Pentagon dismisses US troop poll (72% of troops want Iraq pull out)

[sabra]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18321988-23109,00.html

Pentagon dismisses US troop poll

THE Pentagon has dismissed a poll's finding that 72 per cent of United States troops in Iraq believe the US should pull out within a year or less.

"It shouldn't surprise anybody that a deployed soldier would rather be at home than deployed, even when they believe what they are doing is important and vital work," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

The poll by Le Moyne College and Zogby International found that only 23 per cent believed US troops should stay in Iraq "as long as it takes", as US President George W. Bush has insisted.

...

"I don't think anybody is getting alarmed over any one poll, if that's what you're asking me," Mr Whitman said.

[deutsey]

1. Eh...they're just a focus group...

What do the troops know, anyway?

:sarcasm:

[ShockediSay]

16. Just ask the ChickenHawks

they'll tell you

WE NEED A CANDIDATE LIKE WES CLARK; totally not a chickenHawk, and somebody who's been on the front lines

[VegasWolf]

28. Wait, Cheney knows how to shoot people!!! nt

[UpInArms]

30. Chickenhawk Headquarters

http://www.nhgazette.com/news/chickenhawks/chickenhawk_headquarters/

Name: George W. Bush (R-TX)
Born: 1946
Employer: The U.S. Taxpayer
Conflict Avoided: Vietnam
Notes: You know when a guy walks away from a National Guard obligation during wartime and gets away with it, he must come from "a good family." Not that his daddy had anything to do with his getting a Guard slot in the first place - oh, no ...

Name: Richard "Dick" Cheney (R-WY)
Born: 1942
Employer: The U.S. Taxpayer
Conflict Avoided: Vietnam
Notes: Says he had "other priorities." You bet he had other priorities. Imagine how early in life you must begin scheming to get away with what this guy has. He was too busy thinking about Halliburton to go fight Charlie.

Name: I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby
Born: 1950±
Employer: The U.S. Taxpayer
Conflict Avoided: Vietnam
Notes: I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby is Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff. He’s had a string of no-doubt well-paying government jobs in State and Defense. He’s also practiced law. In fact, he was Marc Rich’s lawyer for years. Yes — the Marc Rich whose pardon from President Clinton was excoriated by so many high and mighty Republicans. Maybe if Scooter had been a better lawyer, his client wouldn’t have needed that pardon. Speaking of legal questions, “Scooter” is alleged by some to have traded energy stocks while helping his buddy Dick Cheney cook up a new energy policy in secret. He’s also suspected of having inserted the bogus “Niger yellowcake” reference into the President’s State of the Union address. As if all that weren’t enough, he’s also a top suspect in the outing of CIA operative Valeria Plame. Clearly “Scooter” is a ballsy kind of guy, so it’s a complete mystery to us why, when he graduated from Phillips Andover in 1968, he didn’t enlist in the Marines or go Airborne instead of going to Yale.


Name: Karl Rove
Born: 1950
Employer: Baal
Conflict Avoided: Vietnam
Notes: This little cherub was born on Christmas Day, 1950. Karl “Bush’s Brain” Rove ran George W.’s campaign, right down to the tiny detail of deciding Bush was going to run. The hardest part was convincing a horde of Republican skeptics that it could be done.

He is said to have said of his boss, he’s "the kind of candidate and officeholder political hacks like me wait a lifetime to be associated with."

Now Karl’s Senior White House advisor. If he really is “Bush’s Brain,” and if the fondest wishes of former US Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV come true, one fine day Karl will be “frogmarched out of the White House in mandcuffs.”

Will history record that event as “Bush’s Lobotomy?”


Name: Donald "The Don" Rumsfeld
Born: 1932
Employer: The U.S. Taxpayer
Conflict Avoided: Korea
Notes: When the shooting started in Korea Rummy here was either 18, or about to turn 18. Not to worry for him, though — he spent the war at Princeton, wearing a ROTC uniform. Once the war was over he flew jets for the Navy for a few years. Defenders of Rumsfeld will say he’s no chickenhawk — he served, and it’s not his fault the war ended before he got his commission. To which others answer, “plenty of farmers and mechanics and kids just out of high school served. Anyone as full of whatever that stuffing in him is, could have tried out for a battlefield commission.”

[Robeson]

2. Absolutely! As we all know, the Pentagon always tells the truth...

...:sarcasm:

[0007]

12. ....and ...... and ....... they always give an accurate account of their

finances. They always know where every penny is and what was spent.

[rodeodance]

3. so, the Pent is not allarmed. oh well. since when did troops count--

"I don't think anybody is getting alarmed over any one poll, if that's what you're asking me," Mr Whitman said.

[Webster Green]

4. "Mr Whitman said the poll was conducted without US Defence Department...

...involvement".

Yes, we gathered that from the results.:*

[Robeson]

6. LOL!!! Ain't it the truth....

...:rofl:

[Cocoa]

5. actually, that poll did surprise a lot of people

it surprised me, for example, and I think it surprised the Pentagon.

It's not about preferring to be at home. The troops can prefer to be at home and still want to stay and finish the mission if they believe in it. But a lot of them apparently don't anymore.

[soup]

7. The problem is they polled the wrong people.

Spades Hearts Diamonds Clubs

A Dick Cheney Karl Rove Elliott Abrams Paul Wolfowitz
K Richard Perle John Ashcroft Dennis Hastert Bill Bennett
Q Condoleeza Rice Katherine Harris Lynn Cheney Ann Coulter
J Rush Limbaugh Bill O'Reilly Joe Scarborough Sean Hannity
10 John Bolton Ken Adelman Jeb Bush Tom DeLay
9 Roger Ailes Brit Hume Tony Snow Alan Keyes
8 Kenn Starr Antonin Scalia Ted Olson Clarence Thomas
7 Andrew Card Don Evans Michael Ledeen Marc Racicot
6 Bob Barr Newt Gingrich Bob Dornan Trent Lott
5 Phil Graham Steve Forbes Dan Quayle Tim Hutchinson
4 Mitch McConnell Don Nickles Saxby Chambliss Mark Souder
3 Pat Robertson Jerry Falwell Gary Bauer George Will
2 Dennis Miller Ted Nugent Michael Weiner Matt Drudge
http://www.chickenhawkcards.com/

Gotta look at the big picture. :puke:

Reminds me of Bill Nelson's response to all the phone calls and e-mails prior to voting for the IRW. Something along the lines of - 'Yes, the response I'm getting runs about 20-1 against, but I've got to consider those who didn't write or call, too.'


on edit: Apologies for the format. That didn't transfer well.

[w8liftinglady]

20. I thought the same thing

these kids are really screwed up over their participation in this war... my son included.They are finally seeing the betrayal by their"leaders"

[arewenotdemo]

21. OMG. Going thru that deck of chickenhawk cards makes me also want to

:puke:

Human scum, every one.

[NYC Liberal]

8. I wonder if they'll be complaining about the 90 percent

believing Iraw was involved with 9/11... :eyes:

[acmavm]

9. Then the powers that be won't mind sending their kids and the

kids of the oil company execs over there for a tour or two, will they?

[creeksneakers2]

10. What happened to "supporting the troops?" n/t

[AlCzervik]

11. they reject because the pollee's weren't from in a hand picked bush crowd.

[VaYallaDawg]

13. I can just hear Rummy now .....

"Lies, damn lies, and statistics."

[jus_the_facts]

14. They should REVOLT against their leaders....and we should join 'em....

....s'the ONLY thing that will EVER make the CHANGES necessary to END the PENTAGON's CONTROL over our *DEMOCRACY*...s'called REGIME CHANGE AND IT NEEDS TO HAPPEN *HERE*. :eyes:

[DavidDvorkin]

15. Bertrand Russell and WWI pacifism

The British government said that pacifists like Russell were undermining the morale of the troops at the front. Russell replied that if the people in the government thought there was any morale left to undermine, they had obviously not spoken to troops home on leave, as he had.

In another remarkable echo of the current US government, the British government during WWI said that to stop the war and withdraw would mean that all those who had already died would have died in vain.

I read that last bit in a book about Russell recently and told my wife about it. She remarked that it's as though governments all use the same manual.

[genie_weenie]

25. Russell is so relevant

The died in vain line has been used so often by people unworthy to speak about sacrifice. It always reminds me of Johnny Got His Gun, "only th dead know if all these sacrifices people talk about are worth it. And the dead can't speak."

Great post, btw.

[newspeak]

27. that's interesting

because my college history professor remarked that WWII was just an extension of WWI. Besides the great toll in human lives, WWI sever ly hurt economies on both sides (except the US who made out like bandits at the beginning). The economic sanctions and reparations thrust upon Germany after WWI caused everyone to suffer--however, I believe the industrialists made Hitler and the economic conditions at the time made some of the German people accept him. What's interesting, under the treaty after WWI, Germany was allowed only so many soldiers and the manufacture of military hardware was kept to a minimum. How did Hitler build the war machine without the knowledge of other countries, unless some were complicit? Under the treaty, Germany's military was curbed and Germany owed other countries, like France and Great Britain, a certain percentage of their natural resources as reparation for WWI.

[DavidDvorkin]

29. Interestingly, Russell was a pacifist in WWI but not WWII

He thought all wars terrible but felt that sometimes the alternative was worse. One of the wars he considered a good thing in the balance, despite the destruction, was the American Revolution.

He said that rule by the Kaiser would have been a great evil but not so great as the evil of war, so he was a pacifist in the first war. He started out the same way in WWII but quickly changed his mind and decided that even the horrors of war would be less than Nazi rule.

[ConcernedCanuk]

17. How 'bout - - "Pentagon dismisses anything close to the truth" ???

.
.
.

Then we could eliminate a whole lot of frivolous headlines in the future!!

hmmmmmmmmm

:freak:

[Benhurst]

18. I'm sure the Pentagon can turn the poll around. You'd be

amazed what results can be obtained when testicles are wired to a car battery.

[M155Y_A1CH]

19. Kick

:kick:

[True_Blue]

22. What would the troops know anyway?

Of course the Pentagon in Washington would have a much better understanding of the situation in Iraq than the troops that are actually there.:sarcasm:

[Nutmegger]

23. Wow...

I know the troops went for Kerry.

I stand with them. :patriot:

[Gelliebeans]

24. Why is Mr Whitman

speaking to the media and in defense mode if this wasn't an issue. Makes you go hmmmmmm.

[genie_weenie]

26. This poll doesn't matter the Pentagon is not a Democracy

it's an Oligarchical Dictatorship. These kids are going to start getting the UCMJ and the threat of Dishonorable Discharges not subtly thrown in their faces. The clear message is shut up and do what we tell you or your life will be completely ruined. And these kids may be young but they do know, no one has the power to stop the government from crushing them.