Just as quickly as it came, the secret poll seems to have disappeared…
The “secret” bogus Iraqi poll that was written about this week in The Telegragh on Iraqis supporting attacks on British and American troops surprisingly is not getting much air time in the Western media. Or maybe the Left is too focused on the New Orleans murder rate,… No, I mean the Iraqi Death Count (same difference!).
It could be there is just too much Plame-hysteria for the Left to see anything else in the news right now. Or, maybe it is because the results look like some item that was taken from MoveOn.org or some other Soros funded group‘s website that they may have read before.
Omar at Iraq the Model wrote about this poll earlier in the week. His conclusion came down to this:
I still have mixed feelings about this poll and the way its results were reported and these feelings drove me to the conclusion that we should neither believe nor entirely discredit the report.
Once again, Omar’s analysis proves priceless.
First, Omar caught a piece of phony data that most others would miss…
Then there’s the suicide attacks against British troops well, as far as I know, there have been many against American troops but none against British ones and even the link provided in the report leads to a report about a roadside bomb attack and NOT a suicide attack.
Strange that the southern Iraqis would promote suicide bombers when it is not practiced in their area, at all! This same principle applies to Omar’s next point…
Forty-five per cent of Iraqis believe attacks against British and American troops are justified – rising to 65 per cent in the British-controlled Maysan province.
Ironically, Maysan has one of the lowest levels of violence in the middle and southern parts of the country and practically speaking if we put aside the clashes with Sadr’s militia’s last year there have been very few attacks against British troops during 30 months of their presence in the province and that certainly doesnÂt go along with the results shown by the poll or we would have seen daily attacks and violence like we do in Baghdad, Anbar or Mosul, well maybe the results of some provinces got mixed up!
Omar’s point here makes sense…
And by the way, I almost forgot to tell you this; when Iraqis are performing a poll they tend to do so while trying to keep as low a profile as possible for concerns about being misidentified as spies or intelligence gatherers for the coalition, the terrorists or even the government so they try to interview the first person they meet and think is safe to interview forgetting about all the known standards and requirements of correct sample choosing. This alone is enough to weaken the validity of the poll results.
Amen to that! Sitting here on the other side of the planet it is very, very troubling to think that almost half of a population anywhere is OK with suicide bombing. It is just not natural.
And, although there is a huge amount of media bias in the Middle East, I still believe that most Iraqis understand that we are not there to stay, that we are there to help them, and that we helped free them from the wrath of Saddam. I believe that most Iraqis know this.
To reinforce what Omar said… Over here in the States we hear about the people be-headed, bodies found floating in rivers, bombs exploding, innocent people dying. There must be a huge “Saddam factor” still present in the society for so much of this to be happening.
Iraq is still a country traumatized… And , that is OK. It makes a whole lot of sense. You just don’t come out of years of abuse and snap into healthy behavior overnight. Saddam’s shadow still lingers in dark hallways.
I commend the Iraqis as a people. I commend them for the success they have already achieved! I commend them for the courageous steps they have already taken. I commend them for all of the small steps the people are taking. I commend them for successes they are building on top of successes. And, with them, I look forward also, to the day when all of Iraq can face the shadow of Saddam and know it holds no power no longer.
