Awareness of US Opinion On The War
One study has compared the number of insurgent attacks in Iraq to the number of "anti-resolve" statements in the US media, the release of public opinion polls, and geographic variations in access to international media by Iraqis. The purpose was to determine if insurgents responded to information on "casualty sensitivity." The researchers found that insurgent attacks spiked by 5 to 10% after increases in the number of negative reports of the war in the media. The authors identified this as an "emboldenment effect" and concluded "insurgent groups respond rationally to expected probability of US withdrawal."
In a response, Camillo Mac Bica has expressed surprise that an "unpublished . . . working paper" had excited as much interest as it did among media outlets and bloggers. He argued that the research methodology utilized in this study was flawed and that the researchers, despite recognizing and acknowledging the inadequacies of their argument, continued to draw conclusions not indicated by their findings.
Read more about this topic: Iraq War Insurgent Attacks
Famous quotes containing the words awareness of, awareness, opinion and/or war:
“Awakening in the morning returns us to life, and to awareness of death.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Introspection is self-improvement and therefore introspection is self-centeredness. Awareness is not self-improvement. On the contrary, it is the ending of the self, of the “I,” with all its peculiar idiosyncrasies, memories, demands, and pursuits. In introspection there is identification and condemnation. In awareness there is no condemnation or identification; therefore, there is no self-improvement. There is a vast difference between the two.”
—Jiddu Krishnamurti (b. 1895)
“Government by average opinion is merely a circuitous method of going to the devil; those who profess to lead but in fact slavishly follow this average opinion are simply the fastest runners and the loudest squeakers of the herd which is rushing blindly down to its destruction.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)