please help me

[Stephen]

A diplomatic plan involving negotiations between the US and Country X to free the hostages.

That's pretty wide open. I mean, the obvious gist they are going for is a non-violent solution.

However, there is always some sort of "or else" factor to the negotiations. If not, then there is no teeth and thus no compelling reason for either side to adhere to the agreement. The U.S. does what it says "or else" the hostages are killed. The other country lets the hostages go "or else" some punishment is delivered.

Therefore, if the negotiations had a reasonable "or else" involvement then my support increases. If the negotiations are simply open our wallets and take what you want, oh, and if you would be so kind, it'd be jolly great if you could let the hostages go, I'd be less likely to support it.

This "poll" had an obivous slant in the way the question was asked. (But then again, they all do.)

-Stephen

[ctenidae]

I took the question to mean at the outset of the crisis. Might be interesting to run a series of questions, getting further along in the crisis, to see when people's original idea changes.

[alamb]

Actually, that would be really interesting, but I think most people would catch on.

[riverc0il]

my suspicion is that survey has less to do with politics and more to do with perception and attitudes. i thought it brilliant asking if you would be for or against action then asking what percentage of people would poll for or against. puts your measure of where your opinion stands in comparison to how you feel the rest of society sees things. looking for a correlation between your own opinion and how you view the rest of societies' opinions. i do not think it is not meant to be an accurate description of united states policy (the example in the survey would indeed be severely lacking in both details and a realistic situation), but perception of others in comparison to your own opinion.

perhaps a less "charged" topic for the survey would have been in order. but that seems more like a psychological survey than a political one to me in any case. i'd love to see the analysis and charts on that one, nice idea.