Anbarians are quite familiar with what intimidation looks like, and what’s happening now ain’t it.

BUT:
In a culture of routine deception, every statement is “instrumental”; i.e., uttered to have some particular effect. Whether it is entirely, partially, or not at all true is irrelevant. Only the best phrasing to get the desired result counts.

So context, recipient, and even long-range or remote responses (such as in a polling situation) directly affect the wording.

If you personally grew up in the same cultural environment as the speaker, you may have a hope of “backing out” all those influences. Not otherwise.

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Oh, about those liberating muj lead by OBL in A-Stan: never happened. It was the locals and warlords who did all the lifting, both light and heavy. They regarded the mujahadeen and OBL as assclowns, whose only talent was occasionally arriving after the battle to claim victory. In the few instances they actually made contact with the Sovs they were promptly and almost casually routed.

Such is the power of Islamic myth-making.

Tis fact is self-evident to anyone with half a brain, which excludes most Leftists.

If it were, the we would have taken over the place (90 days) and put in our own strongman (another 90 days). The troops would have been home for Xmas ‘03.

F***ing duh and f***ing Q.E.D.

Instead, we, for once in our recent history, have tried to do the Right Thing — We went in and made a mess in Iraq for our own (quite valid) reasons, and this time, for the first time since the Boomers were born, we stuck around to help clean it up.

We showed what America actually stood for. I’m proud of our leaders, for doing The Right Thing. I’m proud of our soldiers, for putting their lives on the line — time and time again — to do the Right Thing.

And shame on anyone whose position is that we should “cut and run”.

But of course. But my point was precisely that the US was so focused on what the USSR could do that it did not stop to find out what its allies against it would do, once they were trained and armed.

I was raised in one of the harshest soviet bloc regimes and we might have not survived had we not been able to get out, but let me tell you: if I were to choose between that and sharia, I know what the least evil is instantly.

Hell no.

Interesting points otherwise.

If these polls suggest that support for the Awakening groups is up at 90% -
yet the Awakening groups are full of former insurgents -
what does that say about the popularity of the people who were leading the insurgency, when they were leading it?

I’d almost rather believe in the intimidation thesis.

It isn’t clear why they feel intimidated into making anti-american statements, yet later are not too intimidated to make pro-american statements.

I suppose there could be a 20% in there somewhere who is intimidated into pretending to support attacks on Americans - taking that up to 42% - and then into not saying they supported the invasion - taking that *down* to 62% percent.

I don’t find this formulation as believeable as the original premise.
On the other hand, nor would I feel confident, of course, testifying that no one was intimidated when talking to these pollsters. Ultimately, it’s a mess. And my basic bias is to believe polls more than even a large number of one-to-one conversations, in the idea that the cross-sections you encounter is at least more random, and the sample is larger.

If they were completely subject to intimidation, there wouldn’t be positive news to report in the first place. Yada, yada, yada, none of this means your hypothesis is false. Or true.

It’s not beyond the realm of the possible that Iraqis could feel fear at the thought of expressing pro-American opinions to an American polling project, for fear that somehow, Iraqis might find out and hurt them.

On the other hand, once you start wondering if all these polls are intimidation-weighted - while also recognizing that your own interactions are similarly weighted - you have to wonder about the intimidation effects on the numbers in here that are supposedly good for us.

For example, those super-high numbers for the Anbar awakening councils - that seemed fishy to me from the beginning. (Although it’s more than possible that Anbar Awakenening councils are popular - but 90% is an awfully high number). Who’s to say that intimidation is not a factor there for the exact same reasons? Are the former insurgents running those councils, who weren’t afraid to kill you for having the wrong opinions when they were anti-American, now above that kind of thing now that they’re (sort of) pro-American?

Next, the US will ally with someone else to defeat the Islamists.

uhuh. WHO?????????????? There’s nobody left.

It’s not a good idea to persist in one belief that because we managed to extricate ourselves from crap we created, we will continue to. i would not call that pragmatic.

there was an opportunity to finish the soviets off after the war. the west did not and for the next decades it has wasted humongous resources in controlling them, up to the cuban missile crisis. i wouldn’t call that pragmatic either. we were very lucky.

Though I’m as much a hawk as anyone, the simple answer to this is that the Iraqis don’t believe insurgent attacks on Iraqis are acceptable. It has nothing to do with the US, it’s just Iraq trying to clean out its own trash. That doesn’t mean they can’t turn around and snap at the US to keep out of it.

At the same time, since 90+% of the insurgent violence is directed at Iraqis, this is in complete alignment with the goals of the US, so more power to them.

Any chance of a link to that article you mentioned? It sounds very interesting.

# Lester:

The gist of what Totten has written, taken along with the info supplied by #6 TallDave, is that Iraqis are even more optimistic and pro-American that the MSM is grudgingly starting to concede.

It’s pragmatism.

My opposition to AQ and the Sharia fundies is formed on the same foudation. I have seen how they treat their own and have determined to remain apart from them.

you really believe that the cold war was about what the soviets were doing to their own population? you can’t be serious. it was, as always, based on the perception of US national interest, which was not to risk exposing its own and other nation’s populations to similar treatment.

but that’s beside the point, which is that the US got into bed with what are essentially a much worse enemy than the soviets. that’s a fact. and it was done primarily because the US did not then and does not now have a clue about the ME. it keeps repeating exactly the same mistake over and over again, without stopping in the face of constant evidence of failure.

hamas is where it is because of the US insistence that it be allowed to participate in elections against the objection of both israel and abbas.

and here is now the same mistake for the umpteenth time:

http://www.ansamed.info/en/news/ME01.@AM17550.html

This is no longer ignorance but utter stupidity. The US is now directly funding jihad.

oao
http://fallofknowledgeandreason.blogspot.com/

“Obsession” with the Soviets? Maybe the focus on the Soviet Union had something to do with its killing tens of millions, imprisoning Eastern Europe, supporting permanent police states from Cuba to North Korea, and threatening the world for a ghastly stupid ideology.

“OBL was built up that way”? “Radicalization” began? What? OBL was built up because the United States helped evict Soviet invaders from Muslim Afghanistan? That makes no sense at all. OBL was there to make headlines, and he continues his quest for bloody fame.

This has always struck me as one of the singlemost ridiculous piecec of polemic ever constructed.”

As an American, I would be happy if Iraqis freed my country from a horrible dictator. They would receive my thanks—and also my regret that somebody else had to clean up the mess. I would feel a bit embarrassed. Realizing the Iraqis must remain in the United States perhaps even indefinitely would not thrill me in the least. Still, I would almost certainly be glad that they stayed.

Iraqis have mixed emotions about our assistance. Their reaction is quite normal. How would you react if the shoe was on the other foot?

This is a commonly held myth … Islamic militants failed to establish theocracies in any Arab country

i did read the book. That is not the point. There was ignorance of who the US was dealing with: there was so much obsession with the soviets without knowing anything about jihadis. OBL was built up that way. that initiated a process if radicalization in islam that the world is now succumbing to. these people operate in decades and centuries, not quarters like the west. if you wanna see the trend watch europe. they don’t need even to be in the majority to cause the governments there to agree and even propose creeping sharia.

the arab regimes are very experienced in suppressing them and then channeling their energy towards the west. the west, however, has no clue. it is hugely vulnerable and prone to cowardice, appeasement and bribing. extremely dangerous.

In past posts on Cuba and Iran, I have emphasized the dangers of giving credence to pr…

true to a point.

but in this particular case the incompetence and ignorance were monstruous. and there was plenty of knowledgeable input as to what would happen if iraq were invaded — a lot of it very accurate — which was ignored. people put in charge were all political know-nothings who had no clue what they were doing except for imposing western capitalist concepts on the country. bound to fail.

This is a commonly held myth. Read Lawrence Wrights “The Looming Tower” which

” brings exhaustive research and delightful prose to one of the best books yet on the history of terrorism. He begins with the observation that, despite an impressive record of terror and assassination, post–WWarII, Islamic militants failed to establish theocracies in any Arab country. Many helped Afghanistan resist the Russian invasion of 1979 before their unemployed warriors stepped up efforts at home. Al-Qaeda, formed in Afghanistan in 1988 and led by Osama bin Laden, pursued a different agenda, blaming America for Islam’s problems. Less wealthy than believed, bin Laden’s talents lay in organization and PR, …. ”

http://www.amazon.com/Looming-Tower-Al-Qaeda-Road-11/dp/037541486X?tag=dogpile-20

and you will see that Al Queda was a tangential player on the battlefields of Afghanistan and had no real contact with American aid.

Its not that liberals are ignorant, its just that so much that they know is wrong…

A valid point…but that has ever been the case. And not just with Americans. Any time anybody does anything at all that involves more than one nation, it ALWAYS has resulted in unintended and unwanted consequences. The only way to know whether an action was worth it is to wait 10 or 20 or 50 years and then check the history books. Anybody who tells you the Iraq war wasn’t worth it is talking through their hat. There’s no way to know yet.

As an aside, the United States has a weakness for “grand projects”. We always try to do things in a big way, be it a war or a skyscraper or the Super Bowl. It stands to reason that when you set your bar high, when you fail and fall it’s going to hurt, and people are probably going to give you nothing but scorn. It’s part of the “game”.

I’m not sure whether it would be better if the US just toned it down for a few decades and tried out a less-ambitious foreign policy, but I’m not at all ashamed of the things we’ve tried that haven’t worked out. A lot more HAVE worked out…they just don’t get any press. Witness the difference in coverage in Iraq when things were actively going to hell versus what you hear lately (with the odd suicide-bombing exception, each of which get plenty of coverage).

Excellent observation…
Human survival exists in a grey area; and polls always exist in black and white.
This article is very relevant, as I believe that regardless of the weight of the unforeseen, and all risks associated; many expect Iraqis to say yay or nay…

I wouldn’t mind them in California if that meant we could get our Freedom and 2nd Amendment rights restored, the Voting Districts un-Gerrymandered and out of the whole-ownership of the Central Committee, the Legislature committed to a realistic budget instead of some pork-fed UFO-Space Opera World they inhabit, and we got power restored to the Grid instead of being roadblocked at every turn by eco-weenies.
If Iraqis won’t come liberate us, maybe Texas will?

that’s why marc steyns book is called AMERICA ALONE.

unfortunately, the US security umbrella over EU has turned them into parasites when it comes to self-defense, with the added gall of criticizing the US for providing it.

but there is poetic justice: within the next decade or two europe will be islamized. that’s what they deserve.

the concern is that decline and creeping sharia are already happening in the US too.

oao
http://fallofknowledgeandreason.blogspot.com/

sorry, but that’s simply silly.

there was the intention to turn the thing over before they invaded (when one general was appointed as supremo). then the political/ideological ass from kssinger assocs came and when he discharged the army and police it was clear a decision was made to stay.

Level of tolerance is really what’s at question here. If the UN troops were gradually being replaced by local police I’d be a lot more tolerant than if they stayed and stayed and stayed, eating up my food and living in my house. Some would tolerate this better than others. Those who didn’t tolerate it at all would become insurgents - or move if they could. What I believe is that there are very few actual insurgents in Iraq anymore. Almost all Iraqis have accepted that we want to be there patrolling their streets about as much as they want us to and see mounting evidence that we are training local Iraqis to provide security and other vital services as fast as we can. They see greater advantage to working with us to achieve this goal than working against us. There are a few dead-enders who think they can bring back the glory days of lording it over the Shiites and some criminals taking money from foreigners to stir up trouble but they’re not actually “against” the occupation; they’re working for their own interests.

The insurgency is finished in Iraq. Al Qaeda is almost universally hated and being driven out by the Iraqis themselves. The Iraqi Army and Police are largely up and running and the only thing keeping us on the streets in large numbers now is that the process of reconciliation between the various factions in Iraq isn’t strong enough to keep the country from falling back into anarchy. By 2010 I expect we will largely be pulled out of Iraq except for military and economic adisors and the conflict over.

As an aside, I spent some time on-line reading about this recently as it was an unknown-to-me aspect (a horrific one) of the Italian campaign.

What brought it to my attention was the depiction in the 1960 movie “Two Women” on TCM (starring Sophia Loren, she won best actress Oscar for her performance).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marocchinate

If you look closely at Iraq public opinion polls, you’ll find that most want the Americans out of Iraq. That’s not hostility. For many, it’s a matter of national pride that they want to run their own county.

But then ask them if the Americans are needed in Iraq for security, most Iraqis will say yes.

Obviously, the pollsters need to ask, how soon would you like the Americans to leave? Weirdly, they almost never ask.

This has always struck me as one of the singlemost ridiculous piecec of polemic ever constructed. Unless one assumes some equivalency between Saddam-era Iraq and the U.S. there is no basis upon which to compare sentiments. And, dare I say it, if one does make such an equivilance they have clearly demonstrated such poor judgement and rank idiocy to have their opinion roundly deserving of preemptory dismissal.

Given the huge differences in the way the different groups respondended, it scewed the responses significantly toward negative and Anti-American results. If you take the numbers and adjust the weightings for accuracy, you will see the results become 5-10% more positive (depending on the question).

The upshot is that the Sunni Arabs still have a very negative view of the situation, the Kurds have an extremely possitive view, and the Shia Arabs are in the middle.

Al

Thanks for the great report, Michael

Details here

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/03/17/iraq-poll-improvements-across-the-board/

Corrected poll numbers here

http://www.deanesmay.com/2008/03/17/that-d3-systems-poll/

The 42% “support attacks” number is probably way too high, but I haven’t recalculated that one.

Perhaps most interestingly, 62% of Iraqis believe the invasion was the right choice. That flies in the face of conventional wisdom based on all the negative reporting about how “the war” has damaged Iraq, but quite understandable when you consider that some 2 million died as a result of the prior regime’s actions, abn average of 7,000 a month over the regime’s reign of terror, far higher than any month of the occupation — and that’s before we consider factors like much greater overall access to electricity due to the economic freedom to buy generators (private generation supplies as much as half Iraq’s electricity now, up from zero under Saddam) and the first vague semblances of freedom of press, freedom of expression, free elections, etc. Iraq is in bad shape but better in many ways than before 2003.

Exactly. The more strident and bizarre claims of the more extreme anti-war elements notwithstanding, this was never a “war for oil” or a war of American “imperialism”. Whether one believes the invasion to have been the right thing or not, only an idiot would truly believe the best thing for Iraq is a precipitous withdrawal of American and coalition forces.

It was! The Bush administration from the very beginning aimed to turn the government over to the Iraqi people. This must, however, be done in a reasonable manner. Rushing things will only result in a disaster.

regarding polls, i’m sure that those who feel vulnerable in iraq and the educated segments would prefer the US to stay. however, most of the polls in the arab world are part demopathic, part going with the strongman of the moment and part to protect oneself from terror. public opinion blows with the wind. I would not put too much weight in what iraqis tell US journalists in the presence of US troops.

there is also the “europe syndrome”: the US has provided europe with a security umbrella, relieving it from undertaking its own defense to the point of having the call to criticize and oppose US fight against islamism which, unable to fight it themselves (the resources going to the welfare of polygamists), the EU is appeasing the jihadis.

america has a serious knack for policies with short-term benefits causing long-term disasters.
I would not be surprised if the current policy in iraq won’t prove to be similar to the building of the UBL against the soviets. there have been analyses making that point.

Would we want Iraqi troops in our own country? I also suspect that many French citizens were not exactly thrilled with our presence in their country immediately after WWII. It is normal to be embarrassed by one’s need for outside assistance. This is why we must continue handing over power to the Iraqis, as it is practical to do so.