Steve Burns: Afghan and U.S. opinion

At a recent WNPJ antiwar working group discussion a question came up about where the US public (and, even more importantly, the Afghan people) stand on the US occupation of Afghanistan.

First, let’s look at Afghan opinion. It’s not easy to do polling in Afghanistan, so the most recent poll I could find , conducted by ABC News in partnership with the BBC through “face-to-face interviews with 1,377 Afghans in each of the country’s 34 provinces” was from December 2007.

Here’s a summary:

42 percent of Afghans rate U.S. efforts in Afghanistan positively, down steeply from 68 percent in 2005 and 57 percent last year. For the first time, the survey finds that more than half of Afghans disapprove of U.S. efforts. Just 45 percent of those in Southwest Afghanistan now support the presence of NATO forces there- dramatically down from 83 percent a year ago. Seventy-one percent of Afghans support the U.S. presence in Afghanistan - and where the U.S. is seen as strongest, its approval ratings peak.

At first, this may seem contradictory – how can people oppose US “efforts”, while supporting the US “presence”? In part, this can be explained by Afghan opposition to the Taliban (Just 13 percent of those polled expressed a favorable opinion of the Taliban, and, at the time the poll was take, Afghans preferred their current government to the Taliban by 84 - 4 percent) combined with concern that an immediate US withdrawal would mean a return to Taliban rule. The Afghan people are trapped between two bad choices and see their U.S. occupiers as the “lesser of two evils.”

But opposition to the US is on an upward trend, and opposition to the Taliban is falling. Civilian casualties caused by the US bombing and shelling are one cause for this. The report states, “In the embattled Southwest… 60 percent report civilians killed or injured by U.S. or NATO forces, 55 percent report bombing or shelling by such forces, and as many, 55 percent, report civilian casualties at the hands of the Taliban, al Qaeda or foreign jihadi fighters – so people are witnessing roughly as many attacks by the U.S. as by the Taliban. Asked to name the prime cause of the violence in their country, 36 percent of Afghans name the Taliban, and an additional 22 percent cite al Qaeda or foreign jihadi fighters. Nineteen percent cite either U.S. or NATO forces. Since this poll was taken, there have been some well-publicized U.S. air attacks that have caused large numbers of civilian casualties, so we can expect the balance of public opinion in Afghanistan to have tipped even more against the U.S.

Turning to U.S. public opinion, a Sept. 2008 poll found strong opposition to proposals by both McCain and Obama to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan:

By 66-34 percent, Americans oppose proposals to send more troops to Afghanistan, either redeployed from Iraq or sent from elsewhere. Rather, Americans favor gradually withdrawing troops from both countries by 74-26 percent.

And a July 2008 poll found that 51 percent believe the U.S. must win in Afghanistan for the “War on Terror” to be a success. Although this result was reported by Fox News as “Polls Show Support for Afghanistan Mission”, I find 51% to be remarkably weak support, given the emphasis Obama has given to Afghanistan being the “right war”, while he criticizes Iraq for being the “wrong war.” All of this rhetoric has been good for only a 9 point spread in the polls, since 60 percent responded that the U.S. War on Terror could be a success without winning the war in Iraq. A better reading, I think, is that Americans are becoming more skeptical of the “War on Terror” overall, and don’t make as much of a distinction between Iraq and Afghanistan as their “leaders” do.

Finally, I recommend that anyone interested in Afghanistan read Anand Gopal’s recent report on the situation there. Gopal claims that Afghanistan did see a “surge” of U.S. forces (and U.S. violence) in 2007 (foreign troops increased by 45% in one year), and that this surge only succeeded in turning an even greater number of Afghans against the U.S., while doing little to increase security or advance reconstruction. It’s an especially important warning to hear, given that the number of U.S. troops going to Afghanistan is going to see a large increase next year, no matter who wins the election.