The M-16, .223 Caliber Congress

Well, now. The U.S. Congress - that paragon of august propriety and virtue - is considering a "non-binding" resolution opposing the Bush League's "surge" of troops in Iraq. "Non-binding resolution." It even has a nice, safe and politically-correct, ring to it, doesn't it - and it sums up the Congress we have, too. Perfectly.

A non-binding resolution by this bunch is nothing more nor less than the posturing demagoguery that is their principal product. Just perfect.

It's meant to show their constituents that their humanely wonderful hearts are in the right place - while making sure their political asses are safe. What a crawling crowd!

You see, comic opera fans, our heroes in Valhalla for the corrupt have something of a dilemma. To cut off funding for this continuing slaughter would expose them to all kinds of political trouble, should what everyone of sufficient intellect - you'll note that doesn't seem to include any of this menagerie - expects to happen then happens. On the other hand, to continue funding Mr. Bush's private war means the concomitant deaths of hundreds more of our men and women - there seems nothing politics doesn't make us stoop to these days - in arms. "Support our troops," you know.

And feeding them into combat in small groups, armed where the real action is, with squirrel-caliber weapons and third-rate body armor, is "support." Damn betcha.

Last week, parenthetically and - for the morally honorable - inextricably related to that last, I received a video from a friend in Iraq. It's of action in Baghdad, and seems to be video of the same action that appeared on television some time ago. A team of U.S. Marines assaults a building, one of them spinning into a room after his buddy has preceded him and gone down before enemy Arab soldiers (you know, the people our mealy-mouthedly politically correct media calls "insurgents"). Inside the room, he faces two men, Arabs armed with the ubiquitous AK-47 assault rifle. Our guy has that wonder of lobbyist intervention into military affairs, the .223 caliber (my squirrel-caliber reference) M-16 -"United States Rifle." The firefight is damned near toe to toe, murderous - and I use that term advisedly.

That last is because our guy dies simply because his weapon isn't good enough. Hit many times by the Marine, the Arabs' assault rifles nevertheless blast him into oblivion -another of White house Press Secretary Tony Snow's "just a number" - and despite his armored vest.

Apparently later in the same firefight, a Marine armed with the an M-249 SAW ("Squad Automatic Weapon" - also that execrable .223 caliber - stands over a wounded comrade (or comrades - I can't tell) exchanging fire with an Arab soldier behind a coping wall on a roof. The Arab has an AK-47 - full,7.62 X 63 mm military-powered caliber, that is. The Marine rakes the parapet with fire, but the forty grain projectiles from his piece of shit weapon simply splatter against the stucco wall. When his opponent has shifted positions behind his cover, the Marine goes down. On the published video, the History Channel television commentator informs the audience that the Marine was killed. Of course, he will get a medal, the silver star.

And he gets to be another of Tony Snow's numbers.

But this isn't about White House Snow Jobs. It's not even about the damned weapons chambered for varmint-sized ammunition. The history of the AR-15/M-16 and its .223 caliber bullet are of interest here principally in the fact that their caliber and resulting performance so resembles that of the U.S. Congress - the people who have equipped our soldiers with that miserable excuse for a combat weapon. Twenty-two caliber, given inevitably to jamming, requiring constant attention better devoted to their purpose than to their miserable performance, and masquerading as a tool of democracy both rifle and Congress are simply a device by which lobbyists have made their corporate masters rich.

The rifle Colonel David Hackworth (arguable the best combat leader this country has had since World War Two) once called "the worst piece of shit ever foisted upon our soldiers," the M-16 rifle was first "foisted" onto combat troops during the Vietnam War, troops who - cleaning rods in muddy hands - were killed while trying to make their jammed weapons fire. Since the Vietnam War, the M-16 rifle and the miserable .223 cartridge have been responsible for the deaths of thousands of our soldiers. That's a matter of historic record.

But what I want to rub the public's noses in is the fact that the same can be said of another misfiring miscreant, the Congress of the United States. That's also a matter of historical record.

There's more. You see, if it all weren't frustratingly infuriating enough, we have still another instance of the effeminate rhetorical equivocation that is everywhere these days. Inevitably, it, too, serves solely as mascara with which to mask the ugly face of the truth behind it. "Resolution!" Need I remind us all that Webster's in part defines resolution as "not turned from a purpose by difficulties or opposition or risk . . ." Can anybody with any kind of consciousness imagine calling Congress "resolute?"

What we in fact have here is cowardice skulking behind language, a word, and the fact that in its craven sheltering behind the smoke screen of language Congress so resembles its constituency reveals the real heart of the problem, the root cause for the nation's accelerating decay and decline.

Jesus! How pussy-whipped, how emasculated, can a nation become?!

God damn it, "America," stand up and tell yourselves and the world the truth - that this decadent, interested-in-nothing-but-self nation, just like its corrupt Congress, hasn't anything remotely resembling the courage or integrity required to assume responsibility for declaring or managing war. "Resolution," indeed!

And as for the Congress, you might even consider that to tell the truth - just for once - is probably the most politically correct thing you can do, too. After all, the public obviously doesn't have the courage to take any personal responsibility for the mess in Iraq, either. It's somebody else's kid, somebody else's husband, father, brother or sister who's being maimed or killed. They just don't care.

Otherwise, they'd have thrown your sorry asses out a long time ago.