The campaign to bomb Iran is centered on the Bush Administration’s stated desire to do so, supported by the establishment media, the Israeli Lobby, and the voting power of the Christian Right.
The call for attack is at a crescendo. It will not be an unimaginable holocaust upon people who have done nothing significantly to injure us, nor do they threaten the USA. Public opinion polls are playing a major part in bending Americans to accept, if not endorse, an attack on Iran.
We are inclined to think polls are taken to measure public opinion, but this is not always true. Polls are being used, if not designed, to bend opinion toward an attack. Examples are found in a recent Gallup poll on Iran, paid for by USA Today, and a Zogby Poll on Iran. The press brazenly distorted both telling readers and listeners that the majority of Americans favor a preemptive attack on Iran. The administration counts on peer pressure to diminish further opposition to attack.
Polls have value to We Hold These Truths. Both tend to confirm three long held conclusions. First, 28% or more of all Americans from all walks of life and all religions are strongly opposed not only to war in Iran, but also the continuation of war in Iraq. This group is growing.
Second, Judeo-Christians are the most feverish fans in support of war in the Middle East and an attack on Iran. They are not aliens. They are our neighbors, brothers, bosses and children. Fortunately, many who now oppose warmaking most fervently were once influence by this apostate theology. This author is an example. The Zogby poll identified them as “born again.”
The Judeo-Christians’ cheerleaders call themselves “Christian Zionists”. They are a powerful minority of some 23% of the American voting public. “Judeo-Christians” are identified by a belief that the Bible prophesies more wars and that these wars must be supported if they are deemed desirable to, or beneficial for the State of Israel, and Jews in general.
The small, but powerful, additional support for attack on Iran comes from Zionists currently known as Neo-Conservatives that includes many American Jews, and an even smaller minority of business-minded Warmakers who understand the material to gain from the conflict. The total number firmly in favor of bombing Iran appears to be about 26%, and is shrinking.
Third, the rest of Americans, some 46%, seem not to have a strong or firmly fixed opinion about war in Iran or Iraq, and can be moved and influenced by the establishment media, as well as personal contacts, which include their churches and groups like ours. Distorted public opinion polls can and are being used to soften up this big swing group.
We Hold These Truths is not a polling company, and our view and observations are informal, based largely on the careful reading of polls taken by others. Our view on what Judeo-Christians’ beliefs comes from our Vigil experiences at some 60 churches, schools, and religious organizations over the last four years. Most of these Vigils target churches influenced by Christian Zionism. We defined them as those teaching that Political Israel is the fulfillment of Biblical prophesy.
Pollster John Zogby’s family is involved in Arab humanitarian causes, is said to have Arab ancestry, and has a reputation for fairness and moderate independence from media pressure especially where the rights of the Palestinians are concerned. He might be expected to have a balanced view about Iran. But an October 27th Zogby International Poll did a disservice to the cause of peace and to the people of the Middle East and to all Americans by publishing a poll and being quoted in a varnished opinion that leads media listeners to believe that the majority of Americans favor bombing Iran. Zogby made a well-publicized interview with Tucker Carlson of MSNBC dated October 31st, in which he allowed himself to be part of an interview that concluded, “A slim majority favor a U.S. attack on Iran.” In our view, the results of his poll seem to indicate otherwise.
More damaging yet, Zogby also editorialized that the American people seem to be about as much inclined to bomb Iran as they were to hitting Iraq five years ago. His conclusions and the interpretation of his own poll seem to shade toward the Zionist- Administration bomb-‘em-now bandwagon. Zogby seems to have allowed himself to be used in the growing media push to convince us that we who do not want to see Iran bombed are in the minority. To this end, it appears that Zogby distorted his own poll by what seems to us to be a very strange interpretation.
It is buyer beware. Most polls are commercial business, including Zogby’s. A spokesman for Zogby International, Fritz Wenzel, told this writer that a client did not pay for this poll. He also stated in response to my question that for the record Zogby (Wenzel being the author) “did not construct the poll with the intent to influence politics toward war with Iran”…but considers important to probe because it will become an important issue in the 2008 election.
Zogby made his statement on MSNBC, and concluded that 52% of Americans support bombing Iran. Tucker Carlson responded that he was “stunned” because the vast majority of Americans now oppose the war in Iraq. MSNBC posted a backdrop headline reading: “Most Americans Support Strike,” while the interview was going on. Those reading the headline would assume bombing to be the popular course among the majority of Americans.
Zogby responded to Tucker Carlson’s “stunned” disbelief by explaining briefly that the 52% assumed bombing was for the purpose of preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons. But having obtusely set the record straight, Zogby then compounded the misconception by comparing the present attitude of voters to those of voters five years ago, who by a similar margin, he said, favored bombing Iraq, right after Day 911.
The tip-off that Zogby was skewing the results of his own poll is that he failed to recite the exact question asked by the poll of 1,028 persons. The Zogby International Website does not display the actual question asked in the poll. If you don’t know the question what good is the answer? Zogby’s website summarizes the poll: “a majority of likely voters – 52% – would support U. S. Military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon.” But the poll itself is not there.
To find out, we called Zogby International and obtained the results via e-mail to the actual question asked. The first thing I discovered is that only registered voters were polled. This leaves out a big part of the population, the disaffected, and dissenting. Those that are too disgusted with politics to vote are not inconsequential, nor are those old enough to pay taxes, but not yet registered. It turns out the poll was really all about which candidates are the strongest, it is not about Iran, and guess what, Hillary Clinton and Rudi Giuliani come out on top.
Question (6) which MSNBC and Zogby discussed: “Based on what you know about Iran’s development of a nuclear program, how supportive are you of a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon?” Choices: (Very supportive, somewhat supportive, not very supportive, not at all supportive, no opinion)
Zogby’s question (6) appears to be written to be a little easier to answer in the affirmative, pro-bombing, and harder to say “no” to. It assumes the person asked knows something about Iran’s nuclear program, which most of us do not. It is phrased with the hint of fear, like asking someone if they would do an aggressive act to defend himself from a thug, knowing for sure he had a gun, and is planning to rape your wife. We Hold These Truths’ volunteers hear this exact question frequently from Christian-Zionists who wish to dramatically liken the war on Iraq to self-defense at one’s own doorstep.
The Iraq poll results: 26% said they were “very supportive;” an additional 26% said they were “somewhat supportive”, and from this the 52% figure was derived; 27% were not at all supportive and the rest did not offer an opinion. What do these numbers mean?
It is no surprise that 26% of Americans would be in favor of bombing Iran because there are about that many Christian Zionists, plus a few Jewish Zionists and Arab Zionists, plus Israel favors bombing.
Who are the next 26% who are “somewhat supportive of bombing?” What value is “somewhat supportive” of bombing Iran if and only if it is to prevent nuclear weapons? Who would not be “somewhat supportive” of a question that hypothetically implied self-defense?
Does anyone oppose bombing Iran?
Question (7) in the poll was never mentioned by Zogby, but reveals a very strong negative to any bombing even if Iran is found to have nuclear weapons. Some 28.8% of those polled volunteered that the USA “should not attack” now or later. Here is the question and answer: “If U.S. leaders decide to launch a military strike against Iran, do you believe that it should be done before the end of President Bush’s term in office, or do you believe the U.S. should wait to strike until after a new President is in office?”
This question also begs for a positive choice, attack either now, or for the moderates, later. But a 28.8% answered, “should not attack.” This is 296 of the 1,028 absolutely rejecting attack even if our leaders think Iran has Nuclear Weapons.
The UN nuclear arms regulators, who were proven to be dead right about Iraq not having “weapons of mass destruction,” and who were ignored, have already recently publicly stated that Iran is telling the truth when it says it is not even attempting to accumulate weapons grade fuel. It is instead on the road to building nuclear power plants not unlike every other country that can afford to do so. The United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency also says it would take years for Iran to make a weapon, if it had such a program, which it does not. Many nuclear scientists testify that it would be a longer and slower road for just one weapon, and it takes at least one to have a test. The time lag to go nuclear is years away.
Zogby went so far as to theorize what kind of war Americans want: “a quick hit… with no ground troops.” But none of this is in the poll. How convenient is Zogby’s language for President Bush, who says he wants to make a “surgical strike” against Iran. We are supposed to believe all is great after the “surgery.” In fact, nothing kills more innocent people than long distance smart mega-bomb strikes; we just do not see the body parts flying around and being incinerated. We are talking about bombing uranium-processing sites with very large bombs.
The mainline Neo-Con sympathetic press, starting with MSNBC, is shaping Zogby’s conclusions to support bombing. It chose this headline: “Most Americans Support Strike.” The media and our Administration act outside the realm of morality, and without respect for human life. So do Christian Zionists, and so do most candidates I have heard, with the obvious exception of Ron Paul.
Zogby asks about religion in question (10.): it actually asked the 1,028 people polled if they are “born again,” to which 237, or 23.1% said “yes.” It is no coincidence that about the same percentage (26%) were “very supportive” of bombing Iran, and by reading Zogby’s own poll we can clearly state a slightly greater number outright oppose war, some 28.8%
This Zogby poll confirms what we already know, that Christian Zionists (“born again” in this poll) are the rabid public fans in favor of more devastation in the Middle East. They are most of the 26% of voters who support bombing Iran. They should naturally choose life, not war.
We who are among the 28.8% or more who unalterably oppose an attack must now convince some 80 million misled Judeo-Christians to join our narrow path toward peace. If we can do so our American civilization will not be lost.
The bright spot comes from the undecided many. It is clear for all polls that most Americans have no firm abiding opinion on war, but are influenced by propagandists we have mentioned. Our best hope is that slumbering mainline churches, and their dormant common sense for self- preservation are already at work awakening them.
Slim Majority Favor U.S. Attack on Iran to Stop Nuclear Program
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1379
Listen to the John Zogby Interview on Tucker Carlson
http://www.zogby.com/video/view.cfm?id=35
