12 percent of Americans support sending more troops to Iraq

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16548312/

Bush faces uphill battle in selling troop surge

Both sides vocal against Iraq escalation, public opinion against surge

As the White House puts the final touches on President Bush’s Iraq speech, there are fresh signs of just how much the public and members of the president’s own party oppose an escalation.

On Tuesday, your nation’s capital was greeted by a new poll from USA Today/Gallup. The poll found that only 12 percent of Americans support “sending more troops to Iraq.” When respondents were given a softer, seemingly more comfortable question about increasing troops “temporarily to stabilize the situation,” support rose to just 36 percent, with 61 percent still opposed.

That is a very bad number for President Bush because it means that even when the poll question is phrased in a way that would seem to be the easiest for anybody to stomach, the idea that an increase in troops would be “temporary” and would stabilize the situation (which is not a given,) six out of 10 Americans still dislike the idea.

Meanwhile, four Republican senators have now publicly criticized the idea of an escalation in Iraq. Minnesota’s Norm Coleman, Maine’s Susan Collins, Nebraska’s Chuck Hagel and Oregon’s Gordon Smith say the sectarian tensions in Iraq cannot be soothed by Americans. Gordon Smith said it just minutes after listening to President Bush try to make the case at the White House. Smith told reporters, “These are Iraqi questions that Iraqis must settle. Whether they settle them peacefully or violently, I don’t want American men and women caught in the middle.”

[Heidi]

1. Let's see how they spin 12 percent into a "mandate."

:eyes:

[Kagemusha]

6. First they say that the 36% figure supports "the surge"...

when we know better, that the surge is not temporary, as originally discussed by those in the know, militarily speaking, because the temporary surge was based in REALITY, and that's not good enough. The administration must create its own reality by breaking everyone else's.

[no_hypocrisy]

7. If only Barney were in favor of the surge, it would be a MANDATE. n/t

[Monkeyman]

2. Dam they must be the Free Republic they got counted LOL

[YDogg]

3. require that 12% to go to iraqnam, and watch that number fall to nothing.

[lectrobyte]

4. I hear the enlistment age's now up to 42. Surely enough of that

12 percent could sign up to solve the problem of where we can scrape up that many troops.

[Debau2005]

9. My thoughts exactly! nt

[HughBeaumont]

5. Those 12 Percenteers should SIGN UP!

Pieces of shit.

"MAH Preseedent, right or wrong!"

[Ezlivin]

8. Sign up? They're too busy doing "hard work" and can't be bothered

They have to get their SUV washed and waxed (thanks to Juan who crossed the border illegally), their landscaped tended (thanks to Gomez), their house cleaned (thanks to Lupe) and remember to give another contribution to their evangelical mega church. And they've got to get their accountant to go over their books now that their business has outsourced much of its labor.

[Skittles]

10. they'd support bush if he dined on a baby on TV

they're mental cases

[Heidi]

11. Recommended. Let's get the TRUTH to Greatest, folks.

:kick:

[Alamom]

12. K&R. n/t

[CountAllVotes]

13. a kick and #5 recommendation

This belongs on the Greatest Page!

:dem: :kick:

[leeroysphitz]

14. Apparently they are the only 12 percent that COUNTS because...

Here we go again.

[specimenfred1984]

15. So 88% "drank the Cindy kool aid"

according to the anti-war activist bashers who think that if you like Sheehan you're a brainwashed kool-aid drinker.

Looks like us 88%ers are just brainwashed idiots who don't like worthless slaughters.

[Heidi]

16. Bookmarking for kicking tomorrow morning (GMT +1).

:kick:

[Ian_rd]

17. I'd say about 12% also think George W. Bush receives messages from God

Wow. 12%. That's amazing. You'd probably find a higher percentage of Americans who can't even name the president! Or point to the United States on a world map!

As Tina Fey reported a couple years ago on SNL News:

"A new poll shows that 66% of Americans think President Bush is doing a poor job of handling the war in Iraq, and the remaining 34% think Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church."

[smoogatz]

18. What we've got here is a near total loss of public confidence in Bush

as CinC. That's almost unprecedented, as far as I know. Johnson had the sense not to run again when public opinion turned against his conduct of the Vietnam war. Bush still acts as though he's been appointed by God, and the rabble have nothing to say about it. My sense is that things are going to get very ugly for Bush before he's done--that 12% number is going to be his approval rating by this time next year.

[NNN0LHI]

19. No matter who was president I don't remember public support for Vietnam...

...ever getting much below 50%. It took a long time for Americans to shift their opinion against that war.


Don

[smoogatz]

20. You remember incorrectly.

After the 1968 Tet offensive, only 26% approved of Johnson's handling of the war.

http://faculty.smu.edu/dsimon/Change-Viet2.html

Public support eroded to an even greater extent in 1970:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-15-poll-vietnam_x.htm

Though you're right in the sense that the Iraq war is less popular earlier than Vietnam was: Americans were much less skeptical of government in the early 60s than they are now.

[NNN0LHI]

21. I knew Johnson's numbers were low. This is what must have thrown me off

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aO9FvxAJz8Pw

Iraq War Is Drawing Less Support Than Vietnam Did at Same Stage

By Heidi Przybyla

May 9 (Bloomberg) -- Three years into major combat in Vietnam, 28,500 U.S. service members had perished, millions of families were anxious about the military draft and antiwar protests had spread to dozens of college campuses.

Today, at the same juncture in the Iraq war, about 2,400 American soldiers have died, the U.S. military consists entirely of volunteers and public dissent is sporadic.

There's one other difference: The war in Iraq is more unpopular than was the Vietnam conflict at this stage, polls show.

More Americans -- 57 percent -- say sending troops to Iraq was a mistake than the 48 percent who called Vietnam an error in April 1968, polls by the Princeton, New Jersey-based Gallup Organization show. That's because more people believed that Vietnam was crucial to U.S. security, scholars say.

[smoogatz]

26. I saw the same article--

it depends on which polling question is/was being asked. The numbers in general are comparable to those in '68; what's stunning is Bush's utter lack of reaction to them, compared to Johnson--who was not quite as unpopular as Bush.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

23. Bush has lost his mind. Johnson was a jerk, but he wasn't crazy.

The CnC has lost the confidence of the people because he's nuts.

He can't listen to anybody else's advice - just the voices in his head.

[smoogatz]

29. Bush isn't listening to voices in his head; he's listening to Cheney.

Who is in turn listening to Exxon, BP and Gulf. See here:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2132574.ece

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

34. He's crazy if he thinks we'll put up with this nonsense much longer

He doesn't look rational at all lately.

He never looked crazy before the last six months.

The voices in his head crack was only half serious. I know Cheney has been running the show from behind the curtain.

I also know that there is a major split in the RW with Numbnuts ignoring the the Iraq Study Group report to take a course of action that has so little chance to succeed.

Right now, nobody is making any money off of Iraqi oil. The Sunni's can keep it that way for a long time.

[rman]

31. Makes me wonder how a lone nut like that can stay in power for so long

Maybe it's more than just voices in his head.

[smoogatz]

32. Please. Bush isn't a "lone nut."

He's backed by very powerful people in the energy, banking and defense industries. He'll continue to stay in power until they lose confidence in him. Then he'll be thrown to the wolves. That may already be happening, in fact--the question is, who will replace him?

[rman]

33. That was my point

Not so much the question you pose, but the rest of your post.

Good question though.

Judging by how the Dem party is behaving now, it won't make much of a difference who replaces him, be it a Dem or a Repub, now or in 08.
No surprise if you realize the real power does not reside with the political parties.

[rman]

28. I wonder how much public confidence the Dem party will get.

[smoogatz]

30. That will depend on how effective they can be

in getting us out of Iraq by 2008.

[Heidi]

22. My last kick for tonight. The word is SPLURGE, not SURGE.

_They_ don't get to define the terms when it comes to troops' lives and, secondarily, our tax dollars.

:kick:

[Hubert Flottz]

24. I wonder how many Germans wanted Hitler to invade the USSR

And I already know how much what the Germans wanted, or didn't want, mattered to a mentally ill Dictator.

[huskerlaw]

25. Well, at least we can fairly safely say

that the percentage of the American public that are brainwashed and ignorant beyond saving has dropped from 30% to 12%.

What? I'm looking for any shred of good news that I can find...

[bdamomma]

27. wow that 12% of sheeple

look at this thread, and see who bush is going to exploit next.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3082971

[The_Casual_Observer]

35. A good number of them post at FR & those other places.

[Zhade]

36. Yet some here argue that the other 88% needs a draft to "wake up".

Can we finally retire THAT bullshit argument?

[Heidi]

37. Kick.

:kick:

[Eurobabe]

38. Get used to it America, you got a genuine DICK-TATER now

He tells YOU what to do. Not the other way around.

[Horse with no Name]

39. Who is stopping these elite 12%'ers from going

I'm not.
I'm to the mindset that if you agree with this....grab a weapon and stand a post. Let the troops that do NOT believe in this war come home.