EDITORIAL
Bush or Kerry?
Both Have a Plan to Continue This Vile War

Sep 27, 2004

With five weeks to go until the November elections, plans for sending more U.S. troops to Iraq are in their final stage. The armed forces have issued orders calling up another layer of the reserves and national guards. The marines and army are issuing new stop-loss orders for troops in Iraq coming to the end of their rotation.

Whether Bush or Kerry wins in November, plans have already been made for the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to jump up. Kerry may accuse Bush of secretly preparing for a step-up of the war right after November 2, but the fact remains that important spokesmen from both parties have been calling in near unanimous agreement for more troops to be sent to Iraq.

Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman, of the Armed Services Committee, declared "We have to do what we have to do to push back the enemy. I wouldn’t take an increase in troop strength over the short term off the table." Republican John McCain, who often speaks for the military, bluntly called for adding 70,000 more army soldiers and 20,000 to 25,000 more marines–to be sent as soon as possible.

Kerry, himself, three months ago already called for 40,000 more troops to be sent to Iraq.

In fact, while any big new U.S. troop mobilization may wait until after November 2, the war itself is already heating up. Bombs falling on Iraqi cities tell the story. Iraqi civilians in areas ranging from Mosul in the north to Fallujah in the west to Amarah in the south were subjected to a real reign of terror coming from U.S. and British warplanes.

No matter who wins here in November, the results will not slow down this juggernaut to a bigger war one bit. Nor will the victory of either of these two parties bring the war to a close anytime soon.

Both parties agree on that. Steven Metz, a guerrilla war expert at the U.S. Army War College and a Kerry military adviser, recently predicted that the war may last "something like 10 years." Senator McCain told CNN that he expects U.S. troops to be fighting a war in Iraq for "the next 10 or 20 years." Kerry, himself, making an electoral promise to bring the war to a close, said he would TRY to bring troops home–four years from next summer!

The least we can do in November is to repudiate the two parties that have brought us into this vile war and today make it clear they have every intention of continuing it almost indefinitely.

Don’t give them our votes. Refusing to vote for both of these parties may not seem like a lot. But if we vote for them, that’s the same as putting our stamp of approval on their cynicism, their lies, their evasions ... and their war.

Sometimes we can’t stop a street hoodlum from beating us up and robbing us, but we certainly don’t write up a good reference for him, commending him for doing a very good job of it!

We shouldn’t commend these big-time thugs either.