem so they can instantly be there.

Thank you, Congressman Murtha, for adding *that* to the arsenal of democracy.

[Extraneus]

I saw Murtha on TV the other day, being interviewed on the Olbermann show by a guest host (otherwise, I probably couldn't have paused there more than a second or two). Through all the soft-ball fawning questions, he seemed pretty coherent, had that tough ex-marine act going on, and is obviously playing to the left, just like a lot of the rest of them are. In his case, it seems to be working well. It doesn't need to make sense.

[maryrose]

Mental competency exams should be required for all reps and senators after they reach the age of 65. Murtha could have early Alzheimer's or maybe he's just going for his own 15 minutes of fame as a last hurrah. Hard to tell since his ideas make absolutely no sense.

[Cecil Turner]

Dunno why he didn't say "Diego Garcia" instead . . .

I was wondering the same thing. It'd still be unworkable, but at least it wouldn't be demonstrably idiotic. In fact, that's what I (and others) assumed he meant with his earlier "over-the-horizon" redeployment plan.

[clarice]

It's a lot harder to write a musical around Diego Garcia than around Okinawa.Glad he stuck with Okinawa.

[Tom Maguire]

It's a lot harder to write a musical around Diego Garcia...

I want to steal "Maria" from West Side Story - sort of, "Garcia! I'm redeployed to Diego Garcia!"

Maybe not.

[SunnyDay]

I think Murtha sold his soul for his few minutes in the limelight, perhaps a chance at more power.

[clarice]

Maybe not, TM. You're ahead on Okinawa. (Maybe something from South Pacific would work. Like Wacky talk to the tune of Happy Talk)

[danking70]

Murtha's brother Kit probably has contracts for Okinawa instead of Diego.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Someone needs to hit Murtha with that line from Patton, when Montgomery asks him why he doesn't retreat to regroup; 'Unlike you, I don't like to pay twice for the same territory.'

[Sue]

If Murtha is telling the truth and he called for Reagan to 'change direction' after the Lebanon bombing and he called for Clinton to 'change direction' after Mogadishu, he hasn't changed all that much. It must be an unknown syndrome from Vietnam. You know, like Agent Orange, etc. They want us to lose. Or something like that.

[Sue]

The Okinawa comment was not an off-the-cuff remark, which makes it all the more unbelievable. He said the same thing last December.

[Slartibartfast]

I want to steal "Maria" from West Side Story - sort of, "Garcia! I'm redeployed to Diego Garcia!"

Actually, Tom, I was thinking this. Not as catchy, though, or as widely recognizable.

Does bring those old memories back, though.

[Gary Maxwell]

You know this is so unfair. We criticize and citicize the Democrats for their nonspecificity on any of their plans. We they finally get specific and we immediately point out how idiotic the plan is. How dumb do we think this Democrats are, anyway? Think they will get specific again? Back to carping from the back of the bus I assume.

[Barney Frank]

"Someone needs to hit Murtha with that line from Patton......"

Or a sock full of wet sand.

[SunnyDay]

Maybe he wants to relive those inglorious moments, as our helicopters lifted off from the embassy roof in Saigon, and our South Vietnamese allies were pushed back down and left behind.

[Patton]

To be fair to Mr. Murtha and the left, Okinawa seems like a good place to hide out from the bad guys so they don't hurt us.

After awhile, maybe they will just go away.

Its a strategy..more then most of the Democrats have put forth.

Let go hide on Okinawa...or Iwo Jima or some other far away island....

[Patton]

Republicans need to get out front and propose fighting the war in Afghanistan from Antartica.

[Toquam]

How about the "not inetersted in taking a bribe right now" unindicted co-conspirator story?

The FBI "sheik" offered the standard Abscam $$ for residency papers (private bill), and filmed Murtha doing a Clinton-like almost a crime non-acceptance.

From the New Republic no less. URL or buy the current issue:
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060626&s=crowley062606

Jack in the Box
by Michael Crowley
Jack Murtha: darling of the NRA, K Street, Big Oil--and liberals everywhere.

Oddly, it gets better.

[Sara (The Squiggler)]

Note I found this comment from last night still in the compose box just now, so consider why it is hours out of date:

*************

A commenter at Protein Wisdom just made this remark which I find hilarious to think about:

Needed to check Google Earth before posting this, but:

Baghdad - Okinawa: 4900 miles, most of it over China and Iran, which we would have to fight our way through. Avoiding China and Iran, but assuming we are allowed to fly over Thailand and India makes it “only” 6600 miles.

Baghdad - Maine: 5500 miles, all of it, except for a tiny corner of Syria, over countries that are at least nominally allied with us…

So Murtha’s redeployed “Rapid Reaction Force” would certainly get there faster from Maine…

I can see it all now. Picture this as Sophia of the Golden Girls used to say: An easel on the House Floor, on the easel a nice big map blown up so it is easily read by the TV camera, a well spoken and sensible sounding Congressperson (there must be one on our side) with a silver pointer or better yet a laser light and the simple words, "we are redeploying to Maine!"

[Bill]

Maybe you could write for Connie Chung or teach her to sing.

[Extraneus]

Yes, but if these arguably more logical explanations of his motivations are closer to the truth, why have some folks (Ralph Peters, Rush Limbaugh) taken lately to expressing faux sympathy for his apparent senility instead?

[Sara (The Squiggler)]

Extraneus -- I mention the man's senility at the end of nearly every paragraph I post about the "senile old man." However, I always follow the words with "who needs to be voted out of office ASAP. Support Diana Irey and I've been covering him for months on The Squiggler's Murtha category. Although if he keeps calling his political enemies "fat" I might have to take off the kid gloves. Pot calling the kettle black and all that, sort of like OLbermann calling Cosby dumb.

[Extraneus]

Nice page, Sara! (And good point on pots and kettles.) But hey, if any of this etchics stuff is true, then maybe you need a "Wrong on Ethics" section, too.

And on the subject of Irey, should Republicans be calling her a "babe" and making gratuitous comments about her looks? Sure, she's not too hard on the eyes, but isn't it already a well established fact that conservative women are better-looking than liberals?

[Lurking Observer]

Slarti & Co:

The idea of placing even a single Marine division, never mind 127K US troops, on Diego Garcia is as ludicrous as suggesting basing the entire US military on Liberty Island. There is simply nowhere near enough room to even think about deploying a MEF (complete with air wing??) onto that island.

Forget training.
Forget exercising.
Forget O&M on equipment.

By comparison, Okinawa actually makes sense (since it's large enough to at least allow some firing ranges, air strips, etc.). Not that it makes sense geographically, but at least you might physically be able to do it.

But Murtha's still wrong (and silly).

[Sara (The Squiggler)]

Lurking Observer -- So true. My husband did 2 different tours as a Repair Officer on board first the "Dixie" and then the "Prairie," both Navy tenders. The Dixie was the oldest ship in the Navy until it was decommissioned and then the Prairie took on that honor. From Diego Garcia, he ran Tiger Teams to our other ships stationed in the Persian Gulf. I have two slide carousels of pictures of Diego Garcia shot from both on the ground and from a small sea plane giving an arial view. There is nothing there but an old abandoned pineapple plantation left over from the British and the island is very small. It was sh!t duty. Perhaps since the 1st Gulf War they've added a little bit, but how they would house a large force is beyond me.

[Slartibartfast]

In my defense, I've never even so much as looked at Diego Garcia to see how big it is.
Succinctly: not. It's not that it's that small, exactly, it's that it's more of an atoll than an island.

So, probably not, any more than you'd house thousands of troops on Kwaj.

[Cecil Turner]

There is simply nowhere near enough room to even think about deploying a MEF . . .

There really isn't any reason to, though, either (since you wouldn't have a forcible entry option even with a MEF). There's plenty of room for a squadron or two, and that's the only thing that'd ever be used. (Which still wouldn't work, because there'd be nobody to spot for 'em.)

But if you're going to send 'em to Okinawa, might as well bring 'em back to California. (Though you could always bring 'em home and say you put 'em in Oki, and just point at III MEF if anyone asks.)

[Craig S]

Everyone is busy piling on the easiest part of the comment by Murtha to hammer. But I haven't seen much talk about the viability of the first three countries mentioned, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain.

I myself would guess that if the US pulled out of Iraq prematurely and thus inviting certain choas and failure in that Country, that these other options would be hesitant, at the very least, to let us hunker down there with whatever forces are deemed necessary. If I was them, I'd ask myself 'why invite a suddenly confident force of terrorists to swarm over to my country to continue to push a suddenly back-pedaling US military further out of the Middle East?'

[maryrose]

Extraneus:
Conservative women are better looking and seem to take care of themselves a bit more. When you see talking heads on tv you can always pick out the liberal one even before they are introduced. I am sure it is politically incorrect to say that.

[mark c.]

Maryrose,
My wife says the same the same thing about lib men and women. She says they look "weak".

[Extraneus]

I rest my case, but I'm willing to consider a rebuttal.

[Soylent Red]

TM:

TAC Musical Productions having competing shows on Broadway? Oh man, we're gonna be rich...

RE Murtha:

Okinawa is ridiculous as others have pointed out. Kuwait, however, is not out of the question. They're building a gi-normous Kaiserslauten-sized airbase there right now (if it isn't already done). SO logistically that's doable.

What makes the whole plan a full on clusterf*ck in my mind is this: supposing we redeploy, what are the thresholds that have to happen before we re-enter Iraq?

The way I see it, any rational threshold for re-entry has already been met, i.e. elected government in danger, elected government requests assistance, country harbors dangerous terrorist element, etc.

But the Dems don't want to talk about that as a fixed item. That gives them the option, if they win in November, to refuse funding or defund. Very similar to the defunding of air support in SE Asia in the 1970s.

Iraq= Vietnam? You bet it does, if we let Murtha and his ilk sell Iraq down the river.

[MayBee]

Soylent: What makes the whole plan a full on clusterf*ck in my mind is this: supposing we redeploy, what are the thresholds that have to happen before we re-enter Iraq?

Exactly.
GWB has been criticized by the Murtha/Kerry bunch for not being "honest" with the American people about all the possible consequences and outcomes of his plan for Iraq.
So now they come up with a plan and don't address all the possible consequences and outcomes of their plans. Well, they can't really even be bothered to tell us the full plan. Oh well.

[Sara (The Squiggler)]

This is absolute pandering, bigtime pandering to be truthful, but please all of you who care about Murtha and his "cut and run" "redeploy" remarks, please come read THIS and pass it along to others who have more clout in the blogosphere than I do. The coverage in Murtha's hometown (and mine) is minimal and nothing on the latest controversy. The coverage of Irey is pitiful.

So forgive my pandering, but if you have a minute, send your own email. Please.

[Daddy]

Sung to the tune of "Chicago Chicago"

Diego Garcia that Fantasy Isle
Diego Garcia 3000 miles from the Sand Pile
Bet your bottom dollar we'd lose the war in Diego Garcia
If that looney Jack Murtha can shut it down

Near the Green Zone where troops roam well I've just got to say
The bad guys hate us and they're praying we go away, hey
When we leave if a man tries to dance with his wife
Al Queda'll cut off his head with a knife
Yeah Diego, our new Viet Nam.

[Dan Goorevitch]

Lyric falls apart in the second line. Check the meter.

[Coop]

The RNC is waiting, to see if Commission Irey can put together a strong network and raise some substantial funds on her own. She's making excellent progress on both counts, but there's still much work to be done. If she keeps building momentum and looks competitive around Labor Day, the RNC will almost certainly lend a hand.

Here's a site with over 700 veterans supporting Diana Irey and standing against Jack Murtha: www.vets4irey.com