Is it a matter of perception or is it a matter of bias? I’ve come across two polls of the Iraqi people one which Iraqis say that their lives are better now that Saddam as been deposed and one poll which indicates that the Iraqi people feel that their lives are worst since the United States lead invasion.
In an article written in USA Today by Susan Page and Omar Salih it is reported that very dire conditions permeates the United States efforts to change Iraq.
The USA Today article cites a poll sponsored by them, ABC News, the British Broadcasting Corp., and ARD, a German TV network. This poll is reported to be face-to-face interviews with 2,212 Iraqis. What it reports is that life in Iraq is unraveling and on the whole worst than when Saddam was President. Jobs gone and schools closed. Marriages delayed and children mourned. Pretty dreadful yes?
But contrasting that bleak scenario is an article printed in the United Kingdom Times written by Marie Colvin who cites a poll by Opinion Research Business, a respected British market research company that funded its own survey of 5,019 Iraqis over the age of 18.
This poll found that most Iraqis believe that life is better for them now than under Saddam and yes there are hardships but they are optimistic that with the United States’ help their lives will see immeasurable improvement!
This poll also states that contrary to what is being told to most Westerners there is no civil war in Iraqi!
What is indeed interesting is the radical Liberal left effort and enormous amount of energy spent demonizing the Fox News Network as being biased for Conservatives. Yet Conservatives see ABC News as part of a Liberal cabal. One in which most mainstream broadcast stations, most major print news media, USA Today being one, and most cable news are apart of.
On the other hand no political group has identified the United Kingdom Times and the Opinion Research Business Corporation as having an agenda regarding American politics, however the left certainly will target them after this poll is published!
So again it is a matter of whom do you believe? After all that Americans have seen of their media in the last eight years, it’s refusal to print the Muhammad Cartoons, and it’s blatant partisan efforts to affect U.S. elections it would be hard for fair minded Americans to take the USA Today poll at face value.
That is the reality which all American media faces when fact finding and reporting the news is replace by their own agenda driven reporting which would rather see hopelessness than accomplishment because of purely partisan biased goals.
I’m thinking that the Opinion Research Business Corporation poll is worthy of our attention, the USA Today poll…um not so much!
