Hey, Bush supporters - what the fuck?

[solarbird]

I mean... seriously. I thought the Kerry people were bad for thinking that Kerry was somehow secretly against the Iraq war, but at least they (...generally...) admit that he's not publicly against it; they just think it's his Sekrit Plan or something. But this is just nuts.

I mean god damn, how do almost 70% of Bush supporters think he's for treaties that he's junked? How do over half think that he's for the ICC and pro-Kyoto?!

Bush Supporters Still Believe Iraq Had WMD or Major Program, Supported al Qaeda
Agree with Kerry Supporters Bush Administration Still Saying This is the Case
Agree US Should Not Have Gone to War if No WMD or Support for al Qaeda

Bush Supporters Misperceive World Public as Not Opposed to Iraq War, Favoring Bush Reelection

http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_Election_04/html/new_10_21_04.html

Even after the final report of Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Fifty-six percent assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points.

Similarly, 75% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda, and 63% believe that clear evidence of this support has been found. Sixty percent of Bush supporters assume that this is also the conclusion of most experts, and 55% assume, incorrectly, that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. Here again, large majorities of Kerry supporters have exactly opposite perceptions.

...

Bush supporters also have numerous misperceptions about Bush's international policy positions. Majorities incorrectly assume that Bush supports multilateral approaches to various international issues--the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (69%), the treaty banning land mines (72%)--and for addressing the problem of global warming: 51% incorrectly assume he favors US participation in the Kyoto treaty. After he denounced the International Criminal Court in the debates, the perception that he favored it dropped from 66%, but still 53% continue to believe that he favors it. An overwhelming 74% incorrectly assumes that he favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements. In all these cases, majorities of Bush supporters favor the positions they impute to Bush. Kerry supporters are much more accurate in their perceptions of his positions on these issues.



You don't care what other people think, all you
want to do is to be wild and have fun.

Comments

[banner.livejournal.com]

You did read the report, right? Saddam's WMD program was ready to swing back into action the second sanctions were lifted. He could have been producing chemical weapons in like 2 months. Also he was doing some sort of biological experimentation on people, but they think it was for assassination. Then there is all of the stuff that got shipped to Syria just prior to the invasion, they have no idea what any of that stuff was.

Also Saddam was supporting terrorists, and he definitely had some sort of relationship with Al Qaeda, they were talking. Considering all the money he was getting out of the food for oil program illegally, (and all the bribes he was passing to the UN, the French, and others), I wouldn't be surprised if some kind of link showed up there as well in time.

[king-chiron.livejournal.com]

How does that contradict what Solarbird said? 72% of Bush supporters believe that Iraq had WMD, the Duelfer report said they didn't.

Hell, I'd like to know what percentage of Bush supporters still believe Iraq was involved in 9/11, I'm willing to bet it's a significant minority. Never let facts get in the way of ideology I guess.

[solarbird]

Saddam was supporting some terrorists. But none with global reach. And less than, say, Syria, and much less than Our Friends, The Saudis. Or hell, less than Our Friends in Pakistan.

And there was no relationship with al Qaeda. Not really. There had been a few low-level contacts that did not seem to go anywhere. Anything beyond that is hopeful speculation.

President Bush specifically said that the war against Terrorism was a war against terrorist groups that had global reach. He didn't want to get involved in, say, IRA issues in the United Kingdom.

Saddam did want to restart WMD programmes. No question. But he didn't have them, and he didn't have resources for them. But he had neither weapons stockpiles nor active programmes; as President Bush put it, he had "WMD-program-related-activities," which basically means he'd hoped to have it again someday maybe.

Most supporters of President Bush say they would not have supported the invasion of Iraq on that basis. I think that kind of thing matters.

The oil-for-food programme was, of course, a miasma.

[banner.livejournal.com]

Did you read the report at all? It has some rather interesting stuff, not the least of which Saddam was very close to getting sanctions removed, he had all of his WMD programs on hold, he had invested very heavily in dual use infra-structure, and would have been back in the WMD business very quickly.

There were more ties to terrorism than I think you are giving credit for, and he did have other weapons that he was not suposed to have. Plus the WMD's were only one of several reasons given for the invasion. And again, just what all did he ship out to Syria and why were several big name terrorists, including one from Al Qeada, hiding out in his country?

When the sanctions had collasped (which they were going to do, and soon), what do you think Saddam would have done?

[solarbird]

You'll recall that I opposed the war more because I thought the Bush administration would make a hash of it. (Not the invasion itself, which went even faster than I expected it would - I thought they'd hold on for an extra week than they really did - but the follow-through.) So far, that's been mostly true. It's not all bad news, but it's significantly bad news. Given how badly we've pissed off everyone, even Britain (the Tories are now overtly against us in these areas; so are the LDPs; Labour is about halfway there), and given how completely the rest of the war has been allowed to fall to the wayside, I'm not convinced a sanctions-free Iraq would be worse at this point. Our ability to do anything about future threats is virtually nil. Nobody outside of Poland, Kuwait, and Isreal is going to believe us for quite a while.

That means something.

None of this is really the point of my post, though. Most Bush supporters hold positions opposite Bush, and have views of the reality on the ground which are directly opposite the actual reality on the ground. To which I just have to go, "what the fuck?!"

I hate that this is true, but...

[kitchengrrl.livejournal.com]

the answer here is so obvious. A statistical "Bush supporter" doesn't mean they're informed. It just means they're aware that Bush is there and assume since they like him better than they like Kerry that he supports the things that interest them, or at least the things that sound good when someone says "treaty".

I am puzzled as to why Kerry supporters have a more accurate view of what their favored candidate supports, and it does feed very negatively into the little voice that says "because conservatives are STOOPID."

But then, I also can't understnad how there are still "undecideds" this late in the game. The difference is clear, and was clear from the beginning. How much "clarification" are people expecting to get from more propaganda or "debates" which are really just dueling stump speeches?

Do I have any faith left at all in our body politic? The answer is firmly NO.

[banner.livejournal.com]

I don't think things are going as poorly there as you think they are, but then I get most of my reports from letters written by soldiers that are there.

I think what's making it harder is that the media here and some politicians are playing up how bad things are, encouraging the terrorsts and insurgents there to keep it up. Just like they did with the North Vietnamese. They watch our news just like we do, and they know perception is more important than reality.

Things in Iraq are going far better than I thought they would, and faster too. Kerry has waffled so much on what to do in Iraq that the terrorists are doing everything they can to try and make Bush look bad right now, because they know with Kerry, he'll pull out.

And what about the other countries who are currently supporting us? You don't mention them. As for the virtually nill statement, I disagree completely.

As for the poll, well something about it just looks bizzare. I'm waiting for some experts to weigh in on the questions and dynamics, because no, Bush supporters are not moron's contrary to 'popular' belief.

[kathrynt.livejournal.com]

The letters I read from soldiers that are there indicate that the whole thing is a massive fucking cock-up.

[king-chiron.livejournal.com]

Even administration officials are admitting that things are seriously screwed up and that they never planned for this level of fighting this long after the invasion, yet Bush supporters persist in believing things are going swimmingly.

[flashfire.livejournal.com]

Things are going so well in Iraq that the news is reporting that the insurgents have more numbers than ever, and are stronger than ever. But that's all a pack of lies on the part of our media to make things look worse, right?

Spin THAT.

[banner.livejournal.com]

I don't have to, you just did.

Remember Vietnam? WE won the Tet offensive, but the media reported otherwise. The Media lost that war. They're trying their damndest to lose this one. Ever wonder why? Of course not, you're just a troll.

[flashfire.livejournal.com]

If that's what you have to tell yourself...

I thought you were done responding to me in the last entry where you got smacked down thoroughly.

[avram]

I thought that what the media started doing after Tet was report on the differences between what was actually happening in Vietnam and what Westmoreland and the Johnson administration were claiming was happening. But I could be wrong. Got any actual examples, with quotes? I’ve tried to find a site with period historical headlines or news excerpts, without luck.

[king-chiron.livejournal.com]

I think you're mistaken about the TET offensive. The issue with the TET offensive was that the US was reporting that things were going great, that victory was within our grasp. Suddenly with the TET offensive you had the attacks on Saigon along with most larger S. Vietnamese cities. The US embassy was breached, the old capital city Hue was captured by the NVA, Khe Sang was attacked and eventually abandoned and parts of Saigon were under communist control for a week.

Militarily it was a disaster for the communists, they lost huge numbers of troops. But it showed that the US didn't quite have the communists on the ropes and that they were lying about the status of the war. And in fact that was true as the Pentagon papers later showed.

[banner.livejournal.com]

Something occured to me earlier, what do you mean by WMD and what did the people in the survey mean? If you mean fully weaponized and ready to go weapons, no we haven't turned up any but the odd shell here and there.

But if you mean biological toxins, Sarin gas, and stuff like that (which he wasn't supposed to have), well they did find some of that stuff. It was even in the preliminary Kay report. Also there were the missles. To a lot of people that constitues as WMD's.

[avram]

If by "one from al Qaeda" youmean Abu Musab Zarqawi (of Ansar al-Islam, which has connections to al Qaeda), you ought to know that his camps were in northern Iraq, the part that wasn't under Saddam's control.

The Bush administration had several chances to attack those camps, but passed up on them. The Pentagon drew up three plans for doing it, and the National Security Council kept refusing them, because getting rid of the camps would undermine the rationale for Bush's planned invasion of Iraq.

[banner.livejournal.com]

So you're saying that northern Iraq has suceeded from the rest of Iraq and that Saddam had no control over anything that went on up there? No military, no police, nothing.

Interesting theory. Got proof?

[avram]

I'm saying that after the Gulf War, the US and UK established "no-fly zones" in northern and southern Iraq, to protect the Kurds and Shiites, and that the northern zone, where the Kurds were, was generally considered to have a sort of de facto independence from Hussein, and which we patrolled frequently. You ever consider actually reading up on some of this stuff?

[banner.livejournal.com]

Yes I have. The no fly zone was for military flights. But I don't believe it stopped Saddam from controling those regions. You say it does, show proof.

[avram]

Ever hear of the Kurdish Autonomous Region?

[banner.livejournal.com]

Did you read that entry? Saddam had some control and power in that region. Even says so right in that entry.

You do know that there were elements of the Iraqi army in that region that were fought during the invasion as well, right?

[avram]

Yeah? So what’s your point?

My point is that the mere presence of Zarqawi in northern Iraq doesn’t mean Saddam approved of him being there, or could necessarily have had him removed if he did disapprove. You seem to be obsessed with some weird absolute notion of “control”.

And it doesn’t change the fact that the Pentagon asked the Bush administration for permission to go after Zarqawi three times, and were turned down each time.

[avram]

and he definitely had some sort of relationship with Al Qaeda

The nature of this relationship is not widely known, but now it can be told: Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda dated for several weeks in college. The exact intensity of the relationship is disputed. Hussein claims he went "all the way" with Qaeda on at least four occasions, and spread rumors that Qaeda is "a total slut". These rumors were the immediate cause of the breakup between the two, and Qaeda insists that they never got beyond third base.

[flashfire.livejournal.com]

Where was Kim Jong Il during all this?