Another Poll: The 'Sunni' Resistance

If you believe the propaganda spewing forth from the US government, the sycopanthic 'liberal' media and 101st Fighting Keyboarders, the Iraqi resistance is a bunch of foreign terrorists allied to local diehards from the 20% Sunni Arab part of the population, who coerce even the majority of this 20% to boycotts and such. However, in truth:

"... a recent internal poll conducted for the U.S.-led coalition indicated that nearly 45 percent of the Iraqi population supports the insurgent attacks... Only 15 percent of those polled said they strongly support the U.S.-led coalition."

Let's contemplate what this means. Even if we assume

1. that this poll was not warped from the beginning by its assotiation to the occupiers (wording of the questions, willingness of the polled to answer honestly),
2. that it managed to represent Sunnis in the inaccessible Anbar and Niniveh provinces,
3. and further assume that all Sunnis and all members of smaller minorities are pro while all Kurds anti (no Occupation there),
4. and use the standard numbers (55% Shi'a Arab, 20% Sunni Arab, 20% Kurd, 5% other),
   

- that is: the scenario most favorable to war supporters - this still means that more than a third of even the Shi'a Arabs supports armed resistance. (I suspect if we take the above four points in account, it's more like 55% of both the Shi'a and the entire population.)

You may wonder how that could be, if you bought that other line of propaganda that all the resistance are terrorists who mainly attack civilians. But don't let the relative numbers of casulaties deceive you: obviously terrorists have more success in killing defenseless civilians than guerillas have in killing soldiers in bulletproof wests riding armoured vehicles with superior weapons at their disposal, not to mention air support. Instead, remember that for at most a dozen terrorist attacks a day, there are at present 70 or so against the occupiers. (Consult this graph too.)

And then there are the demoralised local auxiliary forces, whom their instructors, in best colonial tradition, detest for lack of "courage, discipline and dedication". (Read this and more in this superb WaPo account of the supposed crack Iraqi unit, the "Charlie Company".)

So here is the double Argument From Absurdity that currently keeps too many non-warbots from calling for a withdrawal of occupying forces: the spectacular failure of US troops - busy attacking those who want the occupiers out - to stop the terrorist attacks on civilians means they are still needed there to stop terrorist attacks; and the US troops can't withdraw until local troops fail to take over the job of confronting attackers of US troops...