Reading Polls
Judith Apter Klinghoffer has a definitive breakdown of the latest polls coming out of Iraq. You REALLY need to read this before you accept the media spin that is being force-fed to the American public. All is not what it seems. First of all, al Qaeda has decisively lost in Iraq.
Al Qaeda has desicively lost the Iraqi battlefield.
Overall 94 percent have an unfavorable view of al Qaeda, with 82 percent expressing a very unfavorable view. Of all organizations and individuals assessed in this poll, it received the most negative ratings. The Shias and Kurds show similarly intense levels of opposition, with 95 percent and 93 percent respectively saying they have very unfavorable views. The Sunnis are also quite negative, but with less intensity. Seventy-seven percent express an unfavorable view, but only 38 percent are very unfavorable. Twenty-three percent express a favorable view (5% very).
Views of Osama bin Laden are only slightly less negative. Overall 93 percent have an unfavorable view, with 77 percent very unfavorable. Very unfavorable views are expressed by 87 percent of Kurds and 94 percent of Shias. Here again, the Sunnis are negative, but less unequivocally—71 percent have an unfavorable view (23% very), and 29 percent a favorable view (3% very).
There is much more, I urge you to go read this. The people claiming we have got to pull out of Iraq precipitously are dead wrong. The Iraqi people are really moving toward democracy. There is still a ways to go, but we must not abandon them. The people shouting that we must leave at once do not give a damn about the horrible bloodshed that will ensue if we just cut and run. They care not one whit for any human life at all, despite their protestations.
I think we were right to go to war, others do not. That's fine, that is what democracy is about. We can disagree about a lot of things. But we must remember: Our troops are there and they are giving these people a chance they did not have before. But if we leave them in the lurch, more and more of them will die or be maimed, And we will have robbed all honor from the job the troops have done to date and dishonored those who have sacrificed in Iraq.
If we leave these people to their fate, history will judge us harshly. History will be right.
UPDATE: Flopping Aces sees a bit of a problem with the MSM spin, too.
By Dan, Thursday, 28 September , 2006 @ 7:02 am
This is all based on polls, which, when they go the other way, you tell us are meaningless.
What to believe…
By Gaius, Thursday, 28 September , 2006 @ 7:14 am
This isn’t an American political poll witha skewed sample, either. I take all of these kinds of things with a grain of salt, Dan. However, this analysis is an attempt to counter the negative spin the press is imparting.