Afghanistan Opinion Poll Silences Cut-and-Run Crowd
Results from an unprecedented public opinion poll of the Afghan people taken by Environics Research couldn’t have come at a worse time for Canadian Liberal leader Stephane Dion, NDP chief Jack Layton, and all others in Canada calling for our troops to leave Afghanistan post-haste.
With recent losses in key by-elections and the rebelling of his party’s Quebec wing, followed by some deft political moves by massively-underestimated Prime Minister Stephen Harper (this weeks Speech from the Throne should be held up as an example to students of politics everywhere of how to effectively govern a minority government like a majority), the last thing the embattled Grit leader needed was more bad news.
But things did in fact get worse for Dion. In war-torn Afghanistan, 51% of all those questioned said that they believed their country was ‘headed in the right direction’, compared to 28% who felt the opposite. As well, 43% said that they wanted foreign troops to stay in their country as long as it takes to get the job done. While the bring-them-home crowd will quickly point out that the number is less than half, it should be noted that a measly 15% of Afghanis want foreign troops (read: Canadian soldiers) to leave immediately. 15%! A higher percentage of New Democrats wish for Canadian troops to cut and run than Afghanistan citizens do!
And the man who the federal opposition claims is a ‘puppet’ of the Canadian government, namely Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai? Only a resounding 70% favorable rating. Not bad for a leader seen as weak by some in the outside world.
While the Afghan people equate the American army as the main force fighting the Taliban, the poll showed that when it comes to rebuilding and reconstruction, Canada is the nation thought of by the Afghan people. Even Canadian military personnel are seen as builders as well as fighters. So much for the Opposition charges that the Conservative government is too focused on war and not enough on helping to stabilize the nation’s society.
With the Harper government stating an extension of the mission by two years in the Throne Speech and daring the rest of the parties in Parliament to force an election, the Prime Minister now sits firmly in the driver’s seat. Canadian’s don’t want an election, and they certainly aren’t so opposed to our involvement overseas that it is a burning election issue. In fact, the opinions of the Afghanistan people may just open the eyes of the average Canadian to realize that this is a just and much needed military action and one that cannot have a time limit.
We owe it to the people of Afghanistan to abide by their wishes and finish what we started, even if Jihad Jack and the rest of the cut-and-runners don’t agree.
With recent losses in key by-elections and the rebelling of his party’s Quebec wing, followed by some deft political moves by massively-underestimated Prime Minister Stephen Harper (this weeks Speech from the Throne should be held up as an example to students of politics everywhere of how to effectively govern a minority government like a majority), the last thing the embattled Grit leader needed was more bad news.
But things did in fact get worse for Dion. In war-torn Afghanistan, 51% of all those questioned said that they believed their country was ‘headed in the right direction’, compared to 28% who felt the opposite. As well, 43% said that they wanted foreign troops to stay in their country as long as it takes to get the job done. While the bring-them-home crowd will quickly point out that the number is less than half, it should be noted that a measly 15% of Afghanis want foreign troops (read: Canadian soldiers) to leave immediately. 15%! A higher percentage of New Democrats wish for Canadian troops to cut and run than Afghanistan citizens do!
And the man who the federal opposition claims is a ‘puppet’ of the Canadian government, namely Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai? Only a resounding 70% favorable rating. Not bad for a leader seen as weak by some in the outside world.
While the Afghan people equate the American army as the main force fighting the Taliban, the poll showed that when it comes to rebuilding and reconstruction, Canada is the nation thought of by the Afghan people. Even Canadian military personnel are seen as builders as well as fighters. So much for the Opposition charges that the Conservative government is too focused on war and not enough on helping to stabilize the nation’s society.
With the Harper government stating an extension of the mission by two years in the Throne Speech and daring the rest of the parties in Parliament to force an election, the Prime Minister now sits firmly in the driver’s seat. Canadian’s don’t want an election, and they certainly aren’t so opposed to our involvement overseas that it is a burning election issue. In fact, the opinions of the Afghanistan people may just open the eyes of the average Canadian to realize that this is a just and much needed military action and one that cannot have a time limit.
We owe it to the people of Afghanistan to abide by their wishes and finish what we started, even if Jihad Jack and the rest of the cut-and-runners don’t agree.
View blog reactions
posted by Leigh Patrick Sullivan at 9:34 PM
9 Comments:
Saying, Liberal leader Stephane Dion is calling for our troops to leave Afghanistan is like saying Mr. Harper wants to remain in a combat role until 2050 no matter what the cost. According to the poll. Opinion is more divided in Kandahar (48% right direction versus 43% wrong direction). Should Foreign Troops Leave or Stay? In Kandahar, there is somewhat greater desire for a quicker exit (31% want the troops to stay as long as necessary versus 32% would like to see the troops gone within one year) If you are going to base the future of the mission in Afghanistan on these polls than the future doesn’t look good for Mr. Harper.
Trying to defend or make allowances for Stephane Dion is a waste of effort. Between him, Jihad Jack, and the national Canadian media machine, we are supposed to believe that the Afghani people want us out.
The poll numbers suggest different, now don't they?
-Leigh.
Please, if you don’t know what the Liberals are proposing for the role of Canada in Afghanistan don’t make it up. Did you visit Environics’ website for the poll results?
Negotiations with the Taliban. In spite of the widespread negative feelings about the Taliban, a strong desire for peace and stability, a strong majority (74%) of Afghans nationwide (and 85% in Kandahar) to support negotiations between the Karzi government and the Taliban. Beyond negotiations, there is also modest majority support for the idea of a coalition agreement in which the Karzi government shares power with the Taliban. Just over half strongly (25%) or somewhat (29%) support such a coalition, compared with one-third (33%) who oppose it. What do you think the result of this poll means? Maybe the Taliban are not the monsters we have been lead to believe?
If you lived in a warzone, wouldn't part of you support a negotiated peace? And,yes- Environics is one of the sources used for this article.
As for the Libs, of course I don't know what they propose - neither do they.
Being their apologist fits you like a bad suit, Luke.
-Leigh.
I know what the Libs want to do. I have been to their website. Seems to me it’s the Conservatives who don’t have a clue. First Mr. Harper says he will not cut and run, stay until the job is done. Then changes his mind and says, Parliament will have a vote for extending the mission. Then he says there will only be a vote to extend the mission if he is assured some of the opposition members will vote in his favor. Then he sends a blue ribbon panel to Afghanistan to bring back their ideas as to what Canada should do. “Harper has appointed a five-person panel to examine options for the future of the mission, including continued Canadian training of the Afghan army and police, leaving the volatile southern province of Kandahar for a quieter sector or withdrawing altogether.”
Back to the poll results. “In Kandahar: 85 per cent believe the government should negotiate with the Taliban to reduce conflict, and 72 per cent believe a coalition government with the Taliban would be acceptible” How come you don’t write about these results. Maybe its because its something Mr. Layton has said all along. Negotiate for peace. National 54% would support a coalition government with the Taliban. If you lived in a warzone, wouldn't part of you support a negotiated peace? If the people want peace talks, why isn’t that one of the options for Mr. Harper.
Thank you, Mr. Chamberlain...
Save your naive socialist ideology for rabble.com.
-Leigh.
First - the Taliban don't want to negotiate.
Second - Luke , the Taliban are worse than you have been led to believe.
Third - We have to get to an advantagous negotiating position
before we negotiate anything.
Forth - Negotiation or not, is up to Afghans.
Sorry, I know this is ages after the fact, but I just wanted to respond to your comments about the CBC/Environics poll, which has raised concern among people who have worked in Afghanistan. I was on a trip to Afghanistan when it was released, hence this timelag.
If you're still interested, here are some points that I think bear some discussion on the poll's methodology:
Concerns with Validity -
Methodology involves entering people's homes and ask people's opinions on the military, especially the Afghan National Army/Afghan National Police. While the ANA/ANP are not quite like the militia in Iraq yet, they (esp the ANP) are very corrupt and often seen as dangerous to civilians.
Poll was conducted from September 17-24th, right at the beginning of the Holy month of Ramadan, which for many Muslims represents a period of charity and goodwill, and when the good that is done by fasting can be considered void is one speaks ill of others behind
their backs.
Afghans' oral culture and hospitable nature makes the linearity, aggressively
direct, and confinement of responses into five categories of intensity (highly agree, somewhat agree, etc) bewildering. My own direct attempts at conducting quantitative research in Afghanistan are written up here (Kish grid, audience research survey):
http://cms.mit.edu/research/theses/SarahKamal2005.pdf, pages 42-3, 81-3. The problems I've listed in my Master's thesis barely skim the surface of the research challenges I've continued to have while conducting my PhD.
I have spent 7 years working in and around Afghanistan as an academic, development practitioner, and "undercover Afghan." As a Dari-speaking Afghan-looking woman, I have tended to find that after you scratch the surface of Afghan discourse, something else comes out that could never adequately be captured in as blunt and culturally unfamiliar a tool as a western poll. I usually find that people from other cultures tend not to appreciate the underlying resentment or suspicion felt by many Muslims towards the powerful West, and how quickly it can bubble up over a quiet discussion over a cup of tea.
Finding a good facilitator for polling is hard in Afghanistan. ACSOR has done polls for organizations like the Asia Foundation (said to have been founded with CIA funding) and the US state department, and their polls tend to have eyebrow raising results which run counter to other research but are advantageous for suggesting the military operations are running well. The Environics poll is not the first strange public opinion poll coming out of Afghanistan by ACSOR.
Sometimes the timing of the release of such polls is telling. I did a survey of publicly available public opinion in Afghanistan in Dec 2005, it is available here: http://c4o.unitycode.org/me/PeaceConditionalities.final.20060413.pdf . The studies that I looked at are listed in the appendix. Shortly after I finished this study (which found sharp pessimism and a downturn in public opinion), a new quantitative survey was released that claimed that Afghans were very pleased with the reconstruction process and international presence, released right before a major donor conference. This was in the same year that friends of mine were chased out of a UN compound in Jalalabad by angry mobs, who set fire to the compound. Also the same year as the Koran riots and Afghan Minister of Planning Bashardoost winning major public support in demanding that NGOs leave the country.
Methodology doesn't state how questions were piloted. Were there ways of triangulating responses? For instance, if people are so positive about the future, why is it that in the Environics poll only 40% think the government and foreigners will prevail in the current conflict? (20% believe the Taliban will win, 40% don't know). 20% believe Al Qaida is a positive force in the country - how does that mesh with other responses?
Concerns with generalizability -
Poor to non-existent communications and road infrastructure in rural areas, inadequate mapping, lack of security, illiteracy, widely divergent population estimates and shifting displaced populations hamper statistical generalizability of their poll of about 1,500 Afghans.
--
I have been in Afghanistan many times in the last 6 years, and in my three visits this year I found the security situation to be the worst I have ever seen. I first entered Afghanistan during the time of the Taliban, and even then did not feel as threatened as I did in my most recent journey in October 2007. There is no sense of safety anywhere, and even longtime Afghan friends of mine now feel uncomfortable entering downtown Kabul. Such fears could only have worsened with the Nov 6th suicide bomb killing children and MPs in Baghlan, formerly considered a "safe" area.
I have been wrong more times than I can count when it comes to Afghanistan, which I find a fascinating and unendingly complicated space. I don't object to surprising research findings, but I do object to bad science that run counter to common sense. The Environics poll runs counter to what I and other longtime development workers have found to be the mood in the country (including a practitioner who has lived for 6 years in Kandahar). The poll is also dangerous, in my opinion, because the word for expressing the public's mood that is more and more being bandied about in expert circles, and among Afghans, is "occupation." I was a panelist at the Middle East Studies Association annual conference this weekend, and everybody there agreed with that framing. So I believe it is particularly important to not allow a poll (which, as we understand, even in the best of situations is just a poll and not reflective of anything other than what people choose to say to a pollster) to be taken as more than it is.
Best regards,
Sarah Kamal
2007 Trudeau Scholar
PhD Candidate, London School of Economics
Sarah -
You were doing well until I saw the 'Trudeau Scholar' tag. That in itself destroys any and all credibility you have. In Alberta, that honor is right up there with the 'Hitler Peace Award'.
Post a Comment
<< Home