Most intelligent Australians and Britons now support the war.

[Alexander's Horse]

Yes, the Americans should take note of the way we disarm our critics.

Its soooo hard not to love us

[Lincoln]

Yes, I'm even thinking about buying a pet kangaroo.

[TheStinger]

West Indies in the 80's V Aussies of the present. Now thats a game i would like to see

[Guest]

Originally posted by ravagon


This depends strictly on whom exactly you ask and upon which sport they happen to ascendency at the time.
ie: Kiwi's are more concerned about rugby, Australians about cricket and neither about soccer because teams from both countries are pretty much cr*p.

Well, we roundly thrashed that minow of soccer England.

[Guest]

Originally posted by Agathon
Lillee -- Border -- Marsh



Still my fave all time team has to be the West Indies of the early 80s. They were gods.

[edit] Is Richie Benaud still on the TV. When I think of cricket I always think of "Over to you, Richie."

Yes Richie Benaud is still commentating.

[CerberusIV]

Originally posted by CICSMaster


Well, we roundly thrashed that minow of soccer England.

Don't imagine that means you are any good at the sport.

There is a long english tradition of inventing sports then giving up on them when the foreigners and emigrants get the hang of them. The first time an Aussie gets to be world extreme ironing champion you will know the english have moved on again.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by CICSMaster

Yes Richie Benaud is still commentating.

At least there is still some good in the world.

[Alexander's Horse]

A more detailed poll of Australians has just been taken:

Support for the war in Iraq has grown substantially more than a week after the bombing began, but the largest proportion of Australians still oppose the conflict, a new poll has found.

A national Herald-ACNielsen survey conducted at the weekend found that 44 per cent of people now supported the war without United Nations backing.

However, the Prime Minister, John Howard, warned last night that the most difficult part of the campaign lay ahead.

"A street campaign in Baghdad could well be very costly, just how costly and precisely what might precede that I am not going to speculate," he said.

The 44 per cent of people surveyed who said they supported the war has climbed sharply from just 6 per cent in January. At the same time, opposition to the war without UN backing has almost halved from 92 per cent in January to 48 per cent this week.



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Of those against the war, 27per cent said they were opposed because it did not have UN backing and 21 per cent said Australia should not be involved at all.

Of the 1431 people surveyed, 8per cent said they remained undecided.

The poll found support for the war was weakest in the cities, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, and highest in non-metropolitan areas. It is also in the cities where opposition to the war has been most visible on the streets, in large protest marches.

The United States-led forces launched the invasion of Iraq 12 days ago without winning specific backing from the UN Security Council.

The poll retained the aspect of UN support in its questioning to ensure consistency with earlier surveys. It found that Australia's involvement in the war remained most unpopular with women. Of the women surveyed, 50 per cent were opposed and only 40 per cent in favour. A further 10 per cent remained undecided.

Of the men contacted, 49 per cent supported the war and 46per cent were against, with 5per cent undecided.

The only category of respondents which produced majority support for war were "upper blue collar workers", of whom 51 per cent agreed with Australia's involvement in the campaign.

Support for the war generally increased with the age of those surveyed. It was lowest among 18- to 24-year-olds at 41 per cent, highest among 40- to 54-year-olds at 46 per cent, and was at 45per cent among those 55 and older.

Speaking on ABCTV's The 7.30 Report last night, Mr Howard conceded that the US's belief going into the war - that the show of overwhelming coalition force would inspire a popular uprising against Saddam Hussein - was misguided.

"The reality is that in 1991 many of these people were encouraged to rebel against Saddam Hussein and they were left in the lurch, and they remember that," he said. "And they suffered horrendous reprisals - horrendous reprisals - as a result."

Also yesterday, defence and intelligence specialist Des Ball, of the Australian National University, said the US and its allies had lost the war in Iraq because the invasion had strengthened the hand of terrorism.

"The coalition faces defeat in the sense that it's likely to emerge from this war with its global interests more threatened, its strategic standing in the world more challenged and its security, the security of the US and its allies, ultimately diminished," he said.

Not quite as strong support as the poll Lincoln originally quoted.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Not quite as strong support as the poll Lincoln originally quoted.

No, but that certainly is quite a change. Are Australians really that capricious?

[ravagon]

There was another poll - results came out yesterday I think - it indicated that most Australians thought the UN should have approved military action.
Not quite the same thing but close...

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by cyclotron7


No, but that certainly is quite a change. Are Australians really that capricious?

No more than anyone else. The point is support has probably peaked and it peaked at a very low level. 50/50 is not good.

[Alexander's Horse]

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
No more than anyone else. The point is support has probably peaked and it peaked at a very low level. 50/50 is not good.

True, but 6 to 44 was pretty shocking to me when I first saw it. I've never known the approval rating of anything to go up that fast. Are we just doing a really good job or something?

[Alexander's Horse]

Its support for the troops.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by cyclotron7


True, but 6 to 44 was pretty shocking to me when I first saw it. I've never known the approval rating of anything to go up that fast. Are we just doing a really good job or something?

Think about it. Their troops are going to be in the line of fire. This doesn't mean anything as far as the justness or wisdom of going to war is concerned, but reason isn't the strongest suit of the average voter...

The problem for anybody who goes to war against the wishes of his people is that they're going to remember how they felt about him ignoring them...

And if and when Australia takes casualties they're going to remember that they didn't want to go in the first place. So you'll see the poll numbers stay comparatively high as long as the fighting continues (as long as it doesn't continue for years on end), but God help the leader afterward.