VID: What Americans Really Think About ISIS (Reason-Rupe Poll, October 2014)

Original post from October 16, 2014. Text is below:

“There seems to be a sort of collective amnesia problem
regarding the Iraq War,” says Reason Foundation polling director
Emily Ekins.

Ekins is referring to a question contained in the October 2014
Reason-Rupe poll, which found that 51 percent of Americans recall
opposing the Iraq invasion in 2003. In reality, Pew found that most
Americans—72 percent—supported the war at the time of the invasion.
Ekins says its fairly common to find such discrepancies in public
opinion polling. People tend to want to say they supported the
winner and opposed the loser.

“And this tells us something about how Americans view the Iraq
War,” says Ekins.

Reason TV questioned a handful of passersby in Venice,
California, to illustrate some Americans’ attitudes toward the
current military intervention against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Here
are some key findings from the October poll:

Air strikes are popular.

Some 66 percent of Americans favor airstrikes to combat ISIS in
Iraq and Syria. This was a fairly consistent finding across age
groups and partisans, with one glaring exception: Young people.
Fifty-one percent of respondents younger than 30 oppose
airstrikes.

Ground troops are unpopular.

Most Americans oppose sending ground troops to combat ISIS. Only
43 percent favor John McCain and Lindsey Graham’s preferred
solution.

Congress is shirking its duty when it comes to foreign
policy in the minds of most Americans.

A whopping 78 percent of Americans believe Congress should
return from recess to vote one way or another on an authorization
for the use of military force against ISIS. Most people think
Congress hasn’t done so because its members don’t want to put a
vote on the official record. 

Americans are increasingly concerned about the potential
unintended consequences of intervention.

Fifty-five percent of Americans oppose the United States arming
Syrian rebels, and 78 percent believe there is a chance such
weapons would eventually be used against the U.S.

“Americans are going to appreciate politicians who can
demonstrate an ability to be deliberative, but also strong, in how
they make foreign policy decisions,” says Ekins.

Watch the full video above, or click below for downloadable
versions. And subscribe to Reason TV’s YouTube channel for daily
content like this.

View this article.