John Murtha, an influential Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives and a staunch supporter of the U.S.-Turkish cooperation, died Monday night at the age of 77.
A former Marine officer, the Pennsylvania Democrat played a crucial role in 2007 in preventing passage of an Armenian “genocide” bill in the House of Representatives, which was a major threat to U.S.-Turkish ties at the time. He was also a prominent critic of former President George W. Bush’s Iraq policies. Murtha died at a hospital in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania after suffering complications from gallbladder surgery, wire services reported.
The fall of 2007 was one of the toughest times in the history of the decades-long U.S.-Turkish relationship. On one front, militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, were attacking Turkish targets and killing dozens of soldiers. Ankara warned that it would send its army to neighboring northern Iraq to fight the PKK there unless the United States moved to radically increase anti-PKK cooperation.
On the other front, an Armenian “genocide” resolution had passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee and come very close to a House floor vote. Ankara warned that the bill’s passage would lead to a major and lasting deterioration of ties, including a move to cut Turkish cooperation in Iraq.
Bush’s Republican administration already had urged Republican representatives to keep away from backing the “genocide” bill, and the effort was largely successful. But a vast majority of Democrats, who were in control of the House, supported the resolution.
Game changing remarks
On Oct. 17, 2007, when backers of the “genocide” resolution seemed to have more than enough votes for the bill’s passage, Murtha appeared for a news conference at the House press gallery together with a handful of other Democratic lawmakers. The event was a game changer.
“What happened nearly 100 years ago was terrible. I don’t know whether it was a massacre or a genocide, but that is beside the point. The point is we have to deal with today’s world. Until we can stop the war in Iraq, I believe it is imperative to ensure continued access to military installations in Turkey, which serve U.S. operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan,” Murtha said.
“I met with Turkish President Abdullah Gül and foreign policy experts, and they all impressed upon me that a U.S. resolution will further fuel anti-Americanism among the Turkish population and will in turn pressure the Turkish government to distance itself from the United States in the region,” he said.
“I am also concerned about the recent developments regarding possible Turkish military action against the PKK in northern Iraq. This resolution could very well increase political pressure in Turkey and force the government to take such military action,” Murtha said.
Then he predicted that the floor vote on the genocide bill would fail, with some 55 to 60 Democrats in the 435-member House opposing the measure.
Murtha’s speech had a domino effect on Democratic lawmakers with dozens of representatives withdrawing their support from the resolution. As a result, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a staunch supporter of the “genocide” bill, had to shelve a floor vote indefinitely. And a collapse in U.S.-Turkish ties was narrowly averted.
“Murtha was a great statesman fully aware of the importance of the Turkish-U.S. alliance,” said one senior Turkish diplomat. “We will miss him dearly.”
Changing course in Iraq
Murtha’s Iraq war views also eventually prompted Washington to change course in the war, eventually forcing a decision to withdraw forces in 2011.
Murtha originally voted in 2002 to authorize Bush to use military force in Iraq, but his growing frustration over the administration’s handling of the war prompted him in November 2005 to call for an immediate withdrawal of troops. “The war in Iraq is not going as advertised,” he said. “It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion.”
Murtha’s opposition to the Iraq war rattled Washington, where he enjoyed bipartisan respect for his work on military issues. On Capitol Hill, he was seen as speaking for those in uniform when it came to military matters.
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The New Republic: Will Murtha’s Town Die With Him?
Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha has died. Is his district next?
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February 9, 2010
By last summer, it was obvious that John Murtha did not have much time left in Congress. This was partly due to the efforts of Washington ethics cops and Western Pennsylvania Republicans, both of whom had spent the past few years working feverishly, through either judicial or electoral means, to remove him from office. But more than that, there was the simple matter of Murtha’s health. At 77 years old, he’d begun to show obvious signs of deterioration—from increasingly frequent verbal gaffes (like calling his part of Pennsylvania “a racist area”) to physical ones, such as the spill he took while visiting injured troops at Walter Reed. When Murtha died Monday at the age of 77, due to complications stemming from gallbladder surgery, it was sad, but hardly shocking, news.
Unless, that is, you lived in Murtha’s hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. When I visited there last summer, I found that the only thing deeper than the floodwaters that had thrice destroyed the rust belt city was the denial of its residents that Murtha’s 36 years on Capitol Hill were nearing an end. They expressed unswerving confidence that their congressman could not only defy the laws of man—by forever frustrating the efforts of those trying to unseat him—but the laws of nature, as well. The notion that he might have to retire due to poor health was greeted with a snort: Murtha had been a Marine who, as a father of three, had volunteered for Vietnam; he was too tough to retire. “He would like to die in the House,” one of his friends and supporters told me, certain that such an event was a long way off. Murtha’s great aunt, more than one person in Johnstown mentioned to me, had lived into her 90s; and his clean living—“he doesn’t drink, except for coffee”—meant he could count on reaching a similarly ripe old age.
Now that Murtha has confounded the expectations of his constituents, his obituary writers will invariably describe him as “The King of Pork.” While the term is not meant as a compliment — and, in fact, Murtha’s political and legal troubles over the last few years stemmed from that well-deserved reputation — it’s worth remembering that, to the recipients of that pork, Murtha was a hero. For the last 15 years, he steered a steady stream of federal money — by some accounts as much as $2 billion — to Johnstown and, in the process, allowed the city to escape the fate of other once-booming steel towns that were unable to survive the collapse of that industry. Indeed, to visit Johnstown today is to encounter an oasis of relative prosperity — a city that boasts glass-and-steel office buildings, a Wine Spectator-award winning restaurant, even a symphony orchestra — in a desert of economic despair.
When any politician dies, especially one as long-serving as Murtha, his passing will be treated as the passing of more than an individual. And this is already being described as the end of various eras — from the end of the era of Democratic rule in Pennsylvania’s Twelfth Congressional District (which John McCain carried in 2008) to the end of the era of the “old bull” way of doing business on Capitol Hill. But Murtha’s death also signals something more than the death of a man or the death of an era: It likely spells the death of the city he represented.
When Murtha was alive, Johnstown raised myriad monuments to him — placing his name on everything from a technology park to an airport. But the city never prepared itself for the day when its honors to Murtha would have to come in the form of memorials. Johnstown’s success was not a façade, but its prosperity was as dependent on one congressman as it had once been on one industry. It was almost as if Johnstown could not bring itself to imagine — and thus prepare for — what would happen once Murtha, like steel before him, was no longer there to sustain it. And now it will face the consequences of that failure.
To be sure, Johnstown will not cease to exist tomorrow. Or next week. Or even next year. After all, it took decades for Bethlehem Steel to dismantle its Johnstown operations once it decided to leave the city. But, over time, the economic forces that Murtha managed to stave off will begin to take their toll. Lacking a politician with Murtha’s seniority and powerful committee assignments — not to mention, perhaps, a politician with Murtha’s tolerance for the appearance (and perhaps the reality) of ethical impropriety — Johnstown will watch as the river of federal largesse slows to a trickle. And it will watch as the defense contractors that followed those federal dollars by locating their offices in Johnstown and underwriting its civic activities turn their attentions to the hometowns of other congressmen. And slowly, but ineluctably, Johnstown will meet the same fate as the politician who did so much — maybe too much — to keep it alive.
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