About 70% of Iraqis believe security has deteriorated in the area covered by the US military “surge” of the past six months, an opinion poll suggests.
The survey by the BBC, ABC News and NHK of more than 2,000 people across Iraq also suggests that nearly 60% see attacks on US-led forces as justified.
The poll suggests that the overall mood in Iraq is as negative as it has been since the US-led invasion in 2003.
Between 67% and 70% of the Iraqis polled believe the surge has hampered conditions for political dialogue, reconstruction and economic development.
Only 29% think things will get better in the next year, compared to 64% two years ago.
If you’d like to read the poll in full, click here [748k .pdf]. You’ll be ahead of your Congresscritter.
You’re hopeless, Colorful One.
until, until, until. What if it’s 40 years? 140 years? 500 years? Do you suppose they want to be occupied by Ugly Americans for centuries to come? Sure a very slim majority wants us to stay “until” some fairy-tale dream comes true. But based on the “progress” we’ve made to date, it looks like the centuries-long occupation is the more reasonable outcome. Or maybe, just maybe, none of those outcomes will EVER materialize.
I know it’s embarassing to be betting on a losing horse, but just face it. Your sway-backed mare (Little King Georgie) bollixed up his “wartime presidency” just the way he’s bollixed up everything else he’s ever tried his hand at. Even the brush-clearing thing, which is supposed to be his specialty. Don’t you think that if he had any skills at clearing brush, all of the goddamned brush would be cleared after six years of extended brush-clearing vacations?
Why not just face it. The war has been an abortion, a tangled web of lies cooked up my lying liars for their own ulterior motives, and even though the Iraqis are the supposed “beneficiaries” of this game of three-card Monte, barely half of them think we should do anything other than get the fuck out right now.
31. MM: Do I detect a little remaining soreness over Bush’s election wins? Democracies and majorities can be such a pain that way.
It’s a wild idea, but do you think Iraqi support just might change as reflected by future polls if 40, 140 or 500 years pass without the action they expect? Call me when these show the Iraqis have run out of patience. Until then, the Iraqi majority continues to support Bush’s decision to remain.
And not one bit of empty rhetoric or wishful thinking or you telling the Iraqis how they should think can change that. Though you might try a Democratic government and subsequent all-out civil war.
RBG
#32 RBG… “Call me when these show the Iraqis have run out of patience. Until then, the Iraqi majority continues to support Bush’s decision to remain.”
You’re hanging your hat on the very slim 53% majority of Iraqis surveyed who had some answer other than “get out right now.” That 53% majority has shrunk from 65% just six months earlier, and is split up among several different answers, including “never leave.” It’s curious that “never leave” was even on the survey. In a moment of sheer intellectual honesty, you may even admit that a number of people in our Administration are almost certainly contemplating that last possibility, and probably have been from the very start of this war called “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
>>Until then, the Iraqi majority continues to support Bush’s
>>decision to remain.
RGB, you are such a die-hard neocon warmonger, that no amount of common sense is going to penetrate your noggin. If those poll results are the best evidence of how the Iraqis have welcomed us with open arms, we’re in pretty rough shape, cabrón.
You can try to spin the facts any way you like, but trying to position Little King Georgie’s trophy war in Iraq as any kind of “success” will only flag you as somebody to the right of Anal Cyst Limbaugh and Loofah Pad O’Reilly.
As to any remaining soreness over Dumbya’s election “wins”, thanks for your concern, but there isn’t any. I think Dumbya’s legacy speaks well enough for itself as to the wisdom of letting family friends on the Supreme Court and scumbags like the Swift Boat Veterans decide the outcome of an election. If we can just make it through the next 14 mintos without El Pinche Pendejo destroying America, we should be good to go. At least until another moronic neocon ventriloquist’s dummy is “elected” to the White House.
2008 …. BRING IT ON!
RBG & Gary Marks: I think you guys are placing way to much emphasis on this poll as a means to prove/disprove your stance on the conflict. Measurable statistics and local political progress should be looked at as indicators of the recent progress.
Mister Mustard, that poll is not the best evidence by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, why do you spent so much time ranting instead of debating the topic at hand? It is people like yourself that I love to debate in person because (1) their rhetoric makes them look idiotic and ignorant and/or (2) they tend get very angry and make fools of themselves.
>>Moreover, why do you spent so much time ranting instead
>>of debating the topic at hand?
Oh, I do debate the topic at hand. But over time, I have realized that die-hard neocons are harder to reason with using logic and facts than Jimmy Swaggart or Ted Haggard. They already drank the Kool-Aid.
To wit: RGB and yourself. There’s just nothing that could ever happen that would cause youse two to admit that Dumbya’s Trlphy War was a horrible mistake that cost America thousands of lives, hundreds of billions of dollars, and left Iraq arguably worse off than before the Mission was Accomplished. Certainly worse for the 300+ American soldiers, 6000+ Iraqi military, and 60,000+ Iraqi civilians who made the “ultimate sacrifice” for Dumbya’s dream of “nation-building” something that nobody wanted other than him.
We led that Iraqi horse to water – he don’t wanna drink. Time to cut the losses, admit the mistakes (now THAT would be a first for Dumbya), and move on. Maybe in 30 years, Iraq will become a minor vacation destination, like Vietnam.
Woops, typo. I meant to write “3000+ American soldiers”
33. Gary. Not just “some other answer” as you are attempting to spin – but *remain* in each and every case. You can split up “leave now” similarly into sub-options too if it makes you feel better.
No one is is interested in your “probably” spin. Probably the new Democrat government influence will continue to erode our existing good-will there. Probably the Democrats will cause a holocaust there. It’s just too easy and too irrelevant.
34 Mustard: You’d like to position this into an “open arms” or failure scenario, but as I’ve already pointed out, it doesn’t work that way with former enemies. Some tend not to like you. There are three factions with opposing goals in Iraq. By definition you can’t completely satisfy all three simultaneously. Similarly, the Yugoslav wars with its vulnerable minorities. 53% support is a determinative miracle.
The beauty of vilifying Bush – and I hope it continues by all parties – is that he gets to walk away taking all that negative baggage. The Democrats have now revealed themselves to be an impotent government force. But if they do take the presidency, I would like to go on record now, for later “told you so” purposes, when the Democrats remain in Iraq.
RBG
>>You’d like to position this into an “open arms” or failure scenario
Oh no I wouldn’t. I fully expect this to end up like Vietnam, with us leaving, tail between legs, fully 5 years after the Little King declared “Mission Accomplished.”.
Whatever the outcome, there’s just no denying that this whole trophy war was a monumental fuckup on the part of a low-self-esteem megalomaniac who hasn’t had a success in his whole silver-spoon life.
>>I would like to go on record now, for later “told you so” purposes
Time will tell. I’m more optimistic than you, but that sure is a fine kettle of fish that the Little King got us into, isn’t it?
In any case, I’m gratified to see that you have given up any illusion that a Repub can win the ’08 election. Dumbya may take a lot of that “negative baggage” back to his brush-clearing career in Crawford, but 8 years of that guy has so tainted the entire Republican party it will take them decades to recover. I’m entertained to see that he’s probably going to nominate another professional lap-dog to take over ‘berto’s job as AG. That guy just never learns, does he? I thought chimps were supposed to be intelligent.
39. Mustard. I am curious about one thing. Would you have supported American soldiers laying down their lives attempting to stop a Rwanda-like million-person genocide? And if so, would you leave if the opposition there was able to kill Americans at the same rate as Iraq with IEDs, etc.? Understand I’m not comparing the two situations -which are not comparable – I’m simply trying to gauge your support involving American personal sacrifice in a situation that has nothing to do with the direct well-being of the US.
RBG
#38 RBG… “Not just ‘some other answer’ as you are attempting to spin – but *remain* in each and every case. You can split up ‘leave now’ similarly into sub-options too if it makes you feel better.”
No, actually I can’t — you seem to be suggesting that I fabricate. The survey didn’t have any further breakdown of the 47% “leave now” responses, which were singularly unconditional. There were, however, five different flavors of the “remain” response, and the total for those five tallied up to 53%.
In making our points, your ability to “spin” seems to far outstrip my need to. In the end, I don’t consider this survey to be highly reliable, and my only reason for jumping in was to counterbalance your overreliance on that fragmented 53% “remain until…” majority, predicated almost entirely on progress toward improved conditions. My original characterization was accurate.
#38 RBG
Your faulty interpretation of poll is even worse than the poll’s obvious bias based on the options available. One leave, Five stay options.
Now you crow that the Iraqi’s want the US military to continue the occupation based on this ridiculous poll that doesn’t even support your claim numerically. The fact of the matter is more respondents want the invaders gone than any other option.
Try living in tangible reality for a change, you’ll find it refreshing.
How is this so obvious to you and I Gary?
How does this fact elude the chickenhawks?
What I want to know is, how much money does a pollster make for going door-to-door in Baghdad? That’s got to be a very risky occupation. Most Americans can’t even begin to fathom a society where you may be forced to move to another neighborhood under threat of violence, simply because you belong to the wrong religious sect.
>>Would you have supported American soldiers laying down their
>>lives attempting to stop a Rwanda-like million-person genocide?
Possibly. At least that would be a worthy cause (one that Dumbya has been deafeningly silent on).
Would I support such a thing under a dimwitted chickenhawk numbnuts like Little King Georgie? NFW.
The rate at which they kill Americans is not really the issue. The Nazis and the Nips were able to kill Americans at a much higher rate than the Iraqi insurgents and their IEDs will ever be able to.
The issue is whether there is a just cause to invade. In the case of Little King Georgie’s trophy war, the whole thing was smoke and mirrors, built on lies, perpetrated by lies, spin-doctored to death while President Cheney’s Halliburton stock options went up by over 3000%.
So while I’m anti-war for the most part, I recognize that sometimes it is an unavoidable evil. Unfortunately, Dumbya seems to EMBRACE evil, avoidable or not.
#36 – Actually, most neo-conservatives have been upset with the Administration up until the Baghdad Security Operation was initiated, and now support the endeavor because of the encouraging results. Remember that William Kristol blasted the Administration for failing to have enough troops during the initial invasion phase before making such claims was fashionable.
What do you want me to admit? That the war was heavily mismanaged for several years? That is absolutely correct. I will not say that the Iraq War was a mistake, because removing Saddam Hussein was long overdue. But back to the mismanagement, gains were certainly made, however the majority of those gains were lost after the bombing of the Golden Dome of Samarra and the subsequent violence that ensued. Frontline has an excellent documentary called “The Lost Year in Iraq” and effectively highlights the causes behind the degradation in the security situation.
Enter 2007. Currently, the large emphasis on the redefined counter-insurgency (COIN) strategy is showing tangible results and will continue to do so as long as the operation is supported. Unlike Uncle Dave’s “Shut Up and Surge” posting the “surge” has dramatically changed the way in which MNF-I carry out everyday tactical decisions and long-term strategic thinking. The result of the radical change in course was highlighted in the slides that General Petraeus showed during his testimony are very encouraging. I have very little doubt that the downward trend line in violence will continue allowing more troops to come home, and be replaced by competent IA forces. The real focus should be how should the U.S. encourage this downward trend and what can the U.S. do to help. Yet discussion in that policy arena is not done here, instead claims are made that the war was a mistake, which serves no useful purpose in policy making, the war is already lost, which it is certainly not, or that the situation is a quagmire even though in slide 14 General Petraeus laid out a clear path towards victory.
Now, sometimes posts like this are similar to trying to convince those who will not listen, consequently not worth much time. Over at longwarjournal.org under the Petraeus report story there is a good discussion on issues facing MNF-I through the next six months, other than the points I’ve made over there take whatever you want from this post.
42. nightstar. You do recocognize that more Iraqis indicated stay than leave, don’t you?
RBG
45. MM. “Would I support such a thing under a dimwitted chickenhawk numbnuts like Little King Georgie? NFW.”
So you should be very gratified with the US response to the Rwanda genocide.
RBG
#26 >>I wish.
>Who were the armed invaders/ occupiers that assisted us in creating the >AoC and the Constitution?
As you stated, and I placed in bold when I quoted it: “None”
That is the outside assistance I wished for Iraq: “None”
>>That is the outside assistance I wished for Iraq: “None”
Ah, OK. I guess you, I, most of the world, and the Iraqis are mostly in accord on that one. Now if only somebody could pass the message along to the Chimperor in Chief.
mxpwr03… “in slide 14 General Petraeus laid out a clear path towards victory.”
Drawdown of troop levels, with an accompanying mission shift, may look like a clear path towards victory when it’s on a PowerPoint slide, but Shiite and Sunni religious differences and age-old rivalries will inevitably remind us that any meaningful victory is completely outside the grasp of our military. But I agree that the slides were pretty 😉
>>slide 14 General Petraeus laid out a clear path towards victory.
wtf?? You must have seen a different set of slides than I did. The Slide 14 I looked at showed nothing more than a reduction in the number of troops, with a Y axis in mystery units, and no dates other than “TBD” after the “decision point” in 3/08. The X axis, although labeled “time”, does not provide any units of time for the “plan” to be carried out. Gee, mystery units on the Y axis, unspecified “time” units on the X axis…I think his PowerPoint guy needs a little training in the presentation of data.
And notice that even at the end of his “path towards victory”, there are still six or seven mystery units (whatever the Y axis is) left, apparently forever.
This looks like a watered-down version of the plan that just about the whole country wants: “get the fuck out, ASAP”; he’s just proposing that we do it more slowly.
Other than that, the “plan” seems to be doing the same old thing we’ve been doing for four years (that has not worked); and hoping for a different outcome.
Yep. That’s a “clear path towards victory” alright. Jeez.
If you would have watched the hearings, or read his opening remarks, you would know that the value on the y axis is the number of combat brigade units. Time on the x axis is unspecified because the General lacks a crystal ball.
“He’s just proposing that we do it more slowly.” Exactly! Congratulation’s, the best way to conduct the remaining part of a COIN operation is a phased withdrawal of first combat units, support units, than oversight units. The reason that there are remaining combat, which over time will resemble support/oversight brigades, for a longer period of time is due to the fact that their will be a U.S. military presence in the country for at least another 10 years.
>>If you would have watched the hearings, or read his opening
>>remarks, you would know that the value on the y axis
Gosh, mxpwr03. Sooo sorry. Where I went to school, we learned that a graphical presentation of data should be interpretable on its own, not with an introductory monologue to explain things that should have been included in the graphic.
As to his “path to victory”, you’re going to have to explain that to me slowly. All I see is a continuation of the same old failed four year path to nowhere.
>>Time on the x axis is unspecified because the General
>>lacks a crystal ball.
Gosh, you’d think that maybe after four years he would be able to extrapolate a little bit. Maybe he’s hoping that Santa is going to bring him a victory some time for Ramadan. Sure doesn’t look like he’s going to get one doing the same old four-year twostep.
#47 RBG
Refer to comments #41 and #42 then look at the poll again.
55. nightstar. Ok. “There were, however, five different flavors of the “remain” response, and the total for those five tallied up to 53%.”
Agreed. The remain options total 53%. What do you think the remain options total? Remain is opposite of leave.
RBG
>>Agreed. The remain options total 53%. What do you think
>>the remain options total? Remain is opposite of leave.
I guess I have to spell it out to you in Red, Blue, and Green, don’t I??
The poll was FLAWED, in that it was biased in favor of “stay, under some fairy tale delusion that may never happen, but you’d like to see it” vs. “shit or get off the pot, and leave right now”.
Sure, if the Iraqis could cut short their vacations and get a government in order by tomorrow, I’d pick the “stay” option too. Until tomorrow. Same with “security forces operate on their own”. The reality is, respondents are unwilling to say “leave now”, when “stay” could mean only until tomorrow, even if it REALLY means for the next 500 years.
Give the bias of the poll in favor of “stay”, it’s actually quite impressive that almost half of the respondents selected “get the fuck out now”.
And how about that 60% that feels al Qaeda attacks on US forces are justified? Do you suppose that some of the ones who want the US to stay, only want us to stay so they can KILL US??
Nice.
Mission accomplished, Dumbya.
57. Sure, the Iraqis believe “remain” is just until the next day. And “leave” must then mean at the exact moment of the poll and no later. Try to do better than that so we can take you at least a bit seriously.
While you’re at it, spell out that you really meant to say that 51% of the Iraqi people found al Qaeda’s attacks on US and coalition forces were unacceptable as per Q28. And Q27 US blame for the country’s violence fell by 39% and now below al Qaeda which has risen. Keep the drive alive.
Waitaminit. You say al Qaeda is operating out of Iraq? Like they were in Afghanistan? Didn’t they attack the US? Let’s get those guys.
It appears the poll is only flawed when it doesn’t support your wishful thinking.
RBG
>.Waitaminit. You say al Qaeda is operating out of Iraq?
It would appear to be doing that now, thanks to Little King Georgie’s invasion of that country. Before that, nope. Just one of the many malignant side effects of Dumbya’s botched “presidency” that the next POTUS is going to have to clean up.
>>Sure, the Iraqis believe “remain” is just until the next day. And
>>“leave” must then mean at the exact moment of the poll and
>>no later.
That’s the way the questions are framed. If you don’t like it, take it up with the pollsters.
>>Keep the drive alive.
Can I get some of whatever it is you’re smoking? You neocons always seem to have the best pot. Even though you support the death penalty for those who get caught using it.
al Qaeda: divide & conquer.
“That’s the way the questions are framed.”
It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. -JayUtah
RBG