Majority of Americans Say Afghan War Not Worth Fighting

According to a recent Washington Post-ABC Poll, the majority of Americans say the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting.

Usually, I don't take kindly to polling data; they are ephemeral snapshots of public opinion that fluctuate with the prevailing political winds. But I will say (as I've said before) that Central Asia holds little intrinsic strategic value to the United States. In that respect, I can understand why Americans are growing skeptical of continuing what's become an "aimless absurdity."

America's flagging support for the war comes as millions of Afghans head to the polls to elect their next president. Hamid Karzai, the incumbent, is the front-runner, but if he is unable to secure more than 50% of the vote there will be a run-off scheduled for early October. Given the pervasive levels of corruption within his own government, if Karzai ends up winning, America and the international community might be perceived as propping up an illegitimate government; however, if Karzai loses, it might further alienate the country's largest minority group, the Pashtuns, among whom Karzai, and the Taliban, pull most of their support.

This morning, New York Times reporter Carlotta Gall writes from Kabul, "initial reports from witnesses suggested that the turnout was uneven, with higher participation in the relatively peaceful north than in the troubled south."

Before the elections, Taliban militants, mainly concentrated in the southern and eastern provinces but now spreading to the north, threatened to cut off fingers marked with purple ink used to indicate when someone casts a vote. Ms. Gall writes: "In the southern city of Kandahar, witnesses said, insurgents hanged two people because their fingers were marked with indelible ink used to denote that they had voted." Wow! Maybe the elections will be a watershed moment in Afghanistan's history: the democracy experiment comes as a death sentence.

On a lighter note, there are already allegations of voter fraud. An inspection of the rolls revealed the name of an unlikely voter, "Britney Jamilia Spears," one of a number of phantom voters.

Many people would agree that the atmosphere surrounding Afghanistan's presidential elections is analogous to the country as a whole: dysfunctional. Candidates are forging alliances with warlords; tribal elders are being offered jobs, territory, and forgiveness of past sins to secure their allegiance; and Britney Spears is a registered Afghan voter. It's about time that America narrow its objectives and start bringing the military mission to a close.

Malou Innocent is a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Washington, D.C. This post originally appeared on Cato at Liberty, August 20, 2009.

Comments

[Nonamnesiac]

An alliance of liberal Democrats (because of Obama) and neo-Cons are pushing to escalate in Afghanistan and to maintain substantial residual forces in Iraq against US interests and our ability to fund these wars. As a result, despite a heavily Democratic House and Senate and a President who won because he effectively misrepresented himself as against the Iraq War when he didn't have to vote on it, the government passed a Bush-clone $100+ billion supplemental appropriation for Iraq and Afghanistan this year. In addition, the Obama is dishonestly creating a fantasy that Afghanistan is a war of "necessity" and not a war of "choice" -- a lie even greater than the ones told by Bush, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld, Cheney, etc. about Iraq having WMDs and being involved in 9/11. He's lying, claiming that a country geometrically weaker militarily and economically than the US with a friendly puppet government is a threat to our national interests warranting that we fight an unaffordable war.

The liberals lie and act as if it takes years to pull out of wars we cannot afford and shouldn't be in anyway, claiming the commander-in-chief (Obama) doesn't have the authority to get out.

The liberal Democrats are as complicit in the murder and maiming as the neo-Cons are now.

[jedthekidd]

i don't know who's running this blog but i just lost two long comments waiting for approval. Nothing offensive, just common input. Get it together. Maybe i'll try again on your next article.

[jedthekidd]

I'm with all of you that want to end the war, that's another reason we voted the way we did. The problem is that right now we are fighting for a public option in health care reform, and that's a heavy lift. I think that ending the war is even more important but their is no proposal for that right now. support for this administration is diminishing as it is right now. If we pass a strong health care bill with a public option it will be a huge victory, and the soldiers will benefit from the changes, lord knows their emotional states are going to need it. The problem with taking on too many issues at once is we tend to water down support for each individual issue. We need to stay on message and together we'll get it all. I hear there is a plan to protest on Martha's Vineyard while Obama is on vacation, the media will cover that and not the support efforts for healthcare. we can't be a distraction right now, support for Obama is already diminishing and before you know it he'll be a lame duck. The republicans are taking full advantage of these distractions. We will all stay together to send the end the war message next, we can't divide right now. I am a veteran of six years of service in the Army Infantry and I want it as much as you. Let's just use our media attention showing support not protest.

[jedthekidd]

I stand with all you liberals and others that want to see our troops come home, they've been gone way to long now. But here's the thing, I understand that some propose to protest out on Martha's Vineyard while Obama is on vacation and that amounts to another distraction right now. We all want our issues solved right away, I get that, that is why we voted the way we did. Health care is a heavy lift and requires us all showing our support right now. the media will be covering the protests instead of the support, this just watersdown the effect of both actions. If we win on the public option and pass health care reform the administration will become much more popular again. The polls already show a decrease in support so lets not fuel the republicans with more democratic distress. One issue at a time. We need to stay on message, I'll be with you on ending the war after the health care bill is passed. Do no harm. I am not saying that ending the war is any less important, it's just not the bill of the moment. In fact I think it is more important. But those soldiers need alot of help when they get home and this bill will provide it. We are weakening our hand by diluting it, and the republicans know it!!!

[jeffd]

(2 of 2)

And I don't say this as a mere armchair admiral who's never been out of his hometown; I've lived in a dozen countries, visited nearly 30 more, am living in an authoritarian, repressive 'republic' as I write this... decades after having raised my right hand in a room with 22 other Americans and swearing, among other things, to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic..."

People have a tendency to forget those last two words I've quoted. If we keep on the path we are, then we are quite likely, in my view, to lose what has made America truly unique - and it won't be because of the Koreans, or the Afghans, or the Mexican drug lords. It will be because of ourselves, and the fact that we decided we didn't have to put our honor where our words were.

[jeffd]

(1 of 2 - when will this SMS-length limit be fixed?)

Afghanistan is the war we SHOULD have fought instead of the worse-than­-pointless Iraq boondoggle. W wanted to show that he could be bigger than his pappy, and we're going to pay the price for a century. Not merely in squandered treasure, though there were trillions thrown away there, but most importantly in the trust and patience of Americans who have learned that Iraq was a mistake and now believe that Afghanistan "must" be a similar mistake, because we've been there "so long" and the screaming right wingnuts, now that they're no longer running the show, pooh-pooh it at every turn.

But Afghanistan is still vital for America, still and always a strategic national goal, for two main reasons. First, is what's been dismissed as the "Pottery Barn rule" - we helped break it, we promised to help fix it, and we should keep our word. If we don't, why would ANYONE believe us in future? With North Korea a serious threat, and a resurgent, aggressive Russia and China, we are still the only major power that believes as we do, that we have always stood for; if we back down, as the isolationists urge, then we face the likelihood that liberal democracy will, a century from now, be seen as merely a quaint fad that the West engaged in for a couple of centuries before the system was overturned by people more committed to their ideals.

[noneIn2008]

Obama goes to the VFW and promises more troops and "winning". Instead, he has the votes, get us out now.

[Wayne1ea]

Afghanistan was a money hole for the Russians in the 80's, and now we are there fighting the very people we backed during that war. Since we have been there, Poppy production is way up and the Taliban is now in Pakistan. The way I see it is that we have done more harm than good.

Rumsfield was clueless on how to fight a war in Afghanistan (and Iraq), I'm not so sure our leaders today are much better. I just don't believe anything can be accomplished at this point.

[doneflyin]

Got to have a war somewhere to keep the money flowing to the war profiteers.
We've been in some war somewhere since WWII. War is what we do.
Stomping about in little countries that are no threat to us but have resources we covet.
We never would pick on any country that has nukes or a good size military. Wonder why oil rich Iran wants their own nuclear power?

[FilthyHarry]

I know a lot of iraq war protesters/doubters will often qualify their anti-war feelings with an acknowledgment that the Afghan war was necessary, cause of obl/al-qeda, but I say that had we an administration with any respect for diplomacy and just the tiniest bit less war lust, we'd needn't have gone to Afghanistan either.

It was just as ginned up as the Iraq war was.

[ThinkCreeps]

Well, any necessity was only necessary in 2001.

Send in the drones.

[jedthekidd]

The fact that they hate western civilization is no bluff. One only needs to know one of the fallen in 9/11 to realize the threat is real. I'll admit we're years late and war sick. Thanks George. I have faith that Obama is no Bush.

[Scoppertop]

Our troops are guarding the Caspian oil pipeline. Let the oil companies hire their own security forces. I hear Xe is available.

[neverbeenfooled]

I think it is foolish to believe that simply by withdrawing our forces from Afghanistan we wii cure the problems that Country represnts to us.Unchecked, a resurgent Taliban and Al Queda could place us in the same jeopardy we experienced on 9/11. And then there is the future of Pakistan to worry about.

[HalfBakedSushi]

Do you realize that the holes in our health care system, the ability of US insurance companies to deny benefits, and the pervasiveness of bankruptcy due to medical bills kill 15,000 people every year in the US? That's FIVE(!) 9/11s every year.

So. Where would you like your money spent?

[ThinkCreeps]

There's no prospect of a cure. However, the steady treatment from above seems to be keeping betowelled heads down.

[noneIn2008]

We heard a similar argument on Vietnam.

[robbep]

We cldve prevented 9/11 had the Bush administration taken the threats seriously. We knew their plans before they acted out. The Taliban nvr attacked us and has no interest in doing so. And the people who committed the crime on 9/11 died in the plane crash. We are borrowing billions of dollars from China to prevent 1000 people from attacking us. It is absurd. They never have to attack us again bcz they are watching us bleed ourselves dry to counter the threat of terrorism. We dont have money to provide healthcare to our citizens but we can finance two wars ? We need to look at who is making money off of these wars and then we will see why we are constantly at war. It is time to bring these troops home and end these fruitless acts of agression against third world countries. Obama is as much a war monger as Bush and what is ironic is that the US has put a black face and a muslim name on the same imperialism.

[GreatNews27]

Our Unitary Executive disagrees. And seeing that he and he alone makes the rules, well, sit down and shut up or be declared an 'Enemy Combatant' and go to jail.

[hrholmes]

Can you spell opiates? Have you seen the pictures of our troops guarding the poppy fields? Do the folks at Cato let you out or let you read the internets also too? Some think tank, more like a storage tank! lol

[Telemachus]

I like the Cato Institute. The name reminds me of a character in the original "Pink Panther" movies -- and they are just as wily and perceptive as Inspector Clouseau.

[noneIn2008]

Specific points of objection?

[davism97]

I personally just don't understand why we're there at all. Are we accomplishing anything beneficial for our country? What are we gaining? I want hard facts showing me why Afghanistan is worth dying for.

The neo-cons let Bin Laden get away back in 2001 so they could invade Iraq. We missed our chance then. There's no reason to stay.

[noneIn2008]

Agree, there is no reason to stay other than feed the military industrial complex. We missed in 2001 and we missed under Clinton. The Dems and Reps are fed by the same special interests. Why are we there, take one example: GE needs to make more aircraft engines and install more power plants in Afghanistan.

[robbep]

that is it. companies like ge depend on war I wonder how much ge has given the obama adms.