Reply to comment
Afghan War - Support for Withdrawal
Mon, 07/05/2010 - 18:20
Printer-friendly version
Two elite battles over Afghanistan have dominated recent headlines: the firing/resignation of General McChrystal and RNC Chairman Steele’s blundering honesty. Interestingly, despite the media storms, neither seems to have aroused any public anger. Recent polls may indicate why:- End-the-war – More Americans believe that it is important to “end the war” (48%) rather than to “win the war” (42%) according the Republican-oriented Rasmussen Reports.
- Get-out-deadline – Most Americans (58%) favor a timetable for withdrawal ; a further 7% believe that it should be sooner than the June 2011 deadline declared by President Obama according to a Gallup Poll.
- Not-most-important – With more than a fifth of all new coverage, the McChrystal story came in a distant 2nd as the most interesting story (53% against 7%) in a Pew Research Center poll.
Strikingly, these results come about in the absence of major antiwar initiatives to demand withdrawal. These measures of public sentiment suggest that a credible antiwar movement will find a public that is receptive to its message.
