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Today's
Stories
January 5 /
6, 2008
Richard Rhames
Saddam
Who?
January 4,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
A
Good Night in Iowa
Jonathan Cook
War Crimes Airbrushed from History
Paul Craig Roberts
Thinking for Yourself is Now a Crime
Stan Goff
Ron Paul's Monkeywrench
Dave Lindorff
Clinton's Iowa Flop Exposes DLC Myths as Frauds
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
To Pindi Station
Allan Nairn
U.S. Elections Over Before They Began
Joshua Frank
The Failures of Sectarianism
Peter Morici
Economy on the Skids
Mary McInnis
Iowa Cocky-Us: How to be a Caucus Tease
Website of the Day
The Return of Obama Girl
January 3,
2008
Fatima Bhutto
Farewell
to Wadi Bua
Pam Martens
The
Free Market Myth Dissolves into Chaos
Joanne Mariner
The Presidential Candidates and Torture
Zoltan Grossman
Remember the '80s: Social Movements Between Woodstock and the
Web
David Domke
The Echoing Press and Huckabee
Norman Solomon
Edwards Reconsidered
Nikolas Kozloff
Return of the Faux Liberal
Jacob G. Hornberger
The Padilla Case and the Future of Habeas Corpus
Martha Rosenberg
Quit Picking on Huckabee's Son, Michael Vick
Russell Means
This Property is Condemned: a Notice to Those Occupying Lakotah
Lands
Website of the Day
WolfQuest
January 2,
2008
Jeff Taylor
The
Left and Ron Paul
M. Shahid Alam
The Life and Death of Benazir Bhutto: a Pakistani Tragedy
Gary Leupp
Madness Compounding Madness: Calls for Intervention in Pakistan
Paul Craig Roberts
Criminals with Badges
Heather Gray
Georgia's Racist Death Penalty
Fred Gardner
and Shobhit Arora
Dr. Strangelove's Nemesis
David Macaray
Labor Unions and Taft-Hartley
Benjamin Dangl
Fear and Loathing in Bolivia
January 1,
2008
Iain A. Boal
City
of Disappearances
B. R. Gowani
Benazir's Death in Crisistan
Shahid Mahmood
Bhutto and the Press
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Old Injustices Endure: From Crack Sentences to Racial Profiling
Harvey Wasserman
Taking Leonard Peltier to Iowa: the Moral Low Point of the Clinton
Era
John Ross
2008, Already a Year to Forget
Website of the Day
The Thrill is Gone: BB and Gladys
December 31,
2007
Alexander Cockburn
Goodbye
2007 and Good Riddance!
Tariq Ali
Pakistan, the Aftermath
Liaquat Ali Khan
The Perfidy of Pakistan's Rulers
Wajahat Ali
After Bhutto, a Nuclear Pakistan?
Robert Fisk
Who Killed Bhutto?
Ajai Sahni
Myths and Realities About Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan's Dark
Future
Marwan Bishara
You Say Talk, I Say Attack: The Middle East and the US Presidential
Election Campaigns
Uri Avnery
The Beilin Syndrome
Mark T. Harris
Does This Happen in Canada?
Brenda Norrell
Resistance and Censorship
Website of the Day
A People United Will Never Be Defeated
December 29
/ 30, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Options
in America: Kill Yourself or Have a Baby
Tariq Ali
Indignation and Fear Stalk Pakistan
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
My Encounter with Benazir Bhutto
Gary Leupp
The U.S. and Pakistan After 9/11: Blowback from an Unholy Alliance
China Hand
Pakistan Stares Into the Abyss
Jacob Hornberger
Stop Medddling in Pakistan
John Chuckman
Pakistan and the Failure of Quick-Fix Politics
Missy Beattie
Evaluating Bush with the Bhutto Corruption Standard
Ralph Nader
Who Will Take the Next Step?
Fidel Castro
There Hasn't Been a Day in My Life When I Haven't Learned Something
Robert Fantina
The Sham of Homeland Security
Greg Moses
Beauty from the Heart of Texas
Catherine Lutz
What We Can Not See: Art and Bombing
Kristin Van
Tassel
Seeing in the Dark
Kim Nicolini
Redacted: Brian DePalma's Scream of Outrage
Phyllis Pollack
Keith Richards Runs With Rudolph Once More
Poets' Basement
Landau, Gibbons and Davies
Website of
the Weekend
Driving Karachi in Search of the Perfect Naan
December 28,
2007
Farzana Versey
The
Complex Electra
Wajahat Ali
A
Pakistani Requiem
Binoy Kampmark
Death in Rawalpindi: Bhutto and Her Legacy
Ayesha Ijaz
Khan
Not Dead Yet: The Pakistan People's Party Still Survives
Anthony DiMaggio
Turkey's Bombing of Iraq
Ray McGovern
Creeping
Fascism
Jim Goodman
Biofuels, the Biggest Scam Going
Ron Jacobs
Transcending the Colonizer's History: Iran, a People Interrupted
Russell Hoffman
Mini-Nukes by Toshiba
John Murphy
Greens Gone Wild
Website of the Day
Guiliani Campaign Official: "Only Rudy Can Defeat the Muslims"
December 27,
2007
Dilip Hiro
A
Tragedy Foretold: Will Bhutto's Death be a Boost for Her Party?
Murtaza Shibli
Who Killed Bhutto?
Stephen Soldz
Fallujah,
the Information War and U.S. Propaganda
Bill Quigley
Locked
Outside the Gates
Paul Craig Roberts
The Great American Lock-Up
Omer Subhani
Killing Bhutto: What Happens Next in Pakistan?
Marjorie Cohn
The Torture Tape Cover-Up: How High Does It Go?
Allan Nairn
Cataclysm By Money Whim
Jacob G. Hornberger
Smearing Ron Paul: Shame on the NYT
Norman Solomon
Channeling Suze Orman
Patrick Irelan
Rumsfeld Spills the Ink
Ben Tripp
Pass the Razor Blades
Website of the Day
Quagmire, For What It's Worth
December 26, 2007
Charles Tripp
From
One Saddam to Fifty
Paul Armentano
No-Knock, You're Dead
Rannie Amiri
Lebanon in Search of a Government
Stanley Heller
Brzezinski and Charlie Wilson's War
John Walsh
Two Unreasonable Men
Martha Rosenberg
The Strange Career of Scott Gottlieb
Norman Madarasz
Bolivia Amends New Constitution and Faces Mutiny from Within
Website of
the Day
Cockburn at the Battle of Ideas
December 25,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Conscience
and Empire
December 24,
2007
Andrea Peacock
A
Dark Ride on the Border
Tariq Ali
Thinking of Edward Said
Uri Avnery
Help! A Ceasefire!
Jill Jameson
Burma is Not Back to Normal: A Trip from Rangoon to Mae Sot
Steve Melendez
Russell Means Goes to Washington
Mike Whitney
The Big Fix
Chuck Munson
Not Getting It About New Orleans
John Walsh
Clueless Crusaders
Farzana Versey
Tony Blair and the Hawking of Religion
Richard Neville
Dreaming of a White House Christmas
Website of the Day
Back in the USSR
December 22 / 23, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Mike
Huckabee's Ascending Chariot
Ralph Nader
Politics
and Profits: How the Oil Cartel Gets Its Way
Andy Worthington
Intelligence Failures, Battlefield Myths and Unaccountable Prisons
in Afghanistan
Ahmad Faruqui
The Comedian of Pakistan
Bill Moyers
Society on Steroids
Rev. William
E. Alberts
Blessed are the Peacemakers
Timothy J. Freeman
From Kant to Lennon: Can War Really be Over?
Anthony DiMaggio
Democrats Continue to Capitulate on Iraq
Fred Gardner
Molecule of the Year, Cannabiodiol
Paul Krassner
Enhanced Hazing Techniques
Seth Sandronsky
17 Years of Meanness: Repealing California's Three Strikes Law
William Loren
Katz
Christmas Eve Freedom Fighters: Recalling the Battle of Lake
Okeechobee
Michael Dickinson
In the Dungeon of the Zabita
Ron Jacobs
Why Leon Russell Still Matters
David Vest
Doyle Bramhall's "Is It News?"
Poets' Basement
Orloski, Davies and Ford
Website of the Weekend
George W. Hates Santa
December 21,
2007
John Ross
New Massacres Loom in Mexico
Jacob Hornberger
Nothing Can Morally Justify the Invasion of Iraq
Dick J. Reavis
A
Way Out of the Newspaper Abyss
Jeff Cohen
and Norman Solomon
The 2007 P.U.-litzer Prizes
Peter Morici
Business as Usual as Recession Looms
Jack McCarthy
Let Us Now Praise Judith Regan (Even If She Did Sleep with Bernie
Kerik)
Raúl Zibechi
Sex and Revolution
Steve Early
How the Presidential Candidates Made Me an Atheist
David Macaray
Union Aftermath
Patrick Bond
Zuma, the Center-Left and the Left-Left in S. Africa
Lakota Freedom Delegation
A Declaration of Independence from the USA
Website of
the Day
Solomon v. Beck: Tale of the Tape
December 20,
2007
David Rosen
Mitt
Romney's Secret Life as a Pornographer
Alan Farago
The
Huckster and the Wreckage: Jeb Bush and the Subprime Mortgage
Crisis
Laura Carlsen
Standing Up to NAFTA
Ashley Dawson
The Return of the Bread Riot
Wayne Smith
and Jennifer Schuett
Cuba Changes, US Policy Stagnates
Website of
the Day
How to Talk to a FoxNews Reporter
December 19,
2007
Saul Landau
Is
the NIE Bush's Watergate?
Paul W. Lovinger
Hillary the Hawk
Norman Solomon
The Mad Corporate World of Glenn Beck
Dave Zirin
George Mitchell's Drugs of Choice
Marjorie Cohn
Bush Still Spinning Iranian Nukes
Sen. Russell
Feingold
The Iraq War is Exhausting Our Nation
Sonja Karkar
A Christmas Reflection on Palestine
Anthony Papa
Open the Drug Gulags
Christopher Ketcham
Pave the Holy Lands with Good Intentions
Davey D
Britney's Little Sister is Pregnant: Should We Blame Hip Hop?
Website of
the Day
When Republicans Use the F-Word on TV
December 18,
2007
R. F. Blader
The
Politics of Teen Pregnancy
George Wuerthner
Gunning for Wolves in Idaho
Steven Higgs
Can the NAFTA Superhighway be Stopped?
Vijay Prashad
Encounters with Ghadar
David Macaray
The Free Rider Problem
Ralph Nader
Nine Books That Make a Difference: a Reading List for the Holidays
Eva Liddell
Privatizing War Abroad, Invading Privacy at Home
Martha Rosenberg
While the Bodies are Still Warm: Drugs, Shrinks and Shooters
Dave Lindorff
When Impeachment is Out of Print
Peter Morici
The Consequences the Trade Deficit
Website of
the Day
Ron Paul: How Fascism Will Come to America
December 17,
2007
Mike Whitney
Staring
Into the Abyss
Tom Barry
Planning
the War on Immigrants
Uri Avnery
A
Gaza Masada?
Greg Moses
Crossing the Line in Texas
Allan Nairn
Terrorism; Counter-
Terrorism: Excuses for Murder
Patrick Bond
South Africa's Fight Between Hostile Brothers
Stephen Lendman
Police State America
Charles Jonkel
Grizzly Right of Way
Laray Polk
An Inside-Out Crisis in Gaza
Stephen Fleischman
Pawns in Their Game
December 15
/ 16, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
A
People's Penny for the Magna Carta
Howard Zinn
Bomb After Bomb
Standard Schaefer
The Greening of Big Tobacco
Raymond J.
Lawrence
Let's Take Christ Out of Christmas
Alan Farago
Down on Desolation Row: the Vultures and the Growth Machine
Saul Landau
Lord Byron and the Bad Tourists
Jenna Orkin
Lying to "Reassure" the Public: Bush's EPA and the
Post-9/11 Toxic Air Cover-Up
Ahmad Samih
Khalidi
Why a Palestinian "State" is a Punitive Construct
Robert Fantina
Politics By Photo-Op
Missy Comley
Beattie
Resistance Amid the Ruins
Ramzy Baroud
Of Mormons and Muslims
James L. Secor
A Vision for China's Future
Elijah Wald
Ike Turner's Music Won't be Forgotten
Website of
the Weekend
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies Needs (and Deserves) Your Support
December 14,
2007
JoAnn Wypijewski
The
Dirty Cad: What Giuliani's Sex Life Tells Us About Him
John Ross
Iraqi
Refugees Return: One Cruel Hoax
Jacob Hornberger
Terror Suspects Belong in Federal Court
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the Supreme Court: What Happened?
Allan Nairn
"Shoot Them on the Spot": Rewarding War Crimes
Dave Zirin
The Mitchell Report: Absolving the Owners
Dave Lindorff
The First Cut is the Deepest
Misty MacDuffee
Toxic Grizzlies
Ben Terrall
What Happened to Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine?
Dr. Mustafa
Barghouthi
Prerequisites for Peace
Website of the Day
Sen. Kit Bond: "Waterboarding is Like Swimming"
December 13,
2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
Shrinking
the Dollar from the Inside-Out
Mike Whitney
Dershowitz for the Defense--of Waterboarding
Ron Jacobs
Blank Check DemocratsL the Great War Funding Conspiracy
Norman Solomon
The USA's Human Rights Daze
Peter Morici
The Dragon and the Toothless Dog: China Doesn't Flinch
Sandy Mayes
Blocking the Strykers: 13 Days of War Resistance at Port Olympia
Franklin Lamb
The UN in Lebanon: Whose Mission Is It Fulfilling?
Jacob Hornberger
Don't Reform the CIA, Abolish It
Nadim Rouhana
An Interloper in My Own Land
Dave Zirin
On Pigskin and Petrol
Website of the Day
Rachel's Needs (and Deserves) Your Support!
December 12, 2007
Allan
Nairn
US Intelligence is Tapping Indonesian
Phones
Alan
Farago
How Sprawl Eats Its Young
Ray
McGovern
Torture, Lies and Videotape
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The Phony Pentagon Budget Cuts
Evan
Jones
The Raid on Great Western: Why an Australian Bank Might Spell
Doom for the US Farm Belt
James
Petras
An Open Letter to Sarkozy on the Exchange of Political Prisonsers
Joel
Hirschorn
The Horserace Fiction: Clinton, Obama and the Democratic Machine
Joshua
Frank
Why Ron Paul Deserves Our Attention
Sherry
Wolf
Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul
Dan
Bacher
Survey of a Fish Graveyard
Website
of the Day
Men Eating Bugs
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Weekend
Edition
January 5 / 6, 2008
What Would a Withdrawal
Mean?
The
US Occupation and Popular Opinion in Iraq
By KEVIN YOUNG
No nation that claims to value democracy
for the world's people can maintain a military occupation against
the will of the occupied population. Yet despite what seems like
a fundamental moral truism-the notion that a military occupation
of one country by another can only be justified if the occupied
population supports it-mainstream commentators in this country
rarely broach the subject of Iraqi attitudes toward the US-led
occupation. Iraqi public opinion polls, when they even make it
into the newspapers, are accorded astoundingly little weight.
Instead, most US politicians and analysts repeat vague slogans
about how "Iraqis need us" and how "we'll leave
when they ask us to."
A brief look at Iraqi attitudes
toward the occupation reveals why mainstream commentators in
this country opt for such ambiguity rather than dealing with
the polls themselves: Iraqis have consistently stated that the
occupation is a destabilizing force in their country, that the
situation would improve after a US withdrawal, and that the US
has ulterior motives for staying in Iraq.
Over the last four years, and
in polls from a wide range of sources, Iraqis have been especially
unequivocal on one point: that the US military occupation of
their country produces more violence than it prevents. A May
2004 poll sponsored by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority
found that roughly 80 percent of Iraqis had "no confidence"
in US-led forces to improve security and that most "would
feel safer if Coalition forces left immediately."
A year later, in August 2005,
a secret poll conducted for the British Defense Ministry found
that "less than one per cent [sic] of the population believes
coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security."
Polls conducted over the past two years have continued to find
strong majorities of Iraqis concurring in this view:
January 2006: A poll by the Program on International
Policy Attitudes (PIPA) found that around two-thirds of respondents
agreed that "'day to day security for ordinary Iraqis' would
increase," that "violent attacks would decrease,"
and that "the amount of interethnic violence will decrease"
if the United States withdrew by the summer of 2006.
September 2006: A second PIPA poll found that 78
percent of Iraqis believe the occupation "is provoking more
conflict than it is preventing."
March 2007: A poll sponsored by US, British,
and German news agencies found that "[m]ore than seven in
10 Shiites-and nearly all Sunni Arabs-think the presence of U.S.
forces in Iraq is making security worse." A separate survey
by the UK-based Opinion Research Business found that 74 percent
of Iraqis (including 77 percent of Baghdad residents) expected
the security situation in Iraq to improve (53 percent) or to
stay roughly the same (21 percent) immediately following a withdrawal
of occupation forces. Only 26 percent expected security to get
worse.
August 2007: A poll sponsored by news agencies
in the US, UK, and Germany found that around 70 percent of Iraqis
"believe security has deteriorated in the area covered by
the US military 'surge' of the past six months" Moreover,
67-70 percent "believe the surge has hampered conditions
for political dialogue, reconstruction and economic development."
When asked how much confidence they had in the US-led forces,
85 percent of Iraqis answered "not very much" or "none
at all"-compared with 82 percent in February 2007, 78 percent
in 2005, and 66 percent in 2004. When given a list of 14 individuals,
groups, and factors influencing the level of violence in Iraq,
27 percent of Iraqis identified the US-led forces or President
Bush as the single biggest culprits for that violence.
Seventy-two percent said that the presence of US forces continued
to make security worse, with another 9 percent saying it had
no effect.
October 2007: A poll by the US Defense Department
found that 12 percent of Iraqis "had at least some
confidence in the Multi-National Force to protect their families
against threats"-evidently the most optimistic phrasing
possible for such a dismal statistic. Curiously, the report also
boasted of the "growing support of the local population"
and marvelous improvements in security courtesy of the US surge.
Although the exact percentages
have fluctuated from poll to poll, the major surveys of Iraqi
public opinion since 2004 are very clear concerning the effects
of the US presence in Iraq: Iraqis overwhelming believe that
the continued occupation is an impediment to peace, and indeed,
that it continues to create violence rather than quelling
it. Among Iraqis the most generous view of the US presence
is that it continually fails to improve security in Iraq-even
after nearly a year of the much-vaunted "surge."
With similar consistency, Iraqis
have voiced strong opposition to the presence of occupation forces.
In August 2005, 82 percent were "strongly opposed"
to the occupation; in January 2006, 87 percent favored a timeline
for withdrawal; a year later, in September 2006, 71 percent wanted
a full withdrawal by mid-2007.
Although these figures fluctuate
somewhat, the March 2007 poll commissioned by US, British, and
German news corporations presents a clearer picture of rising
Iraqi opposition to the occupation over time. This poll found
that 78 percent of Iraqis "strongly" or "somewhat"
opposed the occupation, and then compares this finding to answers
to the same question from February 2004 and November 2005. At
the start of 2004, nearly one year after the invasion, 51 percent
of Iraqis "strongly" or "somewhat" opposed
the occupation; 21 months later, that figure had risen to 65
percent; by March 2007, it had climbed again to 78 percent. By
August 2007, the percentage "strongly" or "somewhat"
opposed to the occupation had stayed more or less the same, increasing
slightly to 79 percent.
This progressive rise in popular
hostility toward the US-led occupation is confirmed by another
crucial statistic: the percentages of Iraqis who approve of insurgent
attacks on occupation forces. In January 2006, 47 percent approved
of such attacks; by September 2006, the figure had risen to 61
percent; in August 2007, 57 percent continued to approve of such
attacks, including 93 percent of Sunnis. The resentment of ordinary
Iraqis toward the US goes a long way toward explaining how a
small insurgency numbering fewer than 30,000 Iraqis and 800-2,000
foreigners has successfully prevented US-led and Iraqi government
forces (which together total over 600,000) from establishing
military dominance in Iraq for almost five years.
Not all polling results are
so unequivocal. In particular, the dozens of polls taken over
the last four years suggest disagreements among Iraqis over exactly
when and how the occupation forces should withdraw.
Although almost all Iraqis have consistently supported a "timeline"
for withdrawal, many polls do not ask respondents to comment
on how soon that withdrawal should occur or on what should
happen afterwards to bring peace. The few polls that have worded
their questions more specifically have found subtle disagreements,
such as whether the US-led forces should withdraw immediately,
within six months, or within a year, etc. For example, a September
2006 poll by the US State Department found that 65 percent of
Baghdad residents favored an immediate withdrawal of all US troops.
However, another poll that
same month (described above) found that 71 percent of Iraqis
wanted the US to withdraw within twelve months-with only 37 percent
of that block favoring a US withdrawal within six months. Such
results suggest significant variations in Iraqi attitudes not
just over time, but even from one poll to the next within a very
limited time frame. These variations probably derive largely
from the subtleties of the polling process: the phrasing of the
questions, the options given, the identity of the pollsters,
the regional foci of the poll, etc.
In contrast, though, Iraqi
respondents have been remarkably consistent in several of their
answers, particularly with regard to the effects of the US military
presence. They have consistently and overwhelmingly stated that
the occupation produces more violence than it prevents. They
have constantly expressed deep mistrust of US motives (most believe
the US is largely motivated by the desire for Iraqi oil and that
it plans to leave permanent military bases in their country).
And they have consistently argued that a US withdrawal would
not result in increased violence, but that it would actually
help ease sectarian divisions and diminish the support bases
of al Qaeda and other extremists.
In the August 2007 poll 46
percent answered that a "full-scale civil war" would
be "less likely" given the immediate withdrawal of
US forces, with another 19 percent saying that the withdrawal
would "have no effect" in that regard. Only minorities
of respondents stated that an immediate withdrawal would mean
an increased terrorist presence or more power for Iran within
Iraq, and only 9 percent said that a withdrawal would lead to
"increased violence in the Kurdish areas."
As journalist Patrick Cockburn
noted in December 2007, "However much Iraqis may fight among
themselves a central political fact in Iraq remains the unpopularity
of the US-led occupation outside Kurdistan."
Kevin Young is a Graduate Student in Latin American
History at Stony Brook University. He can be reached at: kyoung@wesleyan.edu
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