Rasmussen: 54% Favor Leaving US Troops to Stabilize Iraq

I want accuracy. My father and his brother and sister were all journalism majors. My father taught it for years, then English. I and my wife were both journalism majors.

I was always taught to respect accuracy in journalism and in surveys/studies. I was also taught to be skeptical of people who write with an agenda.

I have the same problem with the Times shoddy journalism as I do with the overuse of polling numbers. They represent gaps between what is real and what is fiction and they do it through legitimate means - a news story, a survey, etc.

It is the same issue I have with studies showing milk is great for you paid for by the Dairy Producers of America. You cannot trust the accuracy because of the way it was done.

I've always been critical of Rasmussen because people in his field (liberal and conservative) have been critical of him. It is the same criticism I would level against Fox News or CBS. What I think of their "opinions" is not nearly as important as the fact that they seem to often report their opinions rather than the actual news.

 

Four or five people have already responded to this, but I have to also. This is the second time I've seen you use this rationale.

This is so weak, dude. Weak enough to warrant bold and italics. It is, however, right in line with the new republican motto: NO ACCOUNTABILITY.

Yep. No responsibility. No culpability. That is, unless you're on welfare. But not if you're the Commander in Chief! No sir!

If you give nothing better than half-baked half-truths to take the nation to war- it's okay! You can find other justifications and emphasize those.

If you went in with a poor plan based upon a best-case "welcomed with open arms" scenario, and hundreds of your soldiers die in attacks from a tenacious insurgency you didn't expect because you weren't prepared for it- that's okay! NO ACCOUNTABILITY.

"People of America, I want you to know, as your Commander-in-Chief, that even though I'm the one that sent the troops to war without good reason and without a solid post-war plan, it's not my fault that they're being killed. It's those pesky insurgents. As the leader of the free world I absolve myself of responsibility and am not accountable, because other bad men are pulling the trigger."

 

Great post, dude.

You're right, a massive US presence will draw more ire. We'll be better prepared to suppress it, but that just means more fighting and casualties.

An international police force would be great- but it seems to much of a fantasy to me, especially if you get other mideast contries involved. None of these guys wants a secular democracy next door, with some exceptions. But the next-door neighbors, Iran and Syria? How do we involve the police of some mideast nations but not others?

I wish I had better solutions. Perhaps if we spent tons, a really huge amount of money on training the Iraqi police and miliary forces. Fly them out by the thousands to europe and other nations where we won't be car-bombed.

I just don't know. Problem is, the "insurgency" has several faces. We've got the AQ Muslim Militant f*ckers who will just pull up in a car somewhere and blow themselves up. We've got the Baathist insurgents- remember when they were the only problem? Estimated at less than 3,000 or so? The scary scary part we have now are the disgruntled and angered Iraqis bent on vengeance against their occupiers. Now we have a swelling of the ranks and the insurgency is growing, and that's really, really bad. But they don't want to blow up other Iraqi civilians, whereas the Baathists and AQ do.

Getting the UN involved would be better than a massive US presence, though in my opion arabs are going to resent christian caucasians in general. And the Baathists and AQ are still going to go right at them.

But I'm not offering solutions.

Is there a way we can take advantage of Iraqi nationalist pride, and rally them to protect themselves and reject the involvement of foreign jihadists like AQ and the old Baathists?

Wish I had better ideas.

Thing is, we need different plans for the different enemies. We need to deal with AQ and the Baathists who want to prevent the elections and are destroying infrastructure, and we need to stop Iraqi civilians from joining the insurgency.

 

I know everybody is talking about the debate last night, which I agree with most posters that Kerry won hands down, I have to come into this thread to say that, Nolen and Grizzled, I really enjoyed your discussions. Very impressive, knowledgeable, and well-thought-out posts.

Unfortunately, I don't know what the solution to Iraq problem is, especially after reading that WSJ reporter's email posted in another thread. I've always been a firm believer that the best way to rid violence and terrorism in this world is to get to the roots of the problem: poverty and inequality, with the emphasis on the former. We have to show and help to make people believe that life is more than just endless misery. When people see absolutely no light in their lives, what difference does it make to live or die? In some "terrorists" cases (e.g. Palestanian suicide bombers), death might have been just another escape.

So instead of trying to shove democracy down other people's throats, maybe we should have provided economic aid with no strings attached? Instead of telling others how to live their lives, maybe we should have provided educational help to teach their kids that there is more to life than starvation and death? Instead of claiming our religion's superiority over Islam for example, maybe we should actually live by and practice what Jesus taught, not just reciting the Bible and condemn those who don't.

I'm just terrified of the possibility of another 4 years of W, the most corrupt and dangerous administration this country has ever seen.

 

1. I think this is exagerated
2. Why don't they hate the ones who are killing kids 35 at a clip?

Did that neighborhood who turned out to celebrate the new water facility and take candy handouts form the American soldiers hate America? I don't think so...