Al Duri captured.

[epicstruggle]

Seems like the governing council in iraq is stating that Al-Duri has been captured. The coalition believes he is the one who was coordinating most of the attacks. Someone just got 15million dollars richer this week.

later,
epic

 

[Sxotty]

I was wondering is that a lump sum, or do they dole it out slowly like the lottery . Seriously though, and how do they keep from the person just spending it to fund terrorists?

 

[nutball]

I was wondering is that a lump sum, or do they dole it out slowly like the lottery . Seriously though, and how do they keep from the person just spending it to fund terrorists?

Oh do me a favour. Believe it or not there are people in the world who don't give money to terrorists (though that doesn't include these guys).

 

[RussSchultz]

I was wondering is that a lump sum, or do they dole it out slowly like the lottery . Seriously though, and how do they keep from the person just spending it to fund terrorists?

Oh do me a favour. Believe it or not there are people in the world who don't give money to terrorists (though that doesn't include these guys).

That website locked my machine.

 

[Clashman]

I was wondering is that a lump sum, or do they dole it out slowly like the lottery . Seriously though, and how do they keep from the person just spending it to fund terrorists?

Oh do me a favour. Believe it or not there are people in the world who don't give money to terrorists (though that doesn't include these guys).

That website locked my machine.

Ditto. Seriously, take that link out. It has no relevance to the thread and it's locking up people's machines.

On a related note, Al-Douri "definately not captured":
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...q_ibrahim_denial_dc&cid=564&ncid=1478

 

[RussSchultz]

Of course, he might be captured, but the military doesn't want it known.

Or he might be dead.

Or he might be still at large.

It'd be nice if he were captured incognito so they can extract some information about him without alerting anybody about his capture (like Saddam's safehouses, for example).

 

[Clashman]

Of course, he might be captured, but the military doesn't want it known.

Or he might be dead.

That might be true, and I was going to state the same thing myself but forgot. Still, I doubt this will do anything to slow or stop attacks, given the fact that the Coalition has next to zero popular support in Iraq, (ok, the figure is closer to 20%, but it's still paltry).

In that same poll I linked to, a UN solution to Iraq was in fact the most popular non-Iraqi solution for a possible replacement of the coalition. It was still pretty ill-recieved, however. I would really like to see the whole report though, to see what range of options was offered.

 

[RussSchultz]

I'm going to have to disagree with your "zero popular support" statements.

You're spinning a news story that spun a poll.

We don't know the poll questions (or at least they're not reported in that story), all we know is the conclusion by the AFP writer: "no confidence". Though "no confidence" is apparently similar to "lack of trust" as evidenced by their next paragraph (I wouldn't define them as synonyms, however).

But you're spinning it as "zero popular support".

According to an Iraqi polling organization, cited by <http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/archives/2003_12_01_healingiraq_archive.html#107036680042431083>, a majority of Iraqis feel that attacks on coalition and Iraqi civilians are terrorism and not "resistance".

Of course, we don't know the phrasing of those questions either.

The basic truth is that the results of polls can be spun all sorts of ways to say whatever you want, especially when you're able to remove all sorts of context from the results.

 

[Clashman]

And so how do you determine popular support, Russ? Is it just completely and totally impossible to determine, to any extent whatsoever?

 

[RussSchultz]

I think polling is acceptable to gain information--but for you to proclaim "zero popular support" and cite a poll who's results and questions you can't read and the only information we glean from is an article which equates "no confidence" with "lack of trust" is spinning a spun story.

"Support", "have confidence in", and "trust" are not identical terms.

 

[Clashman]

Russ, that site you listed as having that survey shouldn't even be compared to the Oxford one. For one, they didn't even release any numbers to demonstrate the claims they said the survey pointed out. Moreover, looking at the demographics of the survey:

A sample of 816 Baghdadi's was covered by the survey (637 of them males, and 144 females). 13 of the participants carried PhD degrees, 34 with Masters degrees, 299 Bachelor degrees, 153 diplomas, 158 high school students, 96 secondary schools, and 62 from primary schools.

I find it hard to believe that they weren't just polling among their own social circles. 42.4% have a bachelor's degree or higher? Every one but one either BA or higher or enrolled in school? 78% male? (OK, I'll admit the last one could be related to social taboos, but still). You can tell just by looking at the demographics that there's no way this is representative of Iraqi sentiment as a whole.