Opinion shift on effect of surge?

Financial Times:

US public opinion on military progress in Iraq has improved sharply since the troops “surge” started in February but a majority of Americans still want soldiers brought home, according to a new poll.

Some 48 per cent of Americans now believe that the US ­military effort in Iraq is going well, compared with 30 per cent in February, according to the latest poll by the Pew Research Center.

But the poll found that the “rosier view of the military situation in Iraq has not translated into increased support for maintaining US forces in Iraq”. Some 54 per cent of Americans want the Pentagon to bring troops home, compared with 53 per cent in February.

The improved public perception coincides with the military’s reporting of a significant decline in attacks against it, particularly since June when the five combat brigades that made up the surge had arrived. While 575 US soldiers lost their lives in the first half of 2007, the total since the beginning of July is fewer than 300.

The number of Iraqi deaths has also dropped ­significantly, although some critics suggest the data do not take into account violence in the south, where the US does not have a large military presence.

...

You have to ask what kind of denial the other 52 percent of the people are. You also have to wonder how long it will take to get a majority to see the importance of our victory in defeating al Qaeda in their central front of their war against us.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more