Market Research in Afghanistan

This poll, published yesterday on the World Public Opinion site rings true:

A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of the Afghan public finds:

81% of Afghans think Al Qaeda "is having a negative influence in the world"

88% "said they had an unfavourable view of the Taliban" (sometimes I wonder if different people don't have different labels for things, you know, Taliban/Al Qaeda/terrorists could all mean the same thing, just saying)

82% "said that overthrowing the Taliban government was a good thing for Afghanistan" (wish I could see the details for those who thought it was a bad idea!)

93% "gave the United Nations favorable ratings"

79% rated "International agencies providing aid for reconstruction" as effective

82% said the ISAF force of Nato troops providing peacekeeping and reconstruction is effective

83% of Afghans said Afghanistan is "heading in the right direction"

91% called the central Afghan government "very or somewhat effective" - the report's writer makes a valid point: "it may be that Afghans were expressing their positive attitudes about the government, more than assessing its performance."

When 80% or higher agree with a statement - that's a good, clear indication that the majority of people think like that.

66% "believe the government is allowing the Taliban to operate in Pakistan" - I would like to see the figures for the part of Afghanistan that borders Pakistan.

Interestingly:

21% rated the security situation in their area as excellent
49% rated the security in their area as good - I'd like to see these figures broken out by men and women - also, these are lower than the other figures and indicates that security on a local level is still a concern.

82% think "seats reserved in Parliament for women respresentatives" is a good idea - 77% of men think this, the figure for women is not given but it will be higher than 82%

I found this market reserch through a post at IraqNow.

There are so many rubbish polls reported in 'old media'. The MSM has no desire to report things that don't fit into their delusional agenda. Reading between the lines of this, shows that the first part of the war has been a success, although "local security" still requires improvement, so it's unlikely this research will be picked up and widely reported.

Afghanistan isn't a sexy theatre of operations.

This is what Thunder 6 at 365 and a wake up says in an interview posted at Gun Nutt - about old media in Iraq - but it is true for Afghanistan as well:

"Thunder6: Its pretty apparent to the troops on the ground that the MSM has dropped the ball. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part the MSM seems to have a difficult time grasping the ground truth. I’m not sure if this is indicative of a downward spiral in modern journalism or whether it is grounded in some gut level revulsion of anything that can’t be collapsed into a sound bite. I’ve met several superb journalists that wrote moving stories about our missions, but in the end the stories went unpublished. Unless it is short, sexy, or violent the MSM doesn’t appear interested."

And if a journalist gets kidnapped, the MSM has figured out a way to keep that fact from being reported, giving more time to various groups to work out a way to pay a big ransom and get the reporter back.

In the old days of the Irish Civil War (1922-23) the anti democracy forces would raid banks. The new way of making money appears to be kidnapping. If you kidnap the right person, there certainly is money in it. Whoever captured Brit journalist Phil Sands didn't move quickly enough though, he was rescued by American forces on routine maneuvers before all the negotiations had ceased. And lucky for him, it wasn't reported on, or maybe that's old media's new way of working - kidnap a journalist, news blackout for ages, so the terrorists don't get media attention which adds to the pressure. Ya think?