{"id":6730,"date":"2006-02-28T13:45:31","date_gmt":"2006-02-28T18:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6730"},"modified":"2006-02-28T13:45:31","modified_gmt":"2006-02-28T18:45:31","slug":"the-troops-arent-happy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-troops-arent-happy\/","title":{"rendered":"The troops aren’t happy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just to follow up on the reference<\/a> to Nick Kristoff’s column from earlier, Zogby conducted a poll of troops serving in Iraq<\/a> and found a surprisingly small number who share the president’s view of the war.<\/p>\n

An overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and nearly one in four say the troops should leave immediately, a new Le Moyne College\/Zogby International survey shows.<\/p>\n

The poll, conducted in conjunction with Le Moyne College’s Center for Peace and Global Studies, showed that 29% of the respondents, serving in various branches of the armed forces, said the U.S. should leave Iraq “immediately,” while another 22% said they should leave in the next six months. Another 21% said troops should be out between six and 12 months, while 23% said they should stay “as long as they are needed.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oddly, one of the Bush gang’s favorite arguments is that troop morale is dependent on “staying the course.” The men and women in uniform don’t seem to agree.<\/p>\n

Indeed, many troops don’t seem to buy into the White House talking points at all. A total of 42% said the mission in Iraq is unclear, and there seems to be widespread confusion about why the troops are still there — with those polled divided between removing WMD, toppling Saddam, establishing a model democracy, securing oil supplies, and provide long-term U.S. bases for the region.<\/p>\n

Politically, polls like this one make it harder for Bush and his allies to denounce critics of the war. When the president’s rivals are saying the same thing the troops are saying, Rove & Co. can’t very well Swiftboat everyone. (Well, maybe they’ll try, but it’s hardly an effective strategy.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just to follow up on the reference to Nick Kristoff’s column from earlier, Zogby conducted a poll of troops serving in Iraq and found a surprisingly small number who share the president’s view of the war. An overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}