I recently read in The Week that 71% of Afghans expect that life will get better, and that the Taliban enjoys a favorability rating of less than 10%. So it begs the question for me: how are these public opinion surveys being conducted in a country with more rocket launchers and poppy plants than indoor toilets? It is difficult to imagine the compensation plan that would encourage an eager pollster to walk from cave to cave, armed only with a clipboard and a nervous smile, asking multiple-choice questions of the skittish citizenry. Robo-calling local residents seems out of the question, with so many unlisted cell phone numbers and the limitations of the ‘soup-cans-connected-by-string’ technology. I guess that leaves only one possibility – the opinion survey results are modeled (see “fabricated”) using the answers from a limited number of respondents. There is no one who could reasonably prove that the statistics are inaccurate, so why not shape a little world public opinion to match political objectives?
82% of Afghans agree with me on this point.
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