This president fails to surprise anymore. With new Democratic majorities in both houses balking and even members of his own party saying no, with military brass dead-set against it, and with 89 percent of the country flat-out opposed, George W. Bush announced Wednesday night (or was expected to at press time) his plan to “surge” 20,000 troops into the burning quicksand of Iraq.
It might more truthfully be called an escalation, of course — one that will have almost no long-term positive effect and will succeed only in feeding more weary American soldiers to the Iraqi insurgency. For Joshua Micah Marshall, of TalkingPointsMemo.com, Bush’s “punt,” as he calls it instead, is unimaginably cynical, “a strategically meaningless increase in troops meant to allow the president to avoid dealing with the failure of his policy and lay the ground work for getting the next president to take the blame for his epochal screw-up.”
Whatever you call it, it’s time to put a stop to the madness.“The Decider” didn’t listen to us after the midterms, so how about a little surge of our own?
Locally, rallies will be held Thursday, January 11, on Boston Common from 4 to 6 pm, and at the Revere Beach Bandstand from 6 to 7 pm.
Then, two weeks later, The Big One.United for Peace and Justice (UnitedForPeace.org) is organizing a massive, nationwide march on Washington on Saturday, January 27.That will be followed on Monday, January 29 with a “Grassroots Lobby Day”in which protesters will storm Capitol Hill and remind the new Senators and Representatives of the mandate they were elected to fulfill: end the war.
Don’t get your hopes up. Remember, Bush dismissed the worldwide pre-invasion protests, in which 11 million people took part, by sneering that he doesn’t “decide policy based upon a focus group.” Doesn’t that piss you off all over again? Maybe it’s time to remind him that his repeated hostility toward public opinion carries a high price. You decide.
Buses to DC will leave from locations around Greater Boston on Friday night, January 26. Tickets are $75. For more information, contact United for Justice with Peace at (617) 491-4857 or visit JusticewithPeace.org.
