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Soldiers are saying - "Get us Outta Here!"

 
 
oralloy
 
  1  
Reply Fri 3 Mar, 2006 09:36 pm
Setanta wrote:
I have yet to see any supporter of the Shrub and his Forty Theives of Baghdad flatly deny that proposition. Instead, they have picked at the scab--they'ver suggested (Brandon) that the troops don't know why they are in Iraq (he cracks me up, he has totally surrendered to his own fantasy); they've suggested the poll is flawed (Oralloy) without denying the basick proposition that the troops do not support the mission; finally, they've suggested (the Big Bird) that this is just typical military carping.

Not a single supporter of this war has offered a substatial contention that the proposition is not true.



As far as I know, it may well be true.

I just know that napalm isn't banned, and that the extreme radical fringe of the anti-war movement likes to pretend that it is banned.

So when I see a poll that says "Four in five said they oppose the use of such internationally banned weapons as napalm and white phosphorous," it raises a red flag.



Quoted text from this Zogby page:

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1075
0 Replies
 
kickycan
 
  1  
Reply Fri 3 Mar, 2006 10:32 pm
Oralloy,

Have you seen ANY polls recently that have come up with ANY results AT ALL that were significantly different than the results of this one?

I mean, you'd think that if this poll was so skewed, there'd be something else out there that would offer some different data for us to chew on.

Hmmm...
0 Replies
 
Brandon9000
 
  1  
Reply Fri 3 Mar, 2006 10:34 pm
snood wrote:
Brandon9000 wrote:
Setanta wrote:
McGentrix wrote:
How much of that has been in combat Snood?


Typical snide hatefulness--how much combat time did you log, wise guy?

The criterion for whether one's opinion is correct of course.


...But don't let little things like facts interrupt your kneejerk defensiveness.

Mere name calling - the lowest form of debate.
0 Replies
 
timberlandko
 
  1  
Reply Fri 3 Mar, 2006 10:59 pm
I dunno anybody who prefers being in a warzone to being damned near anywhere else. I dunno many folks who would prefer to be thousands of miles from home, family, and freinds for months on end. However, while I do know, and am in regular contact with, quite a few folks currently or recently on-the-ground in Iraq, I don't know any who endorse anything other than getting the job done - seeing it through to the point Iraq's indigenous forces and resources are able to maintain domestic security and present effective deterence to outside threat.

I'll note too a common thread to their commentary is dismay and outrage at the media portrayal of the situation in Iraq.
0 Replies
 
oralloy
 
  1  
Reply Fri 3 Mar, 2006 11:29 pm
kickycan wrote:
Oralloy,

Have you seen ANY polls recently that have come up with ANY results AT ALL that were significantly different than the results of this one?

I mean, you'd think that if this poll was so skewed, there'd be something else out there that would offer some different data for us to chew on.

Hmmm...



Well, I really haven't been paying any attention to any polls at all.

I hadn't been paying any attention to this poll either, until it came up when I did a search on another site for potential misinformation about napalm.


However, I watch MacNeil/Lehrer on PBS, and I've heard the issue mentioned now and then when they do their weekly political wrap, and I've heard it mentioned that "the polls" show that most soldiers over there are still into finishing the job.

I consider PBS reliable enough that I never really verified any of the polls they were citing.

I might be able to go search the transcripts and figure it out though.

I think the last time I heard it mentioned they said there was a sizable minority opposed to the war, despite the majority that supported it.



---------------

(BTW, I know MacNeil is gone from the show. It just doesn't feel right calling it "The Newshour".)
0 Replies
 
oralloy
 
  1  
Reply Fri 3 Mar, 2006 11:52 pm
oralloy wrote:
I think the last time I heard it mentioned they said there was a sizable minority opposed to the war, despite the majority that supported it.


Here is the transcript of that one:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/political_wrap/july-dec05/sb_12-02.html

Looks like it was a Pew poll. I'll go see if I can find that before I scan anymore PBS transcripts.

Quote:
DAVID BROOKS: No, I really don't think we are. I think Steny Hoyer is not alone. I mean, the division within the number one and two people in the House is pretty dramatic and if you go to the Senate, there are a lot of Senate Democrats, they don't like -- believe me, Joe Biden and Barack Obama frustrated with the way the war is being fought - but that doesn't mean they're where Murtha is, and I think a large percentage of people - John Kerry was just there also, so I don't think that's where the division -- the divisions are different.

There's a division, there's a Pew poll that illustrated this, there's a big division been opinion leaders and the country, there's a huge division -- Michael O'Hanlon and the Brookings Institution had a good piece -- saying a huge division in the military where people really think we can succeed over the long term, the people on the ground who are reenlisting in high rates, they tend to think we can win this thing.

And there's a huge division between those people and between the media and the academics who tend to not think we can win. And O'Halloran's point was, if we get out, there is going to be furious anger on the part of the people who are fighting this war, who think the rug was pulled out from under them.

JIM LEHRER: But as Jack Murtha said in all kinds of interviews on this program and elsewhere -

MARK SHIELDS: That's right.

JIM LEHRER: -- he was hearing just the opposition of what you just said --

DAVID BROOKS: -- This is from polling data, and this is reenlistment rates which are-

MARK SHIELDS: I'll dissent on this point: The White House was furious at the Murtha thing. They were furious at the Murtha thing, not because of Murtha - I mean, they had no particular relationship with Jack Murtha. They knew Jack Murtha was a major player and respected on both sides of the aisle.

They were furious because they conducted, and accurately so, that officers had spoken to him. There's no question, I don't think, Jim, that the brass in this administration has been cowed. I mean, it's as bad as it was in Vietnam. After Vietnam it became an ethical course taught to officers that if you dissented, you had a responsibility to speak up because so few had.

And I don't think there's any question that these -- that Jack Murtha reflected because of his long relationship with the military, these people -- they can come to confession to him, and enough had come to confession-

DAVID BROOKS: But the Pew poll showed 65 percent of military officers think we can win. So that leaves 35 percent, that's a significant minority.

And you go to the people on the ground in Iraq and you get these high reenlistment rates because they believe -- and the Marines that I've spoken to, they think over the long term -- and they emphasize long term -

JIM LEHRER: Long term.

DAVID BROOKS: -- that we can win.

MARK SHIELDS: The Marines I've spoken to don't share that, and I can say from personal experience that Murtha told me that he spoke to the commanders. He's -- he has some considerable disdain for the American generals in Iraq who live in the palaces that Saddam Hussein occupied.

And he just finds that totally offensive, and a terribly unhelpful symbol to send to the people. But that aside, I don't think there's any question that the support and the enthusiasm for this war is waning. I think David is right. The president is committed to it. This is a president, understand, who said, "I believe God wants me to be president right now." I mean, that's a quote, quoted by Richard Lamb, the Southern Baptist, the president told him.

I think there's a sense of mission that he has, and I don't think he's making political calculations. What the Republicans have framed the debate -- is anybody who wants to get out six hours before George Bush does is a cut-and-run person. If you wait -

JIM LEHRER: Is that true? Is that fair?

DAVID BROOKS: I don't think that. It's a -- listen, we lost ten men. It's a rational position - I mean, it's a close call, like most political calls about whether to get out. I happen to think if you look at the consequence of getting out, it would be much worse, but to say you're a cut-and run if you want to cut this bloodshed, no, I don't necessarily think that. It's a serious position.
0 Replies
 
oralloy
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Mar, 2006 12:37 am
oralloy wrote:
Looks like it was a Pew poll. I'll go see if I can find that before I scan anymore PBS transcripts.


Couldn't find the Pew poll.

But I dug up another PBS excerpt regarding troop morale:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/political_wrap/july-dec05/sb_8-26.html

Quote:
JIM LEHRER: Sure. And, of course, General Myers spoke about that very issue. We had in the News Summary a while ago, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs said he just got back from Iraq and the troops are beginning to say, well, we're doing okay over here, what's happened back home? Where is our support going? What's he talking about?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, the Vietnam analogy --

JIM LEHRER: Is he talking about Hagel?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, he's talking about what we all see in the polls, which is a drop in public support and what you are getting from troops, and I think we've heard it, I've heard it; they think they're winning, how come they're not with us back home, are they going to pull the rug out?
0 Replies
 
Instigate
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Mar, 2006 02:44 am
Setanta wrote:
the basick proposition that the troops do not support the mission;


That 29% of the troops think that we should leave immediatley hardly supports your supposition above.

If 29% think we should leave immediatley, then we can surmise that the other 71% think we should stay, be it a month, 6 months, a year, or more.

This poll cannot support your thesis, because it does not address it.
0 Replies
 
DontTreadOnMe
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Mar, 2006 02:47 am
timberlandko wrote:
....quite a few folks currently or recently on-the-ground in Iraq, I don't know any who endorse anything other than getting the job done....

I'll note too a common thread to their commentary is dismay and outrage at the media portrayal of the situation in Iraq.



okay. most of the people i talk with agree; it would be a bad thing to just walk away right this moment. the feeling is that, at best, whatever shreds of national credibility we have left would be vaporized.

the question is, just how long are we going to hang around waiting for those yahoos to get their **** together?

next question?

as i've mentioned before, the bush administration commands the most advanced communications abilities in the history of the white house. and that's not including the official republican news organ, fox news.

if there's so much good news going on in iraq, where's the proof?

talk is cheap. where's the tapes
---

btw, timber. the cougar cheese was excellent this christmas. i woulda saved ya some, but, err...uhh.. well.. it was realllllly tasty.

sorry dude...
0 Replies
 
Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Mar, 2006 06:34 am
timberlandko wrote:
I'll note too a common thread to their commentary is dismay and outrage at the media portrayal of the situation in Iraq.


Absent further evidence to support your contention, this is mere conjecture, or the repetition of anecdote, but mascarades as a global statement.
0 Replies
 
Roxxxanne
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Mar, 2006 07:30 am
If I were a soldier in Iraq and had a conversation with a friend who I knew to be an extreme hawk and I had an opposing view, I would not get involved with him in a conversation about what is really going on in Iraq or I would simply tell him what he wants to hear.

It's like when I talk to my conservative sister, once in awhile I will make a joke about Bush but we steer clear of getting into a political conversation.

OTOH most of the people I associate with share my political views, so if I were to say 90% of the people I speak to oppose Bush, it does not have any validity whatsover vis-a-vis the overall population.
0 Replies
 
anton
 
  1  
Reply Sun 5 Mar, 2006 08:13 pm
If those US citizens who agree with and support the Occupation of Iraq were to shake off the shroud of Ramboism and stop believing in their own fiction they would see that their leaders have them in a no win situation; they can't possibly win this futile, phoney war on terrorism because they are part of the terrorism.

Bring the troops home now; they should never have gone there in the first place … This debacle has already taken the lives of over two thousand young men and women and crippled thousands more … to date it has cost the American taxpayer in excess of three hundred billion dollars; that and the amount needed to support this futility would go a long way towards giving the US a darn good National Health Service …what the hell is your nation going to achieve by throwing more taxpayers money at Iraq and laying the lives of your young people on the line … for Gods sake! wake up to yourselves... Bush is destroying reputation of your great country

An Australian opinion.
0 Replies
 
oralloy
 
  1  
Reply Sun 5 Mar, 2006 10:35 pm
anton wrote:
If those US citizens who agree with and support the Occupation of Iraq were to shake off the shroud of Ramboism and stop believing in their own fiction they would see that their leaders have them in a no win situation; they can't possibly win this futile, phoney war on terrorism because they are part of the terrorism.


I challenge you to show one instance of terrorism that we've committed (or attempted to commit) in this war.

Note that all definitions of terrorism require the deliberate targeting of innocent non-combatants. Many definitions of terrorism require that the attack be carried off by covert agents.
0 Replies
 
Amigo
 
  1  
Reply Sun 5 Mar, 2006 10:41 pm
Death Squads in El Salvador:
A Pattern of U.S. Complicity
by David Kirsch
Covert Action Quarterly, Summer 1990



In 1963, the U.S. government sent 10 Special Forces personnel to El Salvador to help General Jose Alberto Medrano set up the Organizacion Democratica Nacionalista (ORDEN)-the first paramilitary death squad in that country. These Green Berets assisted in the organization and indoctrination of rural "civic" squads which gathered intelligence and carried out political assassinations in coordination with the Salvadoran military.
Now, there is compelling evidence to show that for over 30 years, members of the U.S. military and the CIA have helped organize, train, and fund death squad activity in El Salvador.
In the last eight years, six Salvadoran military deserters have publicly acknowledged their participation in the death squads. Their stories are notable because they not only confirm suspicions that the death squads are made up of members of the Salvadoran military, but also because each one implicates U.S. personnel in death squad activity.
The term "death squad" while appropriately vivid, can be misleading because it obscures their fundamental identity. Evidence shows that "death squads" are primarily military or paramilitary units carrying out political assassinations and intimidation as part of the Salvadoran government's counterinsurgency strategy. Civilian death squads do exist but have often been comprised of off-duty soldiers financed by wealthy Salvadoran businessmen.
It is important to point out that the use of death squads has been a strategy of U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine. For example, the CIA's "Phoenix Program" was responsible for the "neutralization" of over 40,000 Vietnamese suspected of working with the National Liberation Front.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/deathsquads_ElSal.html
0 Replies
 
oralloy
 
  1  
Reply Sun 5 Mar, 2006 10:56 pm
Amigo wrote:
In 1963, the U.S. government sent 10 Special Forces personnel to El Salvador to help General Jose Alberto Medrano set up the Organizacion Democratica Nacionalista (ORDEN)-the first paramilitary death squad in that country. These Green Berets assisted in the organization and indoctrination of rural "civic" squads which gathered intelligence and carried out political assassinations in coordination with the Salvadoran military.


I'm sure that we've trained many guerrillas to fight communism, who then became terrorists when done with our training.

And I'm sure we chose to ally with many terrorists in the fight against Communism.

But I don't think that is the same as committing acts of terrorism ourselves.



Amigo wrote:
the CIA's "Phoenix Program" was responsible for the "neutralization" of over 40,000 Vietnamese suspected of working with the National Liberation Front.


Targeting people working for the Viet Cong is not the same as targeting civilians.
0 Replies
 
Amigo
 
  1  
Reply Sun 5 Mar, 2006 11:07 pm
Backyard terrorism

The US has been training terrorists at a camp in Georgia for years - and it's still at it

George Monbiot
Tuesday October 30, 2001
The Guardian


"If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocents," George Bush announced on the day he began bombing Afghanistan, "they have become outlaws and murderers themselves. And they will take that lonely path at their own peril." I'm glad he said "any government", as there's one which, though it has yet to be identified as a sponsor of terrorism, requires his urgent attention.
For the past 55 years it has been running a terrorist training camp, whose victims massively outnumber the people killed by the attack on New York, the embassy bombings and the other atrocities laid, rightly or wrongly, at al-Qaida's door. The camp is called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or Whisc. It is based in Fort Benning, Georgia, and it is funded by Mr Bush's government.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,583254,00.html
0 Replies
 
Amigo
 
  1  
Reply Sun 5 Mar, 2006 11:09 pm
0 Replies
 
Amigo
 
  1  
Reply Sun 5 Mar, 2006 11:10 pm
That the CIA is a terrorist organization is clear from its record of terrorist activities (sometimes called "counterinsurgency" or "low intensity conflict"). Here are just a few examples:


During the Vietnam war the CIA conducted Operation Phoenix, an assassination program. The goal was not only to eliminate those Vietnamese who might oppose the U.S. (which in practice meant most of the population of Vietnam) but also to terrorize the entire population of South Vietnam and to suppress opposition to the occupying U.S. forces. Over 20,000 Vietnamese were murdered, often at random.
The CIA also recruited a mercenary army in Vietnam (financed by profits from the CIA's heroin smuggling), particularly from among the Hmong villagers, which was used to terrorize the civilian population and to prevent them from assisting the Viet Cong.
The CIA organized and financed (with the profits from its cocaine smuggling) the activities of the Contras in Nicaragua, who murdered tens of thousands of civilians, and tried to disrupt the economy, in an attempt to destabilize the legitimate Sandinista government. (For this the U.S. was condemned in the World Court for engaging in international terrorism, and it rejected a U.N. security council resolution calling upon it to observe international law.)
The CIA planned and organized the military coup d'etat in 1973 in Chile which overthrew the legitimately elected government of Salvador Allende (because he would not implement economic policies designed in Washington to favor American corporations doing business in Chile) and brought to power the regime of General Augusto Pinochet; this regime abducted, tortured and killed thousands of Chilean citizens in an attempt to suppress opposition.
The CIA organized and supported the Turkish government's persecution of its Kurdish minority during the 1990s, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and millions of refuges; the aim being the suppression of Kurdish culture and the elimination of Kurdish demands for a separate state.
The September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are widely regarded as terrorist acts. There is evidence of CIA involvement. See Michael Ruppert's Suppressed Details of Criminal Insider Trading Lead Directly into the CIA's Highest Ranks.
Further examples could very easily be given (and may be found documented in the many books, magazine articles and web pages about the CIA). Much relevant information will be found in Ralph McGehee's CIA Support of Death Squads, which gives details about the CIA's terrorist activities in over forty countries.

http://www.serendipity.li/cia/cia_terr.html
0 Replies
 
McTag
 
  1  
Reply Sun 5 Mar, 2006 11:49 pm
Well, that seems to have answered the question.
0 Replies
 
oralloy
 
  1  
Reply Mon 6 Mar, 2006 01:32 am
Amigo wrote:
Backyard terrorism

The US has been training terrorists at a camp in Georgia for years - and it's still at it

George Monbiot
Tuesday October 30, 2001
The Guardian


I'm sure that we've trained many guerrillas to fight communism, who then became terrorists when done with our training.

But I don't think that is the same as committing acts of terrorism ourselves.
0 Replies
 
 

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