Well...it is bigger than the Coalition of the Willing

Remember the University of Maryland study (from PIPA, the Program on International Policy Attitudes) released on October 2, 2003? Lots of bloggers (like Calpundit) noted its finding that Fox News viewers had more misperceptions about the Iraq war than those who received their news from other media outlets.

One major misperception was that most of the world agreed with the war against Iraq. The truth was that the Coalition of the willing including Britain, Spain, Italy, Australia and a bunch of weak states. Most of the world openly or silently backed critical states like France, Germany, and Russia.

In any case, one way the falsehood was perpetuated, perhaps, was that administration sources kept mentioning how large and impressive the coalition was -- some even implying that it was stronger than the one behind the Persian Gulf War (despite the fact that the earlier war was funded 2/3 by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and much of the rest was paid by Germany and Japan).

Anyway, I wonder if Fox viewers will pick up the news story about one large group of states that is pretty clearly not supportive of America's war and occupation.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has 57 state members and is currently meeting in Malaysia.

According to the BBC, secretary-general Abdelouahed Belkeziz led off by calling for the US (and other members of the Coalition of the Willing) to get out of Iraq.

Addressing the start of the conference on Saturday, Mr Belkeziz said of all the conflicts involving Muslims, the occupation of Iraq and the Palestinian problem needed to be addressed most urgently.

"Foremost of these is the eviction of foreign forces from Iraq, allowing the United Nations to administer Iraqi affairs,"
He told senior officials the Islamic world had been "in the face of the storm" in the three years since the last triennial summit in 2000.

As far as Iraq was concerned, he said the people there had "been afflicted by the occupation of their territories, usurpation of their sovereignty, denial of their independence, destruction, plunder and burning of their country".

He called for Islamic commitment to address the situation following the US-led invasion "with a view to salvaging Iraq and helping its people".

The OIC was formed in 1969 and its summit is going to be attended by leaders from 35 Islamic states. Russia's Putin is also going to attend, as will Kofi Annan (this info from the Reuters story).

It's a big deal.

And many, many of those states are very unhappy with the American occuption of Iraq.

Next week, we will know if they manage to pass some sort of resolution against the occupation. Turkey will be opposed, but who else?