Public+Opinion+on+the+Conflict



 This page will discuss how the American public's opinion has changed from before the conflict and how they view it currently, during the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan.



In a news analysis article from USA Today, states that "neither U.S. nor world opinion would have stood for such aggression before the fall of 2001." This was of course, before the 9/11 attacks.

Also included in this article, Clinton stated that, "is that we have to put ourselves into the pre-9/11 mode...It would be very hard pre-9/11 to have persuaded anybody that an invasion of Afghanistan was appropriate. I think it did take the mega-shock, unfortunately, of 9/11 to make people understand the considerable thread."

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell also spoke up about the public's change in opinion from pre-9/11 to after the devastating attack. He said that "the option of an invasion was not seriously considered until a week before the September 11th attacks, when Bush's senior foreign policy advisers approved a detailed counterterrorism strategy. Even then, an invasion was a last option in a plan that was designed to rely first on diplomacy and would take three year to implement."

According to a Gallup poll given to adults in the United States, in July of 2008, 59% of adults favored sending additional troops to Afghanistan, 38% percent opposed sending more troops, and 3% were unsure.

In the case of moving U.S. troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to help fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorist operations in Afghanistan, 57% percent of the polled adults favoured this action, 36% opposed it, and 7% were unsure.

More recent polls taken in June of 2009 show that the American public has lost confidence in our presence in Afghanistan. When asked their impression on how the war in afghanistan is going, 2% responded that the war was going "very well." 28% responded that they believed the war was going "somewhat well," 40% percent surveyed said that the war was going "somewhat badly," 15% percent said "very badly," and 15% of the persons polled said they are unsure of how well the war is going.