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Obama’s Libyan Intervention Has Lowest Approval of Any Military Op Polled by Gallup in 4 Decades
CNSNews ^ | March 24, 2011 | Terence P. Jeffrey

Posted on 03/24/2011 9:43:29 AM PDT by Constitutionalist Conservative

President Barack Obama’s intervention in Libya’s civil war has not only failed to win the approval of a majority of the American people, according to a Gallup poll conducted Monday, it also earned the lowest public approval rating of any U.S. military operation polled by Gallup over the past four decades.

In fact, it was the only U.S. military intervention polled by Gallup that received less than majority approval from Americans.

“The 47% of Americans approving of the action against Libya is lower than what Gallup has found when asking about approval of other U.S. military campaigns in the past four decades,” said Gallup's analysis of the poll.

That compares to the 90 percent approval rating Americans gave President George W. Bush’s October 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, the 83 percent approval they gave President George H.W. Bush’s January 1993 bombing of military targets in Iraq, the 76 percent approval they gave President George W. Bush’s March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the 71 percent approval they gave President Ronald Reagan’s March 1996 bombing of Libya, and the 66 percent approval they gave President Bill Clinton’s August 1998 missile strikes on Sudan and Afghanistan, according to the Gallup poll.

Before Obama’s intervention in Libya, the least popular U.S. military intervention polled by Gallup in recent decades was President Clinton’s 1999 intervention in the Balkan conflict over Kosovo. In a survey conducted April 30 to May 2, 1999, only 51 percent of Americans approved of that military action.

Gallup says it did not conduct polls asking Americans whether they approved or disapproved of the first U.S. war in Iraq in 1991 or of the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1991, which resulted in the ouster of the Panamanian government of Manuel Noriega in less than two weeks.

However, in response to a somewhat different question, asking people whether they approved of President George H.W. Bush starting the war in Iraq when he did on Jan. 16, 1991, 79 percent told Gallup they did approve.

Also, after the senior President Bush invaded Grenada on Dec. 20, 1989, his approval rating soared to 80 percent in a January 1990 Gallup poll, giving him the highest approval rating in that poll of any president since World War II.  “That poll showed Bush with an 80 percent approval rating, higher than that for any other president at the same point in his first term since World War II,” the Washington Post reported on that 1990 Gallup poll. “Only one, John F. Kennedy, came close. Kennedy enjoyed a 77 percent approval rating in January 1962.”

Reporting on its own January 1990 poll, the Post attributed Bush’ s high approval rating to his successful invasion of Panama.

“Nearly eight in 10 of those interviewed--79 percent--said they approved of the job Bush has done as president,” the Post reported.

“The survey suggested that Bush's image was helped by his decision to invade Panama and by the subsequent capture of the Panamanian dictator, Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega,” the Post said. “The latest Post-ABC poll found that eight in 10 persons interviewed said they supported the president's decision to send U.S. troops to Panama to overthrow Noriega.”

Two years after the senior President Bush scored the highest Gallup approval rating of any president in the post-World War II era, he lost his reelection bid to Bill Clinton, winning just 37.5 percent of the popular vote.

Here are the results of Gallup’s polls on the approval or disapproval of U.S. military actions in recent history listed from most-approved to least-approved:

                                                                             Approve         Disapprove

Afghanistan                   Oct. 7, 2001                             90                    5

Iraq                              Jan. 13, 1993                           83                    9

Iraq                              March 20, 2003                         76                    20

Libya                            April 17-18, 1986                       71                    21

Afghanistan/Sudan         Aug. 20, 1998                           66                    19

Somalia                        June 18-21                               65                    23

Haiti                             Sept. 23-25, 1994                      54                    45

Grenada                        Oct. 26-27                                53                    34

Kosovo/The Balkans       April 30-May 2, 1999                  51                    45

Libya                            March 21, 2011                          47                    37


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events
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1 posted on 03/24/2011 9:43:31 AM PDT by Constitutionalist Conservative
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative
Even Code Pink has turned on him! LOL!

2 posted on 03/24/2011 9:46:25 AM PDT by TSgt (Colonel Allen West & Michele Bachman - 2012 POTUS Dream Team Ticket!)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

I wonder if Obama even knew about it. Might have been his trio of Amazon Communists.


3 posted on 03/24/2011 9:47:04 AM PDT by screaminsunshine (TV.)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

it would be even lower if the MSM stopped spinning this and ignoring facts like him not going to congress

Or maybe this was all the diversion as Soros buys shares in Petrobas.
Obama stops drilling for American companies in the Gulf.
Obama goes to Rio on yes a vacation with family , and mother in law who in turn takes a friend on our dime.

Tells Brazil we want your oil
Where now Soros makes billions as well as Petrobas

Thus more money for his election next year

Now there is no way this is all a coincidence and not one media outlet or anyone is talking about any of this and yes I know the GOP don’t have the balls to even demand he should have got back here when he got us into a war let alone mention this shady deal for Soros

Might not be war for oil but it’s a damn good diversion for his pals in the media


4 posted on 03/24/2011 9:50:57 AM PDT by manc (Shame on all who voted for the repeal of DADT, who supported it or never tried to stop it. Traitors)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

Is it a KINETIC poll? LOL!!!


5 posted on 03/24/2011 9:51:07 AM PDT by 2harddrive
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

"Mr. pRes_ _ent, your Libyan intervention
has the lowest approval of any military op
polled by Gallup in 4 decades.
"

The Burner of Children at WACO,
Installer of Racism and Destroyer of Justice,
Protector of Terrorists Foreign and Domestic,
and Defender of the Absent Birth Certificate:

“It matters not, he is your King"


6 posted on 03/24/2011 9:51:21 AM PDT by Diogenesis (Si vis pacem, para bellum)
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To: screaminsunshine

ping to post 4.

Seems we’re all looking in another direction while he conducts a war without congressional approval, which would mean , dare I say the far lefts slogan?

Yes an illegal war


7 posted on 03/24/2011 9:52:47 AM PDT by manc (Shame on all who voted for the repeal of DADT, who supported it or never tried to stop it. Traitors)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

This man is going to put troops on the ground to force our support.

Just a gut feeling.


8 posted on 03/24/2011 9:53:47 AM PDT by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin! (look it up))
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative
When even *I* am against military action, especially after 9/11, then you *know* it is bad!
9 posted on 03/24/2011 9:55:27 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

People know you don’t follow bozo into war.


10 posted on 03/24/2011 9:57:34 AM PDT by pallis
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To: cripplecreek

Maybe. But seems troops on the ground could be the last nail in his re-election hopes coffin.


11 posted on 03/24/2011 10:00:22 AM PDT by NEMDF
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To: cripplecreek
This man is going to put troops on the ground to force our support. Just a gut feeling.

Me too. When I look at that chart there's only one way that Libya can change in position. It's on the bottom. Maybe we should add Vietnam to the list and make Obama feel better.....assuming Vietnam was not more popular than even Zero's war.

Libya 47%

12 posted on 03/24/2011 10:02:36 AM PDT by tsowellfan (http://www.cafenetamerica.com)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

Ron Paul: Libya Airstrikes Unconstitutional – Only Congress Can Declare War

Mr. Speaker: I rise to introduce a resolution expressing the sense of the Congress that the President is required to obtain in advance specific statutory authorization for the use of United States Armed Forces in response to civil unrest in Libya. As many in the administration, Congress, and elsewhere clamor for the president to initiate military action to support those seeking to overthrow the Libyan regime, Congress sits by, as usual, pretending that Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution does not exist. According to this long-ignored section, ‘‘The Congress shall have Power To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.”

This is black letter law, not some aspirational statement by our Founders. Their intent was indisputably clear: Congress alone, not the Executive Branch, has the authority and the obligation to declare war if hostilities are to be initiated against a foreign state that has not attacked the United States.


13 posted on 03/24/2011 10:03:13 AM PDT by kingattax (99 % of liberals give the rest a bad name)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

14 posted on 03/24/2011 10:03:18 AM PDT by CharlesMartelsGhost
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To: NEMDF

Dream on. Obama will have the power of incumbency, the media lapdogs, ACORN fraud, and the stimulus slush fund for the campaign. He will raise over $1 billion, which is nothing to Mr. Deficit but unprecedented for a political campaign. He will be very, very hard to beat.


15 posted on 03/24/2011 10:04:56 AM PDT by karnage
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

Figures the fake journalists in the MSM would leave it up to CNS to report this.


16 posted on 03/24/2011 10:07:33 AM PDT by skeeter
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

Didn’t Palin just come out basically supporting this intervention?

That sends the nail in her hopes as far as I’m concerned.


17 posted on 03/24/2011 10:09:48 AM PDT by stockpirate (Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God!)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

I guess all the libs will need a new bumper sticker to replace the “War is NOT the Answer” stickers they love so much. I suggest “War is not the answer, unless a democrat is president”


18 posted on 03/24/2011 10:22:21 AM PDT by Tim Hans (No birth certificate? No problem...)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative
Vietnam War

7 years into the Vietnam War it was still at 60% approval, and hovered at that level for two more years.

Vietnam War was much more popular than Obama's according to a CBS Poll

CBS Poll which was comparing the Iraqi War to the Vietnam War

19 posted on 03/24/2011 10:29:55 AM PDT by tsowellfan (http://www.cafenetamerica.com)
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To: stockpirate

***Didn’t Palin just come out basically supporting this intervention?***

“Obama faces questions at home over Libya policy
Potential GOP presidential candidates Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich and House Speaker John A. Boehner are among the voices challenging President Obama’s wisdom, goals and authority in committing U.S. forces to the multinational military action in Libya.”

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/sarah-palin-tells-greta-van-susteren-what-obama-is-doing-wrong-in-libya/


20 posted on 03/24/2011 10:33:07 AM PDT by kitkat ( I sure HOPE that it's time for a CHANGE from Obama.)
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