[IRAQ] polls on the war

From: Damien Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Sun Mar 30 2003 - 17:10:01 MST

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    On Sun, Mar 30, 2003 at 01:12:41PM -0900, John Grigg wrote:

    > You make it sound like the vast population of the developed world is
    > extremely against the U.S. overthrowing Saddam's murderous, raping regime.
    > I don't buy into this. Anyway, Americans are used to bearing heavy burdens
    > when the rest of the world cannot or will not do the right thing.

    I took it for granted that just about every country besides Israel opposed the
    war, at a popular level. I thought Eastern Europe might be exceptions, but
    then I found I was wrong. I knew that Blair and Howard were bucking their
    populations. But it's good to fact check. So:

    http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/30/1048962645495.html

    90% of Spaniards and French oppose the war. And the Spanish government is one
    of our allies.

    http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/30/1048962645191.html
    suggests the published "coalition of the willing" is misleading.

    http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=578&e=8&cid=578&u=/nm/20030330/ts_nm/iraq_usa_poll_dc
    says Americans think the gov't was overly optimistic in war predictions, that
    the war will probably last months, and that 5,000 American *or* 500 Iraqi
    casualties is too many.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45187-2003Mar28.html
    says support in Britain was 37% (probably higher now due to the
    rally-behind-our-troops effect) and that support in Europe never topped 30%.
    And population-wise Europe is most of the developed world outside of the US.
    (US 280m, EU 320m, Japan 150m? Canada 30m...)

    Ah, further on it says British support is 56%... which is really low for a
    democracy at war.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s819650.htm
    says 78% in France oppose, and "overwhelming majorities" in Spain, Portugal,
    and Italy.

    In Germany, of course, Schroeder was elected on anti-war sentiment.

    As for the heavy burdens bit we've been bearing alone, what do you have in
    mind? The Cold War? Europe supported us there. WW II? We were hardly alone
    in that. What, really?

    > And I do realize sometimes we do make mistakes, but if we play our cards
    > right this will not be one of them. The U.S. (yes, and even European

    Big 'if', it seems to me.

    > except when repelling an invasion. But it's unethical (just plain wrong!)
    > for the U.S. to standby while Saddam every year terrorizes, tortures, rapes
    > and murders his own citizens.

    We can't even stop prison rape in the US, but we're going to war to stop it
    elsewhere?

    -xx- Damien X-)



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