Provided, of course, that this antiwar opinion is not neutralized by further attacks on US soil. Fear trumps misgivings every time. Israel is a good example. Opinion polls there have consistently favoured unilateral withdrawal from the occupied territories, but this peace sentiment has coexisted with the election of governments of right and left which have pursued war. They have been able to do so because the mass of Israelis have been traumatized by terror bombings, and military action corresponds more to their thirst for security and vengeance than rational appeals to logic and self-interest.
Bush will likely be elected precisely because he taps into similar American fears much more effectively than the pretender Kerry - even in the face of opinion polls showing most Americans deeply disquieted by Iraq and the administration’s declared intent to wage unilateral preventative wars. These conflicting emotions - a deep desire to withdraw from the "mess", coupled with a paralyzing fear of doing so - surface daily with news of the latest car bombings and beheadings in Iraq. Terrorist tactics are helping to make the occupation untenable in both Palestine and Iraq, but it’s also easy to forget the opposite side of the coin: that terrorism subverts the development of an effective antiwar movement in the homeland of the occupying power. Hopeful polls should be read in that context.
Marv Gandall ----------------------------- Poll: Americans tired of being the world's cop By Jim Lobe Asia Times September 29, 2004
WASHINGTON - Three years of the Bush administration's "war on terrorism" appears to have reduced the appetite of the US public and its leaders for unilateral military engagements, according to a major survey released on Tuesday by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (CCFR).
Indeed, the survey, the latest in a quadrennial series going back to 1974, found that key national-security principles enunciated by President George W Bush since the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon are opposed by strong majorities of both the general public and the elite.
While supporting the idea that Washington should take an active role in world affairs, more than three of every four members of the public reject the notion that the United States "has the responsibility to play the role of world policeman" and four of every five say Washington is currently playing that role "more than it should be".
In addition, overwhelming majorities of both the public and the elite said that the most important lesson of September 11 is that the nation needs to "work more closely with other countries to fight terrorism" as opposed to "act more on its own".
Similar majorities of both the public and leaders rejected Bush's notion of preemptive war. Only 17% of the public and 10% of leaders said that war was justifiable if the "other country is acquiring weapons of mass destruction [WMD] that could be used against them at some point in the future". Fifty-three percent of the public and 61% of leaders said that war would be justified only if there is "strong evidence" the country is in "imminent danger" of attack. For about 25% of both the public and the leaders, war would be justified only if the other country attacks first.
The CCFR survey, which because of its rich detail and consistency over the past 30 years is generally taken more seriously than others that are conducted more sporadically, queried nearly 1,200 randomly selected members of the public during the second week of July.
A second survey of 450 "leaders with foreign-policy power, specialization, and expertise" - including US lawmakers or their senior staff, university faculty, journalists, senior administration officials, religious leaders, business and labor executives, and heads of major foreign-policy organizations or interest groups - posed the same questions to determine where there may be gaps between the views of the elite and the public at large.
Full: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FI29Aa01.html