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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 24-May-07
Congress votes to fund Iraq war without deadlines

Web Log - May, 2007

Congress votes to fund Iraq war without deadlines

The result shows conflicting anxieties during America's Crisis era.

As I've said repeatedly on this web site, the Iraq war could not be avoided. Even if Al Gore had been President after 9/11, he would have pursued the Iraq war.

Thursday's passage of a bill to fund the Iraq war without specifying any deadlines shows how little control politicians have over what's coming.

I've been saying for five years that there will be no "antiwar movement" over the Iraq war, the way there was for the Vietnam War, and there hasn't been. There have been almost no demonstrations, and there have been few if any college students against the war. Most of the so-called "antiwar Democrats" haven't been against the war so much as against the President.

Democrats say that Americans are "against the war," but what does that mean? It means that they don't "like" the war, but does it mean that Americans should withdraw the troops from Iraq?

The results of a new Harris poll show that, in fact, Americans are quite fearful of the outcome of withdrawing from Iraq.

The poll asked the following two questions:

"If the United States withdraws its troops from Iraq in the next two years without achieving a stable, democratic Iraqi government, do you think the following probably will happen or probably will not happen?"

"Assume that each of these events does actually happen because the U.S. withdraws its troops in the next two years. For each, please indicate if you think it will be damaging or not to people in the U.S.?"

Here are the results of the poll:

    |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
    |     Assuming that the United States withdraws its troops from Iraq    |
    |                                                                       |
    |----------------|-------------------------------||---------------------|
    |  Possible      | Which of these outcomes are   ||Would this outcome be|
    |   outcome      |     likely to happen?         || damaging to the US? |
    |                |-------------------------------||---------------------|
    |                |               |               ||          |          |
    |                | Probably will | Probably will ||          |   Not    |
    |                |    Happen     |  not Happen   || Damaging | Damaging |
    |                |---------------|---------------||----------|----------|
    |There will be a |               |               ||          |          |
    |major civil war |               |               ||          |          |
    |in Iraq         | 70%           | 10%           || 78%      | 11%      |
    |                |               |               ||          |          |
    |A new Iraqi     |               |               ||          |          |
    |dictator will   |               |               ||          |          |
    |emerge          | 58%           | 16%           || 62%      | 24%      |
    |                |               |               ||          |          |
    |It will be seen |               |               ||          |          |
    |as a major      |               |               ||          |          |
    |defeat for the  |               |               ||          |          |
    |United States   | 54%           | 23%           || 59%      | 25%      |
    |                |               |               ||          |          |
    |It will lead to |               |               ||          |          |
    |an increase in  |               |               ||          |          |
    |international   |               |               ||          |          |
    |terrorism       | 48%           | 27%           || 59%      | 27%      |
    |                |               |               ||          |          |
    |It will put     |               |               ||          |          |
    |Israel in       |               |               ||          |          |
    |danger          | 40%           | 25%           || 57%      | 31%      |
    |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|

America today is in a generational Crisis era, and we're seeing two different things that are characteristic of a crisis era.

First, we're seeing how contentious politics is. Politicians in Congress do not know how to govern. All they know how to do is argue.

Second, we're seeing how anxious Americans are. They're enormously anxious about the war, but they're even more fearful of the result of ending the war.

The fact is that President Bush and America have almost no choices about many things. Events in the world are taking their own course, and nothing can be done to change the course of events. I like to use the comparison to a tsunami: It's going to do whatever it's going to do, and nothing can be done to stop it. You can prepare for it, but you can't stop it.

My own expectations haven't changed. My expectation is that American troops will remain in Iraq until the Clash of Civilizations world war begins. At the time, the troops will be withdrawn because they'll be urgently needed elsewhere. (24-May-07) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 24-May-07 Congress votes to fund Iraq war without deadlines

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 24-May-07
Congress votes to fund Iraq war without deadlines