But almost 1% approve!

October 22, 2005 6:57 PM

The Sunday Telegraphreports that a secret survey commissioned by the British Ministry of Defence shows that up to 65 per cent of Iraqi citizens support attacks and fewer than one per cent think Allied military involvement is helping to improve security in their country.
posted by saketini99 (37 comments total)

Shocking. Seriously.
posted by thirteenkiller at 7:01 PM on October 22, 2005

... but, but we're we haven't been greeted with flowers and open arms yet...
posted by threehundredandsixty at 7:16 PM on October 22, 2005

"They've never had freedom before; they don't know what it's supposed to be like. Twenty years from now, they'll understand, and they'll thank us."

I sure do love living in Alberta Texas North here.
posted by S.C. at 7:18 PM on October 22, 2005

And now for a game of RTFA:

saketini99: up to 65 per cent of Iraqi citizens support attacks

article: 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;
posted by ori at 7:20 PM on October 22, 2005

...a critical distinction being that most "attacks" are not against UK/US troops, but against stuff like police, "Iraqi troops," and soft (civilian) targets. TFA doesn't say much about those things.
posted by rxrfrx at 7:25 PM on October 22, 2005

Britain already has a history of fucking over Iraq. Would somebody explain how Iraqis were supposed to be happy to see them return? Is there any country formally administered by the British that would welcome troops back on their soil?
posted by 2sheets at 7:27 PM on October 22, 2005

Yeah... it's worth editing that section in the FPP for accuracy.

Still, it's a jump. A similar poll was commissioned by the BBC in 2004, in which 31% of Iraqis supported attacks on coalition forces.

A friend of mine in the know indicated that the BBC's polltakers were subsequently refused access for taking any additional polls, btw.

One of the big unwritten stories in Iraq, frankly, may be the pressure that the coalition and their supporters in the Iraqi government have put forth to silence both public opinion polls and additional direct surveys of Iraqis who have died.

We're far more disliked in Iraq than we think, in no small part because we've killed far more people than most of us believe.
posted by insomnia_lj at 7:28 PM on October 22, 2005

ori-

not sure what RTFA means, but I copied and pasted that from the opening paragraph of the article (sue me... I'm lazy). Check it. So if there's a bias it's from the Telegraph.
posted by saketini99 at 7:32 PM on October 22, 2005

also, the survey takers were not told the info would be used for Coalition troops. for their security.
posted by saketini99 at 7:34 PM on October 22, 2005

It may be worth mentioning that Iraq was rated 157th in press freedom out of 167 countries, just behind Uzbekistan and ahead of Vietnam, Nepal, Cuba, and Iran.

Let freedom reign!
posted by insomnia_lj at 7:34 PM on October 22, 2005

We come over there, we blow off their childrens' arms and legs, and still they don't like us! What's it going to take?
posted by jellicle at 7:36 PM on October 22, 2005

I would also question how reliable a "an Iraqi university research team" are. They were given a chance to make a political statement. The article claims that "for security reasons, [the team] was not told the data it compiled would be used by coalition forces." Who else but western powers would be commissioning this type of study? I don't think Zarqawi commissions market research on the popularity of the insurgency.

Tenured professorship is an influential and desirable position in the public sphere. Assuming the Iraqi academia hasn't had the chance to replenish its ranks since the invasion, we're basically talking about a bunch of people who thrived under Saddam's regime. They were asked by whom they could only imagine was a western power to to gather statistics on how popular the invasion was.

All that considered, they still report that a majority (55%) of Iraqis do not consider American and British Soldiers legitimate targets!

If we go on the assumption that an unwelcome, invading force is a legitimate target, this means that a majority of Iraqis do not consider British and American presence totally illegitimate.

Most of the grievances they polled for (decreased security, decreased stability, etc.) are the result of an insurgency that (unlike what most people on MeFi believe) did not arise "organically" out of an oppressed people but was financed and backed from the start by a terrorist cabal operating out of such places as Syria and Iran with the explicit goal of destroying the US.

I will conclude with my typical disclaimer that I was against the war on Iraq from the start. But I do think that among liberals, the Bush regime is suffering from the-boy-who-cried-wolf scenario: just because Bush & co. are manipulative liars most of the time, doesn't mean everything they say is necessarily a lie.
posted by ori at 7:38 PM on October 22, 2005

Now that I think of it, when the Telegraph says that up to 65% support attacks, it could be a true statement. It's impossible to know for sure without looking at the poll questions and methodology, however.

For instance, they say that "45 per cent of people feel attacks are justified" but there could also be another question saying "some attacks are justified", in which attacks against coalition troops could be justified, but more indiscriminate attacks against Iraqis are not.

Unfortunately, the Telegraph did not share the complete document with us, but that is understandable under the circumstances. Oftentimes, secret reports have intentionally unique elements inserted into the document for each recipient, specifically so that those who leak them can be detected.
posted by insomnia_lj at 7:43 PM on October 22, 2005

I'm sorry Ori but I'm just not heartened by the fact that only 45% of iraqis support killing American and British troops. That means that a whole big chunk of the country hates us, how can you possibly spin that as a good thing?
posted by octothorpe at 7:45 PM on October 22, 2005

saketini99: not sure what RTFA means, but I copied and pasted that from the opening paragraph of the article (sue me... I'm lazy). Check it. So if there's a bias it's from the Telegraph.

RTFA means "Read The Fucking Article". By posting and quoting it to MeFi, you are endorsing an article which, had you bothered to read it carefully, you would've discovered to be inconsistent.
posted by ori at 7:45 PM on October 22, 2005

"All that considered, they still report that a majority (55%) of Iraqis do not consider American and British Soldiers legitimate targets!"

Can you specifically cite the section in the article which indicates that this is so?

How does that gibe with the Telegraph's statement that "up to 65 per cent of Iraqi citizens support attacks"?
posted by insomnia_lj at 7:46 PM on October 22, 2005

It occurs to me also that there is perhaps a more relevant differentiation in the questions that the British Ministry of Defense would want to ask in such a survey that would explain the statement "up to 65 per cent of Iraqi citizens support attacks."

Here's my second theory to explain the apparent conflict in the article:

- 45% of Iraqis support attacks on U.S., British, and other coalition forces.

- 65% support attacks on U.S. forces.

No wonder the Telegraph may be a bit reticent about reporting on the exact questions asked.
posted by insomnia_lj at 7:51 PM on October 22, 2005

All that considered, they still report that a majority (55%) of Iraqis do not consider American and British Soldiers legitimate targets!

If we go on the assumption that an unwelcome, invading force is a legitimate target, this means that a majority of Iraqis do not consider British and American presence totally illegitimate.

I truly don't follow your logic here. Can you rework it perhaps?
posted by odinsdream at 7:56 PM on October 22, 2005

ori-

I did RTFA, as you now so graciously explain and in fact, did NOT find it to be inconsistent. Perhaps because you find it be inconsistent with your ASSUMPTIONS about what is happening over there you feel justified in labeling it thus.

Here's how it worked... I found the article, carefully read it, decided to re-post it here because it would seem to indicate that the BRITISH not Bush, are concerned about how the war is progressing.

I found that interesting. I'm sorry that because you clearly already possessed all the facts relevant to the situation that the article was of no value to you.

I now walk away from the keyboard and go to play in the sun.

Ta!
posted by saketini99 at 8:00 PM on October 22, 2005

insomnia_lj: look at the article. it reads: "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". How conspicuous that the misreported statistic occurs in the same statistic-cluster! The irresponsible journalist behind the article leaped on the "65 support attacks!* (*in Maysan province) without too much thought. I doubt I'm wrong, but even if this is not a mistake and can be accounted with further statistics that the article doesn't mention, that is still irresponsible journalism on their part.

octothorpe, I never said it was a good thing. The situation in Iraq is horrible; there is not doubt about that. What I wanted to point out is:

(a) The article is flawed.
(b) The study is dubious.
(c) The results are not as bad as the article reports.

and finally,

(d) in what can only be explained as self-flaggelation, the tendency here is to assume guilt for all the grievances polled for. Zarqawi and his cronies need to be held responsible, since the scale and character of the insurgency was determined causally by the invasion but was carefully coordinated by a bunch of deliberate men.
posted by ori at 8:01 PM on October 22, 2005

His logic doesn't exist, odinsdream, because his premise is complete conjecture.

I'm still waiting for him to show me this 55% majority he's all excited about.

This just in, the South secedes from the Union! Is a Civil War imminent?

Good news though... the Yankees have a democratic majority!
posted by insomnia_lj at 8:03 PM on October 22, 2005

65l% support attacks and 60+ percent turnout to vote for a new constitution...that totals to___125%______:
posted by Postroad at 8:13 PM on October 22, 2005

since the scale and character of the insurgency was not determined causally by the invasion

odinsdream:

Premise A: "Forty-five per cent of Iraqis believe attacks against British and American troops are justified" (quoted directly from the article)

Corollary: Fifty-five per cent of Iraqis believe attacks against British and American troops are unjustified.

Premise B: Attacking an unwelcome, invading force is justified.

THERFORE

55% of Iraqis do not find American and British forces an unwelcome, invading force.
posted by ori at 8:18 PM on October 22, 2005

"Corollary: Fifty-five per cent of Iraqis believe attacks against British and American troops are unjustified."

You ignore the fact that many Iraqis feel that attacks against the coalition may be justified under _______ circumstances.

But then again, Bush did say that "either you're with us or against us". Who am I to disagree with that kind of logic?
posted by insomnia_lj at 8:34 PM on October 22, 2005

Oh, and...

"55% of Iraqis do not find American and British forces an unwelcome, invading force."

55% + the "82 per cent (who) are "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops" as cited in the article... hm. That totals to 137%.
posted by insomnia_lj at 8:43 PM on October 22, 2005

In other words, "Take your 18 percent and go back to Kurdistan with it."
posted by insomnia_lj at 8:44 PM on October 22, 2005

insomnia_lj: You ignore the fact that many Iraqis feel that attacks against the coalition may be justified under _______ circumstances.

Wow dude, you are clinging hard to this theory of yours. If this was the case, wouldn't the article read: "Forty-five per cent of Iraqis believe attacks against British and American troops are always justified"? Wouldn't they also publish your hypothetical statistic of "justified under certain circumstances"?

My hypothesis is that a staff blurb-writer with a penchant for alarmist prose was too eager on the draw. Your hypothesis is that the Telegraph re-worded questions and deliberately omitted certain vital statistics that (a) would (a) support their argument, and (b) are necessary to compute their final tally.

I'll play along, though, for your sake: let's say there were other options, such as "undecided", or or "neither justified nor unjustified" that the Telegraph is not reporting. I'll re-word my argument:

Premise A: "Forty-five per cent of Iraqis believe attacks against British and American troops are justified" (quoted directly from the article)

Premise B: Attacking an unwelcome, invading force is justified.
Corollary to B: If you thought British and Americans troops are an unwelcome, invading force, you would think that attacking them is justified.

Conclusion:

Only a minority of Iraqis (45%) are convinced the American and British forces an unwelcome, invading force.


55% + the "82 per cent (who) are "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops" as cited in the article... hm. That totals to 137%.

All the more reason to dismiss this study entirely.
posted by ori at 8:48 PM on October 22, 2005

Hey, insomnia_lj, sorry, I have to take off and by the time I'll be back this thread will probably be inactive. Anyhow, I think you'd find our views on Iraq are probably pretty similar, so it's too bad this exchange is degenerating into attacks. If you want to take this up further, tho, you can email me (address in profile). Cheers.
posted by ori at 8:58 PM on October 22, 2005

insomnia_lj was not trying to intentionally mislead anyone. It is up to %65 depending on regional variances. I think ori over-reacted in pointing fingers, but it was helpful to point out the fine print for those few who didnt RTFA.
posted by stbalbach at 9:13 PM on October 22, 2005

Wow, this has degenerated right from the start.

To add one more splash of oil to the really-when-it-comes-down-to-it-very-inconsequential fire:

I think ori's "Premise B" is flawed. Can you not imagine a sizeable number of individuals who might consider the troops stationed in their country to be unwelcome (and "invading") but nonetheless not think them deserving of slaughter?

Indeed, the survey data points directly to the existence of these individuals, counted among the 82% "'strongly opposed' to the presence of coalition troops," but not counted among the 45% who support attacks against them.
posted by nobody at 9:47 PM on October 22, 2005

Assuming that nobody was trying to mislead anyone, and given a thorough rererereading of the article and various attempts amongst us to hash out what it really means, I would say conclude the following :

1> Approximately 45% of Iraqis, when asked "Do you support attacks against Coalition troops?" (or a question pretty similar to that) said no.

2> That said, if they were asked "Are there situations where attacks against Coalition soldiers might be justified?" or asked "Do you believe that insurgent attacks that are targeted only against Coalition soldiers are justified?", the results would be quite different.

3> Not answering in the affirmative in supporting attacks on coalition troops does not equate to either approving of the occupation or even to an unwillingness to support attacks under sone circumstances. The only way to get that answer with any degree of certainty is to ask them the right question.

4> The Telegraph reporter who said "up to 65 per cent of Iraqi citizens support attacks" was potentially muddling an already pretty damning set of statistics. Almost certainly, those Iraqis who support the occupation are heavily concentrated in the Kurdish north. The majority of the Southern Shi'a appear to resent the occupation, but believe they have the power to end it democratically, presumably at a time most beneficial to them.

5> Iraq is really, really divided. Violently so. It's essentially a low-grade civil war that can be easily sparked to violence. Arguably the only thing more dangerous for the Coalition than Iraq erupting into open civil war would be for Shi'ites and Sunni to put aside their differences, form common cause, and unite as a nation.

In the unlikely chance that they do unite, it almost certainly will be against us.
posted by insomnia_lj at 9:53 PM on October 22, 2005

er... 45% said yes. Yes.

In any case, whatever. The poll seems to indicate that despite all the people who have been killed so far, Iraqis are *still* not learning to love us.
posted by insomnia_lj at 9:56 PM on October 22, 2005

ori, your logic is fundamentally flawed. Just because 55% may not believe that attacks against coalition troops are justified, that does not mean they SUPPORT coalition troops. You're assuming that the study's 2 statistics (82% strongly opposed to coalition presence, 55% do not believe attacks are justified) are mutually exclusive. They are not.

Also, your harping on the 65% thing is unreasonable as well. The post and heading say UP TO 65%. Not 65% absolutely. What part of "up to" is confusing?
posted by papakwanz at 10:16 PM on October 22, 2005

...a critical distinction being that most "attacks" are not against UK/US troops, but against stuff like police, "Iraqi troops," and soft (civilian) targets. TFA doesn't say much about those things.
posted by rxrfrx at 7:25 PM PST on October 22 [!]


I'm reminded of Lenny Bruce's quip on protest marchers "Gestapo? Me? You asshole, I'm the mailman!"

I suppose you hit the guys you can reach tho'.


----
My only two insights into this article come from the Simpsons, but they're apt:

"Lisa, that's a load of rich creamery butter."

and

"I want to set the record straight: I thought the cop was a prostitute."


(I'm being cute, but not facetious.)
posted by Smedleyman at 11:45 PM on October 22, 2005

Getting beyond the semantics of the "attacks justified" split, which insomnia_lj did such a great job of parsing, there are a number of other interesting internal contradictions or splits revealed.

... 65 per cent of people in Maysan province ... believe that attacks against coalition forces are justified... In Basra, the proportion is reduced to 25 per cent.

Ironically, of course, Basra was where insurgent sympathizers among the police were used to seize and then kidnap two British undercover operatives, forcing a British military operation against the police station and the militant hideout. That's very interesting.

less than one per cent of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security ... 67 per cent of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation

Presumably 33 percent felt "about the same or more secure", and of those, 1/33 felt it was the doing of coalition forces. This does leave open the question of whether a real increase in security might (or more accurately, might have) resulted in a more favorable opinion.

71 per cent of people rarely get safe clean water, 47 per cent never have enough electricity, 70 per cent say their sewerage system rarely works and 40 per cent of southern Iraqis are unemployed ... those likely to carry out attacks against British and American troops as being "less than 26 years of age, more likely to want a job, more likely to have been looking for work in the last four weeks and less likely to have enough money even for their basic needs".

There seems a clear correlation here (correlation is not causation!). The failure to manage basic needs and keep people employed fuels the insurgency, probably much more than anger over the war itself. This despite the southern Shi'ite peoples being presumably not only one of the groups we went in to supposedly help, but also the most likely to do better in a democratic Iraq.

The window may not have been wide to begin with, but it's closing quickly.
posted by dhartung at 12:35 AM on October 23, 2005

I'm just amazed by those who try to "spin" this into a favorable story.

Look, the spin DOES NOT MATTER. The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of unhappy people in Iraq, and they're unhappy at us. (the West) When you sit and try to say "55% still approve, so that's a majority and WE WIN!" you're just sticking your head in the ground. It's a complete reality-denial.

Those who hate us and\or our occupation are not going to obey the "rules" of democracy. You aren't going to put up some Farsi edition of the O'Reilly factor demonstrating that the majority of Iraqis support us, so you must too, and actually talk these people out of fighting.

And 45%? Holy god, do you know what percentage of people it takes to effectively mount a revolution? A LOT LOWER THAN THAT! Most estimates are that the American revolution was, at best, strongly supported by about ONE THIRD of the public. (with another third being Royalists, and the last third not really giving a damn who's king because it doesn't effect them personally)

About the only thing stopping this from turning completely against us is the utter stupidity of most of the terrorists. Their internal bickering and stupid shiite / sunni aggression makes sure they never really work together. If they quit blowing up their own peoples and truly united against "the invaders" we would be COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY FUCKED.

And you guys are sitting here playing word games from thousands of miles away, trying to rationalize how disasterous news isn't really that bad after all, and thus trying to get people to ignore reality. You are truly helping them win. Do you realize this? Every day we pretend things are hunky-dory in Iraq means another day that more of our soldiers get killed without us even TRYING to stop it from happening.

All of you who play political word games and try to redefine reality are HELPING TO KILL OUR COUNTRYMEN. At this point, I'm tempted to say that ignorance is treason - except it's really not your fault you've been brainwashed by the real traitors - those who have baptized their political careers in the blood of their brothers.
posted by InnocentBystander at 8:49 AM on October 23, 2005

Wow, InnocentBystander. You need to take a few deep gulps of air.

amazed by those who try to "spin" this into a favorable story.

Where did I say that this was a favorable story?

"55% still approve, so that's a majority and WE WIN!"

Again, when and where did I say the situation was analogous to victory?

Every day we pretend things are hunky-dory in Iraq

HELPING TO KILL OUR COUNTRYMEN

I'm not your countryman, but thanks for assuming.

Read this comment again and relax a bit. I'm on your side, kid.
posted by ori at 11:37 AM on October 23, 2005