Iraq - Don't Americans think?

An interesting yet strange poll

Published on April 30, 2004 By valleyboyabroad In International

According to a New York times/CBS poll, Americans are becoming increasingly critical about the way that Bush is handling the war in Iraq.

Now let me point out here first that when it comes to polls they can be mean many things.

There's one US poll out today fopr example that says terrorism has decreased over the last year (good job Bush) and another one released by the Japanese that says terrorism has increased by 30% (bad job Bush) over the last twelve months so take your pick.

But the poll I'd like to look at is the CBS one above.

And I quote,

'Asked whether the US has done the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, 47% of respondents said that it had, down from 58% a month earlier, and 63% in December' (New York Times).

Now note the words 'done the right thing'.

Acording to the poll 16% of people in the US have changed their minds about whether it was right to invade Iraq and topple Saddam.

Why?

What has changed that made them change their minds?

According to Bush and Co this war was never about WMDs - that would have been j(so they say) just a bonus (had they had any).

Neither was it all about oil (so they say).

Nope, it was all about toppling Saddam and bringing democracy to the downtrodden people of Iraq.

Okay fine.

Saddam has been toppled, Iraq's a mess for sure, but may'be democracy will come (how's a completely different question, it's clear that Bush&Co had absolutely no idea what to do once they'd taken Iraq and don't know what to do with it now), certainly not on June 30th but sometime in the next decade or so.

What I want to know is why is it suddenly wrong according to these 16% of people to have invaded Iraq?

Didn't they think this through before they gave their approval?

Did they really believe that everyone would be home by Christmas?

But I'm straying off the point as usual.

Why is it now suddenly wrong to have invaded Iraq?

I'd seriously like to talk to one of these people, it would be fascinating.

Is there anyone out there that thought it was right last December but wrong today?

If so why?

What startling new facts have been revealed to you that made you changed your moral point of view in such a drastic fashion?

From right to wrong.

Well?

yechydda,

Comments (Page 1)

Solitair

on Apr 30, 2004

Nice attempt to separate the action from the consequences.

Many people support actions and over time change their views due to the consequences.
Many people support actions on the iformatino they have at the time and later discover more information changing their minds.
This is what's happening with those 16%, some no longer feel the consequences justifiy the action, some feel that the reasons they believed for going to war are now wrong.

Personally I believe that if the action was the right thing to do at point A in time then it was still the right thing to do 6 months later. What may change is the handling of the situation in the meantime. The poll therefore should really have separated support for the removal of Saddam and support for the handling of the situatino since.

Paul.

PS. As an aside the American people were confused and misled on why they were going to war. A majority at the time believed it was because of WMD and that Saddam was linked to 9/11. The US government constantly used Iraq, terrorists and 9/11 in the same sentence and actively described the threat of WMD which Saddam had.

Draginol

on Apr 30, 2004

I think Bremer has made some critical mistkaes such as disbanding the Iraqi military which wasn't inhernetly "evil".

I am glad the US removed Saddam. It was the right thing to do. But I do think that policy since the occupation has been a mess.

Draginol

on Apr 30, 2004

Solitaire - as an American I can tell you that you are flat out wrong about Americans being "misled". Those who were in favor of going to war wanted Saddam removed because they believed he was a threat -- not because they believed he had stockpiles of WMD. The US government did not state that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11.

MasonM

on Apr 30, 2004

Actually my own opinion (for what that's worth) about why we attacked Iraq is as follows:

Many Middle Eastern countries supported, aided and encouraged terrorists determined to attack the US and their allies.

Iraq had the largest military force in the Middle East and were feared by the other Middle Eastern countries.

Taking down the "biggest guy" sends a powerful message to the others.

I believe that is the real reason we attacked Iraq. The fact that we had been having problems with that nation's government over a course of years made the tactic easier.

Right or wrong, that's what I believe this whole thing to be about; making other countries less likely to be willing to openly aid terrorist groups. Will it work? That remains to be seen.

As to the polls. Polls tend to be very biased and can be (and usually are) manipulated to get the results wanted. To take a poll from a news agency seriously is not a wise thing especially in an election year.

A 16% change in a poll can be accomplish by the wording of the poll or by simply conducting the poll in a place that is likely to give the desired results. For that matter it can be affected by the number of people polled. In poll of 4 people, 1 person's opinion is 25% of the poll.

Yes, most Americans do think. I question whether people reading poll results are really thinking.

moshi

on Apr 30, 2004

you are wrong. Draginol

this Gallup poll from June 2003 shows that the majority of US Americans at this time still believed Saddam would have weapons of mass destruction. http://www.gallup.com/content/login.aspx?ci=8623

so who misled them? the liberal media if it was not the US government? i could swear i saw Colin Powell trying to present false evidence to the UN security council though.

i have my doubts on your statement that that the US government did not link Saddam with 9/11as well. maybe not directly with 9/1, but for sure they tried to link him with Al Qeda. at least that is what a "fair and balanced" tv station says at the bottom of this article: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77618,00.html
" President Bush has accused Iraq of being linked to Al Qaeda and said those ties "portend a danger for America and for Great Britain, anybody who loves freedom."

guess FoxNews is part of that liberal media conspiracy as well

psychx

on Apr 30, 2004

I think that this administration played into the emotions of Americans when going into the war in the Iraq. The thought of 9/11 fresh in our minds they claimed he had plenty of stockpiles of wmd's which the average joe would only support getting rid of. The average joe in the U.S. was easily swayed at that point.

psychx

on Apr 30, 2004

psychx

on Apr 30, 2004

sorry you can delete the repeats I don't exactly know what happened all I did was hit submit

JeremyG

on Apr 30, 2004

Sometimes I cant believe how things snowball. Everyone now cries that people have flip-flopped on their support of the war in Iraq, but the simple facts, that cannot be argued are these:

1. Back before the war in Iraq began, the bulk of Bush's *STATE OF THE UNION* address centered around Iraq being a threat to the world, and possessing WMD. The most important address a president makes was CENTERED around that idea.

2. At some point it began to be the war cry that "this was never about WMD". I'm not sure how this is supposed to be accepted as fact given #1.

That's the reason that Kerry....and alot of other americans "flip flopped" in their support of the war....because people form their opinions based on the knowledge they posses.

Draginol

on Apr 30, 2004

That proves nothing at all. I thought that Irag had stockpiles for WMD destruction too. But that was never the primary reason why I wanted Saddam removed. Most Americans thought Iraq had stores of Mustard Gas or Anthrax or something but they weren't things we were "immently" concerned about.

Americans thought that Iraq had WMD because we had been told they had these stockpiles for the past 10 years. The question is whether this was the reason why Americans wanted to invade Iraq and the answer is no.

The average person has a considerable amount of wisdom and common sense. Americans have wanted Saddam taken out since 1998. After 9/11, it became apparent that he really did have to go. We couldn't tolerate an open enemy of the United States in that part of the world any more.

Draginol

on Apr 30, 2004

JeremyG: Feel free to read the text of the State of the Union. WMD were not the central issue.

In my case, I was writing blogs on the why we're invading AT THE TIME and WMD were not the major issue.

I wasn't worried so much about what Iraq had stockpiles of. I was more worried about what Saddam would do going into the future. After 9/11, the US couldn't screw around with him. He'd had 11 years to cooperate with us and he still was messing around with the inspectors.

The Kaye report makes it pretty damn clear: Saddam had every intention to acquire WMD after the sanctions were lifted. The left just shrieks about the lack of existing stockpiles while ignoring the central issue - Saddam's long term threat as an open enemy of the United States located where he is in the world.

messybuu

on Apr 30, 2004

I'm with Draginol on this. Americans support the war, but don't support how it's being handled.

psychx

on Apr 30, 2004

I think that is the consensus Super Baby.

fanfan tulipan

on May 01, 2004

A VOICE FROM NAZI GERMANY
A Survivor shows parallels between Naziism and trends in the U.S.

The following testimony appeared as a letter to the editor at www.truthout.org dated January 9, 2004.

Dear Sir,
My family was one of Hitler’s victims. We lost a lot under the Nazi occupation, including an uncle who died in the camps and a cousin killed by a booby trap. I was terrified when my father went ballistic after finding my brother and me playing with a hand grenade. (I was only 12 at the time, and my brother insisted the grenade was safe.) I remember the rubble and the hardships of ‘austerity’ - and the bomb craters from Allied bombs. As late as the 1980s, I had to take detours while bombs were being removed - they litter the countryside, buried under parking lots, buildings, and in the canals and rivers to this day. Believe me, I learned a lot about Hitler while I was growing up, both in Europe and here in the US - both my parents were in the war and talked about it constantly, unlike most American families. I spent my earliest years with the second-hand fear that trickled down from their PTSD - undiagnosed and untreated in those days.

I’m no expert on WWII - but I learned a lot about what happened in Germany - and Europe - back in those days. I always wondered how the wonderful German people - so honest, decent, hard-working, friendly, and generous - could ever allow such a thing to happen. (There were camps near my family’s home - they still talk about them only in hushed conspiratorial whispers.) I asked a lot of questions - we were only a few kilometers from the German border - and no one ever denied me. My relatives had obviously spent a lot of time thinking about the war - they still haven’t forgotten - I don’t think anyone can forget such a horrible nightmare. Among the questions I asked:

Why didn’t you do anything about the people in the camps?
Everyone was terrified. People “disappeared” into those camps. Sometimes the Nazis came and lined everyone up, walking behind them - even school children - with a cocked pistol. You never knew when they would just shoot someone in the back of the head. Everyone was terrified. Everyone was disarmed - guns were registered, so all the Nazis had to do was go from house to house and demand the guns.

Didn’t you see what was happening?
We saw. There was nothing we could do. Our military had no modern weapons. The Nazis had technology and resources - they just invaded and took over - we were overwhelmed by their air power. They had spies everywhere - people spying on each other, just to have an ‘ace in the hole’ in case they were accused - and anyone who had a grudge against you could accuse you of something - just an accusation meant you’d disappear. Nobody dared ask where you had gone - anyone who returned was considered suspicious - what had they said, and who did they implicate? It was a climate of fear - there’s nothing anyone can do when the government uses fear and imprisonment to intimidate people. The government was above the law - even in Germany, it became “every man for himself.” Advancement was possible by exposing “traitors” - anyone who questioned the government. It didn’t matter if the people you accused were guilty or not - just the accusation was enough.

Did anyone know what was going on?
We all knew. We imagined the worst because the Nazis made ‘examples’ of a few people in every town and village. Public torture and execution. The most unspeakable atrocities were committed in full view of everyone. If this is what happened in public, can you imagine what might be going on in the camps? Nobody wanted to know.

Why didn’t the German people stop the Nazis?
Life was better, at first, under the Nazis. The war machine invigorated the economy - men had jobs again, and enough money to take care of their family. New building projects were everywhere. The shops were full again - and people could afford good food, culture, and luxuries. Women could stay home in comfort. Crime was reduced. Health care improved. It was a rosy scenario - Hitler brought order and prosperity. His policies won widespread approval because life was better for most Germans, after the misery of reparations and inflation. The people liked the idea of removing the worst elements of society - the gypsies, the homosexuals, the petty criminals - it was easy to elicit support for prosecuting the corrupt, “evil” people poisoning society. Every family was proud of their hometown heroes - the sharply-dressed soldiers they contributed to his program - they were, after all, defending the Fatherland. Continuing a proud tradition that had been defeated and shamed after WWI, the soldiers gave the feeling of power and success to the proud families that showered them with praise and support. Their early victories were reason to celebrate - in spite of the fact that they faced poorly armed inferior forces - further proof that what they were doing was right, and the best thing for the country. The news was full of stories about their bravery and accomplishments against a vile enemy. They were “liberating” these countries from their corrupt governments.

These are some of the answers I gleaned over the years. As a child, I was fascinated with the Nazis. I thought the German soldiers were really something - that’s how strong an impression they made, even after the war. After all, they weren’t the ones committing war crimes - they were the pride of their families and communities. It was just the SS and Gestapo that were “bad.” Now I know better - but that pride in the military was a strong factor for many years, only adding to the mystique of military power - after all, my father had been a soldier too, but in the American army. It took a while to figure out the truth.

Every time I’ve gone back to Europe, someone has taken me to the “gardens of stone” - the Allied cemeteries that dot the countryside. With great sadness, my relatives would stand in abject misery, remembering the nightmare, and asking “Why?” Maybe that’s why they wouldn’t support the US invasion of Iraq. They knew war. They knew occupation. And they knew resistance. I saw the building where British flyers hid on their way back to England - smuggled out by brave families that risked the lives of everyone to help the Allies. As a child, I had played in a basement where the cow lived under the house, as is common there. The same place those flyers hid.

So why, now, when I hear GWB’s speeches, do I think of Hitler? Why have I drawn a parallel between the Nazis and the present administration? Just one small reason - the phrase “Never forget.” Never let this happen again. It is better to question our government - because it really can happen here - than to ignore the possibility.

So far, I’ve seen nothing to eliminate the possibility that Bush is on the same course as Hitler. And I’ve seen far too many analogies to dismiss the possibility. The propaganda. The lies. The rhetoric. The nationalism. The flag waving. The pretext of “preventive war.” The flaunting of international law and international standards of justice. The disappearances of “undesirable” aliens. The threats against protesters. The invasion of a non-threatening sovereign nation. The occupation of a hostile country. The promises of prosperity and security. The spying on ordinary citizens. The incitement to spy on one’s neighbors - and report them to the government. The arrogant triumphant pride in military conquest. The honoring of soldiers. The tributes to “fallen warriors.” The diversion of money to the military. The demonization of government appointed “enemies.” The establishment of “Homeland Security.” The dehumanization of “foreigners.” The total lack of interest in the victims of government policy. The incarceration of the poor and mentally ill. The growing prosperity from military ventures. The illusion of “goodness” and primacy. The new einsatzgrupen forces. Assassination teams. Closed extralegal internment camps. The militarization of domestic police. Media blackout of non-approved issues. Blacklisting of protesters - including the no-fly lists and photographing dissenters at rallies.

There isn’t much doubt in my mind - anyone who compares the history of Hitler’s rise to power and the progression of recent events in the US cannot avoid the parallels. It’s incontrovertible. Is Bush another Hitler? Maybe not, but with each incriminating event, the parallel grows - it certainly cannot be dismissed. There’s too much evidence already. Just as Hitler used American tactics to plan and execute his reign, it looks as if Karl Rove is reading Hitler’s playbook to plan world domination - and that is the stated intent of both. From the Reichstag fire to the landing at Nuremberg to the motto of “Gott Mit Uns” [God is with us] to the unprovoked invasion and occupation of Iraq to the insistence that peace was the ultimate goal, the line is unbroken and unwavering.

I’m afraid now, that what may still come to pass is a reign far more savage and barbaric than that of the Nazis. Already, appeasement has been fruitless - it only encourages the brazen to escalate their arrogance and braggadocio. Americans support Bush - by a generous majority - and mass media sings his praises while indicting his detractors - or silencing their opinions completely. The American people seem to care only about the domestic economic situation - and even in that, they are in complete denial. They don’t want to hear about Iraq, and Afghanistan is already forgotten. Even the Democratic opposition supports the occupation of Iraq. Everyone seems to agree that Saddam Hussein deserves to be executed - with or without a trial. “Visitors” are fingerprinted. Guilty until proven innocent. Snipers are on New York City rooftops. When do the Stryker teams start appearing on American streets? They’re perfectly suited for “Homeland Security” - and they’ve had a trial run in Iraq. The Constitution has been suspended - until further notice. Dick Cheney just mentioned it may be for decades - even a generation, as Rice asserts as well. Is this the start of the 1000 year reign of this new collection of thugs? So it would seem. I can only hope that in the coming year there will be some sign - some hint - that we are not becoming that which we abhor. The Theory of the Grotesque fares all too well these days. It may not be Nazi Germany - it might be a lot worse.

SL | Wisconsin

bobvila93

on May 01, 2004

Am I missing something? Which State of the Union are we talking about??? Bush began making the case for war in State of the Union 2003...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html

There about 17 or so paragraphs about Iraq. I count 15 paragraphs talking exclusively about WMD. One paragraph about human rights. Bush's proposed reason for action was unambiguously WMD at the time:

"We will consult. But let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him. (Applause.) "

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