Majority Wants Troops Home By End of 2008

There’s yet more evidence that, depsite the Republican attacks, those of us who want to bring the troops home are representing the views of a majority of Americans. A USA Today-Gallup Poll shows that 63% want the troops home by the end of the year. Voters are also not favorably impressed by the Senate’s ongoing debate over whether to debate Iraq. “he Senate’s failure to act last week rankled nearly two-thirds of those surveyed. By 51%-19%, they blamed Republicans.”

The impact on 2008 remains unclear. The report states:

Seven of 10 say their representative’s vote on the war will affect their vote in the next congressional election; more than four in 10 call it a major factor. However, nearly two-thirds aren’t sure where their representative stands on the issue.

Apparently there are a lot of people who say it will affect their vote but obviously they must know the position of their representative for this to matter. Maybe some Republicans will stay in power due to voters failing to realize their stand. Another possible interpretation of this data is that some Republicans were reelected in 2006 because the voters didn’t know about their support of the war but they might pay attention to how they vote on the upcoming resolutions.

Republicans are trying to frame opposition to escallation of the war as a question of support for the troops. Republicans have received many undeserved votes due to the false impression they have created that they have a better record of supporting the troops despite their actual record. The lastest example of how poorly Republican treat the troops and veterans is seen in the cuts in Bush’s latest budget:

The Bush administration plans to cut funding for veterans’ health care two years from now — even as badly wounded troops returning from Iraq could overwhelm the system.

Bush is using the cuts, critics say, to help fulfill his pledge to balance the budget by 2012.

After an increase sought for next year, the Bush budget would turn current trends on their head. Even though the cost of providing medical care to veterans has been growing rapidly — by more than 10 percent in many years — White House budget documents assume consecutive cutbacks in 2009 and 2010 and a freeze thereafter.

The proposed cuts are unrealistic in light of recent VA budget trends — its medical care budget has risen every year for two decades and 83 percent in the six years since Bush took office — sowing suspicion that the White House is simply making them up to make its long-term deficit figures look better.

1 Comment

  1. 1
    Piper121 says:

    That is a whopping number! Our elected officials really need to understand the realities of the goings on in Iraq. They can get a glimpse in Operation Homecoming, a film about soldiers who write about the wartime experience. “The best pieces portray combat as such a heightened sensory experience that it demands to be written about, and they suggest that war can turn ordinary men who wouldn’t think of keeping diaries into latter-day Hemingways.”

    If you can’t hit the movies, it will also be shown on PBS this spring as part of the America at a Crossroads series.

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