If you get BBC World on your satellite...

[Dionysos]

They did an interesting 'one year later' series of polls & interviews that showed the British & Iraqi perspective on the war. The best part was the piece they did on the Iraqi Blogger, which he made himself w/ interviews & such. He had a few interesting facts, such as the number of newspapers in Iraq has gone from 5 before the war(3 of which were controlled directly by Uday) to 150 afterwards. He also said most of the country's electricity is in better shape now than before the war as well.

I don't remember all of it, but the results of the polls(both British & Iraqi) were surprisingly tilted in favor of the war. If I find the specifics of the polls online, I'll post them here. The basic idea(I'm simplifying due to time constraints) was that opinion was still quite divided, but that the majority of Brits & Iraqis were still behind the war effort. Some 86% of Iraqis polled were against the killing of Coalition soldiers, and the Iraqis love their new police(don't remember the specific stat there). Then again I'm sure they're happy with the police not actively taking them to torture chambers anymore. The bar has been set pretty low I imagine.

Anyway, it was nice to see a different perspective than CNN.

Originally posted by Dionysos
They did an interesting 'one year later' series of polls & interviews that showed the British & Iraqi perspective on the war. The best part was the piece they did on the Iraqi Blogger, which he made himself w/ interviews & such. He had a few interesting facts, such as the number of newspapers in Iraq has gone from 5 before the war(3 of which were controlled directly by Uday) to 150 afterwards. He also said most of the country's electricity is in better shape now than before the war as well.

Interesting comment on the electricity. I read an article written by a Polish soldier. He explained that one of the reasons that power outtages occured had nothing to do with sabbotage but with Iraqi use issues. It seems that under Saddam electrcity was free. As such there was no incentive to use electricity efficiently. (The author related that communist Poland was the same - he said people would open their windowns in the winter rather than turn the thermostat down). The author noted that educating the people on how to be more efficient with their use will go a long way toward eliminating the problem....that and building more than one main line.

Originally posted by Dionysos
I don't remember all of it, but the results of the polls(both British & Iraqi) were surprisingly tilted in favor of the war. If I find the specifics of the polls online, I'll post them here. The basic idea(I'm simplifying due to time constraints) was that opinion was still quite divided, but that the majority of Brits & Iraqis were still behind the war effort. Some 86% of Iraqis polled were against the killing of Coalition soldiers, and the Iraqis love their new police(don't remember the specific stat there). Then again I'm sure they're happy with the police not actively taking them to torture chambers anymore. The bar has been set pretty low I imagine.

Anyway, it was nice to see a different perspective than CNN.

[Hey Bubu]

While there are still debates of whether the war was justified or not it is good to know that at least some good is coming out of this. Liberty to people and hopefuly a better way of life. It will take a long while before we see the full results and I am sure the Iraquis will mold the new ways of life into their own. It's going to be hard to change a people that have lived under harsh rules for centuries.