Iraqis: life is getting better

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1530762.ece

March 18, 2007
Iraqis: life is getting better

MOST Iraqis believe life is better for them now than it was under Saddam Hussein, according to a British opinion poll published today.
The survey of more than 5,000 Iraqis found the majority optimistic despite their suffering in sectarian violence since the American-led invasion four years ago this week.

One in four Iraqis has had a family member murdered, says the poll by Opinion Research Business. In Baghdad, the capital, one in four has had a relative kidnapped and one in three said members of their family had fled abroad. But when asked whether they preferred life under Saddam, the dictator who was executed last December, or under Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, most replied that things were better for them today.
Only 27% think there is a civil war in Iraq, compared with 61% who do not, according to the survey carried out last month.

By a majority of two to one, Iraqis believe military operations now under way will disarm all militias. More than half say security will improve after a withdrawal of multinational forces.
Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, said the findings pointed to progress. “There is no widespread violence in the four southern provinces and the fact that the picture is more complex than the stereotype usually portrayed is reflected in today’s poll,” she said.

[davinxtk]

Five thousand? Do you know how obnoxiously small a number that is? I mean compare it to the estimate of 1.7 million internally displaced Iraqis on top of nearly 2 million more who have simply left the country and a survey of five thousand seems myopic at best.

It also shouldn't go unnoticed that things like "disarm all militias" and "withdrawal of multinational forces" are clearly simple yes/no questions that people are going to answer based, as most everyone's reality is, on what they want as opposed to what sort of factual information they have on the subject.

The real improvements are going to be the drastic infrastructure improvements that are coming over the next few weeks and months. The internal collapse we caused by simply not allowing any agency that was run by the state to continue functioning is what's finally changing here, and it's what's going to change the remainder of the war. There's been very brief mention of how terrible an idea it was to disband the Republican Guard and alienate every former Baathist simply because they had a despotic leader.

I'm gonna go ahead and assume that you posted it because it sounds newsworthy, but the only information to be gleaned here is how absolutely retarded our perpective on progess is. I'm sick of hearing about what the public thinks is happening or even really what they think is good for them. They know what they want, and it's not always progress.

[davinxtk]

Furthermore, it's once again a deceptive stretch of public opinion to suggest that military operations are winning this war. It was big and bold of the Bush administration to almost "leak" that we needed to start focusing on hearts and minds until along comes a British opinion poll (conveniently unsourced) that didn't seem to pay any mind to that (important) acknowledgement.

I'm really sick of droning on about how sick I am of hearing everyone else droning on about this war. The absolutely constant barrage of largely apocryphal or at best heavily estimated information from experts and analysts and polls is damaging. Nation building is long-term shit, and whether we like it or not we're in it. Let's take a short-term break from the status updates.

[Abcdxxxx]

Originally Posted by davinxtk

Five thousand? Do you know how obnoxiously small a number that is?

Is that your argument against all poll based statistics?

What's notable here is that many Iraqis polled acknowledge that life without Saddam is preferable, and that their perception of the country isn't one caught up in an all out civil war. That contradicts the story which the anti-war crowd wants you to hear. Even more notable is that a chunk of Iraq is on the mend, and doing pretty okay considering the type of screw job the US Government created. So there is some validity in these types of articles. I would think if you posed the same poll to Americans about how they would assumeIraqis would answer, the results would be the total opposite.

Another thing, while we're at it - Being a member of the Baathist Party, with all it's history and skeletons, insinuates a lot more then just having a crummy leader. You may be tired of the status updates, but isn't it better then no consistant updates, like has been the case with Afghanistan?

[Geggy]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070319...e_070319110131

I don't get it...
??????????????

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Davin, you very quickly displayed that you A. Know very little about polling, and B. Have nothing new to offer other than the status quo, knee-jerk, anti-war jargon. You should be ashamed that Geggy actually out did you in a thread.

Speaking of which, Geggy, I think that's the diference in the polling language. Is a distrust for America and a little more optimism in a post-Saddam life a mutually exclusive thing? I think this is the most teling find from your poll:

Faith in the new Iraqi government was a little better, although hardly overwhelming: 53 percent were dissatisfied with the performance of the Iraqi government.

But some 63 percent said foreign troops should only leave after security improved and the capacity of Iraq's institutions was strengthened, according to the poll commissioned by the BBC, ABC News, ARD German TV and USA Today.

and...

About 69 percent gave similar responses for the availability of clean water, and 88 percent for the availability of driving or cooking fuel.
There was some solace for supporters of the foreign presence in Iraq, however, as 56 percent did not believe that Iraq was in a state of civil war, while 58 percent were in favour of maintaining a unified Iraq.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Originally Posted by davinxtk

along comes a British opinion poll (conveniently unsourced)

yeah...click on the link. It was conducted by Opinion Research Business.

[davinxtk]

Ah, shit, I'm sorry I missed that.

But seriously, where did I spit out anything anti-war? This is too nuanced a situation to be simply anti- or pro-war, if you ask me. The way things have panned out I don't think anyone who's touting immediate troop withdrawal really knows what they're asking for and anyone who thinks "stay the course" with the administration's plans clearly needs a reality check.

As far as polls go, no, I don't put much stock in them. Polling just over five thousand people when the entire population of Boston has fled Iraq four times over shows that you don't even really care what anyone thinks. Five thousand isn't an accurate cross-section of the people affected by this war, and there's no way anyone can claim that it is.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Quinnipiac just did a poll of al registered voters in NYC. They polled 1,200 people.

You don't need a huge sample size to get a window into thoughts and opinion. Doing what you suggest, targeting people you assume are disgruntled, is the definition of bias in polling. Why only the recently displaced? How about we find Iraqis who were "displaced" for decades and decades under Saddam...I'll bet they might think differentlythan the "cross section" you would target.

As long as it's random and consistent, 5,000 people is a very good sample size. If you don't like polls, ok, but I don't recall you throwing a fit like this over any other polls here...

[Preechr]

...and how would Iraqi refugees have any idea of whether or not things have gotten better in Iraq? Why ask them?

[derrida]

Am I the only one who is unsettled by the fact that our main picture of iraq in the mainstream media is coming to us via poll?

[derrida]

I just found out that the percentage of iraqis saying that life is better is 49 percent. Kinda funny that that wasn't in the original article.

[Abcdxxxx]

Derrida, you're insane. How is this poll the one picture mainstream media is providing us? There are stories every day concerning Iraq, and what with the Dems trying to push an exit agenda, it's rarely positive. Maybe what you should be troubled by is that this poll is one of the rare examples of a positive look at Iraq, because go figure, there are entire regions of the country which are leaning towards the positive future we all pray for.

49% is huge! That's amazing. You wouldn't know any percentage of Iraqis had a positive word to say about the situation from our mainstream media. Perhaps that's what you mean, and I apologize if I misread that, but knowing you, I doubt it.

[derrida]

Originally Posted by Abcdxxxx

Derrida, you're insane. How is this poll the one picture mainstream media is providing us? There are stories every day concerning Iraq, and what with the Dems trying to push an exit agenda, it's rarely positive. Maybe what you should be troubled by is that this poll is one of the rare examples of a positive look at Iraq, because go figure, there are entire regions of the country which are leaning towards the positive future we all pray for.

49% is huge! That's amazing. You wouldn't know any percentage of Iraqis had a positive word to say about the situation from our mainstream media. Perhaps that's what you mean, and I apologize if I misread that, but knowing you, I doubt it.

even though a poll is still only a snapshot, it can still give a more global picture than a story about some anecdotal event. No one is arguing that horrible things arent happening in Iraq, and so the "every day" stories about violence are not particularly useful in determining the status of the country as a whole. It strikes me as odd that, if there are regions leaning towards a positive future, why aren't there reporters on the ground there? It certainly must be easier to do so there than in the more hopeless regions, right? Or, is it that those regions simply havent learned far enough, and foreigners and iraqi news crews are still targeted for kidnapping or murder?

[Abcdxxxx]

Well then we can agree on something for once.

I think the disdain for how this war operation is being run overshadows any interest in stories which might negate those issues...and our media likes to focus on the negatives.... nothing new there. People are still claiming the media isn't reporting the true horrors of Iraq, so that's their focus. Hell, MSNBC had live reports from the lame attempt at a Pentagon protest this past weekend. So they're trying, and that's largely because the dissident point of view has been mainstreamed, I think.

Now there's been a recent trend of stories on the thriving areas of Iraq, like the Kurdistan section, and that sort of thing, but they're just seen as poor attempts to get the "5 soldiers killed" headlines off the front pages.