{"id":121770,"date":"2015-09-19T06:27:23","date_gmt":"2015-09-19T06:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=121770"},"modified":"2015-09-25T07:33:32","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T07:33:32","slug":"polls-show-syrians-overwhelmingly-blame-u-s-for-isis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=121770","title":{"rendered":"Polls Show Syrians Overwhelmingly Blame U.S. for ISIS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse — Global Research Sept 18, 2015<\/a><\/h1>\n

The British polling organization ORB International, an affiliate of WIN\/Gallup International, repeatedly finds in Syria that, throughout the country, Syrians oppose ISIS by about 80%, and (in the latest such poll) also finds that 82% of Syrians blame the U.S. for ISIS.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/em> summarized on September 15th the latest poll. They did not headline it with the poll\u2019s anti-U.S. finding, such as \u201c82% of Syrians Blame U.S. for ISIS.\u201d That would have been newsworthy. Instead, their report\u2019s headline was \u201cOne in five Syrians say Islamic State is a good thing, poll says<\/strong><\/span>.\u201d<\/a> However, the accompanying graphic wasn\u2019t focused on the few Syrians who support ISIS (and, at only one in five, that\u2019s obviously not much.) It instead (for anyone who would read beyond that so-what headline) provided a summary of what Syrians actually do support. This is is what their graphic highlighted from the poll\u2019s findings:<\/span><\/p>\n

82% agree \u201cIS [Islamic State] is US and foreign made group.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

79% agree \u201cForeign fighters made war worse.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

70% agree \u201cOppose division of country.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

65% agree \u201cSyrians can live together again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

64% agree \u201cDiplomatic solution possible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

57% agree \u201cSituation is worsening.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

51% agree \u201cPolitical solution best answer.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

49% agree \u201cOppose US coalition air strikes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

22% agree \u201cIS is a positive influence.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

21% agree \u201cPrefer life now than under Assad.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Here<\/a><\/strong><\/span> are the more detailed findings in this poll, a poll that was taken of 1,365 Syrians from all 14 governates within Syria.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The finding that 22% agree that \u201cIS is a positive influence\u201d means that 78% do not agree with that statement. Since 82% do agree that \u201cIS is US and foreign made group,\u201d Syrians are clearly anti-American, by overwhelming majorities: they blame the U.S. for something that they clearly (by 78%) consider to be not<\/em> \u201ca positive influence.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Here<\/a> <\/strong><\/span>is the unfortunately amateurish (even undated) press release from ORB International, reporting their findings, and it links directly to the full pdf of their poll-results, \u201cSyria Public Opinion \u2013 July 2015<\/strong><\/span>\u201d<\/a>. Though their press-operation is amateurish, their polling itself definitely is not. WIN\/Gallup is, instead, the best polling-operation that functions in Syria, which is obviously an extremely difficult environment.<\/span><\/p>\n

WIN\/Gallup<\/a><\/strong><\/span> and ORB International<\/a><\/strong><\/span> had previously released a poll of Syria, on 8 July 2014, which reported that, at that time, \u201cthree in five (60%) of the population would support \u2018international military involvement in Syria\u2019. In government controlled regions this drops to 11% (Tartus), 36% (Damascus) and rises in those areas currently largely controlled by the opposition \u2013 Al Raqqah (82%), Aleppo (61%), Idlib (88%).\u201d In other words: The regions that were controlled by Islamic jihadists (Sunnis who are backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United States) were, a year ago, overwhelmingly wanting \u201cinternational military involvement in Syria.\u201d They wanted to be saved from ISIS. Government-controlled regions didn\u2019t feel the need for international involvement. Syrians were, apparently, at that time expecting \u201cinternational military involvement\u201d to be anti<\/em>-jihadist, not pro-jihadist, as it turned out to be (which is the reason why the current poll is finding rampant anti-Americanism there).<\/span><\/p>\n

This earlier poll further found that, \u201cThere is also evidence to suggest that Bashar al-Assad\u2019s position is strengthened from a year ago.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So, apparently, the more that the war has continued, the more opposed to the U.S. the Syrian people have become, and the more that they are supporting Bashar al-Assad, whom the Syrian people know that the U.S. is trying to bring down.<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse<\/strong> is the author, most recently, of They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/a>, and of CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amazingly however, the Washington Post reports this under the headline “One in five Syrians say Islamic State is a good thing”. Talk about media distortion!! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[95,83,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beheadings-by-muslim-militants","category-syria","category-The_Media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=121770"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121787,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121770\/revisions\/121787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=121770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=121770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=121770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}