Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Thrawn on October 25, 2004, 10:50:44 PM
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"Bush backers steadfast on Saddam, WMD
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Three out of four self-described supporters of President George W Bush still believe pre-war Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or active programs to produce them, and that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein gave "substantial support" to al-Qaeda terrorists, according to a survey released Thursday.
Moreover, as many or more Bush supporters hold those beliefs today than they did several months ago, before the publication of a series of well-publicized official government reports that debunked both notions.
Those are among the most striking findings of the survey, which was conducted in mid-October by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) and Knowledge Networks, a California-based polling firm.
The survey, which polled the views of nearly 900 randomly chosen respondents equally divided between Bush supporters and those intending to vote for Democratic Senator John Kerry in November's presidential election, found a yawning gap in the world views, particularly as regards pre-war Iraq, between the two groups.
"It is normal during elections for supporters of presidential candidates to have fundamental disagreements about values or strategies," said an analysis produced by PIPA. But "the current election is unique in that Bush supporters and Kerry supporters have profoundly different perceptions of reality. In the face of a stream of high-level assessments about pre-war Iraq, Bush supporters cling to the refuted beliefs that Iraq had WMD or supported al-Qaeda."
Indeed, the only issue on which the survey found broad agreement between the two sets of voters was on the question of whether the administration itself actively propagated the misconceptions about Iraq's WMD and connections to al-Qaeda.
"One of the reasons that Bush supporters have these [erroneous] beliefs is that they perceive the Bush administration confirming them," noted PIPA director Steven Kull. "Interestingly, this is one point on which Bush and Kerry supporters agree."
The survey also found a major gap between Bush's stated positions on a number of international issues and what his supporters believe that position to be. A strong majority of Bush backers believe, for example, that the president supports a range of global treaties and institutions, which he is actually on record as opposing.
On pre-war Iraq, the survey asked each respondent questions about WMD and links to al-Qaeda on three levels: 1) What the respondents themselves believed about the two issues; 2) What they believed "most experts" had concluded about them; and 3) What they believed the Bush administration was saying about them.
The survey found 72% of Bush supporters believe either that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for making them (25%), despite the widespread media coverage in early October of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA's) Duelfer Report, the final word on the subject by the US$1 billion, 15-month investigation by the Iraq Survey Group.
It concluded Saddam had dismantled all of his WMD programs shortly after the 1991 Gulf War and had never tried to reconstitute them. Nonetheless, 56% of Bush supporters said they thought most experts currently believe Iraq had actual WMD, and 57% said they thought the Duelfer Report had concluded that Iraq either had WMD (19%) or a major WMD program (38%).
Only 26% of Kerry supporters, by contrast, said they believed that pre-war Iraq had either actual WMD or a WMD program, and only 18% said they believed "most experts" agreed with those two possibilities.
Similar results were found with respect to Saddam's alleged support for al-Qaeda, a theory that has been most persistently asserted by Vice President Dick Cheney, but that was thoroughly debunked by the final report of the bipartisan 9-11 Commission earlier this summer.
Seventy-five percent of Bush supporters said they believed Iraq was providing "substantial" support to al-Qaeda, with 20% asserting Baghdad was directly involved in the September 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Sixty-three percent of Bush supporters even believed that clear evidence of such support has been found, and 60% believed "most experts" have reached the same conclusion.
By contrast, only 30% of Kerry supporters said they believe such a link existed and that most experts agree.
But large majorities of both Bush and Kerry supporters agree that the administration is saying Iraq had WMD and was providing substantial support to al-Qaeda. In regard to WMD, those majorities have actually grown since last summer, according to PIPA.
Remarkably, asked whether the US should have gone to war with Iraq if US intelligence had concluded Baghdad did not have a WMD program and was not supporting al-Qaeda, 58% of Bush supporters said no, and 61% said they assumed the president would also not have gone to war under those circumstances.
"To support the president and to accept that he took the US to war based on mistaken assumptions," said Kull, "likely creates substantial cognitive dissonance and leads Bush supporters to suppress awareness of unsettling information about pre-war Iraq."
Kull added that this "cognitive dissonance" could also help explain other remarkable findings in the survey, particularly with respect to Bush supporters' misperceptions about the president's own positions.
In particular, majorities of Bush supporters incorrectly assumed he supports multilateral approaches to various international issues, including the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) (69%), the land mine treaty (72%), and the Kyoto Protocol to curb greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming (51%).
In all of these cases, majorities of Bush supporters said they favored the positions that they imputed, incorrectly, to the president. Large majorities of Kerry supporters, on the other hand, showed they knew both their candidate's and Bush's positions on the same issues.
Bush supporters were also found to hold misperceptions regarding international support for the president and his policies. Despite a steady flow over the past year of official statements by foreign governments and public-opinion polls showing strong opposition to the Iraq war, less than one-third of Bush supporters believed that most people in foreign countries opposed Washington having gone to war.
Two-thirds said they believed foreign views were either evenly divided on the war (42%) or that the majority of foreigners actually favored the war (26%). Three of every four Kerry supporters, on the other hand, said they understood that most of the rest of the world opposed the war.
Kull, who has been analyzing US public opinion on foreign-policy issues for two decades, said misperceptions of Bush supporters showed, if anything, the hold the president has over his loyalists. "The roots of the Bush supporters' resistance to information very likely lie in the traumatic experience of 9/11 and equally into the near pitch-perfect leadership that President Bush showed in its immediate wake," he said.
"This appears to have created a powerful bond between Bush and his supporters - and an idealized image of the president that makes it difficult for his supporters to imagine that he could have made incorrect judgements before the war, that world public opinion would be critical of his policies or that the president could hold foreign-policy positions that are at odds with his supporters."
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FJ23Ak01.html
This actually makes me feel more charitable towards Bush supports. They aren't stupid or bad or anything, just ignorant of information out there.
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too much cut and paste for me.
What is YOUR opinion regarding the Iraq war?
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Is free popcorn going to come with this thread?
I am pulling up a lawn chair anyway.:D
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"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials
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Originally posted by NUKE
What is YOUR opinion regarding the Iraq war?
Extrodinarily broad and off topic question. Care to narrow it down?
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Originally posted by Thrawn
Extrodinarily broad and off topic question. Care to narrow it down?
lol, you stupid shrecker..
Tell us what YOU think. Is that too much to ask?
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"Cognitive dissonance (http://www.dmu.ac.uk/~jamesa/learning/dissonance.htm) is a psychological phenomenon which refers to the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation.
Beyond this benign if uncomfortable aspect, however, dissonance can go "over the top", leading to two interesting side-effects for learning:
1) if someone is called upon to learn something which contradicts what they already think they know — particularly if they are committed to that prior knowledge — they are likely to resist the new learning.
2) if learning something has been difficult, uncomfortable, or even humiliating enough, people are not likely to admit that the content of what has been learned is valuable. To do so would be to admit that one has been "had", or "conned".
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Originally posted by NUKE
lol, you stupid shrecker..
You're the moron that can't stay on topic, discuss anthing about the topic and are trying to derail it with a hijack.
Tell us what YOU think. Is that too much to ask?
I'm feeling magnanimous and will respond.
I think it sucks.
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Originally posted by Thrawn
You're the moron that can't stay on topic, discuss anthing about the topic and are trying to derail it with a hijack.
I'm feeling magnanimous and will respond.
I think it sucks.
when did I post off topic?
Wasn't your response off topic?
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Nuke.... pssst... twice in a row now.
You oughta at least make an attempt... at least put forth the appearence of trying to discuss the issue at hand. Even I gotta throw the odd on-topic post into the mix.
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Originally posted by Nash
Nuke.... pssst... twice in a row now.
You oughta at least make an attempt... at least put forward the appearence of trying to discuss the issue at hand. Even I gotta throw the odd on-topic post into the mix.
please excuse me for asking Thrawn to post his own opinions or thoughts, ANYONE can cut and paste chit.
I NEVER post crap without at LEAST an opinion.
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His opinion, at the bottom of the post, was: "This actually makes me feel more charitable towards Bush supports. They aren't stupid or bad or anything, just ignorant of information out there."
Meaning...
The results show that Bush supporters are unaware of some fundamental facts. Hence, it's not so unusual that they would support Bush due to not having a grasp of the facts.
Perfectly valid.
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Originally posted by NUKE
when did I post off topic?
Wasn't your response off topic?
Hilarious, you take the thread off topic. Then give me **** for not responding, and when I do respond you give me **** for going off topic. :aok
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Originally posted by Nash
His opinion, at the bottom of the post, was: "This actually makes me feel more charitable towards Bush supports. They aren't stupid or bad or anything, just ignorant of information out there."
Meaning...
The results show that Bush supporters are unaware of some fundamental facts. Hence, it's not so unusual that they would support Bush due to not having a grasp of the facts.
Perfectly valid.
Like I said, too much cut and paste.
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Originally posted by NUKE
Like I said, too much cut and paste.
Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon which refers to the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation.
Beyond this benign if uncomfortable aspect, however, dissonance can go "over the top", leading to two interesting side-effects for learning:
1) if someone is called upon to learn something which contradicts what they already think they know — particularly if they are committed to that prior knowledge — they are likely to resist the new learning. Even Carl Rogers recognised this. Accommodation is more difficult than Assimilation, in Piaget's terms.
2) if learning something has been difficult, uncomfortable, or even humiliating enough, people are not likely to admit that the content of what has been learned is valuable. To do so would be to admit that one has been "had", or "conned".
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Too much for me too.
I reckon a link, a quoted paragraph that gets yer point across, then a follow-up opinion which is larger than the quoted text strikes me as the right balance.
All that being said.... Am I wrong in guessing that you don't really have anything to say about any of it?
Damn, I even broke my own rule in this thread.
I SUCK at the internet tonight!
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Off topic and irrelevent
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Am I the only one to notice the bedfellows?
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Originally posted by TweetyBird
bedfellows?
Who says that word in real life?
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nope
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>>Who says that word in real life?<<
Only those on IM i guess.
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Is that an.... er... what is IM?
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A form of ICQ
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Originally posted by Nash
Is that an.... er... what is IM?
Nash post some more songs you Golly-geen mother fuggin piece of freakin crow chit!
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NUKE, you're drunk aren't you.
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Can't even stand to listen to 'em my own self. Wouldn't subject you to that.
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Bahhh....
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In department store, one causes a scene and the other snatches the clothes. Gypsies are near!
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Gypsies are cool.
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yea, and busted
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n/m I don't get it.
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Go IM your cousin, sonny.
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I look at most things in binary .......am I cool?
1's and 0's baby!
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In a hex world you're primitive.
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Ok before this thread gets completly hijacked I read the report till about here:
It concluded Saddam had dismantled all of his WMD programs shortly after the 1991 Gulf War and had never tried to reconstitute them.
That's not even close to what the report said. This article is slanted from the start but I decided to humor myself and take it with a grain of salt.
Withen weeks to months Sadam had the ability to revamp his pre 1991 program to moderate production reaching full production in a little over a year.
He also had 500 tons of raw uranium...after enrichment (wich he had the capablity to do after the world turned a blind eye) could produce an estimated 142 bombs.
Several missle programs were found to be in violation of 1441 mainly because HE LAUNCHED THEM AT KUWAIT DURING THE INVASION.
Based on my statments above wich are based on facts I would say the I fall under the "misconception crowd" If liberals want to hammer Bush supporters hammer them for being conservatives supporting a president running a deficit. That's more along the lines of swaying from your base.
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Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon which refers to the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation.
Why use those big ol words? It's "hard work" to understand them. You have to break it down to simple words and phrases that are easily understood by those less inclined to think for themselves like "You have your head buried in the sand".
Here is a visual aid:(http://www.fair-society.org/images/ostrichheadinsand_small.jpg)
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man this derailed fast.
THANKS NUKE!:rolleyes:
ok now an attempt on back on topic.
Lets see those 3/4 are disillusioned and the other 1/4 see the light.
Iran is just going into a fake nuke war with isreal due to no support form STRONG regional powers. Dueto that reason isreal can basicly be declared safe for the moment.
ok im done with my blabber.
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It's odd, but that writeup does not reflect a single "bush supporter" that I know.
I do like the "bush supporters are ignorant" tone though. Technically, kerry supporters aren't ignorant because answering "I don't know what his stance is" is accurate.
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You kidding?
You got folks over in that other thread right now trying to say that the HE cache was WMD.
For the last year and a half, all sorts of....
No this is useless...
Lots of people right here think that Iraq either posessed WMD and/or an active WMD program, and thinks there was any significant ties to Al-Q.
Hell - YOU prolly do.
"It's odd, but that writeup does not reflect a single "bush supporter" that I know."
No way...
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"Study shows most Bush supporters under important misconceptions. "
Nice rant. Hardly an unbiast report but a nice rant.
Convieniantly left out some rather important parts of the report in his quotes but that is to be expected.
As for the misconceptions. the same can be said about Kerrys supporters and his economic, Health, and Prescription, drug plans
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Oh, this is rich.
Thrawn makes a post mentioning Iraq 14 times
Nuke asks thrawns opinion since 99% of the post was not thrawns words.
A flurry of two dozen plus post ensue on whether Nuke is off topic. (if your still confused about this read line 2 above)
Meanwhile gunslinger takes on the content of the thread starter and gets no replies whatsoever. (kind of ironic considering the "Cognitive dissonance" sub-discussion)
Pass me some of that popcorn.
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Originally posted by Nash
You kidding?
You got folks over in that other thread right now trying to say that the HE cache was WMD.
For the last year and a half, all sorts of....
No this is useless...
Lots of people right here think that Iraq either posessed WMD and/or an active WMD program, and thinks there was any significant ties to Al-Q.
Hell - YOU prolly do.
"It's odd, but that writeup does not reflect a single "bush supporter" that I know."
No way...
Am I kidding? Are you serious?
I find it odd that canadians are insisting they know what people in a different country are thinking. That's pretty damn funny.
You go ahead and pretend you know more about U.S. politics than Americans. It's funny to see you canadians finally start to develop a sense of self worth. Hell... eventually you'll start crusading to change the beliefs of people in other countries... and if they don't listen... well watch out.
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Lol you TOTAL loser.
I guess you'd have to be on the receiving end of that kinda lame comeback, for I dunno, at least a coupla hundred times before ya'd realized how impotent, how completely lame that kinda response is.
Oregonian putz.
I don't mean to get too harsh... I got lotza friends just like you. shrecking treasures.
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I'm sorry nash. How else am I supposed to take it when a Canadian tells me I don't know what the people I'm associating with believe in regards to politics?
Talk about lame comebacks... and completely lame presumptions. You do realize you don't have to read these boards at all to sit back and feel superior to the average American voter... don't you? You can do that all on your own? I mean... that's what this is all about right now isn't it?
Oh wait... it's about your concern for U.S. foreign policy on the stability of the rest of the world. Yes. I forgot. You're just concerned, not criticizing people for having a different oppinion than yours and hoping to find anything that labels them as morons. Nah. That can't be it.
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"I find it odd that canadians are insisting they know what people in a different country are thinking. That's pretty damn funny. "
We are seeing every day on this board and in this very thread the support we need to confirm that the report is accurate. We have been debating the dishonest assertions of your president mouthed through his brain washed minions on this board for 3 years now.
All the americans we know behave exaclty as the article describes. Your self included.
The Cognitive dissonance thing is just the world that right wing americans live in.
How else can they clap and cheer as the president that presided over 911, the dan rather white dust attack and the Washington sniper says that your country wont be safe from attack under the other candidate...If a US city had been nuked his minions would still say that 5 citys would have been nuked with a "liberal" at the helm.
lol
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Deja....
Ok first of all, do not lose your mind over it. Try not to cry about it.
Lets try and keep it all in context shall we?
We're on teh internets...
Now.... " how am I supposed to take it when a Canadian tells me I don't know what the people I'm associating with believe in regards to politics?"
Any way ya damn please. And you do. So stop crying. Jeezus.
Hell... I was gonna respond to the rest... But it's more crying. Whaddya want? Here grab a kleenex. Try and be a man about it.
This is embarrassing.
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Originally posted by Pongo
...the president that presided over 911, the dan rather white dust attack...
Interesting, that was your choice of words to describe the anthrax attacks. You even bypassed fellow Canadian Peter Jennings, to put the most unashamed bushbasher on network news at the center of your perception of events.
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Bush in an electoral landslide. Thrawn buy some kleenex, you're gonna need it.
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First the Brits try to tell the Ohio-folks how to vote. After a nice big and happy middle finger reply, they seem to get it and back off.
Thrawn and our other happy lil Canadian friends insist they know more about our politics than we do.
:rolleyes:
Mind yer business, eh :rofl
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Yeah, I know more about your politics than you. Sue me. I aint gonna play dumb.
I know more about yer fellow Americans than you do. So do something about it.
You can't.
(again w/the Deja LePaul f/tag team)
Do you have anything specific you wanna discuss? Fire away. Otherwise pesh eff.
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COMING SOON TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU
NIGHT OF THE AMERISTALKERS
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Do you have anything specific you wanna discuss?
Well, it's a bit off topic but yes. I'm going to rip a Mexican food fart any second now of such magnitude that it may shift the prevailing winds over the Phoenix area.
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Originally posted by Steve
it may shift the prevailing winds over the Phoenix area.
I blame Boosh.
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Hah Ha hahah HA HA Hah ahaha
You big lug, you.......!
Why don't you ever say anything?
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n/m.... ta bed! Later.
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Nice try, Thrawn and Nash, but I'm afraid that you're fighting a lost cause...because of this (http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp7761121.html)...
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well... at least thrawn and nash won't vote out of ignorance since they have access to well balanced media.
I bet they just stay home election day tho.
lazs
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Originally posted by NUKE
please excuse me for asking Thrawn to post his own opinions or thoughts, ANYONE can cut and paste chit.
I NEVER post crap without at LEAST an opinion.
realy ??
And what about your first post in this thead ?
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Originally posted by lada
realy ??
And what about your first post in this thead ?
Nuke clearly refered to "crap" as cut/paste text from an outside article, which he has not done in this thread.
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Originally posted by Murdr
Interesting, that was your choice of words to describe the anthrax attacks. You even bypassed fellow Canadian Peter Jennings, to put the most unashamed bushbasher on network news at the center of your perception of events.
I couldnt remember what the dust was..But I know it was booshes fault!
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Originally posted by Nash
1) if someone is called upon to learn something which contradicts what they already think they know — particularly if they are committed to that prior knowledge — they are likely to resist the new learning.
2) if learning something has been difficult, uncomfortable, or even humiliating enough, people are not likely to admit that the content of what has been learned is valuable. To do so would be to admit that one has been "had", or "conned".
So, when someone reacts negatively to a, "Bush is Hitler" comment......:lol
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Originally posted by Gunslinger
"It concluded Saddam had dismantled all of his WMD programs shortly after the 1991 Gulf War and had never tried to reconstitute them."
That's not even close to what the report said. This article is slanted from the start but I decided to humor myself and take it with a grain of salt.
Withen weeks to months Sadam had the ability to revamp his pre 1991 program to moderate production reaching full production in a little over a year.
"Iraq did not possess a nuclear device, nor had it tried to reconstitute a capability to produce nuclear weapons after 1991."
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2004/isg-final-report/isg-final-report_vol2_nuclear-02.htm
I'll agree with you on biological weapons,
"Depending on its scale, Iraq could have re-established an elementary BW program within a few weeks to a few months of a decision to do so, but ISG discovered no indications that the Regime was pursuing such a course."
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2004/isg-final-report/isg-final-report_vol3_bw_key-findings.htm
but there is no indication in the report that he could have done so with chemical weapons.
And according to the report, they can't prove that Iraq had any chemical weapons program.
"Iraq implemented a rigorous and formalized system of nationwide research and production of chemicals, but ISG will not be able to resolve whether Iraq intended the system to underpin any CW-related efforts."
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2004/isg-final-report/isg-final-report_vol3_cw_key-findings.htm
And as far as bilogical weapons programs.
"ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes."
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2004/isg-final-report/isg-final-report_vol3_bw_key-findings.htm
Yet most republicans think these programs existed when the US invade Iraq,
"Q13. Is it your belief that, just before the war, Iraq."
http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_Election_04/Qnnaire10_21_04.pdf
even though there is no evidence for it, and in some cases evidence against it.
He also had 500 tons of raw uranium...after enrichment (wich he had the capablity to do after the world turned a blind eye) could produce an estimated 142 bombs.
"Post-1991, Iraq had neither rebuilt any capability to convert uranium ore into a form suitable for enrich-ment nor reestablished other chemical processes related to handling fi ssile material for a weapons program."
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2004/isg-final-report/isg-final-report_vol2_nuclear-02.htm
Several missle programs were found to be in violation of 1441 mainly because HE LAUNCHED THEM AT KUWAIT DURING THE INVASION.
What does this have to do with the University of Maryland study?
Based on my statments above wich are based on facts
Well, perhaps not.
Thank you for being on topic and attacking the arguement.