Congressman John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a conservative Democrat who received two Purple Hearts as a marine in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, gave a speech on Thursday in which he laid out the case for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. As a sort of pilgrim’s progress from hawk to heavily armed dove, Murtha’s speech is worth reading in its entirety, but I wanted to focus on an excerpt:

I believe with the U.S. troop redeployment the Iraqi security forces will be incentivized to take control. A poll recently conducted — this is a British poll reported in The Washington Times — over 80 percent of Iraqis are strongly opposed to the presence of coalition forces, and about 45 percent of Iraqi population believe attacks against American troops are justified. I believe we need to turn Iraq over to the Iraqis. I believe before the Iraqi elections, scheduled for mid-December, the Iraqi people and the emerging government must be put on notice. The United States will immediately redeploy — immediately redeploy. No schedule which can be changed, nothing that’s controlled by the Iraqis, this is an immediate redeployment of our American forces because they have become the target.

All of Iraq must know that Iraq is free — free from a United States occupation, and I believe this will send a signal to the Sunnis to join the political process. My experience in a guerrilla war says that until you find out where they are, until the public is willing to tell you where the insurgent is, you’re not going to win this war, and Vietnam was the same way. If you have an operation — a military operation and you tell the Sunnis because the families are in jeopardy, they — or you tell the Iraqis, then they are going to tell the insurgents, because they’re worried about their families.

There are two points worth emphasizing here. One is that the insurgency feeds on the presence of U.S. troops. No longer is it just an extremist fringe that opposes having foreign soldiers in the country: The vast majority of Iraqis want them out. Almost half believe attacks on American troops are justified. In such a poisonous climate, U.S. soldiers will find it harder to tell friend from foe; more innocents will be imprisoned or killed; and these wrongs will fuel further hatred and further bloodletting.

The second related point is that the United States cannot win a guerrilla war in Iraq without the support of the population. The insurgents know the terrain and enjoy the protection of local communities who either approve of their actions or are too frightened to resist. It is difficult to root them out, and the general population’s distrust of the occupiers means that the insurgents can easily recruit more followers.

America faced a similar situation in Vietnam, as Murtha alluded to. But perhaps the more telling example is Afghanistan. There, a communist regime with the overwhelming balance of military power and no apparent vulnerability to popular protest at home was unable to beat down a determined guerrilla resistance. The Soviets expended 10 years and 15,000 of their own soldiers in their quest to keep Afghanistan communist, and in the end they still failed. Iraq is quickly becoming the third modern example for military historians of why the better-armed, better-trained forces do not always win.

Those who want to stay the course in Iraq assert that “cowards cut and run.” It’s true that good soldiers stand their ground. But it’s also true that good leaders do not send their soldiers into battles that cannot be won. Foolhardiness is no way to respect the sacrifice of young lives.

A man of some intelligence once said, “It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.” In his speech last week, Murtha had the courage to acknowledge the facts on the ground in Iraq — that Iraqi support is minimal, that the occupation is toxic, that the U.S. military is weakening. Murtha has been bitterly attacked for his words. Meanwhile, an administration blind to danger, unpleasant news, and the consequences of its own mistakes continues to slog through the Iraqi morass, showing at every lethal bend in the road rashness instead of valor, obsession instead of leadership.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen