SAN FRANCISCO ? President Barack Obama's announcement of an Afghanistan troop surge was met with jeers, scorn-filled laughter and hisses from anti-war protesters gathered in a San Francisco bar here Tuesday.

"It sounds like George Bush!" one woman shouted as the president wrapped up his half-hour address to the nation.

Fifteen women, mostly dressed in pink, and one man yelled at the president throughout the speech and shook their heads in dismay as Obama explained his decision to order the troop surge.

"I found it extremely depressing," said Brenda Hillman, a college poetry professor. "It was the same rationale we heard in the Bush era."

The gathering was organized by Code Pink, an anti-war group that mostly attracts women. It was the first stage of a series of protests that Code Pink and other anti-war groups plan this week around the United States.

Earlier Tuesday in Washington, a handful of anti-war protesters marched peacefully outside the White House.

Protest marches and candlelight vigils are planned for Wednesday evening in dozens of cities across the US, including New York, Los Angeles, Washington and San Francisco.

Code Pink was formed after the US invasion of Iraq in 2002. The group says money spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be better spent on health care and other domestic needs.

"There's always money for war, but there's no money for education, health care or jobs," complained Susan Witka, a high school art teacher.

While patrons on the ground floor of Tommy's Joynt watched a college basketball game on TV and ate platters of turkey, some of the Code Pink members put down their forks and knives as Obama launched into his speech.

Their signs: "Obama, we chose you to end the war," jostled for space with advertisements for Heineken, Guiness and Carlsberg beers.

The women wore pink shirts and matching berets, brandishing pink signs reading "Women for Peace" and "Stop Pushing War."

Obama was less than a minute into his speech when the hissing began. Several laughed as the president explained his reasoning behind the troop increase. As the speech continued, one woman shouted: "Get out now!"

There was a loud chorus of "No!" when Obama first mentioned the 30,000 additional troops.

And there was more derisive yelling when the president said the war in Afghanistan should not be compared to the 1960s US war in Vietnam.

Hillman called the president "our beloved Obama," and the women in the room were typical of the progressives who reveled in Obama's victory last year.

But Hillman accused the US leader of being overly concerned about his popularity among US military generals, and made it clear she would not blindly support his policies.

"I don't believe in supporting people just because we like them," she said.