31 December Toronto Star - Taking the Pulse of Kandahar by Oakland Ross.

Here's a novel idea: armies don't need to be great big killing machines.

They can also conduct public-opinion polls.

This, it seems, is the modern way. "It's not pure war-fighting any more," says Lt.-Cmdr. Wynn Polnicky, part of the 2,500-strong Canadian military contingent currently waging war in southern Afghanistan against a shadowy force of fundamentalist Islamic rebels known as the Taliban.

"It's pretty clear we have an insurgency here, but what really matters is what people think. So, just ask them. It's not an earth-shaking idea."...

Traditionally, armies have tended to train most of their attention – not to mention almost all of their gun sights – on the firearm-toting fighters located on the opposite side of the front line, otherwise known as the enemy.

In Polnicky's view, however, it is not just the enemy that you need to be concerned about.

It's everybody else...
31 December Prairie Pundit post - Counterinsurgency Polling by Council member Merv Benson.

... In counterinsurgency warfare the people are considered the center of gravity. They are what the fight is ultimately over. However, polling may not give you that much information even if it is negative, because the enemy in Afghanistan and Iraq is not trying to win hearts and minds, it is trying to intimidate. Most polling has shown that al Qaeda has the support of around five percent of the population in Iraq, but this lack of support has certainly not "intimidated" al Qaeda.