Poll: Military support for Bush drops again

[scottyz]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Support for
President George W. Bush's
Iraq policy has fallen among the US armed forces to just 54 percent from 63 percent a year ago, according to a poll by the magazine group Military Times.

In its annual survey of the views of military personnel, the group reported on its website that support for Bush's overall policies dropped over the past year to 60 percent from 71 percent.

"In 2003 and 2004, supporters of the war in Iraq pointed to high approval ratings in the Military Times poll as a signal that military members were behind ... the president's policy."

However, it said, the new poll "found diminished optimism that US goals in Iraq can be accomplished, and a somewhat smaller drop in support for the decision to go to war in 2003."

Military Times, which publishes popular magazines for each of the US military branches including Army Times and Navy Times, cautioned that its poll, of 1,215 active-duty servicemen, is not necessarily representative of the military as a whole.

The respondents were "on average older, more experienced, more likely to be officers and more career-oriented than the military population."

The Military Times poll also showed a significant decline in the armed forces' views of US military policy and management.

With 61 percent of respondents saying they had served in Iraq or
Afghanistan, only 58 percent believed that Bush had the military's best interests at heart, a sharp decline from 69 percent a year before.

Only 56 percent felt the US should have gone to war in Iraq, compared to 60 percent a year before.

And 64 percent felt the same about the
Pentagon leadership, compared to 70 percent a year ago.

Addressing key issues facing the Pentagon, the poll showed that almost two-thirds of the soldiers felt the US military is "stretched too thin to be effective", but the number was less than a year ago.

At the same time, there was a fall in resistance to restoring the draft in the United States. Opposition fell from 75 percent a year ago to 68 percent this year.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060102/pl_afp/usbushmilitarypoll_060102234337

It would appear that Bush is facing the same steady decline in approval from the military that he is from everyone else.

 

[KidRocks]

If true this is indeed great news. Fascism must be stopped and it must begin with the military. Looks like they to are waking up!

 

[Stupiderthanthou]

The draft statistic is interesting. It would suggest that people are growing accustomed to ongoing conflict, no? And remaining supportive of it despite coming to disapprove of its major justifications. Rather than end the war in Iraq, they would throw more into it? Hmm... that stay the course message has gotten a favorable reception, hasn't it?

So rather than get angry and call for an end, on we go. Rather than turn back in the face of what may be a collapsed bridge, we make a running leap in blind faith (blind in that the insurgency in Iraq has hardly wound down, and in that it has actually strengthened in Afghanistan). Very, very interesting; I really would have thought that, as support for having gone to war went down, so too would support for maintaining it by means of the draft.

Are people (by and large) resigned to the necessity of war, or are they just too meek/uninformed/"patriotic"/Republican/other to voice opposition to it?