STAN GOFF: INCOMING! - Murtha fires the first shot in Bush’s Dien Bien Phu

By Stan Goff -- From The Wilderness

Anyone who knows me knows that I am about as evangelical as a coyote; but sometimes I find it irresistible to quote scripture. A southern thing, perhaps. “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” The Bush administration has not only surrounded itself with venal whisperers to fill its ear with comforting delusions, it has embraced the most fatal of all delusions -- that of its own invincibility.

The rage of Bush and Cheney and Congressional Republicans now lashing themselves to this sinking ship no longer can create even the impression of strength. The volume of this attack is not power but panic. That rage is directed against Pennsylvania Representative John Murtha, who once and enthusiastically supported the war in Southwest Asia. Their rage is against his immunity as a Marine combat veteran. Their rage is against the breach he has created in the wall of Democratic Party cowardice on the war. Their rage is directed at the public voice he has given to the majority of Americans who now believe the U.S. armed forces must leave Iraq, and the sooner the better. But even more basically, this rage is the rage of the pampered child who has never before not gotten his way.

Representative Duncan Hunter, who has just secured his position in history as a sycophant of the most mediocre president since Millard Fillmore, tried to build reality with his Congressional resolution to call the question that Murtha fired into our public discourse like a surprise attack from a 155mm howitzer, igniting such acrimony in Congress that they looked for a moment for all the world like they would come to blows. The Republicans offered a resolution to bring the troops home now as a stunt, and they caught the Democrats with their pants down. Only Republican Ron Paul and Democrat Cynthia McKinney have publicly said that people should have voted for it. Once again, the only people cowardly and stupid enough to be caught flat-footed by cynical Republican elected officials... were Democratic elected officials. Any Democrat or Republican who refused to vote for withdrawal should be punished. Especially Democrats! They were offered an opportunity to slap the Republicans down in an historic vote, and end an illegal and immoral war, and instead they whined about timing.

“Reprehensible!” said Cheney, still in charge at the Oval Office. “Coward!” was the call. In reply, and this is the pathetic downside of all this, Bush’s frat brother John Kerry ‘defended’ Murtha by exposing himself once again -- the dick measuring seems to be irresistible to these guys -- by saying that Murtha is a vet (“and me, John Kerry, I’m a vet, too”), and Cheney received multiple deferments.

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metaphor... let the bastids sink in their own sea of illusions... the illusions that you can make war on an idea. Bastids.

It was a NON-BINDING resolution, meaning nothing would have happened.

You seriously trying to tell me that if it was a real bill to get the troops home, Kucinich and all but one of the Black Caucus wouldn't have voted for it? Get lost

...the point where guys like Stan Goff can't tell the unvarnished truth like this anymore.
I like his description of the dems finding their moral compass and Kerry snatching defeat from victory. It's been kinda like Lincoln and his timid, indecisive generals. They were on the right side of the issue, they held the moral high ground but McClellan and others wouldn't take their vastly superior men & resources and do anything, prolonging the misery and death and stretching the war into yrs.. I realize that the strength of our govt. system is in it's flexibility and ability to compromise...but there are limits and times to stand up and plant your feet. Maybe now that the hailstorm of crafty political lead has died down the freakin' dems will follow guys like Murtha.

:applause:

looking at. I wouldn't waste my time to contemplate if belief is the correct way to go through life but one should always note it's particularities. The Republicans think they have belief, and Democrats are often afraid some of there members will be seen with out it. Much like the hymns in a church, the ostracized are the ones who can't sing the same song.

I don't need freedom from religion, only the power to criticize the hypocrisy of much of what it is

Col. Pirouth was a French Legionnaire and the artillery commander at the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu. Col. Pirouth insisted that there was no place in the mountains surrounding Dien Bien Phu that Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh could situate effective artillery batteries. Not only did the V-M haul lethal 155-mm arty pieces up the mountains, but Gen. Giap brilliantly positioned that artillery behind the military crests of the mountains (rendering the V-M arty totally immune from Pirouth's counter-battery fire).

During the first nights of the bloody siege at Dien Bien Phu, Pirouth realized the catastrophic error of his hubris. Pirouth went into his tent, put the barrel of his service pistol in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

Who'll be Bu$h's Pirouth, as the ghosts of Dien Bien Phu howl in Mr. Bu$h's deaf ears over another war of imperialistic aggression?

when he came out with his plan knowing that Kerry was always first to defend other vets and knowing Kerry had a withdrawal plan of his own that shared common ground with Murtha's plan.

Does Goff really think it was just coincidence that the day before Murtha came out with his plan that Kerry already scheduled himself on 3 shows for the next day to discuss his plan submitted 3 weeks earlier?

Kerry put himself in place knowing that Murtha would be attacked as viciously as he was.