Military Times poll reflects troops’ perspective on war

December 30, 2006

A couple of days ago, the AP reported on dozens of interviews with soldiers of the Army’s 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, which patrols the streets of eastern Baghdad, and learned that most of those seeing the conflict up close are discouraged, dejected, and ready to leave. As informative as the piece was, it was difficult to extrapolate from it and understand how most U.S. troops feel.

Fortunately, a poll for the Military Times newspapers, which questioned 6,000 randomly selected active-duty members, gives us a much better sense. In case the myth that military personnel still widely support the president’s policy hadn’t been debunked enough, these results should do the trick.

Barely one in three service members approve of the way the president is handling the war, according to the new poll for the four papers (Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times and Marine Times). In another startling finding, only 41% now feel it was the right idea to go to war in Iraq in the first place.

And the number who feel success there is likely has shrunk from 83% in 2004 to about 50% today. A surprising 13% say there should be no U.S. troops in Iraq at all. […]

Nearly three-quarters of the respondents think today’s military is stretched too thin to be effective.

“The poll has come to be viewed by some as a barometer of the professional career military,” the Military Times wrote on Friday. “It is the only independent poll done on an annual basis.”

The closer one looks at the details, the more discontent is apparent.

* Asked whether the war in Iraq is part of the war on terrorism, troops were split, 47% said it was, 47% said is wasn’t.

* Only 38% believe more troops should be sent to Iraq, while 39% think there should be the same number or less than there are now. (The rest responded “don’t know.”)

As Greg Sargent noted, Defense Secretary Robert Gates “recently held a photo-op sit-down with some of the troops in Iraq. By sheer coincidence, all of the assembled troops said they support an increase in troops to Iraq.”

A random, representative sample? I don’t think so.

Nevertheless, Bush hasn’t just lost the civilian population on Iraq; he’s loosing the troops, too.

Nearly three-quarters of the respondents think today’s military is stretched too thin to be effective.

That’s a really basic concept that you combine forces to make them stronger. Any soldier can see that. Otherwise, it’s like fighting them one at a time.

  • 13% say there should be no U.S. troops in Iraq at all.

    Most of us liberals on the blogosphere don’t even think there should be a total withdrawal, we just want a stratgic redeployment that brings most of the troops home and leaves capable forces in country or nearby, where they are not supervising especially dangerous areas, but ready + equipped to respond to emergency situations.

  • There are only two constants here.

    1. Bush doesn’t give a damn what the soldiers think or want.

    2. Republicans will support anything Bush (read that as “any Republican leader”) does and villify anybody on the planet who is not on their knees in submission – including our troops.

  • That’s a really basic concept that you combine forces to make them stronger. Any soldier can see that.

    It’s not that Republicans don’t know how to fight, though, it’s that they’re so distortedly ambitious and greedy that they pursue two goals at once and forget themselves.

    When Republicans have a Rush Limbaugh, they don’t spend all they’re time begrudging him what he is and throwing all kinds of obstacles in his path. They put him in a saddle.

    With liberals, all it takes is a little prompting from conservatives and you all go after Michael Moore.

  • According to Swan – “They put him in a saddle”.

    And this should be finished with – and follow him off a bridge if his horse goes there.

    I do totally agree wiht the Michael Moore thing though. Republicans have absolutely no conscience, and Dems have one that is WAAAAAY to big.

  • We have let a bunch of ignorant bastards run foreign policy.(From both parties) Now we have a useless war that spends our treasury which we don’t have in the first place. So we borrow it from our heirs and put them into bondage over misplaced idealogy. The Sino nation builds It’s war machine with our technology and our debt. The nations we will need to confront will be much more difficult due to Americas intransigent leadership. I fear for your children. ( I don’t have any) I am an old man that got locked in to the Indochina war. I have not forgotten the stupidty of blind idealogy. Mr. Bush put it succinctly when he addressed a gathering. Here are my people. The haves and the have more’s. I still can’t figure why the have not’s vote so blindly

  • Swan

    There are at lot of progressives, formerly known as “liberals” who do want no troops in Iraq what so ever. You can also include Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Somalia and various other east asian “republics”.

    Maybe we can all just learn to get along and negotiate instead of punching people to get what we want. It’s much more adult.

  • These poll results are all the fault of the reality the troops have been witnessing, which we all know has a well known liberal bias.

  • Dale (#5) Asking troops opinions of Iraq is like asking blind men about an elephant.

    Just where the hell do you get off with a comment like this?

    As a matter of fact, it was people in the military who were far ahead of the population at home in their opposition to the war back during Vietnam. I suggest you get a copy of Dave Zeiger’s documentary “Sir! No, Sir!” and take a look at it. They were the ones out on the sharp end, who saw daily the difference between what they knew of reality and what was being said of the same events back home. As a matter of fact, it was the soldiers I worked with at Fort Hood in 1968 who had a far more comprehensive understanding of the war, its connection to their family’s poverty, their planned use as “riot control” (insurgency suppression), and how it all related to the destruction of the ideals that had first led them to say “yes” to entering the military. They were far ahead of the “advanced thinking” among all the Bay Area “revolutionaries.” They didn’t worry about all the pseudo-intellectual “Marxist” b.s., they knew what they knew.
    And – unlike their civilian counterparts – they took part in actions against the war knowing that doing so would land them in a prison far worse than any civilian would end up in,and with a Dishonorable Discharge that would track them for life. And yet they did it.

    I think you and the rest of the pleasantly comfortable can now apologize for that bullshit attitude, buddy.

  • Mr. Sedgwick, I concur. We are surrounded by eight of the stupidest years in American history and there’s no guarantee that the eight won’t be extended, (“I still can’t figure why the have not’s vote so blindly”). The fiscal waste, the unquestioning allegiance to right wing agitprop, the hollowing out of our military for political theater.

    At this point in the disaster, snark and insult have become inadequate. Truly, trials for treason and high crimes are what are called for. They probably won’t happen, but ShrubCo is worthy of grand humiliation and after that, incarceration. At least.

  • Even more important, when it comes to the Military Times polls, the readership of the various Times tend to be middle to upper ranks (e.g. officers and enlisted on their second enlistment or more), exactly the grouping which tends to be the most conservative part of the military. So, when this group says that they are fed up with/pissed off about something like this, then it really is something to note.

  • If Bush is losing his officer corps, then he is, by default, losing his army.

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