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Vets Angry After Navy Sec. Names Warship After Former Dem Rep. Murtha

Published: 01/13/2011 Posted On: January 13, 2011 at 6:32 PM By: Kathy

Eagles: contact your congressmen and -women and senators and tell 'em how disgusted you are with this and ask them to reverse Secretary Mabus abominable action!

Larry Bailey

Vets Angry After Navy Sec. Names Warship After Former Dem Rep. Murtha

Mabus' decision has unleashed a continuing torrent of opposition from many former sailors and Marines. They say that naming a vessel for Murtha rewards a lawmaker who called for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq in late 2005 during the war's toughest days, and one who was implicated in bribery and pork-barrel politics. On Friday, a former congressional aide close to Murtha was sentenced to 27 months in prison for evading limits on campaign donations; Murtha also was an "unindicted co-conspirator" in 1980's FBI-run Abscam sting.

And that isn't the worst of it, according to sailors and Marines: putting Murtha's name on an amphibious warship designed to carry 700 Marines is outrageous, they maintain, given Murtha's 2006 charge that Marines in the Iraqi city of Haditha "killed innocent civilians in cold blood." (One of the eight Marines charged in the case still faces trial; six have had their charges dismissed and one was acquitted.) "Name a ship after a congressman who disgraced himself by rushing to judge that fellow Marines had committed murder in Iraq?" ...

Posted on January 13, 2011 at 6:32 PM by Kathy

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