6 US Troops Killed in Afghanistan;
War Loses Majority Support
The US military announced on Wednesday that 6 US troops had been killed in Afghanistan.
As Afghans go to the polls in what is being widely decried as a flawed presidential election, a new Washington Post- ABC News opinion poll shows that American support for the Afghanistan War is collapsing. For the first time in two years, the percentage of Americans who said that the war was worth fighting fell below 50, all the way down to 47. Only 31 percent felt strongly about it being worth fighting.
The bad news for Obama is that liberals and Democrats are far more hostile to the Afghanistan War than are Republicans. The Democratic majority in the House and the Senate could, if these numbers keep going south, become sufficiently afraid of their constituents that they vote to stop funding the war. Some close observers of Washington think the president only has a year or two before that confrontation with Congress takes place.
Afghans began voting for president Thursday morning. AFP reports that in the Pashtun south, many fewer people went to the polling station to vote than in the more secure north. The Taliban and other anti-government forces have threatened Afghans who try to vote with violence. (Some have said they will cut off fingers dyed with purple ink-- dying the finger is a way for the authorities to make sure people don't vote twice.) A light turnout in the south might well allow Abdullah Abdullah, whose base is in the center and the north, to force incumbent president Hamed Karzai into a run-off election.
End/ (Not Continued)
posted by Juan Cole @ 8/20/2009 12:19:00 AM
|
Facebook
4 Comments:
I have to strongly disagree with you on one thing, Dr. Cole.
Despite how unpopular the Iraq war became, and indeed how unpopular it remains now, it is still funded without question by our representatives.
I could be wrong here, but I don't remember any of these supplemental war spending bills (that are apparently keeping these wars going) coming up against any amount of resistance in Congress. Again, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that this is the case.
There are a few representatives out there who are willing to stand up to the establishment and suffer the wrath of the "you don't support the troops" mantra (Dennis Kucinich comes to mind), but they are in the severe minority.
This so-called election is nothing more than ceremonial bromide. Afghanistan isn’t even a nation, much less a democracy. It is just an area occupied by tribes of barbarians. The so-called national government can’t even secure its own capital city. The president is still sucking air only through the grace of his western patrons. And donkey loads of ballots are about to make a change? Give me a break.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/20/headlines#5
August 20, 2009
Oxfam: Third of Afghans at Risk of Hunger
By Amy Goodman
On the eve of the Afghan vote, the international aid group Oxfam warned Afghans continue to face dire humanitarian conditions. According to Oxfam, one in three Afghans is at risk of hunger. A pregnant Afghan woman dies an average of every thirty minutes. Oxfam called on the US-led occupation force to boost aid efforts. The US spends an estimated $100 million a day on military and security operations in Afghanistan, while the overall aid budget for all donors combined is less than $7 million a day.
Frankly I'm not surprised the Afghan war has lost support. You could see at the time he chose it that Obama was making an uninformed choice.
Post a Comment
<< Home