Surge is the latest iteration of an old and discredited idea, that a strategic blunder can be made right by increasing the investment of time and treasure and blood.

In 1965, Tom Paxton wrote:

Lyndon Johnson told the nation,
"Have no fear of escalation.
I am trying everyone to please.
Though it isn't really war,
We're sending fifty thousand more,
To help save Viet Nam from Vietnamese."

Successive choruses increased that number to sixty and then a hundred thousand. (Read the full lyrics or listen to the song here:
http://www.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/Vietimages/Audio/lbj-paxton.html
At the height of its involvement, the United States had over a half million service personnel at one time in Vietnam. Today, 58,253 of their names appear on the Wall.

Around the same time, Pete Seeger wrote allegorically of an army unit on training maneuvers in Louisiana in 1942, being pushed to ford a river of unknown depth by a cocksure and fatally ignorant officer, despite the cautionary questions of the more experienced sergeant. Only after the captain had drowned was the sergeant able to save his men.
Listen to it here:

http://madmustard.com/2006/09/waist-deep-in-the-big-muddy/

The chorus had an acidic edge:

We were waist deep in the Big Muddy,
And the big fool says to push on.

I read Fred Kaplan's December 20 post on Slate (The Urge to Surge, the latest bad idea from Iraq. http://www.slate.com/id/2155904),
which methodically debunks the neo-con argument for increasing
American troops in Iraq. As I read, I couldn't help thinking back
four decades to That Other War of false premises and ideologically
blinded thinking. Please read Kaplan's article yourself. If you agree, maybe it would help to forward a copy to each of our Senators and Congressmen, with your message urging that they stand fast against the Administration's efforts to continue this war.

As I write this, one of my son's friends, a young Marine, is awaiting orders to return to Iraq for a second tour. My niece, an Army Guardsman, may well see orders for Iraq herself. My holiday wish for both is that our political leaders find the courage admit error, and bring our sons and daughters home.

Alan Goldston, Chair
Democracy for Westchester

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