Public again says Iraq "is not worth it"

Bush's neocon invasion of Iraq was supposed to be the master stroke that would secure Republican dominance for decades to come, and forever paint the Democrats as traitorous cowards that would have to acknowledge Bush's brilliance in reverential tones perpetually or risk being laughed at or possibly beaten.
This little military expedition was supposed to last for several months, not several years with no end in sight. The reasons behind it changed again and again. It was "payback" for 9/11. It was to keep Saddam from nuking us. It was to bring democracy to Iraq. Yes, the reasons changed, but somehow Iraq was always "vital" or "crucial" to something. America always seemed to do just fine for a couple centuries without obsessing over Iraq, or whatever it was called at the moment. It was no more crucial to our interests than what went on in Ghana.

Apparently everything changed after 9/11, and a country that wasn't involved with a dozen Saudis carrying out a co-ordinated attack on American cities was somehow where Western Civilisation would be forced to fight a battle to the death with "radical Islam". I'm not at all sure how that was supposed to work, but it seems like an invasion of Iraq was supposed to draw all of the world's "bad guys" into a conventional military conflict with American Military Might, in which said bad guys would be killed off and The World Would Be Safe Once More. Certainly Bush never explained how it was supposed to work, only that it was absolutely neccessary, and that if you didn't unquestioningly support it, then you were pro-terrorist. Nobody, to my knowledge, asked the Iraqis if they'd like to be the host for The Final Battle Between Good And Evil. Surely any country would jump at that opportunity, wouldn't they?
As it turned out, our "hosts" had problems of their own, and without Saddam around to make them play nice they started going at each other in a big way. This ethnic cleansing between Iraqis was somehow - I'm really not clear on this - supposed to really be Al-Qaeda's doing. Yeah, if Al-Qaeda hadn't come to Iraq to fight the big Deathmatch, then the whole sectarian violence thing somehow wouldn't have happened, at least if you follow Bush's contorted, sinuous, and very poorly articulated reasoning. But since Bush was the one that picked Iraq as the place where Good would fight to The Bitter End against Evil Incarnate, wasn't his kind of his doing? Not at all, the Administration said, because the civil war was not really a civil war at all. It was instead Al-Qaeda going around killing Sunni and Shia alike, and some of Saddam's leftover thugs taking a crack at anyone they could get their hands on for some unexplained reason.

It took a few years for Bush to see that it really was a civil war after all.

That didn't matter, though. The Final Battle Against Radical Islam was becoming more like a long-term guerilla war instead of the glorious, quick, and decisive slaughter of bad guys who would line up to be shot by our troops. Bush tried telling us about the power of positive thinking. He said we had an obligation to protect the Iraqis because they had voted, even though the Sunnis boycotted that election and we ended up with an impotent and incompetent government for all of troubles. We were just supposed to forget all of that old stuff the Administration said; if we didn't "win" the occupation then Al-Qaeda would take over Iraq. So much for the Central Front/Deathmatch concept.

And so we arrived at the place we are now at, nearly five years after invading. We can't leave or even cut the number of troops we have in Iraq, or the Bad Guys will take over - you know, the Bad Guys that the invasion of Iraq was supposed to wipe out forever. While Iraq is now, in the Administrations' mind, embroiled in a civil war, the "war" against Al-Qaeda is still not admitted to be a guerilla conflict; it's a conventional WW2-style war that we can "win" militarily.

So that, children, is the story of The Decider and the Mysteriously-Changing Menace. Whatever it appears as, we must fight it to the death or else we will surely perish. And only The Decider knows for sure what the real Menace is. It might seem strange, but we are always winning and we are always also still in terrible danger from whatever form the Mysteriously-Changing Menace may take. Be confident and terrified at the same time, because anything else would embolden the Enemy.

Judging by the poll results below, the American public isn't buying Bush's tale. Yet the Republicans have based much of their appeal on something that only 1/3 of the country thinks was worth doing in the first place.

story from ARG Monitor

Iraq War Not Worth Fighting for Americans

January 31, 2008

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Many adults in the United States disagree with their government’s decision to launch the coalition effort, according to a poll by Hart/McInturff released by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News. 59 per cent of respondents think removing Saddam Hussein from power was not worth the number of U.S. military casualties and the financial cost of the war.

The coalition effort against Hussein’s regime was launched in March 2003. At least 3,940 American soldiers have died during the military operation, and 29,000 troops have been wounded in action.

In December 2005, Iraqi voters renewed their National Assembly. In May 2006, Shiite United Iraqi Alliance member Nouri al-Maliki officially took over as prime minister.

In September 2007, commander of the Multi-National Force - Iraq David Petraeus and U.S. ambassador in Iraq Ryan Crocker provided a comprehensive assessment of the situation in Iraq to the U.S. Congress. In addition, U.S. president George W. Bush said U.S. forces in Iraq would be reduced by 5,700 troops in December, and announced the possibility of a further decrease in July 2008.

On Dec. 20, Bush delivered his final State of the Union address. In his speech, the American president discussed the Iraq war, saying, "The mission in Iraq has been difficult and trying for our nation. But it is in the vital interest of the United States that we succeed. A free Iraq will deny al-Qaeda a safe haven. A free Iraq will show millions across the Middle East that a future of liberty is possible. A free Iraq will be a friend of America, a partner in fighting terror, and a source of stability in a dangerous part of the world."

Polling Data

When it comes to the war in Iraq, do you think that removing Saddam Hussein from power was or was not worth the number of U.S. military casualties and the financial cost of the war?

	Jan. 2008	Sept. 2007	Jan. 2007
Worth it	32%	35%	33%
Not worth it	59%	56%	57%
Depends	4%	4%	5%
Unsure	5%	5%	5%

Source: Hart/McInturff / The Wall Street Journal / NBC News
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 1,008 American adults, conducted from Jan. 20 to Jan. 22, 2008. Margin of error is 3.1 per cent.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Juan Cole's summary:

A new poll finds that the percentage of Americans who think the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein was worth it to the US declined from 35% to only 32% between December and January. The percentage who thought it was not worth it rose from 56% to 59% according to the same poll. It turns out that the American public is not impressed with a mere reduction in violence nowadays from apocalyptic levels last year this time. They want to know why we went there in the first place, and why their sacrifice of blood and treasure was worthwhile. No one, including McCain really has an answer for that.