Meeting Resistance

“Meeting Resistance” is a film by Steve Connors and Molly Bingham and tries to understand the insurgency in Iraq from the insurgent’s perspective.

Crooks and Liars has some more videos about the film.

If democracy stands for anything, it is belief that public opinion matters. In that vein, it is useful to look at the polls out of Iraq. Here are some additional results in pdf form. Here are a few results, I found interesting.

Q30 Thinking about the political action of other people, do you find each of these items to be acceptable or not acceptable?

	Acceptable	Not acceptable	Refuse/don’t know
Attacks on Coalition forces	51%	49%	–
2004 survey	17%	78%	5%
Attacks on Iraqi government forces	12%	88%	–

Q38 Who do you blame the most for the violence that is occurring in the country?

The United States/coalition forces	31%
President Bush	9%
The Iraqi government	8%
The Iraqi army	1%
Iraqi police	1%
Sunni militias/leaders	5%
Shiite militias/leaders	6%
Sectarian disputes	8%
Al Qaeda/foreign jihads	18%
Common criminals	6%
Iran	7%
Other	–
Refused/don’t know	–

Q54 Do you think that the following countries are or are not actively engaged in encouraging sectarian violence within Iraq?

	Yes, actively engaged	No, not actively engaged	Refuse/don’t know
Syria	66%	34%	–
Iran	71%	29%	–
Saudi Arabia	56%	44%	–

The concerning factors are Iraqis increasingly see the U.S. as the cause the instability in Iraq, are unsatisfied with progress being made on multiple fronts and see practically all outside influence as problematic.  I don’t know if a coherent public policy can be made out of the poll, but trends, particularly the increases in acceptability in attacking coalition forces portends future trouble.