US not right to invade say Iraqis Re: [extropy-chat] letter concerning presidential growth

[Brett Paatsch]

Spike wrote:

>> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Brett Paatsch
> ...
>> ... Bush or Cheney to atone for any wrongs they might have
>> done?
>>
>> That's what I want, an atoning. I want America to atone.
>>
>> Brett Paatsch
>
> Brett, are you volunteering to tell the Iraqis they
> won't be voting anymore?

No Spike I'm not. That's for the Iraqis to decide.

>Likely you will have a war
> on your hands.  I am against war.  I favor elections.

Its easy to say you are against war and favour elections.

When US President Bush authorised the invasion of Iraq
on 20 March 2003 were you against that then?  Do you
think it was illegal? Is illegality immaterial to you? Or do you
think it was a case of the ends justifying the means?


> "Iraqis turned out in droves to pick a 275-member parliament today, with 
> the
> once-reluctant Sunni Arabs streaming to the polls. Turnout was apparently 
> so
> heavy across the country that election officials kept the polls open for 
> an
> extra hour to accommodate Iraqis exercising their democratic rights."
>
> http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/12/15/iraq.elections/index.html

I've seen similar articles in The Australian today.

About 10% of eligible Iraqis didn't vote. I doubt they abstained
from voting because at present the makeup of the government
of their country is of no consequence to them.  At least some of
these might fall into the category of having enduring political and
perhaps yes even conscientious objection.


On page 9 of todays edition of The Australian there is an article
entitled "Intelligence wrong but war right : Bush" which I will forward
in a separate post because the issues in it are sufficiently important.

But accompanying the article there is also some polling results from a
poll "conducted for Time, ABC NEWS, the BBC,NHK and
Der Spiegel by Oxford research International"  in which "Interviews
were conducted in person from October 8 to November 13 among
a random national sample of 1711 Iraqis aged 15 and over. The margin
of error is plus or minus 2.5 per cent.  Sources: Time/ABC New; agencies"


Here are some results (for the entire country):

Life is better since the war           51%

US was right to invade Iraq         46%

Feel very safe in neighbourhood   63%

Approve of new constitution        70%

Oppose coalition forces               64%

Even if we apply the margin of error to the "US was right to invade Iraq"
issue and boost it to 48.5 then it seems pretty clear on this data that 
Iraqis
don't think the US was right to invade Iraq.


Brett Paatsch