Poll Finds Support for Obama's War Views-...70% Back Pullout

[babylonsister]

Poll Finds Support for Obama's War Views
Less Pessimism on Iraq, But 70% Back Pullout

By Michael A. Fletcher and Jon Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 16, 2008; Page A01


Americans are more upbeat about U.S. prospects in Iraq than at any time in the past five years, but nearly two-thirds continue to believe the war is not worth fighting and 70 percent say President-elect Barack Obama should fulfill his campaign promise to withdraw U.S. forces from the country within 16 months, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Meanwhile, most Americans support the war in Afghanistan and a slim majority said the conflict there is essential to battling global terrorism, the poll found. Yet, a majority of Americans also believe that the U.S. military action there has been unsuccessful.

Public perceptions of the two wars appear to largely dovetail with the views expressed by Obama, who has promised to begin withdrawing most combat troops from Iraq shortly after he takes office Jan. 20. Obama has advocated shifting more U.S. troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, where the U.S.-led coalition has been struggling to quell resurgent Taliban and al-Qaeda forces.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/15/AR2008121502103.html?hpid=topnews

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. "The war will end when enough bodies come home and the average citizen has to reach in his wallet to

support it." A sympathetic professor whose class we were "disrupting" while protesting the Vietnam calamity.

[sam sarrha]

2. and get out of Afghanistan, we can always just fly back and bomb a wedding anytime we want, we dont...

we dont need to be there, Bu$h messed it up so bad, it is beyond repair, he put the Talaban thugs in control.

[Bragi]

3. On Afghanistan...

I note 55 per cent say that war is worthwhile. I also note that the charts show that only 41 per cent of Democrats agree it is worthwhile.

My view is that this war isn't worthwhile, no good will come from it, it is a disaster. Obama's intention of escalating this war is not just a serious error of foreign policy, it is a serious political mistake.

I hope Obama finds a way out of the unwise, hawkish stand he has staked out on Afghanistan.

- B

[SammyWinstonJack]

4. "it is a serious political mistake."

I wonder why Obama is willing to make that mistake? :shrug: I never supported that "war" either. And I sure don't support escalating it! x(

[Bragi]

5. Here's my theory

Back when it was not politically acceptable in Washington to be against the Iraq war, Democrats in Congress supported the Afghanistan war as the alleged "good war" in contrast to Bush's "bad war" in Iraq.

In fact, once Osama and al Qaeda moved their training campsto Pakistan, the Afghanistan war no longer justified. While tossing out the Taliban was a good thing, the Bush-friendly corrupt gang of war lords and drug barons and religious extremists we set up in their place are not much different from the Taliban.

That's where we are now. For my part, I'm quite sure that as soon as we leave the same gang who have run the place for 200 years will once again resume power, and the country will slip back into its poverty and backwardness.

That's why it's a shame that Obama intends to escalate this war and make it his own. What he ought to do is to resolve this war through diplomacy and negotiations leave it to Afghans to sort it out.

I believe Obama will come to regret this decision, and as long as he pursues this unwinable war, it will act as a serious drag on his administration internationally, and eventually, domestically.

- B