No offense to Oxford, but the only meaningful debate on the issue of unilateral military action by the US is the one which includes participation by the people empowered to make that military action happen. And if that participation is limited to repeated assertions from them regarding the wickedness of Saddam Hussein and the supposed existence of evidence they’re not willing to submit, this doesn’t support the claim of “detailed” discussion.
Huh? The plan is to send in about 100,000 ground troops which is large by any reasonable measure. The word “large” is necesssary in order to distinguish it from a strategy of sending in small numbers of special forces.
This is not a loaded question at all.
Again, I pull out the “faith” card – I have full faith that such discussion happened behind closed doors long before the administration brought the Iraq situation to the fore. YMMV.
Loaded != inaccurate … or even guileful.
It just depends on what the question happens to emphasize. The speical forces question did not specifically spell out that it was a “small” force (though that’s probably known by most subjects). The “large numbers of U.S. ground troops” could perhaps have been called an “occupation force consisting of U.S. ground troops”.
I realize this is big-time nitpicking. I just feel that when evaluating poll results, mere numbers aren’t enough. Question bias – even unintentional – has to be weighed with the final results.
Also: in the case of this specific poll, it took place (Jan. 23-24) before the SOTU address. That information is important, and needs to be revealed alongside the numbers. As does the +/- error percentage, which in this case is 3%. So the poll cannot rule out that 52% of Americans FAVOR a “large force”.
Again … I realize it’s tortured nit-picking. But I think I’m raising valid points regarding evaluation of poll results.
::sigh::
Xenophon1, in March 2002, 58 Labour MPs signed a resolution expressing their “deep unease” with Tony Blair’s decision to support the US’s threat of military force against Iraq.
Were the MPs being “speculative,” or had the US already announced that it intended to enact a “regime change” in Iraq, and Tony Blair had signed on.
Fer chrissakes, xeno, I don’t know what planet you have been on, but the Bushies announced their intentions at least as of the “Axis of Evil” speech - in January 2002 - and people have been screaming about it, in and out of Congress, ever since.
Sua
Look the Bush plan involves attacking with large number of ground troops; the question asks about attacking with large number of ground troops. If this is a loaded question I don’t know what isn’t.
"So the poll cannot rule out that 52% of Americans FAVOR a “large force”.
So what? A war is such a major enterprise that you really want a large majority of at least 65%. The difference between 49% and 52% is basically meaningless; it still means the country is essentially divided in the middle.
Fair point about the date; it would be interesting to see the same question after the SOTU though the other polls haven’t moved much after the SOTU so it probably won’t make a difference.
Why 65%, Cyber? Any basis for that stat?
If 65% approved, would you be arguing that you need at least 70%?
Sua
xeno, according to this http://www.secularislam.org/discussion16/_disc16/00000078.htm Colin Powell first stated that US policy towards Iraq was “regime change” in February 2002.
Eleven months enough debate time for you to hold that there’s been no “rush to war”?
Sua
Exactly … perfectly fair questions may be impossible to come up with. But a question being biased doesn’t mean its results are invalid on their face … only that the bias has to be considered when the results are reviewed.
“Why 65%, Cyber? Any basis for that stat?”
Well 65 per se is an arbitrary percentage but it’s close to a two thirds majority which is widely used as a “super-majority”.
The point is that having a tiny majority isn’t sufficient to say that there is a consensus behind war or that Bush has “won the debate”
Incidentally the best measure of the latter is whether the polls have moved in his direction since he started talking about Iraq a year back. I can’t find a single poll where this has happened and a few where the opposite has.
bordelond: “Again, I pull out the “faith” card – I have full faith that such discussion happened behind closed doors long before the administration brought the Iraq situation to the fore. YMMV.”
Yes, that’s what bothers me.
Sua Sponte: “Fer chrissakes, xeno, I don’t know what planet you have been on, but the Bushies announced their intentions at least as of the “Axis of Evil” speech - in January 2002 - and people have been screaming about it, in and out of Congress, ever since.”
Really?!! Well, I guess we ARE on different planets, then. Can you provide the specific part of that speech wherein Bush announced he was asking Congress for permission to invade Iraq? I don’t remember that happening. I remember talk about “military force” being used where necessary (in the context, at the time, of the War Powers Act), but I remember no declaration of intent to commit a quarter of a million troops.
While you’re looking for the language which announced that, try thinking of a response which deals with the actual substance of my argument. There has been no substantial debate within Washington power circles; there has been repetition of the “Saddam is evil” mantra and scaremongering by the Bushies and unanswered questions from everyone else.
If this thought makes you feel good, then I won’t burst your bubble. However, don’t forget that Bush has not yet actually called for war. In perhaps a few weeks, Bush will announce that a coalitionwill be attacking Iraq. Perhaps the attack will have UN approval. Either way, at that point, 90%+ of Americans will support the war. Yellow ribbons will fly from every tree. Our country will be united.
Based on discussion here and what I’ve read elsewhere, the war may well remain quite unpopular among the populace of several of our allies. That’s not a happy thought for maintaining good relations. However, when Saddam does turn out to have massive amounts of WMDs, even most peaceniks should come to the position that war was the right course.
The “rush to war” feeling may have started when, back in the fall, White House Counsel said Bush didn’t need congressional approval to go to war with Iraq.
Although it may be true, the idea was so odious it fell by the wayside. It did set an urgent tone, though.
In the initial stages of a war support will probably be quite high. That is hardly an indication that Bush has “won the debate” though; just a show of patriotism. If Bush had really won the debate the polls would show a much bigger support for a ground war now.
“However, when Saddam does turn out to have massive amounts of WMDs, even most peaceniks should come to the position that war was the right course.”
Not if he uses them in retaliation or passes them to terrorists the very thing the war was supposed to prevent. I don’t think too many people will judge Gulf War 2 a success if 20,000 New Yorkers are killed in 2004 from weapons passed on to terrorists by Saddam after he was attacked by the US.
You might be right. Or, the public might conclude that we started the war too late, and judge the anti-war crowd to be fools or worse. I haven’t seen too much boasting from the anti-Afghanistan war crowd
Hopefully, such an attack will not occur, and we’ll never find out the reaction.
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We get a bit far afield here. The major point made was that there is no “rush” to war. Anyway, at least I now understand your definition of “debate.” Apparently, it requires a classified briefing and a live webchat with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
It is just silly to assert that this hasn’t been discussed to death both in public and behind close doors in various world capitals for the last year and more. What’s more, this discussion has been conducted in surrealistic detail. Here’s an article from January 2002 discussing detailed invasion plans!
You might think the “powers” have already made up their minds, however, the evidence does not suggest that. Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz et. al. have been engaging in a surprisingly public debate about exactly how to proceed. Going to the UN, for example, represented a serious about-face and a victory for Powell.
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Interesting example.
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Better example.
Of course, the Lusitania wasn’t the cause for U.S.'s entry into WWI. The proximate cause was unrestricted German submarine warfare against neutral shipping, which was announced January 31, 1917. So the “debate” there latest just over two months.
Sua
Forgot about the Zimmerman Telegram, the other proximate cause. The US was informed of the telegram on February 24, 1917, and it was made public March 1, 1917. 36 days later, the US declared war.
Sua
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Well, actually, no. That was an article about a moose raping a car.
This is an article about U.S. invasion plans, dated exactly one year ago today.