News, Info, and Opinion from the Spawn of Satan (DLC-PPI)

[Bradford DeLong]

>==================================
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>
>28-FEB-02
>
>  Gallup: "Wider War" an Uphill Struggle
>
>Yesterday the Gallup Organization released a large-scale survey
>of residents in nine Islamic countries (Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia,
>Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco, Kuwait, Jordan and Saudi Arabia) --
>countries accounting for half the world's Muslim population --
>about the events of September 11 and their aftermath.
>
>The survey did not paint a pretty picture for the United States. 
>Fifty-three percent of respondents had unfavorable opinions of
>the United States.  Uncle Sam's lowest approval ratings -- 5
>percent -- came from our most important ally in the war on
>terrorism, Pakistan.  And even in Kuwait, the country we
>liberated from Saddam Hussein, favorable assessment of the
>United States went no higher than 28 percent.  A higher
>percentage of all respondents judged the U.S. military
>operations in Afghanistan as "morally unjustifiable" than judged
>the September 11 attacks "morally unjustifiable."
>
>But the most revealing question was: "Did Arab groups carry out
>the September 11 attacks?"  Eighteen percent of all respondents
>said "yes."  Sixty-one percent said "no."
>
>Given the overwhelming documentation available about the
>identities of the September 11 terrorists, this finding suggests
>something well beyond entrenched mistrust of the United States. 
>It points squarely to the severely limited access of people in many
>Islamic countries to anything like objective news coverage by
>independent media.
>
>In general, the Gallup survey buttresses Sen. Joe Lieberman's
>argument that the war on terrorism is not simply a military
>campaign against specific terrorist networks operating in and
>beyond the Middle East: it is a "great civil war" within the Islamic
>world in which the United States is inescapably a party.  To win
>this war, as Lieberman suggested, we must not only "drain the
>swamp" of terrorist groups and the anger and despair that feeds
>them, but "plant the seeds" of economic opportunity, tolerance,
>and access to independent news and opinion, that can make it
>possible for the justice of our war effort to become apparent.