BY DAN
KENNEDY
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See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, October 2003),
click
here.
Thursday, July 17, 2003
Despite everything, goodwill in
Baghdad. Late blogging this morning -- my home Internet
connection was down. I heard the results of a
fascinating poll (PDF file)
on the BBC while driving to work. Despite everything, a survey of
adults in Baghdad shows that precisely half supports the US-British
invasion and most definitely does not want Saddam Hussein back in
power.
According to the poll, by the
British polling company YouGov, 50 percent "think that America and
Britain's war against Saddam's regime was right" and 27 percent think
it was "wrong." Those expressing no opinion totaled 23 percent --
which seems weird until you remember that they were probably
terrified to answer.
The support comes even though large
pluralities believe the primary reasons for the war were oil and
Israel.
By a margin of 29 percent to nine
percent, respondents say they would rather live under US rule than
under Saddam -- even though they also say that their lives were
better a year ago than they are today (47 percent to 32 percent).
Optimism prevails: by 52 percent to 11 percent, they believe their
lives will be better five years from now than they were under
Saddam.
And by 75 percent to 14 percent,
Baghdad residents say that Iraq is a more dangerous place today than
it was before the invasion.
What this shows is that even if you
believe we blundered into Iraq under false pretenses (and if you
believe that, you would be correct), there is still more than a
decent chance of salvaging this -- if we get about the business of
restoring the country's shattered infrastructure and continue to turn
power over to Iraqis.
Sometimes it's difficult to take
the Fitzgeraldian view and hold two contradictory ideas at the same
time. But we need to find a way to investigate the prevarications of
the Bush administration while at the same time realizing that a
significant number of Iraqis do see us as liberators, and are
depending on our willingness to follow through.
posted at 11:13 AM |
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
