Poll: 7 in 10 Afghans support US forces

[cali]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100111/ap_on_re_as/as_afghan_poll;_ylt=AvT6cEcU1N9HC75Xml4RVISs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNlNWc3NzhoBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMTExL2FzX2FmZ2hhbl9wb2xsBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMQRwb3MDMgRwdANob21lX2Nva2UEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDcG9sb

****NOTE****

I have no idea if this poll is an accurate reflection of Afghani sentiment. I am not endorsing it as such. In any case, I remain convinced that we need to get the fuck out of Afghanistan.

KABUL – Nearly seven in 10 Afghans support the presence of U.S. forces in their country, and 61 percent favor the military buildup of 37,000 U.S. and NATO reinforcements now deploying, according to a poll released Monday.

Support for U.S. and NATO forces, however, drops sharply in the south and east where the fighting is the most intense, the poll said.

Nationwide, 10 percent of Afghans support the Taliban, but the insurgents are backed by a higher percent of the population — 27 percent — in the country's southwest, the poll said.

The poll of a national random sample of 1,534 Afghan adults was conducted from Dec. 11 to Dec. 23 by ABC News, the BBC and ARD German TV, their fifth since 2005. The poll has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Field work was done by the Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research in Kabul, a subsidiary of D3 Systems Inc. in Vienna, Va.

After steep declines in recent years, nearly seven in 10 Afghans also think their nation is headed in the right direction. That's up 30 percent since January 2009. The number of Afghans who expect their lives will be better a year from now also has jumped 20 percentage points from a year ago — to a new high of 71 percent, the poll said.

Moreover, 61 percent of the Afghans surveyed said they expect the next generation will have a better life — up 14 percent in the past 12 months, according to the poll.

[niyad]

1. who did the poll, who was their target audience? with their country being destroyed, I find it

really hard to believe that number.

[seabeyond]

2. heard it on bbc. bbc and another did the poll. nt

[niyad]

4. and who was their poll pool, as it were? that 7 out of 10 doesn't seem to match anything I see

on international news.

[seabeyond]

5. i cant word for word it so hesitent typing it. i like facts accurate. but hittin every major city

or whatever.... polled 1500 people

what i pulled from it hearing it, not able to word for word, was they went to lengths to get the different areas into the poll.

they also said 90% wanted this current govt to taliban

[GreenMetalFlake]

6. Precisely. This is pure Damage Control

[kirby]

3. Flowers and sweets, I tell ya! n/t

[TheKentuckian]

7. Good, they can pay for it then and maybe fight their own battles