Editorial: U.S. out of Afghanistan

Pub date December 1, 2009
SectionBruce Blog

Now is more important than ever for the movement that swept Obama into office to get back into the streets and oppose his Afghan escalation policy

EDITORIAL We knew President Obama wasn’t going to be perfect. We knew he was a lot more of a political moderate than the left — which was so excited about getting rid of George W. Bush and voting for a candidate who was against the war in Iraq — always wanted to acknowledge. And we knew that the key to a progressive national agenda was keeping the pressure on the new president, who won on the basis of massive grassroots support and would be, we hoped, swayed be the mobilization of that same coalition on key political issues.

And now, after the biggest disappointment yet of his young presidency, it’s more important than ever for the movement that swept Obama into office to get back into the streets. Because the president’s decision to put 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan — to escalate, at great expense, a war the United States can’t win — is a disaster for the nation.