President Obama should rethink the Afghanistan war for lots of reasons. The war isn't making us more secure. It's costing us billions (soon to be trillions) of dollars. It's costing us jobs. The war causes massive human suffering for both Afghans and Americans. We can now add another reason for the president to rethink the Afghanistan war: it's hurting his party's re-election efforts among a key constituency.
On February 18, 2010, Pew Research published a study titled "Democrats' Edge Among Millenials Slipping." The report warns that among voters born after 1980, Democrats lost more than half of their lead in party identification over Republicans during 2009. In 2008, Millennials favored Democrats over Republicans by a huge 32-percent margin (62 percent to 30 percent). That margin has now shrunk to 14 percent.
This sharp change in such a short period could be a major problem for Democrats heading into the 2010 and 2012 election cycles. Pew previously reported how important these voters were to Democratic victories in 2008:
[In 2008], 66% of those under age 30 voted for Barack Obama making the disparity between young voters and other age groups larger than in any presidential election since exit polling began in 1972.
...[Y]oung people provided not only their votes but also many enthusiastic campaign volunteers. Some may have helped persuade parents and older relatives to consider Obama's candidacy. And far more young people than older voters reported attending a campaign event while nearly one-in-ten donated money to a presidential candidate.
One of the major reasons cited by Pew for Millennials' sharp loss of enthusiasm for Democrats was young voter opposition to President Obama's policies in Afghanistan.
According to the report:
"Only about a third of Millennials (34%) approved of his handling of the situation in Afghanistan while 50% disapproved. ...That represented a sharp reversal from July, when a majority of those younger than 30 (51%) approved of Obama's performance on Afghanistan."
Why the sharp reversal? Millennials strongly disapproved of the President's December 2009 decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. And, Millenials are rapidly souring on militant foreign policy in general, with only 38 percent agreeing with the statement that "peace is best achieved through military strength."
Democrats can't afford to hang on to the dead weight of a brutal foreign policy in Afghanistan. When a war has killed thousands of children, almost a thousand American troops and cost us almost a trillion dollars, electoral peril isn't the only reason the President should rethink his policy. But it is a good reason.
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We need you. Over there.
are completely wasting
Deans 50 state strategy wins.
As for your point, Mr. Greenwald, you could not be more wrong. Losing votes would NOT be a good reason for Obama to abandon what he has always said is a vitally important policy. His job is not to do what is popular with a particular voter class, but to do what he thinks is right for the counrty.
I am no Obama fan, and voted for the other guy, but apparently I give him more credit than you do for trying to do what he thinks is right.
The Taliban are Afghans. The political problems will have to be handled by Afghans. Not by the USA.
Our men and women know that a more secure Afghanistan than what it was before when women were being beheaded and stoned on a daily basis is enough to finally make it right since Bush WASTED 8 YEARS and did nothing.
Perhaps you have in mind installing a puppet, using our fire power to bring the natives to heal, and then?
And the young people should remember that.
And the rest of us should do whatever we can do to help with financial or any kind of support if there are young people you know and care for who feel that's the only way they'll find work or get benefits.
Starve the beast of cannon fodder.
Obama campaigned on 1 or 2 more brigades.
Now it's an OPEN ENDED OCCUPATION.
RE: Sec of Def, Sec of State, and Karzai comments after the BS West P speech.
If the US needs bases for whatever reason than just build them. There is no govt to complain and there would be jobs other than drugs.
I cannot believe Bush or Obama has not destroyed the poppy fields. We once declared a war on drugs.
If the war on drugs is no longer the case then maybe the US should regulate drugs and their strength and sell them with FDA approval. I maybe wrong but it seems most overdoses occur because of the difference of how powerful the drugs are.
Though I am against drugs myself I would rather the US sell drugs than have drug cartels making billions and possibly having the money to become their own type of Teresita.
Is there a possibility the drug cartels have purchased submarines and can deliver their product virtually unnoticed on any seashore in the US.
President Obama: Please end the 2 wars now. Use intelligence and black ops to get rid of those who want to destroy America's way of life.
This shows Obama has been through the whole list. That is quite thorough innit?
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-is-really-crazy-is.html