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First, let us be clear about what the survey did not find. It did not find that a majority of Afghans want foreign troops to stay and fight. It did find that a majority of those polled approved of the "presence of foreign countries" in Afghanistan.

But that term "presence" included everything foreigners are doing in the country, from aid to business to soldiering.

In Kandahar, for instance, India was rated more highly than Canada. But, as the survey notes, India's main contribution there is not troops but goods and entrepreneurs.....

Assuming that it is possible to carry out a scientific poll in a country wracked by civil war, what then does this survey tell us?

One, it demonstrates that Afghans do not want to be abandoned by the world again....

Two, while they do not like the Taliban, neither do they demonize them – which is why most would prefer a negotiated end to civil war over continued violence.

Three, they are deeply ambivalent about the presence of foreign troops....

Finally, the survey provides a rather humbling insight into how Afghans view Canada's military role. The short answer is that they don't. Even in Kandahar, just 2 per cent of those polled knew that Canada was fighting the Taliban. Germany got a bigger mention and it has no troops there.

When Afghans were asked specifically about Canada, most were delightfully complimentary. But first they had to be reminded we were there. One hopes they weren't just being polite.

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Thread continued from HERE

Most people have been attacking this poll on methodological grounds. It seems to me that there is considerable merit in the deconstruction of the poll -- lots of which was done in the last thread. More of which was done by Thomas Walkom in one of his latest articles.

The thing that still catches me on the propaganda model theory is that I really feel like we would have been better served by the CBC info if they had tried for a more longitudinal assessment of Afghan public opinion. It would have showed us trends, helped us to find new quirks in the Afghan people's collective mindset which would have to be adjusted for, and allowed us to more accurately gauge Afghan public opinion.

The way in which this announcement hit me caught me completely off guard and left me reeling for a way of understanding things given the new information on Afghanistan. It wasn't until I was prodded a few times that I've come to and started to realize that this poll is meaningless because we have a rudimentary understanding of Afghan opinion which needs to be furthered by conducting more research, repeating certain tests over and over again in order to verify that your tests still have utility.

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From the Canadian Peace Alliance:

Polling Afghanistan
Questions and Contradictions
October 22, 2007

The Environics poll, conducted by D3 Systems in Afghanistan, is being touted as "groundbreaking" research into the views of the Afghan people about the NATO occupation. The reality is that there are as many questions as answers arising from the poll results.

This new poll is not the first of its kind to be done in Afghanistan, but the results are striking because they contradict dozens of comprehensive studies conducted by other agencies. For example, a remarkable 73 per cent of respondents in the D3 Systems study said that women's rights were improving in Afghanistan. This contradicts the NGO Womenkind Worldwide which found that attacks against women have actually been on the rise since 2001 and that there had been no improvement in the lives of Afghan women as a whole.

Likewise, a whopping 76 per cent of people said that they have "a lot" or "some" confidence in the Afghan National Army and 60 per cent have faith in the Afghan National Police (ANP). This contradicts countless documents from groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch who have consistently found that a majority of Afghans cite the Army and ANP as a chief source of violence.

In fact, poll results from December 2006 found 78 per cent of Afghan people believed that the ANP was corrupt and one in four Afghans had to pay bribes to local police for protection. So therefore, the numbers from D3 Systems either represent an astounding turnaround in public opinion or there was some type of flaw in the research.

These strange results aren't surprising given the history of the D3 Systems polling firm. The group, whose former clients include NATO and the RAND Corporation (a virtual who's who of the military industrial complex), is notorious for providing the results that are needed to advance a political agenda.

Tellingly, D3 Systems is the only polling form in the world that was able to consistently show that a majority of Iraqis felt their lives had improved since the invasion of 2003. In 2004 and 2005, D3 conducted polls for media outlets based in the US and found more than 50 per cent of Iraqis were exited about their future. As late as 2006, D3 found a miraculous 64 per cent of Iraqis who felt that their lives were improving.

There are still many other unanswered questions about this survey. For example, did security or military contingents escort the survey teams around the country? If so, the results will be terribly skewed, as these types of escorts would have destroyed the impartiality of the surveyors. Also, if 75 per cent of respondents called for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban (a number that has been omitted from most media reports on the survey), how do we reconcile that with the 64 per cent who want us to continue to fight the Taliban? Furthermore, if only 2 per cent of respondents knew that Canada was fighting the Taliban, how did that 64 per cent think that we were doing a good job?

This survey has come out at a particularly fortuitous time for the Conservative government, days after a throne speech advocating and extension of Canada's war in Afghanistan and a week before a pan-Canadian day of action against the war. But as with most of what we hear from the Conservatives, the numbers just don't add up.

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[ 22 October 2007: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

The only real truth is going to be from neutral agency's like amnesty international or the red cross. I can't believe the Canadian will fall for this crap promoted by our dubious media outlets.

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Originally posted by Buddy Kat:
Good link..and this further verify's my belief that the afghans are so petrified of nato(US) they are willing to say anything to appease them. Just like smiling children at an Iraq parade that are told to "smile and wave" so the americans don't kill you.

The only real truth is going to be from neutral agency's like amnesty international or the red cross. I can't believe the Canadian will fall for this crap promoted by our dubious media outlets.

Should be interesting when it's "cut and run" time and this poll is being flapped in their faces tho.

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Originally posted by Buddy Kat:

The only real truth is going to be from neutral agency's like amnesty international or the red cross.

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There are no neutral agencies, only agencies whose biases one shares.

[edited for improved grammatical consistency]

[ 22 October 2007: Message edited by: RosaL ]

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Considering the degree of forceful repression that still exists in Afghanistan, and therefore the very real possibility of retribution directed against anyone critical of the theocratic state regime, the negative responses regarding the international intervention we heard are quite remarkable. Based on what many brave Afghans told us, as well as our own observations of the social environment in the provinces we visited, I am very sceptical of the overwhelmingly positive responses to the questions asked in the Environics poll.

Many Afghans told us they are tired of suffering the painful consequences of imperial wars fought in Afghanistan – first the British versus the Russian in the 19th and early 20th centuries, then the Americans versus the Soviets later in the 20th century and now this invasion to secure Western interests in the region. Many Afghans told us each invading force – the British, the Soviets and now the Americans – claims to represent the best interests of Afghans, but proves in the end to only serve its own self-interest at the expense of most Afghans.

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Many Afghans told us each invading force – the British, the Soviets and now the Americans – claims to represent the best interests of Afghans, but proves in the end to only serve its own self-interest at the expense of most Afghans

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Except that imperial Britain waged three wars in attempt to control Afghanistan. They were beaten by Afghan "insurgents."

The Soviet-backed PDPA and Soviets themselves fought a proxy war against mercenaries and proxy fighters recruited from all over Asia as well as Afghan mujihadeen and those from surrounding stani nations. And once the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, NATO turned their backs on the ensuing carnage and destruction of Afghanistan by the most vicious of CIA-backed mujihadeen warlords. The communist PDPA government was not supposed to last six months against the well armed mujihadeen after 1989. They stood alone against criminal gangs and ruthless CIA-backed thugs marauding, pillaging, raping, murdering and enslaving women, and launching rocket attacks on civilian populations for over two years before taking over Kabul, Jalalabad and outlying towns and villages.