Survey: Fight for “hearts and minds” lost
BAGHDAD — Millions of Iraqis believe that suicide attacks against British troops are justified, according to a secret military poll commissioned by senior officers and released by The Sunday Telegraph in Britain.
The poll, commissioned by the British Ministry of Defense, shows that up to 65 percent of Iraqi citizens support attacks and less than 1 percent think allied military involvement is helping to improve security. It demonstrates for the first time the depth of anti-Western feeling in Iraq, more than two and a half years after the war commenced.
The nationwide survey also suggests that the coalition has lost the battle to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, which both Pres. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair consider fundamental to creating a safe and secure country.
The discouraging news follows the resignation last week of British Army Lt. Col. Nick Henderson, who was in charge of security in Basra, and voiced concerns over a lack of armored vehicles for his men.
The poll appears to contradict recent claims made by Gen. Sir Mike Jackson, chief of Britain’s general staff, who congratulated soldiers for "supporting the Iraqi people in building a new and better Iraq."
According to Andrew Robathan, the Tory party’s shadow defense minister, the results indicate a complete failure of government policy. “The coalition is now part of the problem and not the solution,” he said. “I am not advocating a pullout, but if British soldiers are putting their lives on the line for a cause which is not supported by the Iraqi people then we have to ask the question, 'what are we doing there?' ”
The Sunday Telegraph disclosed last month that a plan for early withdrawal of British troops was shelved due to the chaotic security situation. That provoked comments by dissenting officials about Iraq becoming "Britain's own Vietnam."
The poll also revealed that 45 percent of Iraqis believed attacks against British and U.S. troops were justified, rising to 65 percent in the British-controlled Maysan province. Overall, 82 percent were "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops; 67 percent felt less secure because of the occupation, and 43 percent believed conditions for peace and stability had worsened.
The poll, conducted in August, also debunked claims by both the U.S. and British governments that the general well being of the average Iraqi is improving. For security reasons, the Iraqi university research team that conducted the survey wasn’t told the data would be used by coalition forces.
Emotions distort crisis decisions, researchers say
PITTSBURGH — "War is the quintessential issue where immediate emotions and passions hold sway, often at the expense of an evaluation of long-term consequences," notes Jules Lobel, a University of Pittsburgh professor and co-author of a new study about the impact of emotional responses on public policy and international affairs.
In a paper published by the Chicago-Kent Law Review, he and Carnegie Mellon University professor George Loewenstein draw on recent scientific and social research to conclude that the sense of perpetual crisis that emerged during the Cold War and escalated after 9/11 has distorted the true risk of being killed in a terrorist attack and led policymakers to respond with an expansion of federal law enforcement powers, cumbersome security measures, and a war that may be self-defeating.
Human decision-making is governed by two neural systems, the deliberative and the affective, or emotional. The latter, which the authors dub “emote control,” is much older, and helped early humans to meet basic needs and respond quickly to danger. As humans evolved, however, they developed the ability to consider the long-term consequences of their behavior and weigh the costs of choices.
"Moderate levels of fear, anger or any almost any form of negative emotion warn the deliberative system that something is wrong and that its capabilities are required,” Loewenstein explained in a summary of the research released by Carnegie Mellon. “Perversely, as emotion intensifies, however, it tends to assume control over behavior even as it triggers the deliberative system, so one may realize what the best course of action is, but find one's self doing the opposite."
The researchers conclude that emotional responses can prompt government officials to make decisions in response to a crisis with little regard to the long-term consequences. In terms of public policy, they say that when people are angry, afraid or in elevated emotional states, they tend to favor symbolic, viscerally satisfying solutions to problems over more substantive, complex, but ultimately more effective policies.
"The problem of vivid, emotional miscalculation of risk is particularly acute in the context of antiterrorism, since fear is a particularly strong emotion, impervious to reason," Lobel said.
One of their prescriptions is that government should adopt legal safeguards that slow the pace of decision-making so that lawmakers have time to weigh the consequences of their choices.
Satellite study shows greater rainforest loss
PALA ALTO, CA — Brazil's Amazon rainforest — one of the most biologically productive regions on the planet — is disappearing twice as fast as scientists previously estimated, according to a report discussed in the Christian Science Monitor.
Ecologist Gregory Asner and his colleagues at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology in Palo Alto, CA, reached this conclusion after developing a new way to analyze satellite images to track logging there.
The team has traced the additional loss to selective and possibly illegal logging. The technique removes trees piecemeal from a forest, rather than carving large swaths, making it easier to hide. Asner’s project marks the first time satellites have been used to track selective logging. The results initially appeared in the journal Science.
Selective logging increases a forest's vulnerability to wildfires, undermines its biological productivity, and releases nearly 100 million tons of additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, the research claims.
For Daniel Nepstad, an ecologist at the Woods Hole Research Center, an environmental policy and research organization, the study "puts to rest a longstanding debate about how extensive selective logging is in the Amazon."
Asner plans to use the new technique to look at other tropical rainforests, such as those in Peru and Bolivia.
posted November 1, 2005
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