Washington Post: Americans dissatisfied with country’s direction
Today’s Washington Post analyzes it’s latest poll on Americans’ perception of the direction of the country. Of course, by direction of the country, the Washington Post means what Joe Sixpack thinks our strategy in Iraq should be;
Growing frustration with the performance of the Democratic Congress combined with widespread public pessimism over President Bush’s temporary troop buildup in Iraq has left satisfaction with the overall direction of the country at its lowest point in more than a decade, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Almost six in 10 Americans said they do not think the additional troops sent to Iraq since the beginning of the year will help restore civil order in that country, and 53 percent — a new high in Post-ABC News polls — said they do not believe the Iraq war has contributed to the long-term security of the United States.
Of course, this decision is asked from the public an entire weekend after US forces arrived in theater to complete the “surge” as reported in the World Tribune Friday;
The U.S. military has completed its troop surge for the new counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq.
Officials said the fifth and final brigade of the troop surge has arrived in Baghdad. They said the brigade would be fully operational by mid-July for the counter-insurgency mission in the Iraqi capital.
“We are starting to see a shift in momentum that comes with having additional forces on the ground,” Brig. Gen. Perry Wiggins, deputy operations director at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said according to Middle East Newsline.
So, since all of the troops have arrived in Baghdad, the Post expects an immediate improvement in operations in Baghdad that would be reflected in an opinion poll from a public that has listened to the media call iraq a quagmire since the first sandstorm on the second day of operations there. I wonder if the Post thought aboout running a story like this one from the Boston Globe;
US troops battled Al Qaeda in west Baghdad yesterday after Sunni residents challenged the militants and called for American help to end furious gunfire that kept students from final exams and forced people in the neighborhood to huddle indoors.
Backed by helicopter gunships, American forces joined the two-day battle in the Amariyah district, according to a councilman and other residents of the Sunni district.
The fight reflects a trend that US and Iraqi officials have been trumpeting recently to the west in Anbar province, once considered the headquarters of the Sunni insurgency. Many Sunni tribes in the province have banded together to fight Al Qaeda, asserting the terrorist group is more dangerous than American forces.
Lieutenant Colonel Dale C. Kuehl, commander of First Battalion, Fifth Cavalry Regiment, who is responsible for the Amariyah area of the capital, confirmed the US military’s role in the fighting. He said the battles raged Wednesday and yesterday but died off at night.
Although Al Qaeda is a Sunni organization opposed to the Shi’ite-dominated government, its ruthlessness and reliance on foreign fighters have alienated many Sunnis in Iraq.
Maybe if the Post took a moment and wrote about the real results of the surge, they wouldn’t have to bother reporting on lowered morale in the country. If they’d join the fight against Islamofacists instead of enabling and enboldening them, we wouldn’t need their stupid polls and their stupid advice what to do after the surge.
Category: Media, Politics, Terror War
