The Bush administration has often painted those who favor pulling out of Iraq as unpatriotic or as defeatists in favor of cutting and running. But it turns out that 72 percent of American troops serving in Iraq think the United States should exit the country within the next year, and nearly 1 in 4 say the troops should leave immediately, according to a new Le Moyne College/Zogby International survey. The administration will have a hard time portraying those on the front lines as unpatriotic defeatists.
Also noteworthy: 85 percent of the soldiers surveyed thought that the war was “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9/11 attacks.” What role? Saddam Hussein and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
Posted by Melissa Cooley
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31 Comments
Melissa reads good stuff. Thanks for posting this.
I’ll bet if GWB was in Iraq, he be for cutting and running, too!
correction: “he’d” be . . .
I hate polls.
Why not ask a question like this:
Do you think that American forces should stay until a more stable Iraqi government can be in place and in control or do you think we should just withdrawl in the next year regardless?
I bet the numbers would be much different.
I wonder of Joe Wilson still thinks this is “beginning” to look like a bad idea?
The poll numbers would be different by soliciting answers.
A baited question contains the answer. “Stable Iraqi government” is the bait, as there is no such thing. ” Have you stop beating your wife” requires an incriminating answer.
PNAC is not allowing their puppet Bush to leave Iraq.
nathan – how about “Do you think we should continue the occupation and continue to make things even MORE unstable?”
I am a veteran of the first gulf war for isreal and haliburton and I fell for the lies told about that war. Do you all remember the paid for propaganda abot Iraqi solders ripping babies from incubators in Kuwait and the fraud that Cheney told about Iraqi troops massing for an attack against Saudi Arabia? Of course those lies were disproved but boobus americanus fell for a whole new set of lies for this latest gulf war for haliburton and the zionists!
In a perfect world some patriotic officers would mutiny and march on DC and dispose of our cowardly, corrupt, and evil government!
Viva La Raza Blanco!!
Nathan,As I indicate on another thread, I value more what those in Iraq have to say about this war, than anyone else (including you) who is not there.
The Mossad, working through AIPAC, has a complete dossier on each member of congress and staff. All the bribes, complete with fabricated evidence.
Any member’s arm can be twisted to push throught whatever legislative act AIPAC wants.
The “arm-twisting” begins March 5-7 at their convention in Washington.
gnat:”I hate polls.”
One would have to wonder why?
This is exactly what happened in Vietnam, first ridiculously optimistic estimates by the top brass, then damning the naysayers, then increasingly desperate pleas to “stay the course,” then total collapse as all the lies fall away.
But there’s one more step: conservatives re-writing history decades later to blame the loss on “cut-and-run” liberals / Democrats / traitors etc (as if another couple of more years or a few more thousand dead could make for a different outcome).
We are now in-between stage three and four. The more enlightened sheeple have already moved into stage four and are waiting for their elected officials to catch up and represent them.
No doubt after we finally bail out of a bad situation we should have never been in, the conservatives will blame the victim by accusing a majority of Americans of “cutting and running” yet again . . .
Proudlip has the answers, no? From the sound of his/ her/ its reply to one of my posts the other day, he/ she/ it was all for getting out of Vietnam ASAP. Are we to presume that he/ she/ it/ was there encouraging us to stay the course in Vietnam? Or is a case of being re-written as one of the doomed naysayers?
Your acidic, yawn generating reply awaited.
Not making “terrorists” { whatever that is } saves having to war against them.
That seems too complicated even for Bush to understand.
Don, I’m sure that would have been an interesting post if you’d have made a point. Did I miss it?
I’m sure the swiftboat guys will have a lot to say. Doesn’t matter if it is true.
Mind Control: Known as “coercive persuasion,” the technique involves breaking up an individual’s usual routine, isolating them from contact with the outside world, Pavolovian rewards and punishment, and “non-violent” coercions such as sleep deprivation, humiliation and various kinds of noise disruptions.”
I don’t know, but it sure sounds like the military to me, starting with basic training. And then we wonder why these soldiers think Saddam was involved in 9/11?
Don–
After reading your post several times . . . what?
Keep at it though.
One of these days you’ll have that language thing figured out . . .
ProudLib,Don’s problem is a lack of release. Need I say more?
US troops must hate America. Or are cowards. Or don’t support the troops.
Of course those are all bogus statements, but that’s the unfortunate level that the “debate” on the war has fallen too, mostly thanks to the Administration. Purposely misrepresenting and demonizing opposing viewpoints is a very effective method of stifling legitimate questioning of the war.
It’s true that Democrats can also misrepresent and demonize, but the Administration and their supporters have truly mastered the art.
Unfortunately they peddle other platitudes that are just as bogus and logically incoherent as the statements at the top of this post. My favorite is “fighting the terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight them to over here.”
If that’s the case, why is there a color coded terror alert level “over here”? And why hasn’t the terror alert level been below yellow in something like 1400 consecutive days “over here”? Which scrawls across our cable news screens every minute or so to scare us some more? Oops, just answered my own question.
Hopefully one day more people will start thinking more for themselves and not accept every piece of phony baloney that our leaders in the Administration and Congress spin out of Washington.
Being a Viet. Vet., I was amazed at prior administration assertions that the troops didn’t want to leave until the job was done. I never encountered that attitude in Viet Nam, not even from enlistees, like myself. Once you’re in the middle of sensless killing and mayhem, about all you want to do is get back home in one piece.
Just think, this poll was conducted before the mess after the destruction of the Golden Dome mosque. I’m betting the number of troops deciding it is a no win situation is even higher now.
Support the Troops ….WISHES Bring them HOME!
Hey Nathan? “reservist marine” become a soldier of fortune you know a mercenary. Hey I’d pay for you to go fight……and die.
But sans that, why do you disrespect the wishes of your “comrades” in harms way?
Better yet, this is bush’s war. HE MADE IT. In lieu of the prison term he so richly deserves, lets send bush to Iraq.
There is a guy at work who again and again spouts out against the media. “There is so much positive happening in Iraq, but the media…they just want report anything positive.”
I think FFARNAZ FASSIHI said it well in an interview with the wall street journal. “I can just say that if there were five car bombs going off in New York and 50 people kidnapped a day, I’m sure that metro reporters would be writing those stories and not talking about the school that was painted.”
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/transcripts_022406_aint.html
When the news is bad as it’s been reported all along, then it’s what you report.
If the adminstration had listeneed then to their generals (the ones they replaced because they didnt’ like what they heard) we could be looking at a different picture. Instead we’re looking at the same scenario from 3 years ago, only it just gets worse.
You’d almost think the administration has no desire to do something with Iraq and pull out our troops.
Steve writes–”Being a Viet. Vet., I was amazed at prior administration assertions that the troops didn’t want to leave until the job was done. I never encountered that attitude in Viet Nam, not even from enlistees, like myself.”
Exactly right! You were there, you remember. I wasn’t in Vietnam (I was too young), but I remember watching the evening news. When we finally pulled out of Vietnam, you couldn’t find two people in the whole country that were against it.
Then years go by, and the next thing we know, George H. W. Bush is in the White House talking about how Operation Desert Storm finally put to rest the “Vietnam Syndrome.”
Say what? The hard lesson that military power can’t substitute for political solutions was a “syndrome?” . . . like a disease?
That’s the way they do it. Re-write what really happened so they can ignore it and do it again.
Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam . . .
“terrorist” is such a handy word for those who try to justify the awful thing they’re doing. It actually translates to “resistance” to the awful thing.
Powerful anti-war message and movie…please if possible distributethis link….this message needs to be heard
http://wewillnotbesilenced.cf.huffingtonpost.com
Peace
The problem with the anti war message is that the we are dealing with terrorist, and they don’t want peace, they want to kill us. We were at peace, give up now and we will never have peace. Because you don’t understand the need to stop terrorism is your problem. Thankfully we have the right President who does understand the need to stop terrorist and is willing to do it.
Get It,
It is very obvious that you DO NOT GET IT, so I will try to enlighten you!
“…The Bushies are all about double standards. Even though they talk about North Korea as being evil, don’t count on them attacking that nation. It’s not near Israel. Instead, watch as the Bushies attack Arab and Muslim nations near Israel.
Also, even though the people of Germany, France, England and many other European nations are being oppressed by their own tyrannical leaders, the oppressors in these nations need not worry about Bush attacking them or imposing economic sanctions on them or even saying a really harsh word about them when they throw their citizens in jail for reading or possessing the wrong books or wearing the wrong clothes or saying the wrong things or showing the wrong symbols. Bush is okay with that. That’s not oppression. That’s not tyranny. He’s a neocon, you see. To be a neocon is to be mostly interested in the interests of Israel and Zionists. The oppression in Europe is being carried out against people who in some way are seen as being the intellectual enemies of Israel or Zionists or who are activists against the destruction and genocide of European peoples. To neocons, such people deserve to be oppressed.
In Bush’s new age inaugural screed, the scapegoats weren’t evil Jews, evil capitalists or evil sinners. Been there, done that. Instead, they were evil tyrants, evil terrorists and evil freedom haters. In our brave new age, we’ve mostly moved beyond those days when we could scapegoat others based on their ethnicity (unless they’re Whites) or their economic views or their religion. The new Bush Manifesto says that we must send the jets and the tanks to fight terrorists and tyranny (as he defines the terms) and bring freedom (also as he defines it) to every sand lot on the planet, by gum. Gawd wants it, and Gawd speaks to George W. Bush.
If you’re a Bushie neocon, how do you get people to back you? Propaganda. Instead of one Josef Goebbels to tell a big lie, the Bushies have a couple hundred of these shills on so-called conservative talk radio and at least one phony TV news network.
What do these Josef Goebbels clones say each time they speak to their audiences? Very simple things that are repeated over and over again. Here’s the outline of a typical new Josef Goebbels talk radio program: 1. George Bush is a moral man and is protecting America. 2. Conservatives and Republicans want to save America. [The truth is that most of these characters are really neocons and aren't real conservatives at all. Want a simple and almost always correct test to tell the real conservatives from the neocons? Just ask someone his or her position on Israel. If one of these nincompoops claims to be a conservative but is slavish in his or her praise for Israel, you can know that he or she is probably a neocon. The neocons pretend to be behind America, but their real allegiance is to Israel.] 3. The liberals and Democrats want to destroy America. 4. The main stream media lies about George Bush and “conservatives.” That’s it. That’s the basic outline followed on almost all of these phony so-called conservative radio and TV programs. Most are little more than propagandistic infomercials for the Bush administration.
Bush pushes his notion of democracy as the system to be used in every nation. But, what is his idea of democracy? Well, since it is American style democracy that he’s pushing, it is a representative democracy and not a direct one. This is not true democracy, of course, and it is a system by which the masses can be easily manipulated by a few photogenic and rich politicians who will often lie to get into office. Once in office, these politicians are mostly unaccountable to the people and often vote any way they want without a concern for what the people want. Also, once in office, it’s usually easy to keep getting elected. American democracy has been subverted by the manipulators’ increased knowledge of human psychology and their ability to use this knowledge to manipulate people into acting or not acting in certain ways while thinking they are doing so because of their own free will.
If you control the propaganda and are confident that you can sway a bunch of easily suggestible people — such as the millions in the red states who gave Bush his second term — you can be an ersatz dictator but not look like one. The people wanted you to lead them. Of course, what you won’t hear from the Bushies is that Adolf Hitler had the support of the German people and he wasn’t a dictator. If you’re one of the people who voted for Bush, you probably do think that Hitler was a dictator. Do us all a favor, before you vote again, turn off your phony conservative talk radio and read a book. Then, maybe we can elect leaders who won’t lie and who will respect human life and not spill human blood for no reason.”http://www.nationalvanguard.org/story.php?id=4505
Viva La Raza Blanco!!
Outlander–
The worst act of terrorism prior to 9-11 was Tim McVey and Kansan James Nichols blowing up the Federal Building in Ok City.
They were caught, tried, convicted.
That seemed to work pretty well.
Why is Osama and his gang still running loose while we’re bogged down in a country that didn’t attack us?
America knows it can’t trust Bush anymore . . .
Man, getit is way outta his league.
I wnat to know why so many folks want to “kill us all” they gotta have a reason! Oh but that’s “liberal hate America first” not “my country right or wrong my country”.
So let’s do this “get it”
If we secure our borders and do proper security as to the ports (ya know, like bush doesn’t want to) an angry Arab 7,000 miles away is kind of a small threat.
Of course bush has other ideas. Hey why make the terrorists jump through hoops to get here! Let’s send Americans THERE! This has the effect of making folks already ticked off at us even more ticked off. Bonus! You can express your anger and kill Americans locally!
When you got an all volunteer force that says the “mission” needs to end, it is way past time to listen.