Great news in a new Iraqi public opinion poll: "A poll of Iraqis commissioned by the U.S.-backed government has provided the Bush administration a stark picture of anti-American sentiment: more than half of Iraqis believe they would be safer if U.S. troops simply left. The poll, commissioned by the Coalition Provisional Government last month but not released to the American public, also found radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is surging in popularity, 92 percent of Iraqis consider the United States an occupying force and more than half believe all Americans behave like those portrayed in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse photos... The coalition's confidence rating in May stood at 11 percent, down from 47 percent in November, while coalition forces had just 10 percent support. Nearly half of Iraqis said they felt unsafe in their neighborhoods."
Of course, you wouldn't know how great this is from reading the liberal media. This is just such a classic example of how the liberal media imposes its bias on everything, ignoring the positive just to make Bush look bad.
For example: In focusing on the 92% who consider the US forces to be an occupation, they minimize and downplay the 8% who said they didn't think that, or had no opinion. Do those 8% not count? Are we just supposed to ignore that 8%?
And when they say that the coalition only has 11% support, this is so misleading. The poll included people like Shias and Sunnis and poor people and all kinds of people who don't actually take a salary from the coalition. If you don't count their votes, the coalition's support is more like 85% - an overwhelming mandate.
And what do polls really tell us, anyway? I mean, remember a few months ago when a poll asked Iraqis what they thought of members of the Iraqi Governing Council, and Yawar placed dead last and Allawi placed next to last? And here they are, President and Prime Minister. So obviously they were a lot more popular than the poll showed, right? Because they wouldn't be Prime Minister and President in a a democratic Iraq if they weren't popular, right? Why, George Bush himself says that the new Iraqi government is doing a great job, and would they really be doing a great job if they were that unpopular. I don't *think* so. So spare me the polls.
If you really want to know what the Iraqi people think, do what Paul Wolfowitz does - cite a couple (carefully selected) blogs, and quote the positive things that they say. If it's good enough for the Deputy Secretary of Defense, who got almost everything about the Iraq war right - from the magnitude of the threat to the ease of the occupation - then it should be good enough for us. Or talk about the schools - freshly painted schools. Did the opinion poll even *ask* Iraqis what they think of the freshly painted schools?
Yep, things are going great. Just according to plan. June 30, coming any day now... any day now... come on, June 30, get here already...
Comments