The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #97835   Message #1953674
Posted By: TIA
31-Jan-07 - 12:35 PM
Thread Name: BS: Maliki doesn't want more U.S. troops
Subject: RE: BS: Maliki doesn't want more U.S. troops
Dickey says:
"I prefer facts like that poll that shows the the number of people believing there was a connection between Saddam and 9/11 went down during the time of the supposed propaganda campaign instead of up."
Teribus echoes:
"The fact that numbers associating Saddam Hussein with 911 reducing during your so-called "highly successful" campaign is a rather telling point against your arguement, that you have completely failed to address."

Okay, I'll address this one. Two answers--

1) Asserting that the observation that the poll numbers on belief in the Saddam-911 connection showed a decline during the propaganda campaign proves that there was no campaign could be an example of the "Post Hoc" logical fallacy. That is, temporal coincidence does not necessarily imply causation. Roosters crowing do not cause the sun to rise.

2) Let's assume that there might be a level of causation. One would still need a control group to determine whether the propaganda cmapaign was effective. For instance, if the Bush Administration had not been engaged in a propaganda campaign, the level of belief may have dropped very quickly to zero.

So, it seems silly to throw out all of the widely documented instances of propaganda based on a fallacious, or at least deficient, analysis of polling data.