55% of Americans want US troops out of Iraq?

[Guest BlackJesus]

[url="http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB112673973569141130-i8vIifUvvF_617nK04sRoVPzR1M_20060915,00.html?mod=blogs"]http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB....html?mod=blogs[/url]

[quote][u]Katrina Erodes Support In U.S. for Iraq War
By JOHN HARWOOD
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 15, 2005[/u]

WASHINGTON -- Hurricane Katrina has accelerated the erosion in public support for the Iraq war as President Bush's core of supporters dwindles and economic pessimism turns Americans' attention inward.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll shows that cutting spending on Iraq is Americans' top choice for financing the recovery from Katrina. Shaken by high gas prices and bracing for further jolts, Americans have turned negative about Mr. Bush across the board -- on handling the economy, foreign policy, and even the war on terrorism.

The president's overall approval has fallen to a record-low for Mr. Bush of 40%, reflecting a shrunken core of base supporters. That promises to have repercussions for his domestic agenda on issues like Social Security, taxes and immigration, and leaves Mr. Bush with a steeper challenge on his most significant second-term priority: using American power and resources to transform Iraq and the broader Middle East.

A plurality of Americans has favored reducing troop levels in Iraq for most of the year. Now, 55% favor bringing soldiers home, while just 36% back Mr. Bush's position that current levels should be maintained to help secure peace and stability.

"His standing to prosecute that case has been made more difficult," says Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who helps conduct the Journal/NBC Poll. Adds Democratic counterpart Peter Hart: It's "going to be very hard to just move straight forward" on Iraq.

To be sure, the survey contains some bright spots for Mr. Bush. Federal appeals court Judge John Roberts, his nominee to succeed the late William Rehnquist as chief justice of the Supreme Court, has drawn respectable support and little intense opposition. Some 38% say they support Judge Roberts for that post, while just 20% oppose him and 41% don't know enough to say.

Nearly half of U.S. adults say President Bush has done a poor job in handling the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, according to a recent Harris poll. And almost half expect the hurricane will have a great impact on the U.S. economy.
 
And while Senate Democrats press Judge Roberts in Judiciary Committee hearings to state his views on key issues, 57% of Americans say the nominee shouldn't be required to spell them out since those issues may come before the court. Democrats enjoy firmer support in public opinion for their demand for more documents about Judge Roberts's previous government service; 41% say the White House should make additional documents public, outpacing the 31% who say Democrats already have enough information.

Yet the poll's findings about Americans' priorities show the work facing Mr. Bush, who is scheduled to deliver a nationally televised address tonight on the recovery from Katrina. Some 60% say rebuilding the Gulf Coast should be a higher national priority than establishing democracy in Iraq; 5% say Iraq, while 34% say the two are equally important.

The White House says the administration can handle both at once, but [b]by 51%-37% Americans say the Iraq war wasn't worth its human and financial costs.[/b]

The proportion of Republicans disapproving of Mr. Bush's job performance has doubled to 15% from 7% in January, with pronounced defections among moderates within Mr. Bush's party.

Katrina has contributed to that decline in support. By a 58%-38% margin, Americans say they are dissatisfied with the Bush administration's response to the catastrophe. Reflecting the absence of the traditional rally behind the commander in chief during national emergencies, just 48% approve of the president's handling of the matter; 80% approved of how he handled the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, while 64% backed the actions of his father, President George H.W. Bush, following Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The survey of 1,013 adults, conducted Sept. 9-12, has a margin for error of 3.1 percentage points.

In particular, Katrina appears to have shaken public regard on two attributes that sustained Mr. Bush through earlier political challenges. The public now splits evenly, 41%-41%, on assessments of Mr. Bush's ability to handle a crisis; at the outset of his second term in January, he received positive marks for crisis-management ability by a 56%-28% margin. A bare 43%-40% plurality rates him positively for having "strong leadership qualities," down from 52%-30% in January.

The crisis along the Gulf Coast may have also damaged the long-term effort by Mr. Bush's strategists to expand Republican support among members of minority groups. Fully 70% of African-Americans say the Bush administration would have reacted to Katrina with greater urgency had the affected areas been mostly white suburbs rather than mostly black inner-city neighborhoods. Nearly seven in 10 whites reject that assertion.

Hispanics are divided evenly on the question. But the president's overall rating among Hispanics, who were split on his job performance in January, is now negative by a two-to-one margin.

Mr. Bush's signature domestic priority, overhauling the Social Security system with private investment accounts, was already in political trouble before the hurricane. Assessments of the administration's handling of Social Security -- 28% say they are satisfied while 60% aren't -- are more negative than assessments of how it handled the response to Katrina.

Beyond Social Security, the domestic political landscape has been buffeted in a way that complicates challenges facing the White House and Republicans in the 2006 midterm elections. Following the gas-price spikes immediately after the hurricane, six in 10 Americans now expect pump prices to continue rising.

In fact, the public now ranks gas prices as the country's top economic issue. Just 6% assign top importance to federal taxes, the issue that Mr. Bush and Republicans planned to elevate next year through a yet-unspecified overhaul of the tax system.

Of particular concern to lawmakers facing voters next year, Americans have turned pessimistic on the outlook for the economy. Some 49% expect the economy to get worse over the next 12 months, triple the 16% who expect it to improve. In January, those numbers were essentially reversed.

At the same time, Katrina may have left the public feeling slightly more nervous about security at home. Fully 75% of Americans now say the U.S. isn't adequately prepared for a nuclear, biological or chemical attack, up from 66% who expressed that concern in 2002.

The net effect may be increased pressure on members of the Republican majority to strike an independent course on a range of issues, resisting appeals for party discipline that have been effective for most of Mr. Bush's presidency. Those pressures will be greatest in the Northeast and Midwest, where Mr. Bush's approval rating stands at 32% and 36%, respectively.

"All these [results] suggest unstable days ahead in the Republican caucus," says Mr. McInturff, whose firm advises many Republican lawmakers.[/quote]

[Guest steggyD]

Maybe, but a vote would be needed. Can't go by polls, they are useless. Noone asked me, and I'm a land-owning white American with no felonies.

[Guest ONYX]

I'll vote. Even though my vote only counts as 3/5 of a vote. And it doesnt count at all in the state of Florida.

[Guest BlackJesus]

[quote]And it doesnt count at all in the state of Florida[/quote]


[img]http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38247000/jpg/_38247545_chad_ap.jpg[/img]
[i]"Is that Popeye chicken grease on that card, discard that shit"[/i]

[Guest bengaljet]

Majority will rule someday in the near future.
looks like to me that some of the "sheep" have left the flock. Watch out flock-you're definitely becoming smaller.
And I predict some of the newly "departed" sheep may tell you hanger ons-"if you don't like the new ideas,pack your shit and move to Iraq and fight the war "yourself".
I love it when a plan comes together.

[Guest Claptonrocks]

It not up to the populace in deciding the ongoings in Iraq...
Its up to George Bush Sr. and the rest of his Skull and Bones cronies.
George Jr. ( another Skull and Bones disciple ) does what his father tells him.
George Sr. and Co. have been running America for many years...

[Guest BlackJesus]

[quote][u]Chicago council urges withdrawal from Iraq
September 15, 2005
CNN[/u]


CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Chicago on Wednesday became the nation's largest city to urge the Bush administration to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq at once.

The resolution, approved 29-9, seeks an "immediate and orderly" withdrawal. The City Council has 50 aldermen.

Chicago joins other cities -- including San Francisco, Santa Cruz, California, 50 communities in Vermont and the Chicago suburb of Evanston -- in calling for the withdrawal of troops.

The vote followed an hour of emotional debate, including an impassioned speech by Alderman Burton Natarus, who fainted afterward.

"It's time to call a halt to the bloodshed," he said. "It's time to load up the ships, load up the planes and welcome home the troops to a ticker-tape parade in New York and a ticker-tape parade in Chicago."

Natarus, 71, was in good condition at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and would be kept overnight for observation, a hospital spokeswoman said.

During the debate, Alderman Bernard Stone said he had backed the invasion of Iraq but changed his mind as the death toll of U.S. troops climbed.

"Do you think we can make the citizens of Iraq accept democracy by having our troops killed in the roads?" he said. "We're not supporting our troops by having them killed."

Alderman James Balcer voted against the resolution, saying he was demoralized by anti-war sentiment while serving as a Marine in Vietnam.

"I know everyone in this council wants our troops home, but I can tell you this (resolution) does not help our troops nor does it help the war on terror," said Balcer, who followed his "no" vote during the roll call with "Semper Fi," the Marine Corps motto.[/quote]

[Guest oldschooler]

Obvioulsy these dumbasses aren`t thinking past today.
How in the hell would it HELP us to leave the Iraqi people
hanging now ?

You don`t think it would turn into a Civil war ?
You don`t think that war would be blasted all over
Arab TV`s and blaming the U.S. for it all ?


My God...you don`t half ass a job...ecspecially one that
is so important.


Here check this out...

[quote]The 1,000-page report by chief weapons searcher Charles Duelfer, a document that President Bush said would represent the last word on the issue, confirms earlier findings and undermines much of the Bush administration's case about the Iraq weapons threat, [b]though it does say Saddam intended to restart his weapons programs once United Nations sanctions were lifted.[/b]


The report's conclusions about Iraq's weapons plans came from interviews with jailed Iraqi officials, including Saddam, who is in U.S. military custody while awaiting an Iraqi war crimes trial. [b]Duelfer quoted Saddam as telling an FBI interrogator "that nuclear weapons were the right of any country that could build them."[/b]


The report, which drew on CIA and FBI interrogation reports on Saddam, says[b] he was obsessed with his status in the Arab world, dreaming of weapons of mass destruction to pump up his prestige.[/b] And even as the United States fixated on him, he was fixated on his neighboring enemy, Iran.

The report suggests that Saddam tried to improve relations with the United States in the 1990s, [b]yet basked in his standing as the only leader to stand up to the world's superpower.[/b]

Bush's spokesman said the report justified the decision to go to war. Campaigning in Pennsylvania, Bush defended the decision to invade.

"[b]There was a risk, a real risk, that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks[/b]," the president said in a speech in Wilkes Barre, Pa. [b]"In the world after Sept. 11, that was a risk we could not afford to take."[/b][/quote]

All of that was from the report that said Iraq had no WMD`s.
Here is the link..

[url="http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=USATODAY.com+-+Saddam+destroyed+weapons+in+1991%2C+report+says&expire=&urlID=11862184&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Firaq%2F2004-10-06-wmd_x.htm&partnerID=1660"]http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com...&partnerID=1660[/url]


Anyway the box that Saddam Hussein had been in was collapsing.
Saddam's neighbors, as well as France and Russia, were actively subverting
the sanctions against Iraq. And yet, while the regime was building palaces,
the restrictions on Iraqi trade had a terrible side effect. UNICEF estimated
that the containment of Iraq was killing about 36,000 Iraqis a year, 24,000
of them children under the age of 5. In other words...a year of sanctions
was killing far more Iraqis than 3 years of the war have. This
humanitarian catastrophe was being broadcast nightly across the
Arab world. Policy on Iraq was broken. We had to move one way or the other.
Either we could lift sanctions and welcome Saddam back into the community
of nations, or we could rid Iraq and the world of one of the most evil
dictatorships of modern times.


Given leaky sanctions...at some point the world would have had to
deal with Saddam, nuclear-armed and dangerous.
Why not when he was weak?"


Iraq was a threat... but more important, it was an opportunity.
Done right... an invasion would be the single best path to reform the
Arab world. The roots of Islamic terror reside in the dysfunctional
politics of the region, where failure and repression have produced
fundamentalism and violence. Were Saddam's totalitarian regime to
be replaced by a state that respected human rights, enforced the rule
of law and created a market economy, it could begin to transform that
Arab world.
[b]I still believe that. [/b]

And remember...I thought it was a mistake to leave Saddam in power
after the First Gulf War to begin with...

[Guest steggyD]

[quote name='bengaljet' date='Sep 16 2005, 03:22 AM']Majority will rule someday in the near future.
looks like to me that some of the "sheep" have left the flock. Watch out flock-you're definitely becoming smaller.
And I predict some of the newly "departed" sheep may tell you hanger ons-"if you don't like the new ideas,pack your shit and move to Iraq and fight the war "yourself".
I love it when a plan comes together.
[right][post="149813"][/post][/right][/quote]
But wouldn't it be sheepish now to go with the majority?

Whether or not you believe in the war in the first place, leaving before rebuilding is not the American way. Sorry, but it's true. We need to stay and finish now. Even Kerry said that staying there is necessary.

[Guest Gonzoid]

[quote name='oldschooler' date='Sep 16 2005, 09:08 AM']Obvioulsy these dumbasses aren`t thinking past today.
How in the hell would it HELP us to leave the Iraqi people
hanging now ?
[right][post="149889"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]
After what we've done for them so far, I doubt they could tell the difference. However...

[quote name='oldschooler' date='Sep 16 2005, 09:08 AM']You don`t think it would turn into a Civil war ?
You don`t think that war would be blasted all over
Arab TV`s and  blaming the U.S. for it all ?[right][post="149889"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]
...I agree. Cutting and running is not the best option. The better option would have been not to go into Iraq at all. However, thanks to the madness of King George, we can't change it.

Pulling out of Iraq now is a big, big, big mistake.

[quote name='oldschooler' date='Sep 16 2005, 09:08 AM']My God...you don`t half ass a job...ecspecially one that
is so important.
[right][post="149889"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]
Especially when the DoD has only been doing a quarter-assed job already.

[Guest BlackJesus]

[quote]You don`t think it would turn into a Civil war ?[/quote]

[i][b]No I do think it will regardless, and that is why we need to hurry up and get out of the way and let them naturally decide the balance of power like we did as a country through civil war. Iraq was made up by WInston Churchill on a map, there is no Iraq, it was 3 seperate states held together by a brutal dictator through torture. and sadly we are finding out that in order to hold it together you need to be brutal and torture as well.[/b][/i]

[Guest BlackJesus]

[color="blue"][b]On the “deadliest day of violence in Baghdad since the U.S. invasion more than two years ago,” Bill O’Reilly sat down 2 days ago with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to examine the real issues in Iraq: [/b][/color]

[color="red"]Conclusion - IT IS NO DIFFERENT THAN WHEN SADDAM WAS THERE [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/24.gif[/img] [/color]

[img]http://thinkprogress.org/wp-images/upload/thumb-CondiFox.jpg[/img]


[b]O’Reilly:[/b] [i]The truth of the matter is our correspondents at Fox News can’t go out for a cup of coffee in Baghdad. [/i]

[b]Rice:[/b] [i]Bill, that’s tough. It’s tough. But what — would they have wanted to have gone out for a cup of coffee when Saddam Hussein was in power?[/i]

[Guest bengalrick]

[i][b]55% of Americans want US troops out of Iraq?, Should the majority rule the day??[/b][/i] - bj

[i]"The proportion of the [American] population that can be classified as Christian has declined from 86% in 1990 to 77% in 2001." ARIS Study[/i] [url="http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_prac2.htm"]click here[/url]


_________________


also: [i]Fully 92 percent of Americans say they believe in God, 85 percent in heaven and 82 percent in miracles, according to the latest FOX News poll. Though belief in God has remained at about the same level, belief in the devil has increased slightly over the last few years — from 63 percent in 1997 to 71 percent today.[/i]

[i]Overall, most Americans think religion plays too small a role in people’s lives today (69 percent), with only 15 percent saying it plays too large a role and seven percent saying “about right.”[[/i]URL=http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,99945,00.html]click here[/URL]



___________________

so, by your standards of letting polls rule america solely, i guess we should make christianity as the official religion of america, and make sure that all americans worship God, considering a majority of us do... oh yeah, and God obviously needs to play a bigger role in all americans lives, considering 69% believe God plays too small of a role in our lives... maybe we can make a rule that at any restaurants, we have to pray to Jesus Christ, our lord and savior, before eating...


bj, now that your head is obviously exploding, i call bullshit on everything i said, along w/ what you said... polls matter, but their not that important [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/3.gif[/img]

[Guest BlackJesus]

[i][b]Bengalrick - shitty analogy.... we have seperation of church and state in the United States.... there is not however War by the minority ..... We are in a war right now in Iraq and we have never declared "War" ... the congress never did..... this is nothing more than Bush wanting to invade somewhere..... [/b][/i]

[Guest bengalrick]

[quote name='BlackJesus' date='Sep 16 2005, 01:51 PM'][i][b]Bengalrick - shitty analogy.... we have seperation of church and state in the United States.... there is now however War by the minority ..... We are in a war right now in Iraq and we have never declared "War" ... the congress never did..... this is nothing more than Bush wanting to invade somewhere..... [/b][/i]
[right][post="150063"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]

but polls "rule the day" remember...

by your standards, we should have gone in the first place, but pull out now that public opinion (a bunch of americans that can only go off of what their told) has broke past the 50% barrier... unless this gets down in the 30's, i'm not worried... war is never high in public opinion and its is always guarenteed to go down after you start...

polls are only important to retards like john kerry, who want to know what color tie the american people would rather see him in... poll the soldiers anonymously, or the generals fighting, or the iraqi people, and if they think we shouldn't be there, then i'll start listening...

[whodey319]

[quote name='BlackJesus' date='Sep 16 2005, 02:51 PM'][i][b]Bengalrick - shitty analogy.... we have seperation of church and state in the United States.... there is not however War by the minority ..... We are in a war right now in Iraq and we have never declared "War" ... the congress never did..... this is nothing more than Bush wanting to invade somewhere..... [/b][/i]
[right][post="150063"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]
cant have it both ways. If you want to do what one poll says then you have to do what the others say too. And its actually a good analogy but you say its bad since you dont agree with it

[Guest BlackJesus]

[b]What the fuck are you 2 smoking

Of course I am not saying rule of the mob or majority should prevail in all circumstances... hell during slavery a majority wanted that as well...

the Q was since a majority of a Nation doesn't want our troops being killed anymore should they be removed ??? Especially since we never declared War in the first place and this is nothing more than a Bush excursion into Oil territory that was illegal under all precendents and is now counter productive to the war on terror.... because it is only helping create more of them [/b]

[whodey319]

[quote name='BlackJesus' date='Sep 16 2005, 03:08 PM'][b]What the fuck are you 2 smoking

Of course I am not saying rule of the mob or majority should prevail in all circumstances... hell during slavery a majority wanted that as well...

the Q was since a majority of a Nation doesn't want our troops being killed anymore should they be removed ???  Especially since we never declared War in the first place and this is nothing more than a Bush excursion into Oil territory that was illegal under all precendents and is now counter productive to the war on terror.... because it is only helping create more of them [/b]
[right][post="150080"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]
but your basing this on a poll, which 99.9% is not done correctly because the questions are leading or biased. And if you read on, since this poll is so great we have to say President Bush did a good job handling the hurricane katrina relief efforts because not half the people said he did a bad job.

"Nearly half of U.S. adults say President Bush has done a poor job in handling the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts" since nearly half say bad that means more than half said good.

[Guest oldschooler]

[quote name='Gonzoid' date='Sep 16 2005, 12:07 PM']After what we've done for them so far, I doubt they could tell the difference. However...
...I agree. Cutting and running is not the best option. The better option would have been not to go into Iraq at all. However, thanks to the madness of King George, we can't change it.

Pulling out of Iraq now is a big, big, big mistake.
Especially when the DoD has only been doing a quarter-assed job already.
[right][post="150030"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]



Thanks for ignoring the most important part of my post.
You know...that little part that talked about Saddam wanting
to restart his weapons programs and he thought that any Nation capable
has the right to build Nuclear bombs...and how rebuilding Iraq
could actually make a difference in the Arab world as far as
terrorism and stuff...


Instead of saying we shouldn`t be there...maybe the Bush haters
should start accepting the fact that we are there and thinking ofhow we
can actually make being there a good thing ?

It`s time to start realizing we are all on the same team...

[Guest steggyD]

[quote name='oldschooler' date='Sep 16 2005, 04:03 PM']It`s time to start realizing we are all on the same team...
[right][post="150122"][/post][/right][/quote]


Pick me, pick me. Please. I hate being picked last.

[Jamie_B]

[quote name='steggyD' date='Sep 16 2005, 04:08 PM']

Pick me, pick me. Please. I hate being picked last.


[right][post="150127"][/post][/right][/quote]


No way man, you throw like a girl.

[Guest BlackJesus]

[quote]looks like to me that some of the "sheep" have left the flock. Watch out flock-you're definitely becoming smaller.
And I predict some of the newly "departed" sheep may tell you hanger ons-"if you don't like the new ideas,pack your shit and move to Iraq and fight the war "yourself". [/quote]

[img]http://www.ericblumrich.com/jpg/sg_03.jpg[/img]

[Beaker]

Wear a beret, idolize Che Guevera, hold up your molotov cocktail and spout useless crap...or risk being labeled a "sheep".

[Jason]

I think it's safe to say we ALL want the troops home. But most of us want the job finished first. I will be curious to see how the poll was worded. Pollsters are very good at wording a question to slant to the answer they want.

[Guest BlackJesus]

[quote]Wear a beret, idolize Che Guevera, or risk being labeled a "sheep"[/quote]

[img]http://www.irishecho.com/newspaper/images/16187.jpg[/img]
[i]"Who is this fucking Wise Guy Beaker?"[/i]