Clear majority want complete troop withdrawal

August 3, 2006

I don’t mean to belabor the point, but I think it’s important to remember — for policy and political reasons — that when it comes to the war in Iraq, the public and Republicans in DC are not on the same page.

Last week, the New York Times released a poll showing a clear majority of the public prefers a timeline for [tag]withdrawal[/tag] of U.S. [tag]troops[/tag] to an open-ended commitment. Today, Gallup was even more specific.

A new Gallup poll released today revealed another upward bump in the number of Americans who now want a [tag]complete[/tag] U.S. troop withdrawal from [tag]Iraq[/tag] in the next 12 months.

That number now stands at 55%, with 19% supporting immediate withdrawal and another 36% wanting it done by August 2007.

“While the percentage of Americans who favor a withdrawal of all U.S. troops either now or within a year is not a supermajority, it is a majority, suggesting that the [tag]Democratic[/tag] leadership is speaking to an issue that resonates with many Americans,” Frank Newport, director of the Gallup Poll, writes today.

As E&P added, another majority, 54%, now say that the U.S. invasion in 2003 was a “mistake.”

If [tag]Republicans[/tag] believe they’ll excel in the midterm elections by criticizing the Dems’ support for a phased redeployment, they’re badly misreading the electorate. By the standards of the GOP’s talking points, it’s a cut-and-run nation.

The Republicans are the party of “cut and run”, the only thing they really care about is cutting their own taxes and running up our kid’s debts.

I wish the pollsters would ask the American people if they would support continued indefinite deployment if their kid was in Iraq.

  • Let me see.

    We ‘cut and ran’ in Vietnam
    Why didn’t we stay forever?
    We send our kids to die for a cause so ‘just and noble’
    that when mothers cry
    they shed tears of joy
    they just can’t wait to see their boy
    in a uniform in a box.

    In Korea too,
    we ‘cut and ran’
    How could we be such cowards?
    These colors don’t run
    Death before dishonor!
    Let’s go back now and we’ll really show ’em
    They can’t push the mighty US around anymore!
    There is no time to leave
    just a time to believe
    all the president’s lies.

  • The alternative to “cut and run” is stay and be shot and drain the treasury and bankrupt future generations and make camo-codpiece-shrub appear to be commander-in-chief.

  • I meant to add that I thought the two posts before me were excellent, then wonder why there were no more posts on this topic. I guess the question answers itself: nobody (except the chicken hawks) gives a shit about the military these days.

  • Seems like there are a whole lot of those ‘crazy leftist extremists’ who are out to ‘hijack’ the CT Senate race and defeat Lieberman. Seems about time for those triangulatin’ geniuses who are so concerned about impressing ‘moderate voters’ to get the message. They’re to the LEFT of you!

  • Dear President Bush,

    You are confused when you state that a withdrawal from Iraq equates to losing to Al-Qaeda. The US will not lose the war for the hearts and minds of the Middle East. However, we have decided that YOU ARE LOSING the war so we’re going vote in a new Congress, and implement new policies.

    Nothing personal, we just have to pick winners and dump losers. It’s our job.

    Your boss,

    John Q. Public

  • I think the country is confused about our current wars. We’ve got two of them going, according to Bush. The war in Iraq and the war on terror, which Bush claims are one in the same.

    The war in Iraq is not quite a war. It’s a foolish adventure that has become a holding action. Normally in war, you know who your enemy is. In Iraq, we don’t. He’s been “deadenders” al Queda, Baathists, foreign fighters, fanatics, etc. — all lumped into a category we call insurgents. Insurgents usually fight against their government, but these don’t exactly have a government.

    The Bush mantra of “support the troops” is bullshit. How do we “support” them? By plastering our cars with magnets? We blew our chance to support the troops by sending them on a flawed mission and leaving them to be targets.

    Normally in war, there is a definition of victory. Not in Iraq. That, in my cynical view, is why so many Americans want the troops home. Losing (or not winning) is our greatest objection. We don’t want to admit the most powerful army in the world can’t “beat” a bunch of goatropers.

    Then there’s the other war, the war on terror. We aren’t winning that one either, or even fighting it. “Terror” is like a war on photosynthesis. It is a vaporous, neverending “war” that allows the Republicans to rationalize all their selfish and subversive acts.

    This self-destructive state of affairs becomes more serious every day — and it can be traced directly to the door of the White House.

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