Less than half of Americans think U.S can win

[EmpressStarXVII]

Poll: Less than half of Americans think U.S. can win in Iraq

POSTED: 8:19 p.m. EDT, March 13, 2007

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Less than half of Americans think the United States can win the war in Iraq, according to a CNN poll released Tuesday.

The results mark the first time since the war began four years ago that a majority did not say the United States can win.

Forty-six percent of Americans polled say the United States cannot win, compared with the 37 percent that think the U.S. can win. An all-time low of 29 percent say things are going well in Iraq.

The poll also suggests that 54 percent of Americans say the Bush administration was deliberately misleading about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led invasion.

Nearly six in 10 of those polled want to see U.S. troops leave Iraq either immediately or within a year, and more would rather have Congress running U.S. policy in the conflict than President Bush.

The CNN poll was conducted Friday through Sunday by Opinion Research Corp. Pollsters interviewed 1,027 adults for the survey, which had a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Though support for Bush's decision to dispatch additional troops to Iraq grew to 37 percent -- up 5 percent from a mid-January poll -- 52 percent say Congress should block funding for the new deployment.

Bush announced in January that he was deploying another 21,500 U.S. troops to Iraq to crack down on the country's sectarian warfare and the Sunni Arab insurgency in the country's west.

The White House approved the deployment of another 4,400 support troops over the weekend, largely to handle an expected increase in the number of Iraqi prisoners.

The decision remains unpopular, according to the latest poll, but opposition has declined since Bush announced it. This week's survey found that 59 percent opposed the president's troop increase, down from 66 percent in a January 11 poll.

Asked about the issue of funding the president's so-called "New Way Forward," 52 percent said Congress should block funds for additional troops and 43 percent opposed such a move.

The Democratic leadership in Congress has opposed the deployment, with the support of a handful of Bush's fellow Republicans. But efforts to use congressional control over spending to rein in the president have split the Democrats, particularly in the House of Representatives.

Weighing in on a withdrawal

Tuesday's poll responders support a withdrawal from Iraq, with 21 percent wanting an immediate pullout and 37 percent saying troops should be home within a year. Another 39 percent said the troops should stay in Iraq as long as needed.

Democratic leaders plan to add a demand for withdrawal by fall 2008 -- or by the end of this year, if Bush is unable to show that the Iraqi government is meeting benchmarks for political progress -- to the president's emergency request for an additional $100 billion in war spending.

In a speech Monday to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, Vice President Dick Cheney said even discussing withdrawal tells "the enemy to watch the clock and wait us out."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, shot back that Cheney and Bush are advocating an "open-ended commitment" of U.S. troops against the advice of military leaders.

The White House and congressional Republicans have warned Democratic leaders against plans that would "micromanage" U.S. commanders in Iraq.

But the latest survey suggests Americans are more receptive to having Congress take the lead, with 47 percent saying the lawmakers should be "primarily responsible" for setting war policy. Thirty-three percent said the president should be primarily responsible for setting the country's course.

Asked if they think it is good or bad for the country that the Democratic Party controls Congress, 59 percent said it was good, down from the 67 percent that expressed the sentiment in November, but up from the 58 percent that felt that way in January.

About 46 percent of those polled say they approve of how Pelosi is handling her job, down from 51 percent in January. Forty-seven percent say they approve of what the Democratic leaders on the whole have done so far this year.

A slim majority (51 percent) reported a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, exceeding the 42 percent who view the Republican Party favorably.

The questions about the political parties were asked of a half-sample and had a sampling error of plus-or-minus 4.5 percentage points.

source

[Lord Umbarger]

Personally, I do still think that we CAN win but, there will have to be several changes to the way we are going about it.

Firstly, we will have to hunt the terrorists down and kill them where they hide. If that means that a few mosques, schools and hospitals have to burn, sorry. We would have to be dilligent in tracking them down. If they flee to another nation we will have to follow them. Eventually, once other nations come to understand that terrorists attract boms, they will become persona non-grata.

Secondly, we will have to understand and accept that war is a terrible thing. That is how it works. You inflict so much death, destruction and pain on the other side that they give up. Yes, that means that sometimes innocents die. It's unfortunate but, no war has ever been won or lost until the man on the street has had enough of it.

Thirdly, we'll have to come to terms with the idea of what losing would mean. Iraq would quickly become the newest hotbed of terrorist training and basing. Their ultimate goal is to do to the west what the media claims we are doing to them.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, the people in the west have to realize that the fight will take time and money. Lives will be lost on our side. Three thousand plus soldiers so far is not really all that bad a ratio when you compare it to other conflicts that we have been involved in.

Unfortunately, I don't think that those in the states have to stomach to do the things that are necessary to win. They are too full of the nightly news images of the suffering and superimpose their loved ones faces on the dead and dying. What they don't realize is that if the terrorists and their supporters are not stopped over there, they will eventually be over here and there will be no need to superimpose the faces of our children on the victims. The victims will be our children.

Many are under the impression that we have already lost the war. Not so. We have yet to totally win it but, we have not lost it.

[Dr. Strangelove]

'Win'? What? We *can't* win this. We're fighting insurgents...we can't win. We're fighting an enemy that will ALWAYS return. You *can't* win a war like this. It's IMPOSSIBLE. Fighting it is sheer insanity. You're fighting an idea..

Ideas are bulletproof.

[Tiggs]

Ideas are bulletproof.

Agreed. In order to destroy an idea, you have to create an idea capable of subverting it.

I'm sure PsyOp's are on the case...

[Lord Umbarger]

I don't know. The world got together and beat the pseudo religeon of NAZI-ism in the 1940's. (If you read "Mein Kamp" by A. Hitler, you will see that NAZI-ism was in many ways, as much a faith as a political system). Pretty much stomped out the idea that the emporor was god in Japan too.

[Celumnaz]

remember someone making a comparison to a spider fighting a starfish.

the main thing we have to win is the propaganda war

I don't think we've lost a single military engagement in this whole ordeal... it's the propaganda that's hurting the most it seems. Doesn't affect me one bit but I see it in others.

[Unlimited]

It's a religous civil war....noone can win the convictions are to deep...

[IronGhost]

Even General Patreus himself said on ABC News two nights ago that THERE WILL BE NO MILITARY solution to the Iraq situation. We have to get rid of this idea Iraq and be WON or LOST. The final solution is likely to satisfy no one. It's going to be a messy, smarmy something -- almost certainly something the U.S.A. won't like completely

What's not helpful is the totaly out-of-control Dick Cheney who keeps repeating over and over again -- "We will settle only for victory." He's a simple minded old Cold Warrior who just does not understand the complexities of this kind of conflict.

[Aztec Warrior]

If America pulls out, they will be leaving a sess-pool of terrorists in an already infested region of the world. That means eventually they will have to go back in and finish the job. These people only know force and I would make it very plain to them....clean up your stinking country or have it "wiped off the map."

[truethat]

Again with the "percentages" I don't agree or disagree with the statement.

Who paid for the study?

Where did they get the people that they polled?

How many people participated? 1027 people. 1027 people is not half of America.

.

etc etc etc

Its just a percentage.

If they asked 100,000 Americans it still won't make it half of all Americans.

If they had a poll on their website, under a category that criticized the war, then it stands to reason that the majority of the people who responded would say this.

How old were the people who were polled? What was the education of those people.

I really wish more people would question "percentages" statistics.

Edited March 14, 2007 by truethat

[Fluffybunny]

I do not think it can be won strictly from a military standpoint. It is going to take influences from religious and political leaders as well as discussion with rival factions. It is impossible to "win" a war of religious differences that has been going on for centuries from the outside by military force.

The iraqi people may want democracy but too many in the region what the even the score and get their religious beliefs to the top of the heap.

We opened up a bigger can of worms that we knew, and that is the bottom line.

[sirfiroth]

FUD! :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Of course we can't win with crap like this floating around.

We would all be speaking German or Japniese it Kennedy and crew had been around during WWII

enough said

[nativechick1989]

I've talked with Soldiers who have and are currently serving in Iraq and asked what they thought about the 'war' .... the majority of them all said the same thing - "it's a civil war". With the US Military being in that country/region is mainly serving as a Police Force, trying to control the situation, the infighting if you will. I agree with those who say that it's not a Military solution, but a Political solution, that will help that country in stabilizing itself. But sometimes you gotta wonder ..... how can you help someone, when they don't seem to wanna help themselves .....

[Fluffybunny]

FUD! :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Of course we can't win with crap like this floating around.

We would all be speaking German or Japniese it Kennedy and crew had been around during WWII

enough said

A Kennedy was around in WWII and did a rather good job. What "crap" do you speak of?

[Aztec Warrior]

A Kennedy was around in WWII and did a rather good job. What "crap" do you speak of?

More than likely that was a slap at Teddy and other liberal congressional leaders.

[Princess Serenity]

Whatever. I think we can win this. We haven't lost a single war yet. Well not in my eyes anyhow.

'Win'? What? We *can't* win this. We're fighting insurgents...we can't win. We're fighting an enemy that will ALWAYS return. You *can't* win a war like this. It's IMPOSSIBLE. Fighting it is sheer insanity. You're fighting an idea..

Ideas are bulletproof.

You actually believe this/that? Of course they're going to comeback. But we have to keep killing them. Until they're dead or no longer a threat. I don't know.

[Fluffybunny]

Whatever. I think we can win this. We haven't lost a single war yet. Well not in my eyes anyhow.

You actually believe this/that? Of course they're going to comeback. But we have to keep killing them. Until they're dead or no longer a threat. I don't know.

The problem being is that the longer you try to kill every "insurgent" you just keep creating new ones; it isn't like there is just a uniformed group of people to fight. The folks we are trying to kill are blending in with the rest of the community and do not fight face to face, rather they hide and snipe, or use and IED(not to be confused with an IUD ). The more we lean on a military answer to the problem, the more we anger the general populace that then begin to despise our presence. We once had a lot of support by the citizens, but that is waning and the end result is that if we try to muscle our way through without political and religious influence we will just be spinning our wheels and killing our boys and girls needlessly.

You can't just continue to kill them until they are no longer a threat, that mentality will just create more and more people that hate us and ultimately once we kill enough of them the entire region will step in and the only way to kill all the people that hate us will be nuclear bombs in population centers...lots of them...

That is something I'd want to avoid, although there are some here thta relish the idea.

As for losing a war; we have unfortunately. Vietnam is something we had to pull away from as well did not have the ability to fight against guerilla tactics that the NVA used and did not want to waste any more of the lives of the boys fighting for us.

People do not seem to understand that our Army is designed to destroy things; not become world police and nation builders. We kill things and destroy countries well; we do not do well with situation like we have in iraq. had we stepped away after we took the government and infrastructure apart we would have saved a lot of lives of Americans. Same thing goes in Afghanastan and possibly Iran if it comes to that. We can tear countries apart easily. We are not designedc to put them back together.

[Aztec Warrior]

You can't just continue to kill them until they are no longer a threat, that mentality will just create more and more people that hate us and ultimately once we kill enough of them the entire region will step in and the only way to kill all the people that hate us will be nuclear bombs in population centers...lots of them...

That is something I'd want to avoid, although there are some here thta relish the idea.

As for losing a war; we have unfortunately. Vietnam is something we had to pull away from as well did not have the ability to fight against guerilla tactics that the NVA used and did not want to waste any more of the lives of the boys fighting for us.

People do not seem to understand that our Army is designed to destroy things; not become world police and nation builders. We kill things and destroy countries well; we do not do well with situation like we have in iraq. had we stepped away after we took the government and infrastructure apart we would have saved a lot of lives of Americans. Same thing goes in Afghanastan and possibly Iran if it comes to that. We can tear countries apart easily. We are not designedc to put them back together.

I think your own argument went full circle. Yes the Army kills people and breaks things...that's what they do. Not the world's police...win hearts and minds crap. You fight a war to win, and then impose your will. The Germans and Japanese were very good at that.

The US military won the vietnam war. (See the tet offensive for more details) The politicians cut and run......and I guess you could say that act was a "loss." The US could go back to being isolationist....but that won't change the mind of the terrorists who will still try to wreck havoc on America and other western civilizations.

Edited March 14, 2007 by Aztec Warrior

[Fluffybunny]

My personal take on it is that our goal was to keep the ideology of the NVA out of South Vietnam; that didn't happen so I put that in the loss column, but it is open to debate.

I don't agree in total isolationism, but I do agree with getting less and less dependant on the M.E. oil until we never need them again. I would like to get the heck out of the region altogether and let them kill each other; they don't need our help. As for folks attacking us, I have a different opinion than most. I don't think that "premeptive strikes" are anyway to go about it and end up causing more harm than good.

If we were to let Israel take care of itself and we were to invest the billions that we are spending on the war into ending our dependence on foreign oil( a different thread), I think we would find that we would not be in the pickle we are in now. If iran wishes to attack us(for an example select your country of choice) my personal opinion is that the only time to respond is that if they make an open obvious undeniable act of war towards us. If iran(again and example) decides to try and shoot a missile off towards the US (which they feel they could do) then I personally would retaliate in a fashion that would completely destroy their country top to bottom; none of the type of bs that we are trying to do in iraq right now. I would hate to see the loss of life, but I think that it would be the last time that we would be attacked. I don't believe in a kinder gentler military. I would rather the world think of the US military as something to never be toyed with. Right now we look like we cannot chase down a bunch of terrorist...

I personally believe that we cannot and should not fight a war door to door and risk our soldiers lives. If a country decides to attack us, then I believe that we have every right to destroy it completely totally (not bomb it a little bit then go in to fix everything we blew up, if the UN wants to do that more power to them)and set an example that we should not be attacked. That being said, I don't think that we should do things like go into iraq in a "pre-emptive strike" that rightfully p***es citizens off and gives them every right to be angry.

It is not our business to run other countries regardless or not if they have oil. I would rather see our leaders invest billions into our own country so that we could become the powerhouse and innovators that we were post WWII, not the lazy unionized nation that we have become causing other nations to surpass us in technology and production. If we were to use our hundreds of billions of wasted dollars that is going into iraq we could have worked enough energy saving and new energy methods that would allows us to flip the bird to the entire middle east, but having a leader that makes a living from oil, that will never happen.

I want to avoid war at all costs; only as a very last resort; but if we are attacked by a country I think we should not hold back like we have chosen to do recently. I would rather make the response so swift and so total that no ther country would even consider attacking us. We have the resources to do so, and that is how I would prefer to use them; not this type of fighting we are doing now were we continually go door to door to try and catch possible bad guys...We can destroy a country completely to the ground without having to have a single soldier set foot in the country and risk their lives.

My personal take on it is that our goal was to keep the ideology of the NVA out of South Vietnam; that didn't happen so I put that in the loss column, but it is open to debate.

I don't agree in total isolationism, but I do agree with getting less and less dependant on the M.E. oil until we never need them again. I would like to get the heck out of the region altogether and let them kill each other; they don't need our help. As for folks attacking us, I have a different opinion than most. I don't think that "premeptive strikes" are anyway to go about it and end up causing more harm than good.

If we were to let Israel take care of itself and we were to invest the billions that we are spending on the war into ending our dependence on foreign oil( a different thread), I think we would find that we would not be in the pickle we are in now. If iran wishes to attack us(for an example select your country of choice) my personal opinion is that the only time to respond is that if they make an open obvious undeniable act of war towards us. If iran(again and example) decides to try and shoot a missile off towards the US (which they feel they could do) then I personally would retaliate in a fashion that would completely destroy their country top to bottom; none of the type of bs that we are trying to do in iraq right now. I would hate to see the loss of life, but I think that it would be the last time that we would be attacked. I don't believe in a kinder gentler military. I would rather the world think of the US military as something to never be toyed with. Right now we look like we cannot chase down a bunch of terrorist...

I personally believe that we cannot and should not fight a war door to door and risk our soldiers lives. If a country decides to attack us, then I believe that we have every right to destroy it completely totally (not bomb it a little bit then go in to fix everything we blew up, if the UN wants to do that more power to them)and set an example that we should not be attacked. That being said, I don't think that we should do things like go into iraq in a "pre-emptive strike" that rightfully p***es citizens off and gives them every right to be angry.

It is not our business to run other countries regardless or not if they have oil. I would rather see our leaders invest billions into our own country so that we could become the powerhouse and innovators that we were post WWII, not the lazy unionized nation that we have become causing other nations to surpass us in technology and production. If we were to use our hundreds of billions of wasted dollars that is going into iraq we could have worked enough energy saving and new energy methods that would allows us to flip the bird to the entire middle east, but having a leader that makes a living from oil, that will never happen.

I want to avoid war at all costs; only as a very last resort; but if we are attacked by a country I think we should not hold back like we have chosen to do recently. I would rather make the response so swift and so total that no ther country would even consider attacking us. We have the resources to do so, and that is how I would prefer to use them; not this type of fighting we are doing now were we continually go door to door to try and catch possible bad guys...We can destroy a country completely to the ground without having to have a single soldier set foot in the country and risk their lives.

[AROCES]

Polls are not FACTS, Exit polls said J Kerry was going to win in a landslide. And we all know the end of that Poll.

[Fluffybunny]

Polls are not FACTS, Exit polls said J Kerry was going to win in a landslide. And we all know the end of that Poll.

What polls are you refferring to?

[AROCES]

What polls are you refferring to?

Any polls, like the one that says less than half of Americans thinks US can win in Iraq.

[Ashigaru]

Yes polls are pretty useless. If I made a poll in this thread about %80 would say we could win the war in Iraq. I guess %80 of the nation believes we can win the war then.

[Pinky Floyd]

1027 is a ridiculusly low number to be releasing as a valid cross-sectional sampling of the entire US. The entire margin of error should consist of a number larger than that in itself, let alone the entire friggin' poll. They figured a 3% margin of error in their poll. With a nation of 300 Million, ask 1027 people, and then claim a measely 3% error descrepency in it? Pah-leeze....thats so mathematically insignificant of a national cross-section that not only is it stupid, it's insultive..)

In a nation of 300 million, I'm not trusting any poll on anything unless it has at least 100,000 polled. Neither should you.

Besides, a web based poll from CNN (Ted Turner is a flaming liberal) is as valid as a poll taken from Fox's website (Murdock is a flaming Conservative).

Not worth commenting on...

Edited March 14, 2007 by Pinky Floyd

[Princess Serenity]

The problem being is that the longer you try to kill every "insurgent" you just keep creating new ones; it isn't like there is just a uniformed group of people to fight. The folks we are trying to kill are blending in with the rest of the community and do not fight face to face, rather they hide and snipe, or use and IED(not to be confused with an IUD ). The more we lean on a military answer to the problem, the more we anger the general populace that then begin to despise our presence. We once had a lot of support by the citizens, but that is waning and the end result is that if we try to muscle our way through without political and religious influence we will just be spinning our wheels and killing our boys and girls needlessly.

You can't just continue to kill them until they are no longer a threat, that mentality will just create more and more people that hate us and ultimately once we kill enough of them the entire region will step in and the only way to kill all the people that hate us will be nuclear bombs in population centers...lots of them...

That is something I'd want to avoid, although there are some here thta relish the idea.

As for losing a war; we have unfortunately. Vietnam is something we had to pull away from as well did not have the ability to fight against guerilla tactics that the NVA used and did not want to waste any more of the lives of the boys fighting for us.

People do not seem to understand that our Army is designed to destroy things; not become world police and nation builders. We kill things and destroy countries well; we do not do well with situation like we have in iraq. had we stepped away after we took the government and infrastructure apart we would have saved a lot of lives of Americans. Same thing goes in Afghanastan and possibly Iran if it comes to that. We can tear countries apart easily. We are not designedc to put them back together.

Very true. But we can stop them from hurting more innocent people. :/

The US military won the vietnam war. (See the tet offensive for more details) The politicians cut and run......and I guess you could say that act was a "loss." The US could go back to being isolationist....but that won't change the mind of the terrorists who will still try to wreck havoc on America and other western civilizations.

Yeah. It won't stop them from killing more people.