The only two polls I know of that you could POSSIBLY be referrinng to are

1) A poll done in the baghdad area administered to less than 1500 people, which a majority of those polled said getting rid of Saddam *would be* worth the suffering they have gone through. Thats not "70 percent of all Iraqis want us in Iraq"

2) Another informal poll, done several monts ago and also in a limited area... In public and on the streets, indicated that 70 percent of those polled did not want us to leave within a month. During that time, the violent crime rate was up 20-fold and there was a sort of social chaos Iraqis had not seen since before Saddam(*). You have to admit there are MANY reasonable ways to read that number that is not "70 percent of all Iraqis want us in Iraq".

If you are generating your numbers from somewhere else, please provide reference.

If not, then you are reading Tea Leaves, Chicken Entrails and other such magical devices to generate your 'empirical proof'. Again, you are replacing reason with pseudo-magical charisma-based argumentation. Case in point.

In any case, Tom, your poll-interpreting orgy does not speak to the prime point. You are drawing the red herring (again, defeating reason with Medieval thinking). We did not invade Iraq because 7-out-of-10 Iraqis wanted us to be there. Such an argument would have been laughed out of congress in the run-up to the war. We invaded Iraq because it was a clear and present danger to the United States, and was in collusion with Al Qaeda, who we were and are at war with. Again, by changing the debate from a true or false statement to a muddy and opinion based argument, you are defeating reason and employing charisma based reasoning.

Previously, during the MONTHS AND MONTHS that this board tried to reason its way through the non-existance of Terrorists and WMD, anomalist pseudo-reasoning was employed. This pseudo reasoning allowed that the absence of evidence fro a proposition was only positive proof that not only that proposition was true (Stocks of WMD and Terrorist allies), but that the lack of evidence only made it more manifest (that they had been buried in the sand, shipped to syria, moved to Iran, Eaten by a Yeti etc...)

Lately, it has moved to shit slinging on YOUR part and a bunch of others here (specifically: Scott, Ebnelson, LarryJ, FrankC, Tech1 and more). Criticising the war, or the foundations on which the war has placed has earned an ever-increasing fusillade of insults. Criticising has lead to the term BUSH-HATER, which has grown to be LEFTIST and SADDAM LOVER. There is no empirical or logical dissent tolerated here, instead the dissenter is judged as as a difficient and traitorous dishonest person.

I bring this up not to belabor my sadness at what has happened to this community, but to illllustrate another facet of the medieval analogy: Those who disagree with the current Dogma are exconnunicated, cast out, condemned to hell and placed on the same level as the genuinely evil sinner.

The charter of this community was, as I understand, to build a community free of anomalist thinking- some little island that can stand against the growing tide of anti-reason, faith based reactionism and anomalism.

It is intersting to hold this board up against that charter. When I first landed here, it seemed to be more-or-less in effect. Now, outside the space board, I don't see much in the way of standards.

It seems that when that charter conflicts with the desire for 'your' side to be politically RIGHT, that chater is sailed down the river faster then sail can carry it.

Everyone here might be right, even the shit slingers. But if you are right and you are backed up with BS, flawed logic and optimistically interpreted poll data you are nothing better than a stopped clock.

Frankly, at some point where the 'Feces Flinging' Faction started arguing from poll data, you think that they would have had a twinge of epistemological conscience, or at least a boo-down by members of this community....

Davin L.

*no value judgements, just plain fact- you can crow and croon about how their life is better, but the violent crime rate, as measured by knifings and shootings showing up at the hospital did go up