Americans on Iraq: Yes and No

A new LA Times poll has a mixed result that feels like an accurate read of public opinion to me:

Fifty-three percent of respondents said the situation in Iraq did not merit war, while 43 percent said war was justified. When the same question was asked for Times polls in March and November, the numbers were precisely reversed.

But less than 20 percent said America should withdraw its troops within weeks, and 25 percent said the U.S. should set a deadline for pulling out.

Article here.

Comments

[Josh]

Mickey Kaus has something to say about LAT polls today.

[Rick Barton]

Fifty-three percent of respondents said the situation in Iraq did not merit war

Perhaps there is hope for the traditional American value of limited government after all.

[mobile]

In other polling results:

Seventy-five percent of respondents said the situation in Vietnam did not merit war

Eighty-two percent said the 1941 declaration of war against the Axis powers was the correct course of action.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents felt that it may have been "a mistake" to liberate
France at the end of World War II.

Eighty-seven percent of chlamydia sufferers in the pool agreed that the one-night stand with that skank the picked up in that bar last Saturday night was not justified. When the same question was asked earlier on Saturday evening, the numbers were reversed.

[Jack]

P.T. Barnum had you in mind. Publicly announcing a belief in the validity of an LAT poll is tantamount to asking your friends to intervene before you hurt yourself.

[James Anderson Merritt]

If the poll results can be believed, perhaps they illustrate why we need to make it as difficult as possible to use our military for anything except direct defense of the country: once we're in, even when we realize we went in mistakenly, we have a strong sense of responsibility about getting the job done and making amends for any errors. Our own good intentions keep us from quickly or easily disentangling ourselves from an ill-conceived or improper war, a situation that invariably leads to more bad results.

On paper, we had institutions and procedures that were sufficient to slow or stop the rush into this war; we simply didn't use them sincerely. Now it is up to the voters in November, to stand up for the notion that the Constitution is the law of the land, and to fire officials who don't understand it, or who actively seek to keep the mechanisms it defines from operating as intended. If we don't do that, we'll only encourage future official misbehavior.

The problem is that, after firing the current crowd of bums, who will we find to replace them? I have no confidence that a President Kerry will repair recent damage or move us in a better direction; I indeed expect him to cause more damage, and perhaps turn us in a different, bad direction.

The Libertarian Party's Michael Badnarik at least has strong and well-articulated ideas of what the Constitution does and does not permit the Federal government to do. He has also demonstrated a great capacity to keep chugging along his sttep, uphill path. He's worth a look, at least: http://www.badnarik.org. Nobody expected Badnarik to win the LP nomination, just as nobody expects the LP nominee to win the Presidency. Still, even if he can't repeat in November his dark horse victory at the LP convention, a signficant vote total for Badnarik will put the winner of the race on notice that there is a significant constituency for respecting the constitution, getting us out of war, and reining in government. If we can't send the messenger to Washington, at least we need to send the message as loudly as possible.

Putting the fear of the electorate into the Presidential candidates isn't enough, of course. Congress should be ashamed of abdicating its constitutional responsibilities to deliberate the case for war, to demand that the executive make the case, and to reserve to themselves the power to declare war. Those representatives and Senators who participated in this abdication also need to be fired in November. Replacing them with Libertarians so Ron Paul won't be so lonely (and so he might be encouraged to someday run a successful race for congress AS a Libertarian) sounds like a good idea to me. Check out your local ballots and see if there are any Libertarians on the list. If so, please give them fair consideration before you vote.

I urge my fellow Californians to look carefully at Judge Jim Gray (www.judgejimgray4senate.com), now running to replace Barbara Boxer in the US Senate. From what I can see, Gray understands the need for due deliberation, especially in matters of life and death, and he won't roll over for Executive-branch power-grabs, as Boxer did to a greater extent with President Clinton, and has done to a lesser extent -- but still has done, on various issues -- with President Bush.

[Steve Woodring]

Ashcroft?s refusal to produce the documents in the prisoner torture matter before a Senate committee makes it all too clear that the administration believes it has, finally, overcome the limitations of a Constitutional government. I don?t want to live in a dictatorship, so I?ve written to several Senators urging them to charge Ashcroft with contempt of Congress and to prosecute the charge. If millions of us simply contact the Senate (and not merely our own Senators), the weight of our urgency might bring this government down before it has the chance to pull off an October surprise that will nullify our Constitution as, in the view of Gen. Tommy Franks, merely an experiment.

I urge you all to e-mail as many Senators as you can at: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm. This is the message I sent:

Dear Senator:

Attorney General Ashcroft's recent refusal to produce documents relating to administration policies on torture is, in fact, contempt of Congress. I strongly urge you prosecute Mr. Ashcroft on this issue.

We need your leadership now. The Constitution has not been in such serious jeopardy since the Civil War. Please stand up to the administration for all of us who love our country and are appalled and frightened by this totalitarian threat.

Respectfully,

Feel free to use it, change it, or make up your own, but please write.

Follow up? Contact every media outlet you can think of, and let them know about this campaign and make sure they cover it.

For a free country,

Steve Woodring