Majority of Americans Say Military Action in Iraq Was Wrong, Poll Finds

[sabra]

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113017755613077776-8ms0juiXuh4y3XrvAf9qXXtbheI_20061025.html?mod=blogs

Majority of Americans Say
Military Action in Iraq
Was Wrong, Poll Finds

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
October 25, 2005

A new Harris Interactive poll shows American sentiment about the situation in Iraq remains generally gloomy, with fewer than a quarter of Americans saying they are confident U.S. policies in Iraq will be successful.

For the first time, a majority of Americans (53%) feels that military action in Iraq was the wrong thing to do, according to the survey of 1,833 U.S. adults, compared with 34% who feel it was right.

At the same time, 66% of U.S. adults now say President Bush is doing a "poor" or "only fair" job of handling Iraq, while 32% say he is doing an "excellent" or "pretty good" job. That's little change from a September Harris poll that found 65% rated Mr. Bush negatively and 34% rated him positively.

See a related Harris poll chart.Sixty-one percent of Americans say they aren't confident U.S. policies in Iraq will be successful, slightly higher than 59% who lacked confidence in September. Additionally, only 19% of Americans surveyed believe the situation for U.S. troops in Iraq is improving, while 44% believe it is getting worse.

[Amonester]

1. So 32% (+/- error margin) of Americans stand for TORTURING

innocents?

:wtf: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

[Orrex]

2. Well, innocent Muslims

So there's no problem. :banghead:

Honestly, why did it take the majority so long to realize what was obvious in the first place?!?

[Amonester]

3. Yeah, the "swingers" took longer to wake up than they did for the

Enron & Co scandals...

Maybe the Corporate Soldout Medias were "selling" the neoCONS' LIES & SMEARS a lot better than they did before (learned their "lessons"?)

Now they "refuse" to show the "unrelased yet" pictures & videos of innocent kids getting ****** in the presence of their innocent parents? (...)

:shrug:

[Orrex]

10. Winning the hearts and minds

Rape a child in front of his parents, and I'm sure that you'll have their full support in subsequent political ventures.

I'm surprised it hasn't happened here already (well, other than in a metaphorical sense, which occurs all the time).

[Maven]

14. It just took them this long to get FORCE-FED the information.

People have forgotten that they need to PARTICIPATE in their democracy.

Their apathy has literally killed people.

[dwightspencer]

30. People have forgotten(?) they need to participate

Sadly, people are so apathetic, that they have finally been forced to reconcile the atrocities they are witnessing. There is hope for everyone and even the least among us eventually can appreciate that we all need to try to get along on this rock we call earth. The tide has turned to a point where the majority is tired of being insulted by the likes of Bill O'Reilly with his condescending way of tilting his head as he parrots the propagandist spin that appears as text to the left of his weeping blue eyes and thinning pate of hair being suspended by Aquanet and caked on layers of his stage makeup. We have to congratulate the people who switched the station during the commercial break. Welcome them to reality. Engage them in conversation. Talk about the papers with them.

You guys are great. This place is an oasis of like-minded people, but we need to reach out so the next poll has the kind of numbers shown in the Iraqi election.

[Maven]

33. Ha! Aquanet O'Reilly.

That was an artful description, thanks. :)

[Ken Burch]

37. INNOCENT. MY FOOT!

Them Islams musta done sumpin'

We don't know whut they dun yet, but dadgummit, we'll find sumpin'

[underpants]

8. LTTE (not mine) "My question is, what on Earth do those 28 percent see?"

Editor, Times-Dispatch: I just read an article that George Bush's approval rating has finally dropped below 40 percent and only 28 percent of Americans feel the country is going in the right direction. My question is, what on Earth do those 28 percent see? We should review the president's accomplishments after almost five years in office.
Bush lied to the American people and our allies to start a war in Iraq. Remember the news conferences about the imminent danger of all those weapons of mass destruction?

When WMDs weren't found, the Iraq war became a "war on terror." When that didn't go over too well it became a "chance to bring democracy and stability to the region." This has cost us almost 2,000 U.S. lives and billions of dollars. Meanwhile, global terror attacks have increased each and every year.

With every passing minute our country is headed deeper into debt. Further, as recent events in the Gulf states have shown us, our government is ill prepared to help the American people during a crisis.

So let's go back to those 28 percent who feel Bush is doing a good job. Maybe they admire Bush's moral and ethical friends, or maybe not: Tom DeLay is under indictment and Bill Frist is being investigated. A grand jury is investigating his beloved Karl Rove.

I fully expect his ratings to drop even further. It almost makes you wonder how great things would be today if he hadn't stolen the 2000 election. Rick St. John. midlothian.

http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename...

[MellowOne]

20. 28% must be wealthy corporations and individuals

who put more value in their loot than human lives.

[Love Bug]

24. I'll bet that 28% are those who think we need a war

to feel good about America again. Yep, I've actually been told that over the years from those who have some kind of romantic vision of what America was like during WWII.

[IndianaGreen]

21. Including Hillary Clinton!

She supports the war. She sees nothing wrong with PATRIOT. She has given tacit approval to Bush's Gulag and to institutionalized torture. And her supporters want us to believe that her nomination for President is inevitable.

[Ken Burch]

36. Boy, what a wonderful person to have as the frontrunner for

our great party's nomination.

Huberta Horatia Clinton.

[WCGreen]

4. There it is, the tipping point has now been reached...

Bush can not recover from this...

The insurgents see this and are going to be that much more emboldened...

[LynnTheDem]

13. The "insurgents" sit around reading WSJ just waiting for this

so they can be emboldened.

Uh huh.

[WCGreen]

28. You don't think that the leadership of those folks

over there are not in tuned to what is going on here in the US....

Of course they know there is a growing disconnect between Bush and the people...

Also, could it be that no attacks have been made on US soil because they know that would turn public opinion back toward Bush...

These fuckers know what they are doing....

[LynnTheDem]

32. No I don't think they care what our newspapers say

These "fuckers" are 95% Iraqis who are rather annoyed at our slaughter.

[WCGreen]

34. They do care about what we do in this country....

why do you think they release tapes claiming responsibility...

They are just as adept at PR as we are...

And if they are annoyed at our slaughter, as you seem to think, why are they killing so many Iraqis?

They are just has blood thirsty as Bush and co. and will do what ever it takes to win...

[jaded_at_best]

5. Bush loves these numbers

He loves to infuriate the majority. Bush & his voters = Cancer of the Universe

[gratuitous]

6. All right, now can we PLEASE

Can we PLEASE retire that "support the troops" bullshit that comes flowing out every frickin' time that someone criticizes Bush and this military misadventure? Because you are then saying that over half of the populace no longer buys our national myth of redemptive violence, and I know for a fact that isn't true.

We can throw that on the ash heap along with Bush's enduring image as a popular war-time president, mmmkay? Are you listening, presstitutes?

[0rganism]

17. Why retire what we can adopt?

The time has come for "Support the troops" to be effectively separated from "Support the president and his elective wars". Now we can get into the gritty details of exactly how to best support the troops.

Support the troops: FUND THE V.A.!

Support the troops with a NEW GI BILL!

and above all,

Support the troops by BRINGING THEM HOME!

We need to take that meme and turn it to our advantage. When people wake up to the fact that "support" and "put in an impossible dangerous situation" are two completely different things, we can finally look forward to that "humble" foreign policy shrub promised during the 2000 debates.

[cliss]

7. Hey! Things are looking up.

I do believe the American public learned something from VietNam, after all. It took us 10 long, blood-soaked years to get out of SE Asia. We've been in Iraq almost 3 years. At this rate, we will be out of Iraq sooner than the last Quagmire.

As we pulled the last US troops out of VietNam by helicopter, people watched the humiliation on TV. They saw how the last troops just barely got out of the US embassy, hanging on to a rope as Saigon fell. What a degrading moment. People vowed after that, "Never again". Interesting how Cheney and Rumsfailed were in the government then.

But - a mere 30 years later, and we had to try again. This time, with Cheney and RumsFool at the helm.

Do we really need wars closer together than 30 years to figure it out?

But I'm feeling optimistic today. The polls will go down the toilet fairly soon. Cindy Sheehan might get her wish after all.

[wryter2000]

27. I swear to God

If I'm still alive in 30 years and this shit starts up again, I'm going to go nukulear on someone. :nuke:

[RethugAssKicker]

9. 95% of the WORLD knows now and then that this fiasco was wrong

The only people that support this war are AMERICAN and BRITISH REGRESSIVES.

No one else.

It seemed so obvious to me and others.

[Ravachol]

11. Well, the WORLD knew it before ;)

In 2003, there was a good number of polls here (Quebec) about the pre-emptive Iraq War led by the USA/U.K/Australia (anglo-saxon?) and all of them showed 92 to 96% against the war. That's almost impossible in our "democracies" to get, such a broad concensus. Above the election results in sovietic states...
(Less than the results in 9 iraqi provinces for the "Yes", tho... :))

We've had marches here to protest that illegal and injustified war and they were the "most populous" marches ever held in Quebec. Near 200-250k marched to protest (we're 7 millions).

Nobody supported that war besides the american public. Brits were against it (but Blair was busy licking Bush's boots) and so were Australians, by a bigger majority. All other countries that "supported" the Iraq invasion were only trying to get economic advantages from that (getting a U.S base on their soil, for example).

I'm wondering what the fuck are these 32% thinking about? They can't actually be "mentally sane", that's just impossible...

[electropop]

16. We had 300K-600K antiwar people in DC on Sept 24th.

Of course the pro-war people came out the next day. All 400 of them.

[baron j]

23. Don't lay the blame solely at the feet of the American public (which is

hardly mostly Anglo-Saxon, as you say). Remember that Gore was meant to be President in 2000, but it was given to bush by his Supreme Court cronies that his father appointed. That, and corporate ownership of the media influenced the impression that the American public was all for this war. There were many and massive protests against the war here.

[Plaid Adder]

12. And...how many dead people did it take?

I know this is how it works...but it is SO FUCKING FRUSTRATING that people are only starting to cop on to this NOW.

"Hey, this war was a huge mistake!" Yeah, too bad you couldn't figure that out in February of 2003 when millions of people around the world were demonstrating against it. Oh well.

"Hey, the Bush administration is corrupt!" Yeah, kinda too bad you couldn't figure that out when he sleazed himself into office after the 2000 election. Or when he started feeding no-bid contracts to Halliburton. Or when...oh, never mind.

"Hey, these people suck at running the country! Nobody else could POSSIBLY do a worse job!" Yeah, if only you could have figured that out before November 2004, but that's the way it crumbles cookiewise, I suppose. It's not your fault...you couldn't have been expected to realize that this ASSHOLE was the WORST FUCKING EXCUSE for a PRESIDENT that ever DREW BREATH, because you were too busy making fun of Kerry for speaking FRENCH, you...you...you...AAAAAAAARGH!!!!

(serenity now...serenity now...)

OK, I'm better now.

I know this is how it always works, I've talked about that before:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/plaidder/04/12.html

but God damn, it just hurts me to see it. Yeah, it's nice you all are finally coming around...too bad it's TOO FUCKING LATE!

The Plaid Adder

[sadiesworld]

31. Too bad some dems, including Kerry, still haven't figured it out.

Just sayin'.

[Tom Joad]

15. For a powerful video on what the 2000 US dead looks like...

See this post:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5163930&mesg_id=5163930

This war will become even less "popular" than Vietnam.

The tragedy is that neither political party is calling for a immediate end to US involvement.

[PassingFair]

18. If I am ever in a position to commission a poll....

Harris will get my business.
These people are always on the money.

[wryter2000]

19. Am I the only one?

Am I the only one who gets more than a little irritated at people who are only figuring out now that war is probably a bad thing? Granted, they were all lied to, but even if the stores * was telling were true, inspections were still the smart thing to do.

It's as if they were all saying "Cool! Man, let's go kick some butt over there!" and now they're all saying, "You mean they get to kick back?"

I'm not saying any of that to the flip-floppers because it's counterproductive to jump on them at this point, but man, it pisses me off. :mad:

[Plaid Adder]

22. No, you are not alone...see reply #12

Fuckin' ARGH, man.

The Plaid Adder

[wryter2000]

26. Thanks

Always proud to be on the same page as you, Plaid Adder. :)

[ClintonTyree]

25. Where have you assholes been for the last 2 1/2 years?

People in this country are SO THICKHEADED! :grr: WHY are Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public always the last to realize what's really happening in our country and the world? BECAUSE THEY DON'T PAY ATTENTION!
I hate to be the bearer of bad news to Americans, but our government cannot always be trusted to do the right thing. We are NOT that noble, shining beacon of freedom on the hill you think we are. Our government, IN OUR NAMES, can be just as or more brutal and sinister as any of the worst "axis of evil" villains coined by bush.
WAKE UP! READ! Above all, seek the truth, NOT what FOX News TELLS you is the truth! :banghead:
OK, OK.....I'm done...for now. :rant:

[jwirr]

29. I choose this post to send my 1000th post! I love my country.

But in the last years it has been lost to me and the people. We have had a leadership that has taken many disastrous actions - including this damn war - that are not only unpopular but against the values of most Americans and much of the world. I am on this site to help take my country back. For this reason I ask all like minded people to pull together so that we can elect good legislators in 2006 and then again in 2008 when it will also be our privilege to elect a Democrat President.

[Gronk Groks]

35. Trouble is that the hard core kool aid drinkers are all he has left...

...and that means the numbers will not move unless a new disaster forces more people to stop drinking from the punch bowl.

His base is all there is keeping this administration from imploding. This is why Fitzpatrick's indictments are so crucial. It is the only thing that might chip away the fanatics. Nothing else except shrub trying to start the 'rapture' with the football will move them.