The Los Angeles Times reports today on their own polling under the headline "Bush Loses Ground by Military Families":
Families with ties to the military, long a reliable source of support for wartime presidents, disapprove of President Bush and his handling of the war in Iraq, with a majority concluding the invasion was not worth it, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.
The views of the military community, which includes active-duty service members, veterans and their family members, mirror those of the overall adult population, a sign that the strong military endorsement that the administration often pointed to has dwindled in the war's fifth year.
Nearly six out of every 10 military families disapprove of Bush's job performance and the way he has run the war, rating him only slightly better than the general population does.
And among those families with soldiers, sailors and Marines who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, 60% say that the war in Iraq was not worth the cost, the same result as all adults surveyed.
A couple of points in response sent along from a friend:
1.) It asks the families "whether the war was worth it." The relevant question is not revisiting decisions that were made five years ago, but whether now, as 2007 comes to a close, we should continue with a strategy that is working, that has put al-Qaeda on the run, and that has fostered ground-up reconciliation and cooperation in Iraq paving the way for future troop reductions. Most polls show the number of Americans answering yes to that question is growing. The story does not offer this perspective or acknowledge this trend.
2.) The poll found that 60% of families want our troops to come home either right away or within a year (the only other choice was "stay as long as it takes"). There's a serious omission though, one which would certainly influence the results: that is, under what circumstances they want that to happen. Would they want them to return home with al-Qaeda or Iran in firm control and building terrorist training grounds? Or would they want them to come home after al-Qaeda has been defeated and Iraq has the security it needs to rebuild its battered society and institutions? We all want our soldier to return safely and as soon as possible. When, though, can't be answered in a vacuum. General Petraeus has outlined the circumstances under which we can begin to reduce our troop levels - and have already begun to do so. These results show how important it is that we continue to define the choices we face and what victory means.
