A record 60 percent of Americans say the war in Afghanistan has not been worth fighting, according to a new poll which coincides with the Obama administration one-year review of its strategy.
Public dissatisfaction with the war, now America's longest, has spiked by 7 points just since July. Given its costs vs. its benefits, only 34 percent in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say the war's been
worth fighting, down by 9 points to a new low, by a sizable margin.
Negative views of the war for the first time are at the level of those recorded for the war in Iraq, whose unpopularity dragged George W. Bush to historic lows in approval across his second term. On average from 2005 through 2009, 60 percent called that war not worth fighting, the same number who say so, the poll found.
The public's increasingly negative assessment comes after a new strategy, including a surge of U.S. and allied forces, led to the Afghanistan war's bloodiest year. According to icasualties.org, cited by ABC, nearly 500 U.S. soldiers have been killed and 4,481 wounded in 2010, compared with 317 killed and 2,114 wounded in 2009, and 155 killed, 793 wounded in 2008.
While opposition to the war has grown, President Barack Obama himself gets more mixed reviews for handling it. This survey, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, finds that 45 percent approve of Obama's work on Afghanistan, matching his low, while 46 percent disapprove, a scant 2 points from the high. Still, that's considerably better than Bush's ratings for handling Iraq in his second term -- on average, 63 percent disapproved of how he did.
Public dissatisfaction with the war, now America's longest, has spiked by 7 points just since July. Given its costs vs. its benefits, only 34 percent in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say the war's been
worth fighting, down by 9 points to a new low, by a sizable margin.
Negative views of the war for the first time are at the level of those recorded for the war in Iraq, whose unpopularity dragged George W. Bush to historic lows in approval across his second term. On average from 2005 through 2009, 60 percent called that war not worth fighting, the same number who say so, the poll found.
The public's increasingly negative assessment comes after a new strategy, including a surge of U.S. and allied forces, led to the Afghanistan war's bloodiest year. According to icasualties.org, cited by ABC, nearly 500 U.S. soldiers have been killed and 4,481 wounded in 2010, compared with 317 killed and 2,114 wounded in 2009, and 155 killed, 793 wounded in 2008.
While opposition to the war has grown, President Barack Obama himself gets more mixed reviews for handling it. This survey, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, finds that 45 percent approve of Obama's work on Afghanistan, matching his low, while 46 percent disapprove, a scant 2 points from the high. Still, that's considerably better than Bush's ratings for handling Iraq in his second term -- on average, 63 percent disapproved of how he did.
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