Considering there were/still are several rival Iraqi political groups in the US, not to mention large Arab communities with some members waiting for the fall of sh and a turn from a brutal regime, it’s my opinion that there will eventually be enough Iraqis who think they can positively help rescue their society and culture.
From bits and pieces of news I’ve heard, esp. after sh was captured, many of those ex-pats have made plans to return and work toward a better Iraq. I also have heard the opinion voiced that governing such as under the Ottoman Empire should retake all the ME. I doubt the latter would or could happen w/o the cooperation of other Gulf states. Some of them, tiny as they may be, are too far along in doing things their way to return to an empiracle rule.
Just MHO.
BTW, “hello”. This is my first time to post here. Trying it out and this looks interesting.
How do you know? Because they speak English and have access to a computer that translates into ‘Pro American Pro Bush Pro everything Western’ Iraqi Bloggers have no reason to lie about what goes on around them, or to reject the unpreceedented opportunity that lies before them.
Ok, lets establish something here.
How many more opportunities will the average Iraqi have in this time period to create a free country is that’s what they really want? The academics will wade in with answers to that. There’s so much going on behind the scenes that we will never know. I have faith though though the Iraqis will come through and succeed in building a democratic government with our support.
Will you provide any reason to believe that the writings of these dozens individuals are representative of the sentiments of teh tens of millions?
Until you become willing to do so, the blogs are a moot issue re the widely held sentiments of the Iraqi populace re the Interim Gov.
Until you become willing to do so, the blogs are a irrelevant issue re the widely held sentiments of the Iraqi populace re the Interim Gov.
Until you become willing to do so, the blogs do not provide any support for your argument whatsoever.
**
Either decide that you’re willing to share the evidence you have or stop going on and on about the blogs. Enough already**.
It is nice that you are optimistic.
What evidence do you have that “the average Iraqi” sees things as you do re his opportunities to “to create a free country”?
Are you willing to share it?
Without evidence that “the average Iraqi” sees things as you do re his opportunities to “to create a free country” that fact that you see things this way is also irrelevant to the discussion about the what are and what are not widely held Iraqi opinions re the IG.
I hope that you intend to address the fact that you Clwyd ‘misspoke’.
I’m certainly not the one you addressed this to but I’ll take a stab at it.
First there are no cold, hard facts of continuing support for the IIG. In a mecurical environment, a war zone, facts, poll results, opinions, applied ideologies can change from day to day. That is relevant as part of the equation.
Second, I trust (yes, I’m an optimist too) that there are Iraqis with brains who care enough about salvaging their country and their culture(s) to make a difference … I mean, surely out @ 22 1/2 mil population there are a goodly number with working brains who care about their futures and those of future generations. That is relevant and should be taken seriously.
Third, there are Iraqis who are reaching out, outside their country, outside their culture, for help and there are those who are willing to help. That says something about humans in general and that is always relevant.
Fourth, well, I don’t have the concrete “proof” you are demanding but I do know from listening to returning military and civilian workers (in addition to news, blogs, media, eye witnesses, history, etc.) that there is a lot going on in Iraq that is good, can be considered good for humanity as a whole. That is relevant and something to build upon.
Fifth, (lots of people like a fifth now and then), positive, productive government of Iraq doesn’t rest on the shoulders of one man or one sect or one group of like thinkers … not any more. The door of opportunity is beginning to open. The Iraqis, average, moderate, elite, religious, political, whatever designation one has, have a chance to make a difference.
The real question is, “Will they take that opportunity?” The only answer I know today is to say I certainly hope so. The ball is in their court.
I asked a question (Will you provide any reason to believe that the writings of these dozens individuals are representative of the sentiments of the tens of millions?). A question is not a statement of a case.
Please explain what it is you think “to be the case” after you answer the questions I’ve already asked you.
My question ( What evidence do you have that “the average Iraqi” sees things as you do re his opportunities to “to create a free country”?) referred to “the average Iraqi.” I quoted your phrase. I assumed that you meant popular opinions of Iraqis. That is what i meant by that.
As to the bloggers, do you have any evidence that shows that the opinions expressed by the bloggers are widley held Iraqi opinions?
If you will not present such evidence, then I have to answer, “No, not the Iraqi blogs. The Iraqi blogs have not been shown to be representative of the popular sentiments inf Iraq. Given the non-random selection of the sample and given that the sample is so very small in comparison with the population it comes from there’s nothing that suggests the contents of the blogs are representative of the diversity of opinions in Iraq.”
As to whether or not Iraqi bloggers are representative (“normal average Iraqis”) that’s exactly what I’ve been asking you to demonstrate. You have refused thus far to show your evidence that the opinions of Iraqi bloggers are a representative sample of Iraqi opinions.
Until you show that their opinions are representative, there is no other reason to believe that they are.
**
If the sample is not representative, conclusions about the whole of the population are not possible.**
Maybe an analogy will help get my point across?
If we were conduct a survey of the opinions on Arab language blogs by Americans (as an example of an arbitrarily determined sample selection criterion), do you think that the opinions expressed would be representative of the opinons in America as a whole? (rhetorical question no answer necessary)
Or do think that a more accurate means to assess what “the average American’s” opinions would be to survey a large sample of randomly selected Americans? (rhetorical question no answer necessary)
Well, the same is true of Iraqis. If you use an arbitrarily determined sample selection criterion when conducting your survey of Iraqi opinion (the opinions of Iraqis who blog) to select a very small sample, then there’s no reason to think that the sample is representative enough to be useful for drawing conclusions about the entire populace.
SimonX signing off until you provide any reason to believe that the writings of these dozens individuals are representative of the sentiments of the tens of millions.
What makes you think that’s true? A majority of Iraqis are Shi’ite Muslims, and a substantial minority, if not a majority, of the Shi’ites want an Iranian-style theocracy. A lot of the Sunnis are still Ba’athist in their thinking. And what the Kurds really want is to secede from Iraq and take Mosul and Kirkuk with them.
How do you know, got any cites to back this up? Iranian style theocracy eh? And I bet they know how well that turned out in Iran, world hated and isolated. Oh well, we’ll just have to see what turns out in 2005. Too early to tell yet but my bet is that Iraqis aren’t that stupid.
Hey they might not, but they are pretty damn sure thats the only way to go in selecting the eventual government they want in 2005.
Then what should I do then? Carry out a census of the entire Iraqi population to monitor their opinion? Other than being short of impossible I don’t know what you’re getting at, both the Iraqi blogs and the Media outlets in Iraq report on small general feeling, one of them recording daily life to their own opinion, the other finding opinions which will cause maximum exposure and ensure large amounts of coverage for their own ends. This is why I talk about blogs, ok I’ll agree they may not be the representative opinion of the majority of Iraqis, but they do paint a better picture, and therefore less biased opinion than what I would get at MSNBC CNN or Al Jazeera.
Well, opinion polls have been carried out. Not of the entire population, of course, but of samples selected on a basis that is expected to yield statistically significant results. I mentioned one of them myself earlier, without a cite. Squink gave a cite to a poll. I’ve no doubt that by googling you’ll find other polls without too much difficulty.
Have you looked at the polls? Do they bear out your assumption that the bloggers are giving a more accurate picture of public opinion than the media? Or do you also assume that the bloggers will give a more accurate picture of public opinion than opinion surveys?
I’m genuinely puzzled here. What do you mean by a “better” picture?
Do you mean a more optimistic picture of Iraqi opinion, one more in line with what you would like Iraqis to think? Presumably you don’t mean that.
Do you mean that journalilsts and editors have biases, but bloggers don’t? I presume you don’t mean that either.
Or do you mean that, because the blog hasn’t been filtered through a journalist and a layer of editors, it’s likely to give a more accurate picture of what the Iraqi in question thinks?
I’ll accept the latter proposition, but that still only tells us what a blogger, who happens to be Iraqi, thinks. There is absolutely no reason to assume that the blogger, or even a couple of dozen bloggers, are representative of typical Iraqi opinion, and there are many reasons for suspecting that they probably aren’t. Bloggers are not typical Iraqis. They speak English fluently, they have ready access to the internet, they have the lifestyle and inclinations which enable them to maintaing blogs . . . As SimonX pointed out, relying on these blogs to gauge Iraqi public opinion accurately is analagous to relying on Arabic-language blogs from the US to gauge US opinion accurately.
You’re the one who asserted, in your OP, that reading Iraqi blogs gives a better gauge on Iraqi public opinion than reading the media. It’s not up to us to disprove that statement (though I think we’ve given plenty of reasons for doubting it); it’s up to you to explain to us why you think the blogs give a truer picture of overall Iraqi opinion, and to persuade us that that view is correct. And so far, despite several explicit invitations, you haven’t told us why you think this.
Oh ok, I’ll explain. The main reason is because they don’t have much of an agenda really. If they paint a picture of Iraq being shitty, then fine, they lie about the situation in Iraq, they lie to us, and themselves it really doesn’t do them any good or win them any friends in the long run. They explain their daily lives and what people think etc with less bias. They’re not doing it for money and reputation.
Some media outlets, like Al Jazeera, or Foxnews or CNN have an agenda they either describe the situation as too positive or too negative, I believe that for the most part the blogs are in the middle, they’re satisfied not elated and aren’t slow to critise their gov or the Americans. Basically the situation is not as bad or as postive as people in the West make out.
The bloggers may speak English, but they still have to engage in their societies, talk to people etc, work there live there, they are more inclined than a western journalist to know how the communities opinion is shaped and what views are most prevailent.
All gleaned from this weeks news reports.
You don’t hear about it here in the US, but nearly everyone else in the world is busy cutting deals with Tehran.
Of course they have an agenda. They are highly opinionated, and they want to promote their opinions. Why do you think they’re bloggers, for goodness’ sake?
No. All they know about at first hand is the views, etc, of the circles in which they themselves move, which are likely to as limited as the circles in which educated middle-class English speakers move in any similar society. Journalists may well have an exposure to a wider circle of views (although, I grant you, so far as western journalists are concerned, a more superficial exposure). Beyond their own circles, bloggers have to rely on the media.
And even what they know at first hand comes to us through the filter of the bloggers’ own biases, opinions, beliefs, etc. That may well be a different set of biases, etc, from the ones the media bring to bear, but a real set nevertheless. And, unlike journalists, bloggers generally won’t have reflected about the issue of bias in their own writings, they won’t have any training or experience in identifying and addressing bias, and they don’t have the same professional or ethical duties to avoid bias. I’m not saying that media outlets do all these things, of course, but most of them do at least acknowledge the issue and seek to address it in some way. Bloggers don’t. (And nor should we expect them to.) And, of course, we can make some guess at the bias of a media outlet, and filter what we hear through that. Much more difficult for us to do that when reading somebody’s blog.
The most you can say for bloggers is that they provide one more perspective (or several more perspectives) to add to those offered by Fox, al-Jazeera, the BBC and the like. It’s a useful and refreshing perspective, and it differs in important ways from all the media perspectives. But you’ll have to work very hard to convince me that it’s free of bias, or that it has some inherent validity which enables us to rely on it to the exclusion of other perspectives.
The human being that had the most hypothetical votes for president in the poll I cited earlier, Ibrahim Jaafari, is the leading spokesman for the Dawa party
Orientation
National Islamist Opposition Group.
Platform
Islamic Dawa Party is an old Shi’a Islamic organization. Now based in Tehran, the group supports the establishment of an Islamic state in Iraq.
Funding Funded by Iran.
History
Islamic Dawa Party was established in 1958, based on Association of Najaf Ulama, a political-religious organization that had been established in late 1957 to combat communism. Has coordinated closely with Sunni Islamic organizations. The group was blamed by the Iraqi leaders for actions that necessitated the attack on Iran in 1980. Dawa members mostly either joined the Iranian military units or refrained from political activity altogether. Islamic Dawa Party members staged a major assassination attempt on Saddam Husayn in July of 1982, bombed the Ministry of Planning in August of 1982, and attacked Saddam Hussein’s motorcade in April of 1987. Member of Coalition of Iraqi National Forces.
Ibrahim Jaafari is currently a VP in the IG. Maybe you should look into him and his situation to make your case about the opinions in Iraq re the IG.
Serious and potentially fatal strains have been created even within the government. Its Shiite vice president, Ibrahim Jaafari, who is also leader of the Dawa Party and generally regarded as Iraq’s most popular political figure, denounced the presence of US forces in Najaf…
So, it may be more apt to say that some Iraqis desire an Iraqi style theocratic democracy opposed to an Iranian one.
FYI, Clwyd seems an intentionally unreliable source of information. I reccommend active distrust toward for everything that Ann Clwyd says.
You do know that you addressed the posts of two different people without makinga distinction as to who said what here, don’t you?
I hope you’re not trying to make it look like I said what was actually said by Brain Glutton.
I’d appreciate it if in the future, you would accurately attribute the quotes you use, just to avoid confusion.
I think you mean that Ryan_lima’s “pretty damn sure thats the only way to go in selecting the eventual government they want in 2005.”
The “goodly number [of Iraqis] with working brains who care about their futures and those of future generations” may have decided different things than you RL.
I’m sure that if one starts with the givens that you do, that your conclusions are nigh unto inescapable. What seems sensible and obvious to you may look quite different when viewed with a different set of eyes.
It’s likely that these Iraqis with working brains do not share the same sets of givens that you do RL. This would go a long way toward explaining why so many Iraqis have acted on what seems to you like bad ideas.
A start would be to keep the bloggers contributions in perspective. Their comments are valuable for a variety of reasons and on a variety of levels. However, there’s not much reason to believe that these blogs are an accurate barometer of Iraqi opinion about all things.
As to assessments of pulic opinion, IIRC, the procedure is to have an adequately sized randomly selected sample, thus eliminating the need to speak with each and every Iraqi. When there is a valid sample, conclusions can be drawn about the population from whence it came.
It is a better picture, therefore it is less biased.
**
This circular reasoning is the crux of your biscuit whether you know it or not**.
Like Captain Ribman, my work here is done. Hiho and awaaay!
How long ago was it that we kept hearing about how it was all just the “Sunni Triangle”? Just a few dozen “dead enders”, “Saddam loyalists”, that sort of thing. Hearing about how all the Shia were on our side, nothin’ but love from the Shia.
And the odd thing is, they oughta be, even if they entirely hate our guts. They are the majority population in Iraq, any government that even remotely resembles an elected governance has to be a win for them, they have to come out on top!
You think maybe we forgot something? How many of you remember when we encouraged a Shia rebellion, implied assistance, if not outright promised it. How many of us remember that they were slaughtered for that. We held a trial, found Hussein one hundred percent guilty and ourselves as innocent as the driven snow, none of this was our fault, hey, realpolitik is a tough game, mistakes were made.
Why in the world would we ever expect those people to trust us? Why would they even forgive us, much less trust us?
Sadr loyalty grows, even as Sistani returns from the August 26, 2004 edition
By Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
In most cities where the Mahdi Army is present, there are Mahdi Army religious courts for resolving disputes and punishing criminals; Mahdi Army police patrols; and even Mahdi Army town councils for planning social programs.
All of these services pay political dividends, earning the admiration of many Shiites who don’t necessarily support Sadr or his militia. And while Sadr’s militia has suffered major losses in Najaf, by standing up to the US and Iraqi forces for weeks, Sadr has also raised his stature in the eyes of many Iraqis.
“This is the reason we are fighting,” Rishad adds, “to prepare the way of the Mahdi. This is not just for our freedom or the protection of our homes.”