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BY JAMES TARANTO
Monday, March 19, 2007 11:18 a.m. EDT
Right Track, Wrong Track
Did the allied invasion of Iraq turn that country into a disaster, as many U.S. politicians like to insist? Not if you ask the Iraqis themselves, according to a new poll of some 5,000 Iraqis conducted by Britain's Opinion Research Business. Not that there isn't trouble, as the Australian reports:
About 26 per cent of Iraqis--15 per cent of Sunnis and 34 per cent of Shi'ites--have suffered the murder of a family member.
Kidnapping also plays a terrifying role: 14 per cent of Iraqis have had a relative, friend or colleague abducted, rising to 33 per cent in Baghdad, since the fall of Saddam.
But 49 per cent of those questioned preferred life under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to living under Saddam, while 26 per cent said things were better in Saddam's era, 16 per cent said they were as bad as each other and the rest did not know or refused to answer. . . .
A surprise was that only 27 per cent believed they were caught up in a civil war.
Things aren't on the right track everywhere, however, as the Financial Times reports:
The malaise gripping the European Union as it approaches its 50th birthday this week is highlighted in a new poll which shows that 44 per cent of citizens think life has got worse since their country joined the club. . . .
The FT/Harris poll, conducted in the EU's five biggest countries and the US, found that only 25 per cent of the Europeans questioned felt life in their country had improved since it joined the EU.
This doesn't mean people in Baghdad are better off than people in Brussels. But if present trends continue, eventually they will be.
Those Resilient Sunnis!
Do journalists unthinkingly side with America's enemies? Consider this Associated Press headline on a Baghdad dispatch: "U.S. Troop Deaths Show Sunni Resilience."
Can you imagine the AP or any other "mainstream" news outlet using the same headline in reverse: "Sunni Deaths Show U.S. Troops' Resilience"? We didn't think so.
Of course, this doesn't prove that whoever wrote the AP headline was unthinkingly siding with the enemy. But the alternative is worse, isn't it?
Yep, same stuff. To think the EU was an American idea. *sigh*This reminds me of something I read earlier today.
44% say Post War is Worse
It's not about Iraq - It's about Europe and the E.U./Common Market - victory in WWII.
The U.S. military invaded their homeland and replaced their government with a new, U.S.-style government.
A new survey showed 44% think life has gotten worse under this new regime.
Oh, I am not talking about Iraq. A new poll found people there are happy as clams, considering all the death and destruction.
No, I am talking about Europe. A Financial Times-Harris poll found great discontent with the European Union, which was an outgrowth of the Common Market, which was set up at the behest of the American government as a means of getting the nations of Old Europe to get along and quit having wars every generation or so.
Americans were really tired of having to send in our troops to save Europe.
European wars in the 20th century cost close to 200,000 American lives....
