moving beyond the bogus poll
Zogby’s military poll (which said 72 percent of US troops support quick withdrawal from Iraq) didn’t square with with my own personal experience and the broad feedback I receive from active duty and reserve troops.
I wouldn’t cast my conversations and occasional “email from a soldier” as a “poll,” but they are certainly authentic and informative. There are three complaints I hear with some frequency. The most common and worrisome complaint I hear is that the military feels it’s fighting the war on its own. That is by far the most common and in my view the most serious gripe– number one on the list. This gripe may take several forms, including “This country doesn’t act like it’s at war” or “The media doesn’t show our heroes, we still get Hollywood stuff” (ie, celebrity fixation of media) but the common denominator is that the burden isn’t shared. The “Numberr Two” complaint is that military families don’t receive enough moral support– and that applies to reservists more than active duty, since most active duty families are located near a big base or post. (You can see why this one is important.) Gripe Three is one I hear from troops rotating back to the States. I’ll paraphrase Gripe Three as “What I see on tv and read in the newspapers about Iraq is not what I saw in Iraq.” I experienced that, and wrote about it. These three are by far the most common gripes. I’d like to see a solid, well-phrased poll address these issues.
Here’s a gripe that crops up among higher ranking troops who served in Iraq in 2003-2004: The CPA. The CPA was a frustrating mix. Its talented can-do people were bogged and bugged by inexperienced young Republican wannabes. I saw this, which may explain why I pay attention when I hear this gripe. A number of troops thought the CPA’s media effort was dismal– highly centralized and slow to react. (FWIW, I always wondered why the CPA’s press conferences didn’t feature an Iraqi-American who would address the Arab press in Arabic.) This isn’t the same kind of complaint as the “top three” but I gurantee it’s a gripe historians are exploring.
Back to current complaints: A gripe I hear far less often than the top three (but when this gripe is expressed it’s stated with vehemence) goes like so: once again the media magnifies the message of the anti-war, anti-military, anti-American Left. Why do they do this, Austin? (I argue that many elite media types are wedded to a “Vietnam” template and can’t shake it.) Another gripe –I’ve heard this one only a couple of times, but I happen to agree with the gripe– is that the Bush Administration doesn’t do a good job of explaining what’s going on in the field, but alas, the press doesn’t listen to the president anyway. Bush is a poor public speaker, there is a certain arrogance in the White House, matched only by the Me-Generation and Watergate arrogance of the White House press corps. The arrogance doesn’t serve either the American public or the military effort.
Hugh Hewitt tried to interview Zogby. Hugh’s website covered the poll very thoroughly. Today a Heritage analysis rips Zogby’s questionable poll to shreds.
The unforgivable flaw in Zogby’s survey is the biased phrasing of its questions and answers. Two of the most provocative results are based on questions with no middle ground. It’s like a multiple-choice test with no right answers.
For example, the widespread finding that three in four soldiers think the United States should withdraw from Iraq within a year has only one option for troops who think otherwise: stay indefinitely. This infamous question asks, “How long should U.S. troops stay in Iraq?” But the first three answers are not phrased in terms of staying, they are phrased “withdraw…,” “withdraw…” and “withdraw… .” Where are the options for troops who think the United States should stay for “one to two years” or “two to five years”? Zogby omits such nuance. It’s stay or go. Now or never.
The smart troops who perceived this false choice probably set the clipboard down and walked away at that point. That leaves us with a biased respondent pool.
Does this sound like a “push” poll– a poll pushing for a desired answer?
The author of the Heritage analysis, Tim Kane, would like to see someone conduct a solid poll of US military personnel– a poll using well-worded questions. I agree. That would be useful.
Just coincidence, of course, and of course no Arab money reaches John Z: (brother)James Zogby is founder and president of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a Washington, D.C.-based organization which serves as the political and policy research arm of the Arab American community
Comment by markj1066 — 3/10/2006 @ 1:28 pm
The MSM continuing to push anti-American feelings and the possibility of civil war in Iraq may end up with civil war in the US instead! I wonder how many Americans are starting to feel fed up with this situation and how long before someone starts to act against what they perceive as the local enemy?
Comment by Lucian Mocanu — 3/10/2006 @ 1:36 pm
(Brother John)Zogby is founder and president of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a Washington, D.C.-based organization which serves as the political and policy research arm of the Arab American community. Think low.
Comment by markj1066 — 3/10/2006 @ 1:57 pm
Let’s turn your argument around. Does the army really believe we are at war? For example, how many colonels are there who were captains a couple years ago, promoted because of their demonstrated leadership and and abilities? How many generals who were majors at the outbreak of hostilities. In WWII my father a fighter pilot, advanced from captain to full colonel in about two years. How many new weapon systems have been spawned as a result of the Iraq war. WWII of course launchged hundreds. Even the Vietnam war saw the the introduction of the AC130, helicopter mobile landings and daisy cutter bombs. As far as I can tell, the army can’t even come up with a decent armored car in this conflict. Why was Gen David Patreaus rotated back to the USA so soon? He w he was described almost as a miracle worker in the key area of our strategy. Yet his tour is up, so he goes back to head the army war college. Sort of like rotating Gen Eisenhowser back to CONUS just before D-Day. I’m constantly amazed at the number of our troops in Iraq who seem to be approaching middle age, plucked from jobs and families. Serious warfare is and should be the purvuew of young, unattached men. Vice President Dick Cherny got a lot of flak for getting so many family deferments during the Vietnam War. But at least it showed that the bias was for single men. When I graduated from college in 1966 I didn look for a job. Why bother? I would soon be drafted. And was. The Vietnam era draft gets a lot of bad press, but has some advantages. A guy drafted and sent to Vietnam knew that when his tour was over, he would never have to come back, indeed was through with the army, unless he wanted to be a “lifer” or professional soldier. ED NOTE: I don’t think this is really an argument “to turn around.” Here’s why: The post listed gripes by soldiers. You can argue with the gripes but you can’t argue with their frequency of their existence. The most common complaint I hear is that America doesn’t act like it’s at war– that’s a statistical fact, not an argument. I’d like to see a good poll conducted and that issue addressed in the poll. But let’s pick up on your point: there are indicators that the military doesn’t act like it’s at war. Based on my recent experience, I’d say the military knows it’s at war and in a major way. We haven’t gone from a 110,000 troops to ten million like we did in World War Two, which turned captains into colonels, but your point on advancement based on demonstrated expertise is a good one. The MPs have a pretty fair armored car, which packs a fifty caliber machine gun and a forty millimeter grenade launcher.
Comment by Todd Crowell — 3/10/2006 @ 3:07 pm
Please help me with ideas to help remedy or change these gripes. I don’t live near a base but there are reservists in my area. I support Soldier’s Angels and while it’s a wonderful experience, it doesn’t seem like enough. And even though I live in a conservative town where you would expect the media to support the troops, our media is lukewarm on the war and sporadically covers military issues (and then only when someone dies in Iraq or Afghanistan who has a local connection). It does seem like Vietnam all over again, but in slow motion and I feel powerless to stop it.
Comment by DRJ — 3/10/2006 @ 3:17 pm
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1068/old/2musg10.txt US Grant on the media of his time: “The Northern press, as a whole, did not discourage these claims; a portion of it always magnified rebel success and belittled ours, while another portion, most sincerely earnest in their desire for the preservation of the Union and the overwhelming success of the Federal armies, would nevertheless generally express dissatisfaction what whatever victories were gained because they were not more complete.”
Comment by stackja — 3/10/2006 @ 5:27 pm
Thank you for addressing the content of the Zogby poll. How long should it take for a new poll with a more comprehensive set of choices to be funded and carried out?
Comment by David Billington — 3/11/2006 @ 10:43 am
Zogby used to be the best. Now he has fallen to producing suspect polls. This is sad, but a deeper question might why, what happened.
Comment by Rob — 3/11/2006 @ 1:35 pm
Yes, the MSM is very negative. The only coverage they give to military heroes is when they have died, sadly. I live in Chicago and both major newspapers are guilty of this.
Comment by Anne — 3/11/2006 @ 3:22 pm
#2 - that’s a good question - been wondering about that myself. The damage being done to this country by partisans in the media is terrible. They are quite possibly going to end up creating civil strife, and it is not beyond believing that this is precisely what they want. I am not a violent person, but if we end up failing to create democracy in Iraq because of the efforts of the media (and they are our biggest enemy at the moment) I will be utterly enraged. I saw what those bastards did to us in Viet Nam (and to the Vietnamese, of course) and I will never forgive them. If I ever meet Kerry or Fonda in person, they aren’t going to liek the experience.
Comment by Sherlock — 3/11/2006 @ 3:41 pm
Sunday Round-Up - Victor Davis Hanson, on the National Review, explains why we’re “close to victory abroad” (and “closer to concession at home”). - Insurgent groups in West Iraq province of Anbar claim that they have “purged the region of three quarters of al-Qa…
Trackback by The Right Nation — 3/12/2006 @ 8:03 am
Not being in the military, I cannot personally comment directly on the gripes. But my son is an Iraq combat vet and so are many of friends, all of whom have visited in my home and talked with me. The one common refrain from them is a deep-seated distrust of the media born of first-hand experience. Add to that declining readership and viewership along with abysmal poll numbers on public confidence, the print and television media must be fools if they don’t realize that they have a serious credibility problem (and deservedly so).
Comment by Don Miguel — 3/14/2006 @ 10:04 pm
I would agree with the phrase “The damage being done to this country by partisans in the media” .. . however it is those that are paid by the Pentagon or this Administration that are creating the greatest damage. This includes those who are unwilling to recognize objective information on Iraq, such as the poll above, because of their own distorted views.
I will admit to my own biases, but have spent significant time on the ground in Iraq so as to become informed.
Charlie Jackson
Austin, Texas
Comment by Charlie Jackson — 5/3/2008 @ 8:32 pm