45% of Iraqis back attacks on US, UK forces; 82% want us gone !!

[welshTerrier2]

Whose choice should it be whether the US stays or goes?????

Democrats should call for a new poll of Iraqis on this issue and we should honor the results ... why do polls like this get buried??

How much longer should US troops remain in Iraq if the Iraqi people want us to leave?

Democrats continue to support a "we can't leave until ..." strategy ... what right do they have to call for continued occupation ???

Enough is enough !!! either call for a real, monitored poll of the Iraqi people or call for withdrawal ... anything else is imperialism ... anything else is wrong ...

what say you Clarkies, Kerries, Clintonistas, Deanies, others ???

source: http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-10-22T214904Z_01_SCH278249_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-BRITAIN.xml

Forty-five percent of Iraqis believe attacks on U.S. and British troops are justified, according to a secret poll said to have been commissioned by British defense leaders and cited by The Sunday Telegraph.

Less than 1 percent of those polled believed that the forces were responsible for any improvement in security, according to poll figures.

Eighty-two percent of those polled said they were "strongly opposed" to the presence of the troops.

The paper said the poll, conducted in August by an Iraqi university research team, was commissioned by the Ministry of Defense.

[applegrove]

1. Don't blame em. If the US goes - that takes the steam out of the Sunnis

sails and all they have to answer for is themselves.

[stillcool]

2. Thanks...

sent an email including link and excerpt to Senator(most Iraqi's want us to stay)Levin....just in case he really wants to know.

[welshTerrier2]

5. Levin's idea ...

i saw Levin on C-Span this morning ... he was giving a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) ...

his been pushing a proposal, if i'm restating it correctly, to tell the Iraqis we are going to withdraw as of some date ... he believes this will force the parties, mostly the Shia and the Kurds, to reach some kind of settlement with the Sunnis because they will no longer be able to depend on continued US military support ... his view is that all we're doing right now is propping up militias under the control of the clerics who do not have "Iraqi nationalism" as their primary concern ...

but Levin's view seems out of touch with the above polls ... if the Iraqis want us to leave, why would threatening them that we're going to leave force them to do anything ???

some might question the quality of the two polls cited in the OP ... to this i say, "fine" ... then let's redo them with the best oversight we can get ... the problem, of course, is that the election results on the Constitution were clearly tampered with ... there's certainly no guarantee any poll on any subject will be credible ... but no other path is democratic ... let the Iraqi people be heard or get the hell out !!

[Igel]

3. Better link, while it lasts.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/10/23/wirq23.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/10/23/ixportaltop.html

[Totally Committed]

4. As you know, I'm a Clark supporter.

I have supported his plan for an Iraqui withdrawal after diplomacy has been applied. But, what he and we have to realize and admit now -- with a story like this -- that it is not in his power -- or ours -- to make the Bush administration do any of the things he recommends. If this poll is accurate, and this number of Iraqis really feel this way, I am willing to say it is time to get out of there.

No amount of Bush's form of diplomacy (read: Karen Hughes going around lecturing governements, and Condi Rice trying to look compassionate enough to allow brown people to touch her)is going to win the hearts and minds of the ME governments or the Iraqi people now.

Time to get our men and women out of there. That's only my opinion, but, there, I said it. I think tomorrow I will be writing Wes an e-mail asking him to reconsider his postion on Iraq. My guess is, he is doing that even as I write this, though.

TC

[welshTerrier2]

6. Clark's support for this would be invaluable !!

i am more than willing to have anyone challenge the integrity of these polls ... i have no idea how they were taken and i have no idea whether they reflect the position of the Iraqi people ...

the greater point, though, is that we must respect the fundamental argument that if the Iraqi people want us out, we have to leave ... toward that end, Democrats should call for a national referendum of the Iraqi people on this issue ... the vote should be held ASAP !!

i greatly appreciate your integrity and your honest assessment of the situation ... i can't thank you enough for conveying these ideas and this polling information to General Clark ... how can America claim it is pushing democracy and then not allow the Iraqi people to choose their own destiny ???

and as long as i'm on a "we have no right to be there" roll, consider this ... i would argue that bush is in violation of the authorization he was given by Congress in the IWR ... neither of the two conditions stipulated in the authorization remains - one can no longer make a credible argument (if one ever could have) that Iraq poses a continuing threat to the national security of the US ... in fact, bush no longer cites that as an objective for continued US occupation ... the primary argument has morphed into building stability and democracy ... that is not a stated objective in the IWR ... and second, Iraq is in compliance with all UN resolutions ... Iraq never had any WMD and they certainly don't have any now ...

so bush in now in clear violation of the IWR by continuing to "use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate" ...

SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

(a) AUTHORIZATION. The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to

(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and

(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq.

[tahoedenver]

7. re:

Everybody knows that Prime Minister Jaafari's party, the Dawa party, is virtually an Iranian puppet party. They hold many Shia fundamentalist views and also support Shia domination over the whole of Iraq. It seem they had to curb that latter objective there to satisfy the Kurds, who just want to be left alone.

All they're going to do is wait for us to pull out so they can start bullying the Sunnis around. It's a form of payback. It's really childish if you think of it. And that's when the seeds of civil sectarian war will start to bloom and blossom.

[welshTerrier2]

8. notice the lack of response from most candidate supporters

they want you to support their candidates but have nothing to say about their misguided positions on Iraq ...

it would be nice to have them agree on this issue and begin leaning on their candidates to call for withdrawal or at least a referendum of the Iraqi people ...

the silence from them is deafening ...

[welshTerrier2]

10. more aggressive subject lines ???

looks like it's going to take a more aggressive subject line to get the attention of the candidate supporters ...

they seem to ignore these issue-focussed threads ...

How about (alphabetically): "Clark, Kerry, Clinton, Dean oppressing the Iraqi majority"

and before the whiners come along and ask why i'm "attacking" Democrats when republicans should be the target, let me add bush to the list ... it's his damned policy ... the point here, however, is that it's the Democrats who should know enough to oppose it ... i'm a Democrat and i want my Party to allow the Iraqi people to choose their own destiny ... i know bush won't respond; i criticize Democrats because i hope they will ...

[DeaconBlues]

9. I wonder what these numbers would be like

if the Iraqis didn't know that the coalition was doing the polling?

[Jacobin]

11. Hey!!! We're makin' progress, its hard werk and

democracy is flourishing and and and.......

/sarcasm
I was wondering when a poll like this would actually be exposed for us in FascistLand to actually read.

It's their fucking country. We had no right to invade it. Hey, if the consequences of leaving now are bad for us, too fucking bad. We forked it up to begin with. They want us gone, clearly. We need to leave