Is this wilfull ignorance, and just delusion talking here. Have you read even one of the links to sites outlining the number of protesters?
Oh, go on, pleeeeeeease.
And, Ace of Swords - i hear you. The paradox struck me also.
Nah, they were wrong. Or do you think the world would be a safer place if the United States didn’t have smart bombs and cruise missiles today?
I was in the thick of those debates then. I remember the START talks, and the arms reduction talks Reagan and Gorbachev had. Reagan negotiated from a position of strength, and there were protests over that, calling him a ‘warmonger’. At the end of the day, however, Reagan achieved greater cuts in nuclear arms than any president had to date.
I remember the marches against SDI - which Reagan refused to back down on, and which eventually became a serious factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union - Gorbachev realized that the Soviets had no hope of competing against the U.S. in that new race.
I remember the marches against cruise missiles and smart bombs. But would you rather live in a world today where the U.S. had to carpet-bomb population centers to get at military infrastructure, rather than removing it surgically with smart weapons?
I remember the marches against the U.S. invasion of Grenada, which had turned into a communist dictatorship through a bloody coup. I remember people saying that there were no Cuban soldiers on the Island, and that they were just peaceful construction workers building a 15,000’ airstrip for the tourist trade. Anyone who knew anything about aviation knew that that strip wasn’t intended for the type of planes that fly into Grenada, but that didn’t stop the peace movement from calling Reagan a liar. Of course, when the U.S. invaded it turned out that those ‘construction workers’ happened to be heavily armed.
Is there anyone here today who thinks Grenada would be better off if it had been left as a Communist dictatorship?
The peace movement has a habit of being on the wrong side of history, and blind to real evils in the world that don’t match their preconceptions. The ultimate example of this absurdity was that the march in London this weekend was organized iin part by a group calling themselves, “The Campaign against Racism and Fascism” - opposing a war to topple a racist, fascist dictatorship. Go figure.
Yep. The people protesting were indeed a small percentage of the 20% who vehemently oppose the war.
The best estimate I can come up with based on reading polls looks like this:
People support the war under any circumstances - ~40%
People who oppose the war under any circumstances - ~20%
People who support the war with a U.N. resolution: ~80%
Peopel who support the war with a coalition, but not with a U.N resolution: ~60%.
I think that’s a pretty accurate representation of where the American people are right now.
In the U.K. and Australia, the other two stalwart allies, support WITH a U.N. resolution is just about as high as it is in the U.S., but support for war with the U.S. and UK acting alone is very low - 12-25%. The clear split is that Americans are much more willing to accept the U.S. acting alone, while non-Americans aren’t. That makes sense.
You call the United States a democratically elected government? Bah. Bush won only because of ties in the Supreme Court. The Electoral College is a sham. Honestly, it needs to be completely done away with.
You know, I have only lost my faith in the American public to decide what is best for the country two times. One time was when they chose Lisa over Kimberly on American Idol (Don’t ask). The second time, was when we elected Bush. What were we thinking? Honestly. Since Bush has been president, he has basically taken the Constitution as a bib, and crapped all over it. He has no clue what the hell he is doing. Have you ever seen Bush speak at a press conference? It looks like he is the most illiterate person ever to grace such a high, and noble position. What does he do? He takes * Vacations * while the world is on the brink of war. Simply put, the man is irresponsible.
Granted my views on Bush, does that mean that I necessarily want to overthrow the government? No. Do I think that certain policies need to change? Yes. Bush needs to relook at his future in politics, because if he screws this up, he will be finished. Look at what happened to LBJ, and Truman. If you screw the American Public, you might as well not even bother running for reelection.
The scary part though, is that we have no power to affect direct change in our government. Once they are in, the American public really has no control, especially because the Republican party holds the Senate, the House, and the Presidency. We simply put, cannot impeach Bush, even if he was causing the nation to collapse around him.
There needs to be some serious reforms in our political society. Partisan politics need to end. Our government needs to get back on track, to serve the people, regardless of whether or not that conflicts with your parties views. The phrase, “By the people, for the people,” should mean something.
A funny link concerning this subject. You spoke of the “Pro-war” protests. http://www.9news.com/storyfull-co.asp?id=11291
Slayer. Where is the evidence that linked the Taliban to anything? I still have not seen it. I probably will not see it for another 20 years. Where is the evidence that Iraq has chemical weapons? Even though they do, that’s not the point. the point is, the government has to show beyond reasonable doubt that there is a reason to go to war. So far, neither the US or the UK has shown jack for supporting the war cause. These protests aren’t really demonstrating against the war, but demonstrating about the lack of information. If the public doesn’t understand why we are going to war, then they won’t support it. Plain and simple.
One factor might be the BBC. Andrew Sullivan here quotes a reader
Can any Doper tell us if the BBC is really as anti-war as this message claims it is?
-i]People who support the war with a coalition, but not with a U.N resolution: ~60%.
*
Cite for that please? “Coalition” is a bit too vague. After all, Britain and the US can be called a coalition. Last I saw the figure who opposed without UN resolution was over 50%. Also how recent are these alleged figures: before or after the weekend? The Times article I’ve been referring to referred to a poll taken prior to the protests. I’d not be surprised to see those figures changing.
So the upshot–unless we’re to accept your obfuscation–is that the majority of Americans want the UN resolution, or their support falters. No comment?
Sorry, that last was addressed to Sam and the quotation is from Sam. december, no time to read or answer your post just now.
mhendo: Yes, I read them. They all seem pretty biased and or vague to me. Crowd estimates are absolutely notorious for inflation, and I quite simply don’t see CREDIBLE cites for most of the numbers that are being asserted. And if you want to try and convince me that some major-city newspaper is credible by virtue of being a major-city newspaper, I’ll tell you about the years I spent as a journalist and JUST how slipshod reporting really is.
Of course, if you would read the post rather than jumping on one thing to try and nitpick, you’d see it’s immaterial. My not believing the numbers comment was an aside. I don’t care if it’s millions. As someone said (paraphrase) we KNOW 20% of the population is against it. (end of paraphrase) Whether they’re sitting at home or out in the street doesn’t much change their view (or mine).
The OPERATIVE part of my comment is that I don’t care. Instead I’ll take to heart my mother’s comment (If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?), and answer no.
When enough people feel strongly enough about this to express their views in a VOTE, then I and everyone else in this democracy we call home will definitely take note.
When lucid people put forth clear non-emotion-based arguments against this war, I will definitely take note.
When a whole herd (mentality) of people march around singing and chanting and talking about how “bad” war is, I’ll whistle merrily on my way, thank you very much.
Frequently asserted, never proven. The “600 ship Navy” might have had the same effect. The SDI program went through several pro-military and pro-science administrators who each resigned in protest over the political machinations to pretend that it was providing what it was intended until they found a political hack to run it.
(And, of course, the constant bleeding of men, materiel, and rubles in Afghanistan had nothing to do with the Soviet economy collapsing just a bit earlier than the CIA and War College had each predicted it would, anyway.)
Or for the U.S. to complete the airport exactly to the original specifications and give it to Grenada as a tourist airport.
Mandelstam:
Here’s the latest Gallup Poll I could find:
This was before Powell’s address. By all accounts, support has increased since then.
Other interesting numbers:
(bolding mine)
Here are some interesting numbers from http://www.pollingreport.com:
Here’s a question from a Feb Newsweek poll:
Here are some questions that go directly to my claims above (from the Newsweek poll:
Note that the last question is the ONLY one in which support drops below 50%, and it describes a situation that can not happen, since the U.S. already has the support of three major allies (the U.K, Australia, Canada), and many minor allies.
Go read through that polling.com site, because it tabulates results from many polls, and they corroborate each other. Also, those polls were taken before Powell’s presentation at the U.N., and support increased across the board after that. And in addition, these last polls were taken before the Gallup poll I mentioned above, which indicates that recently people have lost even more faith in the U.N., no doubt due to the French shenanigans.
I defy you to draw the conclusion from those polls that “the majority of Americans do not support this war”. They clearly do. You’ll also note that support has been growing steadily since last October.
Except the airstrip completion was then at the US’s expense, not the USSR’s. Sam, you claim to know about aviation. What about the Grenada strip made it different from a civilian, tourist-economy oriented one, and what kinds of planes do you think it really was intended for? How does one tell a Backfire bomber runway from a 757 runway, anyway? :rolleyes:
And those construction workers were “heavily armed” with an AK-47 apiece, few of which ever got fired.
“Facts are stupid things.” - Reagan
Strike that part about the Gallup poll being taken after the French shenanigans. It was taken before that. Nonetheless, for some reason the people’s opinion of the U.N. plummeted, and their faith in Bush increased. And this was before Powell’s talk.
Speaking of the French… I just heard on CNN that the French are now even opposing an attempt to get a second resolution in the Security Council. That’s mighty unilateral of them.
… um … Sam … has Canada really come out in support of Bush?
ElvisL1ves: The main factors that made it unreasonable for commuter airlines was its size. Typical runways for 737’s, 767’s, etc. are about 7,000 ft. long. The runway at Grenada was 15,000 ft long - a length that matches the largest runways in the world, and is only necessary for landing heavy bombers or jumbo jets like the 747. Hard to imagine 747 loads of tourists flying into a communist country with a total population of 110,000 people.
As for those ‘workers’ armed with only AK-47’s - when the U.S. helicopters approached Grenada, they were fired upon by hidden 12.7mm AA guns in the hills, for one thing. After they landed on the ground, they were attacked with machine guns and light mortar fire.
While it’s true that the ‘construction workers’ (about 600 of them) were armed only with AK-47’s (why are construction workers armed at all?), they were all military trained, and they were backed up by something like 180 cuban regular army and PRA soldiers with heavy weapons like the AA guns and mortars I mentioned.
I was not aware that the Grenada airport was finished exactly to original specifications. My understanding was that the first 10,000 ft of the 15,000 runway were largely complete, and it was this 10,000 ft. section that was completed.
I just checked the ICAO airport registry, and it lists Grenada’s major airport as having a 9000’ runway. That’s about the same as Bermuda’s (2960m), and about what I’d expect for a country like this.
I tried to find a cite for the original, planned size of the runway (it was being lengthened, as I recall), but I couldn’t find one. I remember it as 15,000 ft, but feel free to consider that speculative until I can find a cite for it.
Cowgirl: Last I heard, the Chretien government is now siding with the U.S. in saying that a second resolution is not required to authorize force against Iraq. As far as public opinion goes, it varies by province. About 60% in Alberta support the war, and support dips as low as 23% (in Quebec, natch).
No time here for lengthy comments but just to post Times article referred to above–dated February 14, after the break with NATO allies and surrounding debate–but not after the protests (which I can’t help but think would enhance the readiness to wait).
Major point, even if we split difference between older polls and more recent polls and acknowledge that public sentiment shifts as speeches are made, etc. etc., can we not agree that there is, say, mass support within the US for UN/allied cooperation, and mass concern that we not proceed to war without it.
To wit, the message behind the protests–insofar as we understand them to include those who would support war with UN/allied sanction–isn’t one of a minority of no-war-never doves, nor of Stalinists, nor of any other kind of fringe constituency. It is, rather, the position of a genuinely broad sector of the US population that either constitutes a majority or comes close to doing so. And once one goes from the US to Britain that majority becomes clear-cut and resistance to war even greater.
[QUOTE]
Note that the last question is the ONLY one in which support drops below 50%, and it describes a situation that can not happen, since the U.S. already has the support of three major allies (the U.K, Australia, Canada), and many minor allies.
[QUOTE]
That last question actually, as a whole, described the US invading without UN support. And that can for sure still happen.
Well, I see you’ve conveniently lumped Allied/UN support together, but that’s the real issue, isn’t it? There’s no chance that the U.S. will be going ALONE. It will be going either with a coalition of about 26 countries, without the U.N. support (this has ALREADY been achieved), or it will go in with full UN support.
So let’s rephrase the question to be more realistic: Should the U.S. go to war against Iraq with the coalition it already has, or should it go only with full UN support? Phrased that way, you get numbers more like 60% for the current situation, and 85% if the U.N. SC votes for it. In neither case do you have a minority, or anything close to it.
In fact, if you phrased the question, “Are you opposed to the U.S. going to war in Iraq with the current coalition”, then you find that only about 30-40% of people are opposed.
The one thing I think it’s fair to say would be that a statement like, “The majority of Americans are opposed to a war in Iraq” would be flat-out dishonest.
Oops! Anyways, my reply referred to Sam Stones post.
ummm, no. Here is the transcript of the interview that I am assuming the anonymous email writer to your cite was refering to:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/2732979.stm
…an interview that simply asked the questions that a skeptical public-wanting to know answers about the war-wanted to ask. Kudos to Prime Minister Blair for fronting up and answering them.
…anyway-my own annecdotal evidence to counter yours-I watch BBC regularly-and in the interviews, nobody gets off scot free. Feel free to watch HARDtalk-I watched the French Defense Minister get grilled the other day-if you could watch that interview and claim that BBC had an anti-war bias, then it would take a better man than me to convince you.
** “Every reporter, every desk anchor, every clip - and I mean every - pleaded the case not to bring military force to enforce the resolutions against Iraq.”** I mean, seriously. Do you think that any news agency could get away with this? Are we to take the word of this anonymous emailer? I suggest you watch the BBC world service and make your own judgements.
Back to Grenada for a second:
We got a bit sidetracked by details about runways and arms and such, but here are the basic questions I’d like answered:
-
Do you now, in hindsight, think the world would be a better place if Reagan hadn’t ordered the invasion?
-
Do you think the Grenadans would have been better off under a Communist dictatorship than they are today?