Majority of Afghans want ISAF soldiers to stay!

[old medic]

Wed, October 24, 2007
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Corbella_Licia/2007/10/24/4600990-sun.php

Truth surprises CBC
Corporation's reporting from Afghanistan distorted reality

By LICIA CORBELLA

I had been back from Afghanistan for a few months when I saw a television news report on the CBC that had me screaming at the TV set.

Somehow, a veteran CBC reporter had found the proverbial needle in a haystack -- a Kabul shopkeeper who said he didn't like having foreign troops in Afghanistan.

When I got into the newsroom the next morning my phone rang almost immediately.

It was an angry Garth Pritchard, an independent and fearless documentary film maker from Alberta I first met in Kabul in December 2003.

Together we saw the wells Canadian soldiers had dug, the schools they built, the orphanages they supplied with food, cooking and heating oil, school supplies and hope and the resulting affection from Afghanistan's grateful citizens.

"Did you watch the CBC news last night?" asked Garth. "Do you believe what was reported? It's the exact opposite of what we know is the truth," he said.

In the two weeks I spent as a non-embedded reporter in Afghanistan I spoke to at least 10 Afghan adults a day and sometimes as many as 30. I asked all adults a variety of questions, but always one question remained the same: "What do you think about having foreign troops in your country?"

Of the about 200 Afghan adults I spoke with they all told me they appreciated our troops being there, that they didn't want them to leave and that their lives were vastly improved.

I have written that in at least 10 columns since I returned from that troubled country filled with hospitable, resilient and handsome people.

MORE ACCURATE

Turns out my informal 200-person poll conducted in Kabul and the northern town of Kholm, located 40 km south of the Uzbekistan border, was more accurate than the picture the CBC has been feeding Canadians for half a decade.

My writings about how the Afghan people view our troops being in their country has recently been proven correct by a CBC/Environics poll released last week.

The poll, which interviewed 1,600 Afghan men and women, found that 60% of those questioned said the presence of foreign troops in the country was a good thing, with only 16% saying it was bad.

CBC commentators told viewers last week that they would be "surprised" by the poll results. That's not surprising. After all, if those viewers get most of their news from the Corporation they would have been hearing the polar opposite.

I also asked virtually every adult what they thought about the Taliban. They used words like: I hate them, they are demons, they should be killed. That kind of thing.

Again, the poll backs up what I reported. Some 73% have a negative opinion of the Taliban.

More than 70% said they had a positive opinion of President Hamid Karzai's government.

"The CBC seemed shocked by this poll," said Pritchard yesterday. "But you have to wonder why. All they would have had to do to know the truth themselves is go out and talk to Afghanis, like I have on five separate occasions.

"It's basic reporting. Ask a question and let people talk. Instead, I think they're going there with an agenda and only airing the views that back that agenda."

Jeff Keay, head of media relations for the CBC disagrees with that view.

"From the point of view of CBC news through long, broad and comprehensive coverage, we ensure that a range of views are represented both pro and con as reflects the situation," said Keay yesterday.

So, if that's the case, why the surprise, CBC?

 

[Flip]

Thanks Old Medic - missed the Sun yesterday..........

"It's basic reporting. Ask a question and let people talk. Instead, I think they're going there with an agenda and only airing the views that back that agenda."

Yup, they've taken several positions lately.  The CBC should not take a position at all.

 

[geo]

For the CBC to have harped over and over again about the deaths of Canadians & Afghans - with only the glancing comments of our doing CIMIC work - you wonder where they get the impression they have been airing a balanced and impartial picture of what is going on - half a world away.

I should point out that, 95% of ALL MEDIA have been hammering away with a negative message - is it a wonder that the Canadian public is either ignorant or confused by the impartial reporting being done by MsM?

 

[Bane]

This is simply not true. If we pulled out of Afghanistan it would turn into a paradise with magical flowers and gum-drops for all! How come people don't get it?

 

[Greymatters]

Nice article oldmedic, good post!

 

[Dare]

This is simply not true. If we pulled out of Afghanistan it would turn into a paradise with magical flowers and gum-drops for all! How come people don't get it?

The magical flowers are called poppies. What a fully controlled narco tyranny it would be too. Maybe we can ship the CBC there.

 

[geo]

Nah... we have our magic mushrooms in BC / Lotus land.  CBC wouldn't like to be distanced from their sources

 

[Marshall]

Oh yes thats just what the army needa. More Media outlets showing a stupid clip of one person saying that, with companies like CBC they only need one little thing like that to convince and fuel half the nation into the wrong assumptions.

We need more reports on the things the troops are doing GOOD over there, not the occasional thing they might do bad or some person saying negative things about us. Theres more good then bad the CF has done over there, too bad the Media cant realize that and let the civilian world know.

 

[Spencer100]

What really gets me going is that CBC does it agenda on MY tax dollars to the tune of about One Billion a year.  If it was private at lest it could have its agenda not paid for by me (and every other taxpayer)  urgh!

One other thing, the people in the CBC are so far removed from the real world that they honestly believe the they are "impartial".  They have never been exposed to anything other than socialist and "Liberal" or "Dipper" thought.  To them Liberal is on the right and Dipper to the left.  It starts in high school or before and goes to the "J" school they went to.  After that the Corp hires the them.  Like hires hires like. 

 

[The_Falcon]

Well I like to think (wishfully that is ) if we were to get a Harper majority, that the CBC would be sold off, and the savings would be passed on in the form of tax cuts, or more money for the CF  , but now I will go have my coffee and wake up.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Good catch OM!

 

[bilton090]

What really gets me going is that CBC does it agenda on MY tax dollars to the tune of about One Billion a year.   If it was private at lest it could have its agenda not paid for by me (and every other taxpayer)  ugh!

One other thing, the people in the CBC are so far removed from the real world that they honestly believe the they are "impartial".  They have never been exposed to anything other than socialist and "Liberal" or "Dipper" thought.  To them Liberal is on the right and Dipper to the left.  It starts in high school or before and goes to the "J" school they went to.  After that the Corp hires the them.  Like hires hires like.   

    +1 Spencer, it makes me sick to know my tax dollar is paying for that garbage. And there job security. Lets sell it off, and take the billion or so and get more new kit, ( to bad we can't send them over to AFN. to work in the welfare kitchens, giving food to Afgn's),  F---em !!!
   
 
      If not for hockey night in Canada, CBC would not be seen in this house !   

 

[McG]

I see someone is still trying to sell the idea that older polls which canvased less of the country prove we are loosing support, and at the same time is selling the idea that no poll results can be trusted out of Afghanistan.

Ottawa determined to make polls justify Afghan mission
Scott Taylor
The Chronicle-Herald
30 Oct 2007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OVER THE PAST few weeks, a couple of opinion polls conducted in Afghanistan have brought forward some rather contradictory results.

The first one published was an Environics survey that canvassed 1,578 Afghans from across the country's 34 provinces, but with more surveyed in Kabul and Kandahar than the other regions. The key finding of this survey was that some 60 per cent of local citizens are happy to have foreign troops stationed in Afghanistan and they want them to remain.

Naturally enough, Defence Minister Peter MacKay was on top of that statistic like a starving dog on a freshly opened can of Alpo. This was the "proof" the war salesmen needed to convince an increasingly cynical Canadian populace that our soldiers are appreciated by the "majority of Afghans."

The tub-thumpers immediately took up this rallying banner and held it aloft. How could the naysayers and peace-at-all-costs lobby possibly argue with such irrefutable proof as a poll that indicates the "majority" of Afghans wants our military assistance? What MacKay and the Colonel Blimps did not want to highlight was the fact that when a similar opinion poll was conducted in Afghanistan in 2002 - right after the collapse of the Taliban - the Afghan support for foreign troops was about 89 per cent.

A far more comprehensive survey was just compiled by the Asia Foundation for the U.S. Agency for International Development. This organization has long-standing roots in Central Asia, and its poll - nearly four times larger than the Environics study - involved 6,263 Afghans from all provinces. A headline from the executive summary tried to put a positive spin on a statistic that appeared to indicate otherwise. Behind the statement "The majority of Afghans remain optimistic about the future," the survey concluded that just 42 per cent of respondents believed their country's reconstruction was on the right path.

While 42 per cent is not a majority by any calculation, this statistic is even more depressing when compared to the fact that in 2003, more than 64 per cent of Afghans did believe in the new course upon which their country was embarking. Not even the most creative stockbroker could convincingly describe a 22 per cent drop in support as a positive development.

To be fair to those who compiled the results for these opinion polls, they did make it clear from the outset that gathering such data is a difficult challenge to say the least. More than two-thirds of Afghans are illiterate, and there is no such thing as a nationally distributed newspaper. As a result, the majority of Afghans receive their news via radio broadcasts. The lucky six per cent of Afghans who are connected to the power grid have access to television and Internet, but a staggering 14 per cent of poll respondents said they received news via word of mouth from family and friends.

Security was a critical consideration for those conducting the poll, and one-third of those questioned agreed that the increasing violence was the No. 1 problem in Afghanistan.

According to the tub-thumpers, the most commonly claimed measure of our troops' success in Afghanistan is the fact that women are no longer required to wear their burkas. Free from the iron-fisted rule of the evil Taliban, Afghan girls are now able to bare their faces and sport the latest fashions. Thus, a rather surprising finding in the Asia Foundation study was that 60 per cent of Afghans still believed "a woman should usually wear a burka." The number of women surveyed who felt this rule should apply? Fifty-four per cent.

When one factors in that only urban-dwelling Afghan women actually wear traditional burkas (rural and semi-nomadic females wear more practical head scarves), it would seem our "liberation" was less than successful.

Even more enlightening was the statistic concerning Afghans' fear of expressing a political opinion in the area in which they lived. A full 69 per cent of respondents felt that it was unacceptable to be critical of the government in public. One can only imagine how that figure translates into the responses they would give to a foreign pollster asking their opinion of foreign troops.

But who am I to question Peter MacKay? If he says that these new polls prove our mission is justified, so be it.

Unrelated statistic: In the 2006 federal election, the Conservative Party had 36.27 per cent of the popular vote.( )

btw: is ad hominem considered healthy journalism now?  There seems to be a decent chunk of that (including the name calling) in this.

 

[vonGarvin]

I'm speechless.  I thought that Mr. Taylor was too busy giving "military advice" to the Mothercorp for "Aghanada" :


That's it: I'm going to find an island, call it a country and get drunk.  It won't be productive, but at least I won't care.

 

[Haggis]

I'm speechless.  I thought that Mr. Taylor was too busy giving "military advice" to the Mothercorp for "Aghanada" :


That's it: I'm going to find an island, call it a country and get drunk.  It won't be productive, but at least I won't care.

Can I submit my resumé for the position of Defence Minister?  Oh, wait... I'm from NDHQ... I'd never qualify. 

 

[Flip]

I'd love to interview Scott Taylor.

I'd like to know what he wants.
What does he expect if he gets what he wants.

Would he step up and take responsibility for the mess that happens next?
Would he be accountable or would he try to foist responsibility on others?

There's a defining differance between Government and media.
The Government can lose their jobs at election time.
It's employees can lose their lives when they do their work.

Talking heads are safe from both perils and can say "told you so"
from the sidelines with impunity.  Media only really need to be popular.

Hmmmm.

 

[vonGarvin]

Can I submit my resumé for the position of Defence Minister?  Oh, wait... I'm from NDHQ... I'd never qualify. 

The only qualification you would need would be a healthy enough liver to withstand daily Cuba Libre attacks on your system!  ;D

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Quote,
According to the tub-thumpers, the most commonly claimed measure of our troops' success in Afghanistan is the fact that women are no longer required to wear their burkas. Free from the iron-fisted rule of the evil Taliban, Afghan girls are now able to bare their faces and sport the latest fashions. Thus, a rather surprising finding in the Asia Foundation study was that 60 per cent of Afghans still believed "a woman should usually wear a burka." The number of women surveyed who felt this rule should apply? Fifty-four per cent.

When one factors in that only urban-dwelling Afghan women actually wear traditional burkas (rural and semi-nomadic females wear more practical head scarves), it would seem our "liberation" was less than successful.

Does ST even think before he hits the send button?..............Scott, listen up, ...if you don't see the difference between "required", and what it entailed, and "should", than you are even waaaay stupider than the original estimation I had.

 

[Teflon]

I'd love to interview Scott Taylor.

The last thing I want is another chance for Scott Taylor to speak!

Why can't he just shut up, I'm just so F-en tired of that clown

 

[IN HOC SIGNO]

Hey come on he's an expert...wasn't he an infanteer for all of about 3 or 4 years? He seems to think that that has qualified him to second guess everyone from the rank of Sgt and above for the last 20 years or so and he seems to be making a good living at it. He used to fancy himself as an upholder of the downtrodden NCMs but I don't think he's winning too many points lately.