ASU Web Devil January 16, 2007
Troop surge, new policy prove divisive
ASU students protest outside senators' offices after Bush's announcement
By Matt Stone
A major announcement by the president about the Iraq war spurred some ASU students to cut their winter breaks short and break out their picket signs.
President Bush announced on Jan. 10 that an additional 21,500 U.S. soldiers would be sent to Iraq to join the approximately 152,000 troops already there, according to GlobalSecurity.org.
The day after the president's address to the nation, protests took place outside both of Arizona's Republican senators' offices. Both Sen. Jon Kyl and Sen. John McCain have spoken in support of the plan.
Eric Hirsch, an anthropology senior, attended the protest outside Kyl's office.
"I definitely don't think [it's] a good idea," Hirsch said of the increase in troops. "It isn't going to help the situation.
"I think if they want more soldiers ... the politicians should send their sons and daughters."
The better plan of action would be a gradual withdrawal of forces, Hirsch said.
"I think we should be moving out of there," he said. "I think it was a lost cause when we went in there."
The majority of the country agrees with Hirsch, according to a CNN poll released Jan. 12. The survey polled more than 1,000 adults on Jan. 11 on whether they opposed or supported a troop increase in Iraq - and 66 percent opposed. Thirty-two percent favored an increase, and 3 percent had no opinion.
Matt Luciani, a finance sophomore, said he believes the troop increase was the right move.
"By doing this, we will be able to end this conflict quickly," Luciani said.
While he said he would love to see the troops come home, leaving now would be disastrous for Iraq, Luciani said.
And there is no way to guess when the Iraqi government would be ready to stand alone, he added.
"If we're not at the point where the [Iraqi] troops are trained over there, it's a very hard thing to set a deadline on war," Luciani said. "I think that you can give a timeline that you would like [the war] to end, but I don't think you can give an exact date."
Mike Echavarria, an architecture junior, has served in the U.S. Marine Forces Reserve for more than three years.
"I've always gone back and forth with Bush," Echavarria said of the president's plan. "It seems like he really wants to get this done and wants a complete pullout ... [but] I don't really know what the increase in troops would do."
Most of the older people he has talked to who served in Iraq said significant progress had been made, he said.
"[But I think] we need to really stay there until a whole new generation can be formed," he said.
Even though the president's decisions are based off information the public doesn't hear, Echavarria said he doesn't know if he trusts that the president has a clear plan for the war.
When he was sworn into service, the war was just a few days old, he said.
"I didn't think this would have carried on as long as it has," he added. "Everyone is just getting frustrated."
There have been 3,013 confirmed U.S. deaths in the war, according to the Department of Defense.
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