Opposition To The War In Afghanistan Is Very High

The illegal invasion and occupation of Afghanistan has now entered its 13th year, and there is still another year to go before the U.S. will pull any of its troops out of that country. President Obama has promised to end the war by the end of 2014, but that's just a bit of an untruth. What the united States wants to do, and probably will do, is to leave 10,000 troops in Afghanistan for many more years -- perhaps another 10 years or more.

But if they do that, it will be against the wishes of the American people. A new CNN / ORC Poll (taken between December 16th and 19th of a random nationwide sample of 1,035 adults, with a margin of error of 3 points) shows that the Afghan occupation has become very unpopular in the United States.

Back in 2008, even though the war had dragged on for 7 years and was accomplishing nothing, a slim majority of Americans (52%) still supported it. But the bottom has dropped out of support for the war/occupation. Now only 17% of the population supports it, while a whopping 82% does not. That makes this military action in Afghanistan the most unpopular one in modern U.S. history. Opposition to the war in Vietnam never got over 60%, and opposition to the second Iraq invasion (and occupation) topped out at 69%.

We should never have invaded Afghanistan in the first place, and the poll shows that 57% of the public believes it was a mistake. That same 57% would support withdrawing all of our troops before the December 2014 timeline of President Obama. The truth is that we have not accomplished much (if anything) by invading Afghanistan, except to replace one corrupt government with another and cause the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and innocent Afghan citizens -- and there is little chance that staying longer will accomplish anything more.

The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan has been a terrible mistake, and it is time to put an end to it. The United States should immediately withdraw ALL troops from Afghanistan.