Mondo Times Iraq Poll Archive
This poll ran from August 26 to September 2, 2007.
| Mondo Stars Poll Results |
| "The United States has failed on every promise in Iraq." True    886/50%False 880/50% |
| Votes: 1766 |
From the op-ed article "The War as We Saw It," published in the August 19, 2007 edition of the New York Times. The article was written by 7 American soldiers at the end of a 15-month deployment in Iraq. They are Army Specialist Buddhika Jayamaha, Sergeant Wesley D. Smith, Sergeant Jeremy Roebuck, Sergeant Omar Mora, Sergeant Edward Sandmeier, Staff Sergeant Yance T. Gray and Staff Sergeant Jeremy A. Murphy.
They wrote: "In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, "We need security, not free food."
"In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.
"Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.
"We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through."
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