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Author Topic:   Troops to Bush - GET US OUT OF HERE!
Rainbow~
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posted March 07, 2006 02:49 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Troops To Bush - Get
Us Out Of Here!

By Dave Lindorff
3-6-6

Well, now we have it.

If you're one of those people with a yellow "Support the Troops" magnet on your car, you might consider doing what 72 percent of those troops in Iraq want, which is to go home.

You might not know it if you get your news from TV or your local paper--or even if you read the New York Times but skip the opinion page--but Zogby International, a leading polling organization, just did a major poll of 944 American soldiers and marines in Iraq and found that nearly three quarters of them thought the US should exit Iraq within a year. More than half thought the US should leave within six months, and 29 percent said the US should leave "immediately." (That's what the Commander in Chief and the vice president, both of whom avoided having to fight in Vietnam, like to call "cutting and running.")

The Zogby poll results should be big news, but it didn't make most of the mainstream papers or the major TV news programs.

A spokesperson at Zogby said, philosophically, "This is the kind of story that has a long shelf life. These are not the kinds of opinions that shift up and down rapidly; they are strongly held opinions being expressed by the troops who were interviewed. We find that these kinds of polls don't get covered as news in themselves in today's media. They tend to get picked up and used to illuminate other stories, over time."

The spokesperson, Communications Director Fritz Wenzel, said that the 48 hours following Zogby's release of the new poll, with its startling results, were "the busiest days I've had in this job," with over 50 reporters contacting him for interviews. Oddly though, this busiest day of calling didn't produce much in the way of stories

A likely explanation for this seeming paradox is that reporters clearly recognized the news value of a poll finding that the vast majority of American forces in Iraq believe that the war is a fiasco and that it's time to get the hell out, but senior management wouldn't let them go with the story. That's why the poll results, instead of being reported as the breaking news that they are, will end up being tucked discretely into broader pieces, as the Washington Post did, putting the information midway through an article on President Bush's falling approval rating (now at 34%). That's why the New York Times ignored the story in its news pages, and let it be covered in an op-ed column by Nicholas Kristof.

The poll, conducted between mid-January and mid-February, asked the troops other questions besides just the one about staying and fighting on or going home.

Among the other startling things Zogby discovered:

* While the administration keeps going on about "foreign fighters" being the problem in Iraq, only 26% of the troops questioned thought eliminating foreign fighters would weaken the insurgency.

* The strongest opposition to "staying the course" in Iraq came from reserve and National Guard troops, but even among active-duty Marines, the most gung-ho of troops in Iraq, 58% favored a pull-out within a year. Nearly half of reserve and guard troops favored an immediate pull-out.

* While the president talks about starting to reduce the number of US troops in Iraq, currently at a peak of 136,000 (a political imperative with congressional elections coming up this November), a majority of troops in the country say it would take a doubling of troops and a stepped up bombing campaign to control the Iraqi insurgency.

* A clear majority of the troops oppose torture and aggressive interrogation techniques and four out of five polled oppose the use of such banned weapons as napalm and phosphorus bombs, such as US forces employed in the assault on Fallujah in November 2004.

* This kind of information, which runs counter to the prevailing wisdom about attitudes of soldiers in the field, should be big news based upon the standard "man-bites-dog" theory of what constitutes news, but so far, the major media are for the most part ducking it, treating it as a "dog-bites-man" non-story.

A good illustration of how this kind of journalistic cowardice undermines effective political discourse in America is provided by the continuing ignorance about the causes of the war. Even in America itself, a large percentage of people still believe, against all the evidence, that invading Iraq made sense because Saddam Hussein was behind the 9-11 attacks. He was not, as even the president has been grudgingly forced to admit. Yet the media have done such a bad job of making this clear that Zogby reports 85 percent of troops in Iraq still think they're fighting "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 attacks."

The clearest message of the Zogby poll is that those who want to "support the troops" now know what the troops themselves want, and what they want is "OUT!"

Those Americans who want to do something significant to support the troops beyond just displaying a meaningless yellow ribbon might start by calling their local media outlets and asking why there hasn't been a story about the latest Zogby poll.

That could be followed up by a few calls to local Congressional delegations, calling attention to the poll, and demanding an end to the war, in the interest of supporting our troops.

Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Lindorff's new book, "The Case for Impeachment", co-authored by Barbara Olshansky, is due out May 1. He can be reached at: dlindorff @ yahoo.com

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lotusheartone
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posted March 07, 2006 02:54 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
They enlisted..to fight for our country..and when things don't go the way people want..well..you see what happens..

I would rather die, then enlist in an army and have the possibility of taking a life..

karma..each individual is responsible for him or her Self and their actions..Man cannot judge Man..he/she never had that right to begin with. ...

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Rainbow~
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posted March 07, 2006 02:58 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

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Rainbow~
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posted March 07, 2006 03:07 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Lotus said...


quote:
They enlisted..to fight for our country..and when things don't go the way people want..well..you see what happens..

Lotus, I know you're all for love and peace, and being responsible for our actions and all that....

.....but I take I take issue with what you said.....

They inlisted under "false pretenses"- those who were drawn to the military to fight in Iraq because Saddam had weapons of mass distruction...and there was also the lure of the "benefits" one gets for enlisting...one thing that recuriters LOVE to point out...

Right now those poor troops are NOT FIGHTING FOR OUR COUNTRY!

They are fighting for the very dangerous and unbalanced George W. Bush!

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lotusheartone
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posted March 07, 2006 03:12 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
for me all of this is 50/50

and anyone who enlists, knows they may have to kill..that is their choice..so..to me it's out of our hands, they chose, made their bed..and can lie in it..

those who were drafted..you have no karma from this..the choice was taken away from you..the universal laws protect you..from man himself..

so the bottom line is, I have no sympathy for someone who chose to be in the military..
their circumstances can not be changed by me..til they choose to live a different life..then.. they can have all my sympathy. ...

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Rainbow~
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posted March 07, 2006 03:15 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

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Rainbow~
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posted March 07, 2006 03:17 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Oh you "bleeding heart" Lotus....

"Thou shalt not judge..." Remember?

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lotusheartone
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posted March 07, 2006 03:21 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
is it a judgement..or a universal law..a free wi11 choice..please forgive me, if you feel I have judged..

if no one ever enlisted..there never would have been war to begin with..bottom line. ...

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lotusheartone
unregistered
posted March 07, 2006 03:24 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
and you know what..I do feel sympathy for them..can I blame this on Mercury retro-grade..or the President?

hehe, it was wrong for me to judge..see..I am human..I make mistakes..I choose to learn from them..

I'm sorry. ...

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Rainbow~
unregistered
posted March 07, 2006 03:25 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Now....according to this karma thing....look at it this way....

...if we're all working out our karma...then the guys who enlisted and got themselves killed may have had it coming from killing someone in another life.....

Can't argue with that...

....and our guys (and gals) who have had to resort to killing, probably were just giving karma to those who had it coming, thereby balancing this whole thing out....if we're going to be sensible and understanding about this whole thing....right?

So we all should just let the whole world go by and watch without making any noise, because it's all in the cards, anyway..everbody's karma is being worked out...*sigh*

Maybe you've got something there...

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Rainbow~
unregistered
posted March 07, 2006 03:29 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
if no one ever enlisted..there never would have been war to begin with..bottom line.

Oh Lotus honey.....no, no, no, no, no....

If no one ever enlisted we'd have a draft quicker than you can wink an eye...

Dubya needed for us to invade Iraq...that's been in the works for a long time....and a long time for the 9/11 attack....

"What? No soldiers available? Well we're gonna fix that. Get that draft started ASAP!"

(edited to add bush pic)

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Rainbow~
unregistered
posted March 07, 2006 03:31 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
PS....YOU'RE FORGIVEN....

BY ME ANYWAY...

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lotusheartone
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posted March 07, 2006 03:33 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
well, kinda sorta..you got the idea..

you know what I was thinking..everywhere in the world should decide to close done everything for one week..all at the same time..a vacation for the Earth..to give people a chance to breathe and think..stop pollution for a whole week..no driving..just bare essentials..electricity would be nice, but can you imagine..how quiet the world would be..would the vibrations of the earth..change..yes..they would..

crazy idea, huh? hehe

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lotusheartone
unregistered
posted March 07, 2006 03:36 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I meant since the beginning, if no one had ever supported a war in the first place..it would not exist..

But power, greed, control, and ego rule US..

more more more. ...

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Rainbow~
unregistered
posted March 07, 2006 03:47 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Later Lotus....got stuff to do....

Gotta get going....

I'll be back...

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lotusheartone
unregistered
posted March 07, 2006 04:13 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
this thing is like a magnet(computer), I'm packing and every so often I come and peek, hehe..

later Rainbow..

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