Escalate The Protests, Not The War

Ethan Heitner

January 05, 2007

Crazed old white men Joe Lieberman and John McCain, the twin faces of "moderation" in the eyes of the mainstream media, are facing off against the unreasonable extremists that compose 70 percent of America. You know, the 70 percent that's in favor of getting out of Iraq.

McCain and Lieberman, along with those friendly modeates at the American Enterprise Institute (like Fred Kagan) instead want us to send MORE troops to Iraq—a "last push" to "go big" or "surge" if you will. Or perhaps you could just call it what it is: escalation.

Of course, Kagan, one of the prime neocon "intellectual architects" of the war, has always, consistently been saying we needed more troops. You remember how frequently the neocons loudly protested Rumsfeld and Bush's plan for only 150,000 troops (or even Rumsfeld's initial predictions that we would only need around 30,000 troops one year after the invasion). You remember how they rallied around Gen. Eric Shinseki, who was fired for requesting more troops back in 2003?

Oh, right, that didn't happen. Never mind.

As it turns out, the Army only has 9,000 troops  it can offer to send right now to Iraq. It doesn't have either the 40,000 20,000 Bush has been thinking about dispatching, nor the 20,000 McCain thinks can do what 150,000 have failed to do so far. I'm confident they'll rewrite their rhetoric to include the new number; the important thing is to send every available warm body into the meat grinder.

Lieberman and McCain were greeted by 100 or more protesters  from MoveOn.org and the Friends Committee on National Legislation, largely white professionals from downtown DC on their lunch breaks (read: "hippie peaceniks"). Word is that, despite the cynicism of many at the protest, they are soon to be joined by the Democratic Leadership.

In the end though, who will be listened to?