Re: U.S.-Led Coalition Shuts Down Iraq Paper (Milan Rai on UN occupation of Iraq)

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Bill Lear wrote:

> On Monday, March 29, 2004 at 13:16:10 (-0500) Yoshie Furuhashi writes:
> > ...
> > Yes, "more than 1,000 supporters of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr
> > demonstrated peacefully," but that is a tiny minority in the nation
> > of 24,683,313 (July 2003 est.,
> > <http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz.html>), and
> > even counting any and all who have spoken to the press, demonstrated,
> > and taken up arms against the occupation, you would still end up with
> > a minority of the Iraqi population.  ...
>
> Let me get this right: since only 1,000 out of 24 million came out for
> a very vocal demonstration, that shows how cowed they are; therefore,
> 10,000 in the U.S., keeping proportions constant, shows the same
> thing?

Bill, you're trying to reason, which is often a dead end. Even though
half of Baghdadis polled expressed dislike of Bush and Blair and
thought the U.S. was after their oil, and almost a fifth expressed
support for attacks on U.S. forces, their expression of worry about
what might happen (e.g. rampant violence and civil war) should
foreign forces pull out with no replacements can't be believed,
because it's inconvenient. Therefore the poll has to be discredited.
QED. There's no more to discuss. It's been decided.

Doug