DUH!
The Poll
The Article
Most Americans -- including majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents -- say President Obama has not been tough enough on North Korea and Iran.
A FOX News poll released Monday finds more than two-thirds of Americans say Obama has not been tough enough on North Korea (69 percent), while some 15 percent think his actions have been "about right" and 3 percent think he has been too tough.
Sizable majorities of Democrats (65 percent), Republicans (78 percent) and independents (61 percent) agree Obama should be tougher on North Korea. Among those voters who backed Obama in the 2008 presidential election, 59 percent say he has not been tough enough.
North Korea test-fired short-range missiles on two separate occasions in May. President Obama denounced the tests as a "grave threat to the peace and security of the world." And last week, in response to the tests, the United Nations Security Council expanded international sanctions against North Korea.
On Iran, the findings are almost identical: 66 percent overall say Obama has not been tough enough, including 57 percent of Democrats, 80 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of independents.
Opinion Dynamics Corp. conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters for FOX News from June 9 to June 10 -- before the results of Iran's presidential election were announced and the ensuing civil unrest in that country. The poll has a 3-point error margin.
People are most concerned North Korea will sell nukes to terrorists. Twice as many say their main concern is North Korea selling nuclear weapons (41 percent), as say attacking the United States (18 percent). For 1 in 10 the top concern is North Korea attacking a nearby country (10 percent) such as Japan or South Korea. Nearly a quarter of Americans (24 percent) says they are equally concerned about all of these possibilities.
On Iran, again the top concern is selling nuclear weapons to terrorists (35 percent), followed by attacking Israel (23 percent) and attacking the United States or Europe (15 percent). The remaining 22 percent say "all."
Closing Gitmo
There is widespread belief that President Obama made a mistake by announcing he was going to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay before having a plan for what would happen to the detainees.
Fully 77 percent of Americans think the president made a mistake, including almost all Republicans (94 percent) and independents (81 percent), as well as a majority of Democrats (61 percent).
A growing majority of Americans think the military prison at Guantanamo Bay should stay open. Some 60 percent say they think Gitmo should not be closed, up from 53 percent in April and 45 percent in January.
Republicans (82 percent) are more than twice as likely as Democrats (40 percent) to say the prison should stay open. Among independents, 62 percent think it should stay open.
The results are similar on the question of whether the prisoners should be transferred to prisons in the United States. Overall, 60 percent of voters are against moving the prisoners to the United States, up from 55 percent last month and 52 percent in January.
CIA versus Pelosi
On the issue of the CIA briefing Congress on interrogation techniques used on terrorist suspects, who do Americans believe -- the CIA, who says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was briefed on the techniques or Nancy Pelosi, who says she was not briefed?
By 56 percent to 22 percent Americans believe the CIA over Pelosi.
Most Republicans (78 percent) and independents (56 percent) believe the CIA. Democrats are divided -- 38 percent believe the CIA and 38 percent Pelosi, while 10 percent say there is "some truth to both.
Eight years of "toughness" left us with a nuclear NK and Iran on the brink (allegedly). You want more of the same?
(BTW, your poll also shows America clearly in favor of Obama's so called apology tour, 55%-36%. Does that mean you're wrong about it, D?)
I no even see big stwick.
"Bring it on!" [/TOUGH]
Somebody dun went an stuck it in de mud.
Naturally a Progressive Republican president is alluded to. Why aren't you quoting the last one? That would be more relevant.
What do you mean by "get tough"?
It's a nice pla ude but it means absolutely nothing.
It means real Americans want the bombs to start dropping, 'cept this time let's totally pound their ass into submission!
We freed Vietnam that way -- why would this be any different?
Right?
yeah but but but that would mean war and and and and then his budget will be all screwed up
and he would be proven he speaketh with forked tongue
Hey, maybe a break from more wars to stop more wars wouldn't be so bad.
peace in our time! WHOOO!
couldn't resist myself.
Hitler and Tojo would've been mere bad guys without large, prosperous, culturally geneous nation states at their backs. And massive, methodically developed war machines.
The question is not whether there are world leaders who match Hitler for evil and depravity. I have little doubt there are. The crucial question is whether the nations they lead have military might comparable to Germany and Japan in the 1930's.
I see none besides the USA.
Last edited by Winehole23; 06-16-2009 at 12:08 AM.
it was a joke.
and who needs military might when you have a nuke?
Yes. A rather lame and hackneyed joke.
Besides the USA, who all has dropped the bomb? Has anyone, besides the USA, ever used nukes to take control of another country?
What more do people want us to do to NK? They are threatening war with the sanctions that are in place now. I'm pretty sure we don't even have the manpower to sustain 2 more theaters of operation. With Iran we might be able to spare some aircraft... but not any boots. I think we have about 35-40K troops in SK, and with the SK army already more powerful than the NK army that might prove to be sufficient.
What is the end game with you people?
We are bogged down in Afghanistan. Trying to maintain order in Iraq.
Now people want to provoke two top 20 military powers? Let's just be in a perpetual state of war for the indefinite future! YAY!
Just because I think the Govts of NK and Iran should go doesn't mean I think we should go to war with them right now. Especially Iran, I don't think you have to with Iran. Yeah if push comes to shove you want to have the ability to go into Iran and shut it down, but that doesn't mean you think it's a great option are this particular time, or perhaps ever.
I think the entire reason we went into Iraq is to get closer to Iran and increase our pres in the ME to make things difficult for them, I mean afterall, we don't want Iran emerging as the ME superpower. But even taking that into account, that Iraq was always about Iran as much as it was Irag from the day we went into Iraq, I don't think the plan was ever an immediate war with Iran...
As for North Korea, there is no way to get rid of North Korea, I don't give a damn how mighty you think our military is, it is no match for a conventional war with 3 billion ing Chinese and their resources.
Sanctioning doesn't work either, they've had the living sanctioned out of them for 60 years now and the only ones suffering are the people of NK.
IF anyone has a solution for NK by all means let's hear it. I think that's the one we should say it on. I mean Chinese Communism isn't as virulent as the Soviet kind was and the Chinese are doing good to stay communist, in some ways they are more capitalist than we are.
All the sanctions do is create those starving North Korean pictures they always show.
I am beginning to think this is what people want. That and democratic socialism, though to be honest, I don't think we can afford both.
We could go all Soviet Union on them and introduce McDonald's to them. That line of thinking would be we'd actually have to ease tensions between us. Help them create jobs, give their poor some hope. Money has a funny way of softening up ideology... at least for the people... not necessarily the power structure.
With a totalitarian regime as absolute as NK's it's pretty hard imagining that working though. Perhaps if this "Brilliant Comrade" character is a re and his surrogates think he's weak, some type of coup could occur.
The only solution is to incite revolution. The easiest way in theory would be to provoke NK into a war against the world. Easy enough. At this point, NK gets no aid from anyone. Weapons, ammo, and especially food. The people starve, including the army, and a military coup takes place in the face of an un-winnable war.
The problem? Obvious. China.
The best we can do may be to keep nudging china towards a full democracy, at which point they would turn on NK.
History has a little quirk. Modern democracies don't go to war with other democracies (except one case in WW2 when democratic Finland allied with Germany). People are quick to point out examples in WW1, Russia, and former soviet satellites, but none of those were a true democracy.
NK now has senior citizens that have spent their entire lives under the current system, it's arguable that anyone in NK even knows what a revolt is anymore, at least, not anyone in any position to do anything about it.
I was actually thinking earlier about how motivated the people would be if all the top brass were assassinated or something. I'm sure that people have such a hard time just feeding themselves that they don't think about an uprising. The military would have to do something as the officers are most likely upper class that actually get food and an education.
I think it's inherent in human biology to feel the need to fight back when you feel wronged. It's a natural sense of justice. The problem is, that with a population as suppressed, starving, weak, and clueless as NK's, you don't have the catalyst for any action on a large scale to happen.
It can't go on forever. Their birthrate is pretty much stagnant at this point, and with a high infant mortality rate, and potentially millions of deaths due to starvation on the horizon, something has to give.
Hear hear! Whottt making some sense.
War is peace on one side and debt is surplus on the other?
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