So which do you think would be a more fair statement:
“A minority of Americans support the war”, or
“A majority of Americans support a war, but they are divided when it comes to the exact best strategy for entering the war.”
If you look beyond the plain-vanilla military action question I think ,at best, only a slim majority supports the war. And even that is not certain.
And I don’t think the “public support” in the Powell doctrine means just a simple majority no matter how small.
The numbers will climb as the war gets nearer and nearer but that is clearly a case of “rallying behind the flag” rather than fundamental conviction. The remakable thing is that after about a year of continuous high-pressure salesmanship by the administration numbers have barely moved in their direction. In fact on some questions there is less support than a year back.
I thought Powell’s doctrine was bomb the shit out of them and minimize American casualties, or the appearance of American casualties (by lying about them) to avoid the Vietnam Syndrome, i.e., the rapid uncontrolled eruption of truth about the evil immoral war you are deceiving the people into fighting.
Or, to put it more succinctly, “If in doubt, lie about everything.”
According to this article…
Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush’s civilian advisers are considering abadoning Number 2 above (use overwhelming force).
So yes, it looks like the US is at least considering abadoning part of the Powell doctrine.
Hey, Sam-- Thanks for the unusually unbiased summary of the polling.
I’d prefer the latter if forced to choose, but I’d prefer option 3)
“A majority of Americans would prefer to remove Saddam Hussein as a threat without war but would support war as a last resort”
Fair?
Then we can agree to discuss whether we’ve reached the last resort or not. Not that we have to… that horse was dead one these boards long ago.
Also, someone raised an interesting point about what proportion constitutes support in the Powell doctrine. I think we agree to disagree about our personal definitions, but I wonder what Powell had in mind when he formulated the doctrine. Anyone know?
I believe that Powell formulated his doctrine to prevent another Vietnam situation. When investigating the reasons why the US entered the vietnam war, none was supportable in the long run. Following his doctrine ensures success both militarily and politically.
One of the unspoken doctrine points that may go under the heading of “secure public support” is that media coverage of the war should be controlled. That hasnt happened yet either. Hope they get this together before the kickoff.