Warwick

"The poll found that 86 percent of Republicans and 64 percent of independents supported military action to oust Mr. Hussein, while 51 percent of Democrats said they supported it."

NY Times Poll

I find it odd that there seems to be much more anti-war posts in this forum by US members.

Mr. Superbad

Why do they support the war if the White House hasn't given them enough information about the need for a pre-emptive attack?

Blake

How come? The II membership is distinctly unrepresentative of the U.S. population as a whole.

ju'iblex

youve got to remember, this is a free thinking place, not one where people will accept governmental decisions with no question or investigation of all the facts first.

but all i have to say is that those figures are just, well, sad.

sir drinks-a-lot

Keep telling yourself that. It might be true someday.

elwoodblues

Not really. I'd chalk most of the change up to pure American cussedness and contraryism(?). US population loves to piss off Europe, by and large, and will get behind most anything the Europeans are against.

Results may differ for the coasts (LaLa Land is more like Europe than it is the rest of the US, and some of the East Coast has more ties to Europe), but everything in between seems to fit the theory neatly.

Grumpy

The lesson we learned in November 2000 is that if more people are in favor of one thing over the other, the less popular thing must prevail. And that diminished popularity can be read as an overwhelming endorsement, see.

SanDiegoAtheist

Well, a lot of it is that many in the US have also bought into the Bush administrations propaganda that there is a link between 9-11 and Hussein (which so far has been completely unsubstantiated, to the point where the intelligence agencies of both the US and the UK indicate that there is NO apparent link between the two so far). The link between Hussein and bin Laden is also unsubstantiated. Both seem very unlikely - the first because Hussein would certainly be implicated if he HAD had a role in the attack - and Hussein may be a despot, but I doubt he's stupid enough to believe he could carry out an attack on American soil and not be annihilated in return. The second because bin Laden hates Hussein and the Baath party just a LITTLE bit less than he hates the US. To bin Laden, Hussein represents everything that is WRONG in the Islamic world today - a nearly completely secular tyranny which is completely opposed to Islamic fundamentalism (and indeed fought a 10 year long war with Iran over EXACTLY that).

Yet according to similar polls, 45% of US citizens believe that Hussein was at least partially responsible for 9-11, and roughly the same % believe that Iraqi agents were among the suicide bombers, the first of which is almost certainly false, and the second of which is demonstrably false.

Those 45% are almost certain to support the war - yet they support it entirely out of ignorance of the reasons behind it. It's part of the war on terror for them, part of the direct response to 9-11.

Unfortunately, many Americans are politically quite ignorant when it comes to the world. Sad, but very very true.

Cheers,

The San Diego Atheist

edited to add: wow, 200 posts and it only took me 3 years lol

GaryP

I can't believe the numbers supporting the war are so small, considering the never-ending media drumbeat FOR war!

Danya

Or maybe the pure hostility coming from the right has worked to shout down the other side . Some people may have decided it might be safer to go back to their apathetic view on the world than have to listen to the other side throw their tantrums over their inalienable right to kill thousands of people they don't know and could care less about.