So how much support for Bush is there, really, in the military ?

[EVDebs]

I heard a Vietnam vet speaking on the radio today who said out of 12 flag level navy and other high officers (marines, army, air force) all 12 were AGAINST the war in Iraq.

But the impression given in M$M and people in the military in general is that there is majority support. Is this true ? Is it falling, along with the regular civilian polls, too ?

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Word from our recent vets and currently active duty military DU folks

is that morale is low and the kids over there know they got sold up the river.

[Oversea Visitor]

2. That call was heard long ago

Sadly it was heard outside the Media Curtain surrounding US :(

[wallwriter]

3. God forbid it should happen this way,

but it makes it easier to understand how a military coup can take place in a third world country...

[one_true_leroy]

10. which would make you wonder why they are not in a hurry...

to pull back from overseas deployments (they being the administration).

[bunny planet]

4. Notice how Bushco. never crowed about the military vote, never

mentioned it. In 2000, that's all they talked about. Count the military vote, Gore doesn't want to count the military vote. The reason it wasn't even talked about this time around is probably because more military voted for Kerry than Bush.

Now, there are probably even more ground troops, and officers, that despise Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.

[Stinky The Clown]

5. We had a fragging recently in Iraq

Look back at Vietnam. When morale is lower than whale shit, fragging increases.

We don't have a trend in Iraq toward this ..... yet.

That we know of.

From the media.

[spartan61]

6. My daughter is a flight attendant and there was a soldier aboard

one of her flights. She asked him politely if she could ask him a personal question. When he said yes, she bent down and spoke in a very low voice so as not to be overheard by the other passengers. She asked him what he really thought about the war. His answer was simply, "We shouldn't even be there. It is wrong."

[orleans]

7. that is so sad. and i understand her speaking quietly--to

try and get an honest answer in a confidential way....

but these guys need to start telling this liberal media of ours--they need to start telling everybody!!!

i'm glad your daughter asked.

[EVDebs]

8. Check this posting out to see why everyone speaks so softly

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1878979

Only certain brave media souls have even attempted to discuss this.

[Sir Jeffrey]

9. I have a friend who is a marine at Camp Lejeune...

We talk about politics and the war all the time when he calls. I asked him how his fellow marines felt about Bush, Kerry, Iraq, etc. We talked about a month ago and he had some interesting points:

1. Nobody he discussed the 2004 campaign with expressed support for Bush, Bush's policies, or Bush as the great "military hero", which surprised me since they're marines and he talked to lots of people. Nobody really knew anything about Kerry aside from what they "heard" around base (which means that they relied on talk radio and MSM for news...and that Dean is right that we need to campaign in 45-50 states instead of 15). People were either going to vote for Bush or, more likely, not vote. I place that blame on Kerry for not campaigning hard in "military" states like North Carolina during a war.

2. Many of the marines on base hate the fact that we have not found OBL and that we are still in Iraq. My friend says a rather important idea is being spread around the base, namely that we bring the troops home very soon...except for a small unit (about 10K troops) to conduct military ops at the request of the Iraqi Council and undercover agents to infiltrate the insurgent forces leadership and kill them that way (instead of another Fallujah).

3. I brought up several of the arguments Kerry made against the war, but my friend regurgitated RW talking points...in an interesting way though. Example: Kerry's use of the term "backdoor draft" did not work at all with my friend or other marines in that they all recognized the possibility when they signed up that they would be subjected to extended service in a time of war. I gathered from this and other examples that the RW talking points are interchangeable with the military hot button issues.

4. Interestingly enough, a lot of the marines were very interested in who the Dems were going to run in 2008. They wished that there was a better choice than Kerry or Bush this time around. To them, it was a choice between Bush's incompetence and no more 9/11s or Kerry's incompetence coupled with another 9/11.

5. A lot of marines were following the rationale that we need to bring the war to the Arabs on their soil or we would have more 9/11s...I know it's dumb, but that's the mindset. My friend (in an unscientific poll to be certain) gathered that Wesley Clark probably would have broad military support...something to remember when all of us political junkies bicker about some minor policy issue.

My friend is shipping out to Iraq around September, BTW. So maybe the experience will shift his politics a bit (he's a Libertarian/Republican and I'm a Socialist...yes we have neat arguments).