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Patrick Poole uncovers more problems with the AP story by Eric Gorski that I discussed here.
Gorski says:A December 2006 survey by the University of Maryland's Program on International Attitudes found 24 percent of Americans believe "bombings and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians" are often or sometimes justified. The poll found no significant variance based on age.His statement on this poll is only two sentences long, but there are several misrepresentations here in addition to one outright lie.
The first problem is that they December 2006 wasn't done by the "University of Maryland's Program on International Attitudes", but the Program on International Policy Attitudes (does the AP have any factcheckers?), which is not part of the U of Maryland at all, but is a joint project between the Center on Policy Attitudes (COPA) and the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM), University of Maryland. It is an independently-funded organization with loose ties to UofM, but both Al-Akhras and Gorski have stretched PIPA's relationship with the university to try to give it more clout. The poll was not conducted by the university, however, as they claim.
[...]
But the absolutely categorical lie Gorski engages in is when he says, "The poll found no significant variance based on age." But when you look at the PIPA study, the responses are not broken down by age - Gorski conjures this fact completely out of thin air! In fact, the American respondents aren't even broken down by age anywhere in the study or the questionnaire. He has to manufacture it himself.
[...]
Like a dog returning to its vomit, there is a reason why the Islamists and their media establishment apologists keep returning to this PIPA study: they have been successful thus far at twisting and manipulating the poll results to try to divert attention from the shocking findings of the Pew study. And as I stated in my previous article, they have to engage in an equivalence between conventional and internationally recognized warfare (the subject of the PIPA poll) with terrorism (the Pew study asked specifically about suicide bombings) to even try to bring the PIPA study into play. This equivalence between conventional warfare and terrorism is precisely the same that Islamists constantly tell us that they don't make (equating the bombing of factories in Germany during WWII and the HAMAS suicide bombing of Israeli pizza parlors filled with Jewish teenagers).
But not even the Islamists are reading from the same script when it comes to this PIPA study. While Ahmad Al-Akhras of CAIR cites "24 percent of Americans, reported in the Maryland study, who believe these attacks are "often or sometimes justified", Ingrid Mattson, President of the Islamic Society of North America, cites this exact same PIPA study and says:
"And what am I to make of the fact that according to the University of Maryland, 51% of Americans believe that “bombings and other types of attacks against civilians are sometimes justified?"Citing the exact same poll, CAIR and ISNA come up with two entirely different results for this same question - 24 percent and 51 percent! Can't these clowns get it right? You would think the Islamists would at least collaborate a little more closely so they can tell the same lies....
Posted by Robert at June 10, 2007 6:33 AM
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most of often polls are created to make news, the questions are made to bring the answer that the pollsters would like to hear. polls are also times and placed to get answers that the pollsters would like as well. l have enough with polls, and wished politicans would just do what is right for their countries and for their voters who actually voted them into office. Some polls can be accurate when proper quaestions are asked,and broken down into catergories that one can follow logically, but these are far and few inbetween.
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at June 10, 2007 7:58 AM
Just the other day someone emailed me a letter that appeared in The Boston Globe with that PIPA figure abut "24% of Americans" supporting attacks on civlians as compared, so the letter-writer sweeetly and meretiriciously said, "8%" of Muslims. If you knew nothing, you might be taken in by this letter from a cunnning and sinister propagandist (or was she just an undeliberate dupe?). Patrick Poole's piece above should be cut out because this PIPA business will appear again and again, just like the two or three verses in the Qur'an (5:32 without 5.33, and "there is no compulsion in religion) in the propagandistic presentations by everyone from Ingrid Mattson to "the country Muslim from Norfolk, Virginia" Mahdi Bray, to the "spokesmen" of CAIR.
Posted by: Hugh at June 10, 2007 10:33 AM
"...manufacture a lie..." sounds so judgmental.
Can't we just consider it substantially accurate, if not literally true?
As all newsy Dan's would Rather would have it.
Posted by: profitsbeard at June 10, 2007 3:38 PM
"And what am I to make of the fact that according to the University of Maryland, 51% of Americans believe that “bombings and other types of attacks against civilians are sometimes justified?"
this lie would be much more credible if Ingrid Mattson, President of the Islamic Society of North America, opened the statement by condeming those 25% of respondents to the PEW survey that said that suicide bombings were sometimes justified.
All he's trying to do is establish that a high precentage of Americans have a wrong moral view about bombing in war time.
The difference between the American respondents and the Muslim respondents is that it's doubtful that a single Americans polled based their opinion on the belief that any bombing was mandated by God. to Americans, only purely strategic considerations would have been taken into account in giving their opinions. The Americans would be the first to acknowledge that God would want nothing to do with it, and that he would love both the bomber and the bombed.
Mattson is trying to avoid the essential issue with the PEW results, religious motivation. That's what makes the PEW results so scary. There's nothing academic about their opinion of suicide bombing, it's mandated, approved and rewarded by God.
As President of the Islamic Society of North America, Ingrid Mattson should be concerned with that aspect of the PEW results, not with the opinions of Americans on the proper way to conduct military operations.
at June 10, 2007 4:05 PM
LOL "You would think the Islamists would at least collaborate a little more closely so they can tell the same lies.." Robert at June 10, 2007 6:33 AM
...................
Robert, they never do. My experience tells me that their trait mark is they try to out do each other about telling lies. They concoct things up by the moder-load. They appears to get first rate training about telling lies - isn't that what a good Muslim suppose to do as specified in Cowran. That fact in itself keeps them dumb-wits in the dark.
at June 10, 2007 4:11 PM
What???
Someone at AP manufacturing lies???
LMAO...NOOOOO, YA THINK???
(the pew studys numbers are way low, the militant mOslems are much higher...I'm just amused at how these lying liars are now trying to accuse their own propaganda camps of lying themselves-attacking each other, especially after the lies they've told about us and our forces in country, is something I wish them a long and healthy war over)
Posted by: jcom972 at June 10, 2007 5:22 PM
Only 24%? Only 51%? So what did the Allies have to do against Nazi Germany? Keep the civilians safe??
Posted by: Lili at June 10, 2007 10:05 PM
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