Because you simply cannot stop obsessing over the poor fellow.
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I base my stance the Gallup poll that I linked to. The notorious anti-American bent that the BBC would apply to even the weather forecast, if they could figure out how, spoils my opinion of them. There are several blogs that exist solely on pointing out the near-daily bias that the BBC issues forth.
The BBC article claims that 61% of Indonesians used to have a favorable opinion of America. I provide a Gallup poll that shows otherwise. Explain the discrepancy. Perhaps when the report from the U.S. Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World is released (I couldn’t find it at state.gov, just a press release), we can compare it to the BBC story.
Brutus, you’re comparing a Zogby poll with a Gallup poll. You have proven exactly dick. The Muslim world hates the US more than they ever have. That is fact. The arrogance and recklessness of GWB is the reason for it. It really doesn’t matter if you think their hatred is warranted (and some of it is). This is still an issue we have to deal with. Part of the way we have to deal with it is to stop acting so goddamn smug and superior all the time.
Good lord, don’t you people ever get tired of distorting reality to support the Bushista party line.
Oh wait, I forgot, those hijackers what flew the planes into the buildings was all Iraqi. :rolleyes: The only support for terrorism coming out of Iraq was a little moral support for Palestinians.
And people wonder why so many Americans think Saddam had something to do with 9-11…
Why would “it … have killed thousands more Iraqi civilians …”? There was very little opposition on the part of the Iraqi army and a larger US force wouldn’t have increased the intensity of what little fighting there was. Many of the civilian casualties were from air attacks and a larger ground force wouldn’t have changed that. And anyway the argument isn’t that more troops were needed to win the war. It is that more troops, and civil affairs people, and so on are needed in the aftermath of the active combat.
This is the common old “we aren’t getting our message out” routine. I think we are getting the message out and the Muslim world doesn’t like the message. The message they seem to have gotten is that “if you aren’t with us you are against us” and “we have the right to depose regimes that we don’t like” and “we will justify such action by exaggerating out of all reasonable bounds presumed threats to us.”
And why do we still support US leaders who were so badly outfoxed? Is it because we allowed them to paint us into a corner. Comgress with its resolution allowing GW to go to war in Iraq whenever he thought it necessary comes to ming.
A start might be to realize that it is highly unlikely that there is a military solution to the problem of terrorism.
Absolutely, but the current administration seems to be conducting themselves like those in power in the US during the cold war when, no matter how despicable they were, the enemies of our enemies were our friends. I think GW believes in that idea and it doesn’t look to me like he knows how to change his mind.
Do you have a cite for this? I know Saddam was alleged to have given money to the families of suicide bombers but I don’t know that it was ever confirmed.
Lets not confuse a bodgy statistic made up by a totalitarian regime with one by experts chosen by the Bush adminstration itself. Its not like the figures comes from Sailor, Bush and co commissioned this survey.
As far as I know the payments themselves have not been contested but the significance of them have been.
One view is that its a ‘reward’ for the act and is the missing link that proves Saddam’s support of international terrorism
The other view is that they are charity for a Palestinian family that is about to find itself out on the streets given the Israeli bulldozing of their home that is about to occur.
My personal view its they are probably a bit of each. I dont imagine Saddam lost any sleep over the victims of suicide bombing, and there was political mileage no doubt in playing the role of philanthropist to the Palestinians. I also suspect though that there was an element of genuine sympathy for the newly homeless family as well and politics and sentiment conveniently coincided on the issue.
He was too many due to his confrontational tactics with the US. He is kind of a hero now.
Its incredible how the neo con denial goes:
Saddam hates Al Qaeda -> He gave 25k to bomber families
No Terrorists in Iraq -> We’re getting the WMD
No WMD -> We still had to take down a horrible dictator
He was our Dictator -> Cold War leftover
Iraq is ever more caotic -> Nah… things are better than with Saddam
Arabs hate USA -> They would hate the US anyway
Hate breeds terrorism -> etc etc
Bush is an idiot -> How did he get to be President then ?
… and so forth… if you really think that ALL muslims/arabs hated the US anyway… and you dont mind them hating even more are you sure your fighting terrorism ? Many arabs do have education and do see the need for more open middle east… more democratic if not fully democratic. Even in Iran there was a great admiration for all things american. South America too… now we mostly despise US arrogance.
Often it’s more enlightening to look at what people like than what they dislike. Here is another American popularity contest poll, kindly provided by Aldebaran in his American-as-the-evil-empire-thread. All in all interviewing some 44,000 people. And what do we have? 77%% of Palestinians think Bin Laden is most likely to do the right thing. That only 1% Jordanians have a favourable view of the US is perhaps not so surprising when 55% apparently have a very favourable view of Bin Laden. Likewise what do you care if only 15% Indonesians have a favourable view of you when 58% have a favourable view of Bin Laden. bin Laden also scored pretty high in Pakistan only beaten by the esteemed Saudi king. I mean, do you even want these people to like you?
Well I agree. Doing what one think is correct should not be tempered by what some random poll says. Other powerful nations in history have come to terms with being unpopular, but Americans always seem so preoccupied with being liked. It’s just not going to happen. Being hated is something that goes with the territory of being wealthy and powerful.
Some people raise polls to impeccable evidence, when in fact it’s little more than highly dubious and easy to manipulate indicators.
Jordanians disenfranchised? Saudi Arabians disenfranchised? Well since they’re not citizen of the US of course they’re disenfranchised from American policy making. But if you mean that the Baathist and Taliban have been disenfranchised in their respectively countries, yes you’re correct – and your point is? Meanwhile, the common Afghans and Iraqis have, if not quite there yet, at least more decision rights than before.
If the polls should any validity at all, it must be because they reflect some real thing in the population. If polls that roughly examining the same things can not be compared it must be because they do not mirror the population, and so one or the both are useless.
He certainly was a hero in some quarters of the Middle-East. Perhaps that doesn’t make him a Muslim hero, and perhaps we don’t want to waste our time nitpicking.
Your argument(s) are incredibly obtuse. I’m starting to think deliberately so. We’re talking about the following figures:
That’s a 24% drop in one year, in case you’re hard of mathematics. That’s what I’m talking about. That figure, and other countries’ figures, is what everyone you’re disagreeing with in this thread is talking about.
You’re making the claim that these surveys are worthless. Perhaps you could provide some more accurate data.
So you are saying killing more civilians in Iraq would have given the US more popularity there? I see. Right.
No, the USA is at war with Irak. The US government has been trying hard enough to spread the lie that Iraq was linked to terrorism but intelligent people can tell that is a lie.
Yes, by the Bush government.
Lies, lies, lies and more lies. You think lying more would have got better results? The world is not stupid and can see through the lies.
Brutus, the facts reported by the BBC are accurate. The fact is that the Government commissioned this report and those are the results whether you like them or not. I have linked to the site of the company that did the report and they confirm what the BBC said. Your attacking the credibility of the BBC is plainly ridiculous. The facts are what they are and were correctly reported by the BBC. Forget that the BBC reported it. I have linked to the source themselves.
This is the forum for intelligent debate, not for popularity contests but I am quite confident that I would beat you in a popularity poll by a wide margin anytime. Just let me know when you want to meet in the pit and I will oblige.
**It’s not just the Muslim world. It pretty well sucks to be American anywhere but the US right now as far as I can tell.
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Yeah, but no one else wants to kill us.
As for Saddam Hussein, obviously I could be wrong, I’ve never seen a poll. But the demonstrators in Arab nations carrying signs and chanting Saddam’s name was pretty convincing to me.
