Iraq, Zogby, Polls, GWoT, and the Truth

Bruce asks How reliable is Zogby poll of military in Iraq? Bruce that is not the question.

The question is how reliable is Zogby period.

Jason over at Generation why weighs in with  Democrats Get Paralysis of Analysis

Zogby is wildly anti-Bush, anti-Israel, anti-Republican. I have written of Zogby's bias numerous times..........what foll lows are remarks from a comment thread October 16th before the Presidential election here;

Zogby has accused Israel of abusing human rights and acting like a colonizer, similar to the "genocidal treatment of the Native Americans and enslavement of African-Americans."'

He is a known Anti-Semite and hater of Israel.

Zogby has a history of supporting extreme terror organizations. Zogby's anti-Semitism is well documented here;

NEW YORK-   Pro-Arab lobbyist James Zogby, head of the Arab-American Institute, has publicly urged the Arab nations to refrain from normalizing relations with Israel--thus further shattering the myth that Zogby is "moderate" or "seeks peace with Israel".

The web site ArabicNews.Com reports that Zogby told the Moroccan daily Al-Alam that "a drive towards normalization of relations with Israel" would be "dangerous." here

The following is from a pre-election Zogby poll I fisked;

His polls are always notoriously skewed;
Bush job performance rating drops to 69%; [emphasis mine]
Democrats take lead in  race for Congress; [another lie]
58% say Israel should leave occupied Palestinian territories;
83% believe Mideast bloodshed will spread to other nations,
Zogby America Poll reveals

Moreover, in Zogby's account, Israel pursued a policy of `ethnic cleansing,'

more skewed Zogby results;
Zogby poll released today indicates that Americans – by large majorities – oppose the United States militarily defending several key allies, including Taiwan, Israel and South Korea.

The Zogbys clearly have an agenda. James Zogby Justifies Palestinian Terrorism. "Palestinian organizations are refusing to accept U.S. foreign aid this year, rather than sign a pledge promising that the money will not be used to support terrorism." as reported in The Washington Times.

The paper then paraphrases James Zogby of the Arab American Institute saying that this refusal by Palestinian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to sign the pledge "should not be seen as support for terrorism, rather that in Palestinian society it is politically expedient to reject the funds than endure the tremendous political pressure they will face for signing the pledge. Zogby continues, in his own words: "This is not clearly understood in the United States. The idea of providing no ‘material support is such a broad brush stroke, it compromises the ability of the humanitarian organizations to function." The reporter then paraphrases Zogby saying that "making Palestinian organizations judge who is and who is not a terrorist is a prescription for creating civil war in the Gaza Strip and West Bank."

In addition James Zogby became apoplectic when President Bush nominated the eminent scholar Daniel Pipes to the board of directors of United States Institute for Peace. Mr. Pipes brilliance of is some note and matched only by Hanson.

Zogby spit out the following:

"Daniel Pipes has a problem - his obsessive hatred of all things Muslim," writes James Zogby of the Arab American Institute. "Pipes is to Muslims what David Duke is to African-Americans."

BTW,this patently untrue.But these are gross and vicious libels, as anyone who reads or listens to Pipes' own words will quickly discover at his site here. His hundreds of essays on terrorism, Islam, and the Middle East have appeared in scores of publications, from the Atlantic Monthly to The Jerusalem Post to Foreign Affairs. He has written countless book reviews. He is the author or editor of 13 books, he lectures nationwide, and he is a frequent guest on news and public-affairs TV shows. In short, he has compiled a vast public record.  If he were the hater Zogby decries, it would be pretty hard to disguise.
Daniel Pipes has been a huge supporter of moderate Muslims and believes America must support Moderate Islam in our war on Radical Islamofascism

more Zogby quotes;

James Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute, said that because of the "disproportionate number of Jews," the State Department should hire more Arab Americans.

Zogby's "extremist, anti-Israel views" disqualified him from being involved with U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Radical organization and known supporter of terror groups, James Zogby – president, Arab American Institute.

Zogby said that Israel's "invasion of occupied territories is seared into the Arab psyche the way the Holocaust defines 20th century history for Jews".

*SPIT*

Case closed.  So much for Zogby objectivity.

As for Iraq. It is painfully clear to me that the Iranian sponsored terror in Iraq is very much a part of the global war on terror. And the war on terror is (and always was) a global war.  The Cartoon Jihad is empirical evidence of that. Iraq is and was very much a part of the terror network. Twelve years flouting sanctions alone would have legitimized the war, but Saddam was paying off families of suicide bombers. He was bankrolling the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine through the UN oil-for-food program. The oil for food crimes!

Saddam used our taxpayer money to bomb innocents. He gave Abu Nidal, infamous Palestinian terrorist responsible for the deaths of hundreds, safe harbor for decades protecting the grisly executioner of wheelchair-bound American Leon Klinghoffer. WTF was going on at Salmon Pac? Al-queda trained their pilots in that full sized passenger airliner fuselage. It didn't fly, but they "trained" for missions using this fuselage.

Saddam had WMD. The developing story of Saddam secreting his WMD  into Syria is the icing on the cake. More on that here.

The ongoing fight on the ground in Iraq is part of the global war on Radical Islamic terror.

The left's contention that "Iraq was a mistake, not part of al qaeda, 9/11, the war on terror" is blatantly irrational, and illogical. It is a fallacy. And for those of you who claim Bush and his administration are secretive, non communicative - I counter that the mainstream media gives the man no time, no platform, no opportunity to air his strategy. They hate him. They will sell this country and our national security down the river to undo him. They will aid and abet the enemy to give their own arguments validation.

Please read Max Friedman's Betrayal of America --   most excellent, brilliant,  hard hitting piece here.(thanks to Chas)

I see Iraq as a great success. Not because of the stories you rarely see or hear for example here and here. The success in Iraq is a country of 50 million people liberated from a despot and centuries of totalitarianism, of living under the boot of dictators. That can't be easy. The wonder of our accomplishments in tandem with our accomplishments in Afghanistan are very much the reason Iran has undertaken a campaign of terror, fear,  and propaganda in that country in an attempt  to return it to the dark ages here and here. here.

This is not a sugarcoat. Expect a great deal more bloodshed, infighting, foreign fighters and outside influences to plague Iraq for the foreseeable future. That does not make failure de facto. Our objectives are noble. And what would be the alternative. In my mind, there is no alternative. The American people are not paying attention here.

I met a Yemen Muslim woman who lived in the United States for 20 years (her husband married her at 13 and brought to the US, then summarily dumped her 10 years later) . This woman still lived in fear of Radical Islam - 20 years later - in America.

SO THIS CAN BE  NO EASY TASK. If you don't have the stomach for it, get out of the way. Our world, our way of life must be saved. But the left can not be the monkey on our backs.

We elected George Bush, we elected him to do the job. Why won't they let this man do the job we elected him to do? I know, I know the polls say this, the polls say that, but at the end of  the day the only poll that means anything is the elections. Respect that.

UPDATE:  Victor Davis Hanson apparently sees things as I do, READ IT A-L-L;

AT WAR WITH OURSELVES,
We're winning in Iraq. Let's not lose at home.

The second-guessing of 2003 still daily obsesses us: We should have had better intelligence; we could have kept the Iraqi military intact; we would have been better off deploying more troops. Had our forefathers embraced such a suicidal and reactionary wartime mentality, Americans would have still torn each other apart over Valley Forge years later on the eve of Yorktown--or refought Pearl Harbor even as they steamed out to Okinawa.

There is a more disturbing element to these self-serving, always evolving pronouncements of the "my perfect war, but your disastrous peace" syndrome. Conservatives who insisted that we needed more initial troops are often the same ones who now decry that too much money has been spent in Iraq. Liberals who chant "no blood for oil" lament that we unnecessarily ratcheted up the global price of petroleum. Progressives who charge that we are imperialists also indict us for being naively idealistic in thinking democracy could take root in post-Baathist Iraq and providing aid of a magnitude not seen since the Marshall Plan. For many, Iraq is no longer a war whose prognosis is to be judged empirically. It has instead transmogrified into a powerful symbol that apparently must serve deeply held, but preconceived, beliefs--the deceptions of Mr. Bush, the folly of a neoconservative cabal, the necessary comeuppance of the American imperium, or the greed of an oil-hungry U.S.

If many are determined to see the Iraqi war as lost without a plan, it hardly seems so to 130,000 U.S. soldiers still over there. They explain to visitors that they have always had a design: defeat the Islamic terrorists; train a competent Iraqi military; and provide requisite time for a democratic Iraqi government to garner public support away from the Islamists.

UPDATE: Totally partisan. Check out the knee jerks on the comment section of this thread;

Expert: Zogby “poll” needs “big ‘grains of salt’ “

More evidence of prejudice from The Democracy Project.

Proof Zogby poll is BS

In entirety is the post at Media Lies blog. I know the blogger, and he is a reliable source.

Others might be cautious, but I'm not....
....I'm calling the Zogby poll bullshit. Here's why.

Source: Faces From The Front blog:

This line from the Press Release:
"Four in five said they oppose the use of such internationally banned weapons as napalm and white phosphorous."
of Zogby's new poll of military personnel in Iraq struck me as odd.

What is odd about it is that 80% of infantrymen carry white phosphorous grenades on missions.

So, ethier most of resondents are not currently aware of what infantrymen strap to their flak vests when they go outside the wire, or disapprove of their infantry bretheren carrying WP grenades or the question was poorly worded, or some combination.

Media Lies blog continues:
First of all, white phosphorus isn't an internationally banned weapon, and every infantryman, Marine, grunt and ne'er-do-well knows that. Secondly, the troops carry the weapon on them on missions. This poll was rigged and is worthless, plain and simple. I don't need to see any of the other questions to know that.

Obviously Zogby's "pollsters" have never heard "Pop smoke". I question if anyone was polled, or if someone sat down and made up this poll out of thin air. I'm voting for the latter.

Zogby won't reveal the questions, won't reveal the interviewees and won't reveal the pollsters. Now why do you think that is?

 

Comments

[Rich Schein]

I seriously doubt the accuracy of this poll.There is no way to verify the poll was even conducted since names and locations have been withheld for security reasons.

[Cleveland Marsh]

It is painful for me to point this out to you, because I read and enjoy your blog often...but,Zogby polls are a product of Zogby International, founded, owned and operated by JOHN Zogby...JAMES Zogby, as you correctly point out is a highly partisan, anti-Semitic official of a pan-Arab interest group here in the United States. I'm not sure they are even related.

[Rich Schein]

According to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Zogby

He works for Zogby International and even Graduated from the College that requested the poll

[Taylor Buley]

Collectivelym the media are just so good at brewqing up controversy.

[Gadfly]

I've conducted a poll and determined that Zogby is a paid terrorist sympathiser and should be strangled with his own intestines. Even given the sample was small (1), I predict a standard deviation of + - 0.0001

[neverforget]

They are brothers.

[anon]

pamela, i like you a lot and think you're doing good work.

however, i want to say a couple of things:

firstly, the zogby poll is not conducted by the same zogby who heads the arab-american institute.

secondly, every time someone criticizes a particular policy of israel, it is self-defeating to brand that person an anti-semite.

[jeff stillman]

Pamela,

As others have pointed out, the pollster John Zogby is Jim Zogby's brother and not the anti-zionist himself.

I still think it's a good idea to question the reliability of the Zogby poll, however. His election day exit polls were totally off the mark, not only favoring Kerry vis-a-vis the actual results in every state, but often with 15 to 20% margins! He had Kerry winning the election overwhelmingly in the EXIT polling (with something like 360 electoral votes). (The polling the networks relied on in getting it wrong early--not Zogby's--was, contrary to popular perception, not flawed; it's just that the networks, in their eagerness to hammer Bush, jumped the gun).

Given Zogby's brother's biases, and given the disastrous performance of his exit polls in 2004, something smells fishy.

Jeff Stillman aka "jsstag"

[Harry]

Love it when people go on self-righteous rants claiming to "fisk" things when they can't even figure out that James Zogby and John Zogby are different people.

[Pamela]

Oh puhleeeeeze............

I know they are brothers. There is a definitive taint there. Zogby's polls are skewed. And one can only imagine the conversation at their cozy family dinner.

Perspective fellas

Guilt by association when it comes to port security but not polls?.........

Pamela

[Thomas]

So now that you get caught on not even being able to figure out that James and John are brothers, you are now going to try to tell us you knew all of this and there is still a bias right? Come on Pamela, I'm a huge fan of yours but I can't believe you'd put your name on an ad hominem attack where you can't figure out who is who. More than that, you seem to assume that brothers always share the same biases. May I remind you of Cain and Abel? They were brothers too you know.

Why don't you admit your mistake? If you can't then I'd like for you to try to flat out tell all of us that Zogby International made those results up. I think that you've done just about everything else so cap it off with another incorrect assertion for all of us.

[Rich Schein]

I don't think Pamela made that claim but I will.

[Pamela]

New Zogby Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping

By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush

uh, yeah ok

[P]

Zogby Poll: Half of New Yorkers Believe 9/11 Was Allowed to Happen

uh......yeah ok

more unbiased polling