Afghan survey in doubt

[robdogbucky]

Experts On Afghanistan Doubt Survey On Foreign Occupation: Results Are Impossible

"...But can it be taken seriously? In a word, no, say people who have worked extensively on the ground in Afghanistan.

HuffPost interviewed Prakhar Sharma, head of research at the Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies (CAPS) in Kabul, who has done a large amount of public-opinion research work in Afghanistan, where he is based; Matthew Hoh, a foreign service officer who resigned last September in protest of the administration's Afghan policy; Anand Gopal, a Wall Street Journal reporter who has traveled widely in Afghanistan; and Christian Parenti, a reporter with The Nation who travels frequently to Afghanistan and was the field producer of the Afghanistan-based documentary The Fixer...

...Those with experience in Afghanistan were skeptical that the surveyors actually went where they said they did. "If you look at it, the polling was conducted in built-up areas, in urban areas where we have our bases and where the Afghan government has a presence, primarily off the major highways," said Hoh. "So through the South and West of the country, primarily it was done right along Highway 1 where the government has control and where we have control. Off those areas, we don't have control."

Gopal explains why that would be. "The way the surveys work is by recruiting, say, 34 people for the 34 provinces," he writes. "Each of these people are then tasked with finding participants for the survey in their province. In rural Afghanistan, with geographical, logistical and security concerns, these people can't very well go door to door. Moreover, they can't randomly select phone numbers here because there are no area codes like in the States (so that you can ensure an even distribution geographic distribution) and only major urban areas have good network coverage. Therefore the surveyors usually find participants by polling their friends and family. This means that you don't have a random sample, and the results of the survey depend entirely on the political outlook of person in charge. Since the surveyors are often educated people who live in urban areas and have ties to the government (in most provincial urban centers, almost every educated person--and there's not many--have family members working for the government, because that's the only job available to them.), there's a heavy pro-government and pro-coalition bias in the surveys."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/13/afghanistan-experts-doubt_n_422482.html




Yes, I know the subject was widely "debated," already here at DU to a dubious end. I just wanted to post this further discussion before it disappeared down the memory hole due to obviously more urgent news stories that dominate today. This is not biased to one side or the other, and the author of the survey is part of the group assembled for this article. Simply food for thought, as I did not know where the survey had been done. It sure would make a difference if it were just Tajiks or just Pashtuns that had been surveyed.

Pray for the people of Haiti and do whatever one can do, as Bill Clinton said today, "Even a dollar or two dollars can make a difference down there."


Just my dos centavos


robdogbucky

[Flaneur]

1. Worth kicking in light of its propagandistic use in recent threads.

[niyad]

2. k and r--didn't need huffpo to tell me that survery was bs--I watch international news--and there is

NO WAY, hearing and seeing what I have seen and heard, that that survey was anywhere near accurate.

[StarfarerBill]

3. The FACT of the MATTER is, the war supporters here will be very disappointed to hear this.

But I imagine they'll spin, or ignore, it.

[invictus]

4. K&R

[robdogbucky]

5. Now that it appears safe to discuss this

as the thread has made its way to p.2 and no doubt beyond, I just wondered not only about this survey, but another news story that was in the WSJ today. Of course there would be doubts about anything found in a Murdoch publication, and other reasons to doubt the veracity of any story out of a theater of invasion/occupation, a foreign insertion into a long-running civil war of sorts.

I don't read that paper regularly as I learned a long time ago not to when a right wing boss I had used to take the WSJ into the loo every morning for his sitdown and after having read the lead editorial, he would have his talking points down for the day. So there is no doubt the WSJ has been a standard bearer for the business interests that control most things in our society. It was not a surprise to read that the insurgents are credited with causing an increase in Afghan civilian deaths because they have stepped up the campaigns of roadside IEDs and the old fashioned suicide bomber that is tried and true in the middle east for causing maximum mayhem and carnage. None of that surprised me as one escalation leads to the next escalation by the other side and so on and so forth, ad nauseum.

What surprised me was the UN was the one doing the data collection according to this story. However that was done, it was met with some of the same criticism (see the last couple paragraphs reprinted below herein) as was aimed at the reliability of the afore-mentioned survey that is the subject of this thread. Is the UN now in the business of promoting negligent reports, thereby innocently aiding one side or the other in this mess? Who can do any reliable reporting when you know that each little area over there is almost autonomous to all other regions, with each area claiming its own little local warlord who are the ones that have the final say? Guvmint, foreign invaders and Taliban be damned. Does anyone here believe what this report shows? Does it really matter? Is this supposed to somehow make us all feel better that the innocent dying for the last year or so can be chalked up more to insurgents than the US or the Afghan guvmint? Does this inspire more sincere discussion and less hyperbolic falteral? Can we believe anything from over there aside from personal accounts from those with direct experience?

I just noticed the underlying article emanated from the Asia Times and was an apparent reprint at the WSJ site on my Google homepage. Does that alter anything?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704362004575000833802711488.html?mod=igoogle_wsj_gadgv1&

Insurgent-Caused Civilian Deaths Jump in Afghanistan

"KABUL—The number of civilians killed by spiraling violence in Afghanistan hit a record high last year, although civilian deaths caused by U.S. and allied forces dropped by nearly a third, the United Nations said, indicating that coalition efforts to cut down on civilian casualties are having an impact on the battlefield.

The number of civilians killed by the Taliban and its allies was up sharply, by about 40%, the U.N. mission in Afghanistan found, according to a survey released Wednesday. The overall drop in deaths resulting from allied action and the corresponding spike in deaths attributed to insurgents could help Western forces win support in from wary Afghans...

...Some experts cautioned that the actual civilian death toll could be much higher because of the difficulties faced in accessing many areas of Afghanistan to collect an accurate tally.

"This is the tip of iceberg," said Mudassir Rasuli, spokesman for Afghan group Against Civilian Casualties, an umbrella organization of groups monitoring civilian casualties. "Every day we are working with families harmed in the conflict whose stories never see the light of day," he said.


Discuss rationally please


rdb