For you, Rev - Poll: Broad Optimism in Iraq

[unclepercy]

Dec. 12, 2005 — Surprising levels of optimism prevail in Iraq with living conditions improved, security more a national worry than a local one, and expectations for the future high. But views of the country's situation overall are far less positive, and there are vast differences in views among Iraqi groups — a study in contrasts between increasingly disaffected Sunni areas and vastly more positive Shiite and Kurdish provinces.

An ABC News poll in Iraq, conducted with Time magazine and other media partners, includes some remarkable results: Despite the daily violence there, most living conditions are rated positively, seven in 10 Iraqis say their own lives are going well, and nearly two-thirds expect things to improve in the year ahead.

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Interviews for the poll were conducted Oct. 8 to Nov. 22, 2005, in person, in Arabic and Kurdish, among a random national sample of 1,711 Iraqis age 15 and up. (Oxford Research International)
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Life In Iraq: Percent Saying Good

In Your Life 70%
For Country 44%

Since you like polls, Rev. Let's hear your interpretation.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/PollVault/story?id=1389228

Percy

 

[jimmoyer]

That's true Uncle Percy but not to the exclusion that most Iraqis certainly do want us to leave, and the time frame varies greatly among them.

I'm with you in hoping and praising those who wish to rebuild their country.

I might even support a Kurdistan who has lived a much longer and much more worse plight than Palestine, but the neighboring countries greatly despise and fear that creation.

If this democracy federated republic stands over there, it will be HUGE in changing the attitudes, but it will grow in fits and starts with nothing ever guarranteed.

We're having a celebration on the 15th to honor those who will try over there.

And also a vigil for the peace protestor, Tom Fox, a practicing Quaker, who lives 5 miles away from my house, who was kidnapped by the Swords of the Righteous Brigade, and who was scheduled to have been killed this past Saturday and nobody has heard anything. His family has turned off the Christmas lights.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: For you, Rev - Poll:

Yeah, there was a story on the news tonight about the Iraq hospitals. Not a lot of optimism there. No doctors, no medicine, no power a lot of the time. No clean water, dirty floors. Yeah, things are really looking up.

Does the average Iraqi think things are going to get better? They pretty much have to get better...they can't get much worse considering the mess the US has made of the place.

By the way, there was a poll a couple weeks ago that had 70% of Iraqis wanting the US to leave.

 

[Paranoid Dot Calm]

Most Iraqis want U.S. forces out

The Iraqi's are happier then pigs in sh?t .... I'm sure.

Robert Dreyfuss: Bush's Shiite Gang in Baghdad
By Robert Dreyfuss
December 13, 2005
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20...xIF;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHVqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA--

Iran gaining influence, power in Iraq through militia
By Tom Lasseter
December 12, 2005
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/13391616.htm

Ex-general says Iranian led torture of detainees
By Paul Martin and Maria Cedrell
December 13, 2005
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20051213-120437-7849r.htm

 

[Reverend Blair]

The Iraqi's are happier then pigs in sh?t .... I'm sure.

Why not, they have depleted uranium dust for their kids to play in and bombs going off on every street corner. They have to eat food grown under Monsanto patent. US soldiers arrest them in the middle of the night and torture them. What's not to be happy about?

 

[jimmoyer]

Yep. No doubt there.

But although that blots out other truths for you Rev
(and you'll be right about a bad payback to the Americans
on both scores) I'm only hoping that more support
and honor goes to the brave ones
trying to do the right thing rebuilding their
country ---- and they're getting no notice at all.

 

[Paranoid Dot Calm]

The problem with an item like this is that we don't know
what they mean by "democracy." Over 80% of Egyptians said in one
poll that democracy is the best form of government, and then 64%
of them turned around and said they were satisfied with the
Mubarak regime (a soft military dictatorship). So Egyptians didn't
mean by "democracy" what Americans would have.

Actually, for most Middle Easterners, "democracy" implies self-
determination. By that measure, Iraq is not very democratic at the
moment.

The poll seems to define democracy as the principle that leaders
are replaced from time to time. If that is all that the 90% want, it
doesn't tell us much.

The other problem is that I find it a little difficult to believe that
basic ideologies like these have shifted so massively in only a few
months, and I suspect we'd be better off averaging the two for
2005 results than in assuming we are seing trends here.

Finally, there are some obvious contradictions. 48% want rule by
mulla, but only 13% want an Islamic state. How does that make
sense?

In any case, given the February findings, it seems likely to me that
a good half of Iraqis still do not want Western-style democracy,
which is not very heartening. Moreover, half of Iraqis don't believe
that the US should have come there, 60% think it made no
difference or actually made things worse, and 2/3s want US troops
out.

 

[jimmoyer]

Who was that a quote of ?

I can certainly understand how they would like the
rule of a Mullah, but yet not want an Islamic state.

There is a lot of respect for some of the clerics
who do go through great privation and sacrifice
in search of wisdom. But they have all seen the
abuses of administration of Sharia.

That quote very much sounds like the puzzlement
of an outsider.

Polls of the masses are typically used by the
intellectual elite to demean the people, because
on the shallow surface some answers seem
contradictory, and so it really exposes the ignorance
of the poll reader.

 

[Colpy]

Personally, I will consider the turnout and results of the current election to be the only really relevant poll.

I wonder if Iraqi turnout will outweigh Canadian turnout in recent elections?

 

[Paranoid Dot Calm]

Just like in the U.S. and the Dieabold voting machines .....

The ballots in Iraq are gonna be taken to some secret place for counting.

Calm

 

[Colpy]

Just like in the U.S. and the Dieabold voting machines .....

The ballots in Iraq are gonna be taken to some secret place for counting.

Calm

Well, you are certainly living up to your name.

 

[Hard-Luck Henry]

Well now, that's a bit rich, coming from a man who is currently arming himself to the teeth for when the government and the UN come to get him. :lol:

 

[Reverend Blair]

Well now, that's a bit rich, coming from a man who is currently arming himself to the teeth for when the government and the UN come to get him.

:lol:

 

[Colpy]

Well now, that's a bit rich, coming from a man who is currently arming himself to the teeth for when the government and the UN come to get him.

:lol:

Don't have to arm myself to the teeth.

Already am.

Seriously though, this is a little insulting. I have no intention of shooting anybody. Much as I dislike the direction this country is going, it is still (more or less) a democracy, and thus we get the government we deserve.

I will not, however, turn over my handguns willingly.

I will jump through any hoop they ask, as I have already, but I think my profession and the fact I'm a Federal Firearms Safety instructor will save me.

If not, I will force them to get warrants and seizure orders, and fight them in court.

This, if pushed, will cost another several billion dollars.