A Groundswell for Significant Afghanistan Withdrawal

By Robert Greenwald and Derrick Crowe

As President Obama prepares to announce his intentions for how many troops to withdraw from Afghanistan this year, public opinion polls show the ground is moving under him. Over the past few days, several new surveys show a significant spike in the number of people who want to see big numbers of troops brought home. The war isn't making us safer and it's not worth the costs, and following Bin Laden's death it's become impossible for the American people to make sense of keeping troops fighting and dying in Afghanistan.

Two separate polls taken on June 3-7 by different firms show a significant shift in public opinion:

• A CBS News poll shows a 16-percent increase in the number of people who think troops levels should be decreased (64 percent, vs. 48 percent last month in the same poll).


• A survey by CNN shows a 9-percent jump compared to last month in the number of people who say the U.S. should withdraw all of its troops.


• The CBS poll also showed that a whopping 73 percent of Americans believe the U.S. should withdraw a "substantial" number of troops from Afghanistan this summer.

These polls show a major move in public opinion as we approach the president's deadline for the start of troop withdrawals; the American people are practically yelling at the White House to get troops home.

The CNN and CBS surveys also put into stark relief just how badly Washington, D.C. politics lag behind U.S. public opinion. None of the numbers bandied about over the past few weeks by public officials come close to being "significant" withdrawals. Senator John McCain says only 3,000 troops should be withdrawn, a paltry number that's even smaller than the 5,000 troops suggested by an unnamed military official several weeks ago. Senator Carl Levin says 15,000 would be a better number, but that number wouldn't even reverse President Obama's first escalation of 17,000 troops, much less the 30,000 he sent in early 2010. Keep in mind, these numbers are in comparison to military force of well over 100,000, not including private security companies. The highest number among these anemic proposals, Levin's 15,000, would leave more than 85 percent of U.S. troops in Afghanistan by the end of this year. That's a fig leaf, not a significant troop withdrawal.

The Afghanistan Study Group's proposal comes much closer to the sentiments of the American people. They propose "ceasefires, large troop reductions (30,000 this year, 40,000 in 2012), reformation of the Afghan government, and political negotiations within Afghanistan and amongst its neighbors to stabilize Afghanistan and the region, and to begin to get the United States out of Afghanistan's quicksand."

Note that we say the ASG's proposal only comes closer to the sentiments of the American people. That's because the last time anyone checked, the American people want all troops out within a year.

There's a major groundswell building across the country for ending this war, and as the president prepares to announce his intentions for the Afghanistan War, he better pay attention.

If you're one of the millions of Americans who want to bring troops home from Afghanistan, join Rethink Afghanistan on Facebook and Twitter.

Love the Afghanistan War in Public at Your Peril

By Derrick Crowe

One of the gems buried in Michael Hastings' now ubiquitous Rolling Stone article is a senior adviser to General McChrystal thanking his lucky stars for public ignorance of the state of the war:

Even those closest to McChrystal know that the rising anti-war sentiment at home doesn't begin to reflect how deeply fucked up things are in Afghanistan. "If Americans pulled back and started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular," a senior adviser to McChrystal says.

Well, mission accomplished, gentlemen. Your little frat party managed to get everyone's attention and, combined with a never-ending stream of gruesome milestones, it caused the bottom to drop out of public support for the Afghanistan War. According to the newest polling from Newsweek:

• Only 37 percent of those surveyed approve of the way President Obama is handling the war. 53 percent disapprove. That's a major reversal from prior results that showed support/opposition solidly in the president's favor by a 55/27 margin.


• Only 26 percent of those surveyed believe we're winning in Afghanistan. 46 percent believe we're losing.


• This crystallizing opposition isn't due to disagreement with the way President Obama handled the McChrystal/Rolling Stone flap, either. Most Americans agreed with his decision to dismiss the general by a 50/35 margin.

McChrystal's statements in the Rolling Stone piece probably weren't enough to cause his ouster on their own, but as the latest in a series of insults and missteps, they were the straw that broke the camel's back. Similarly, the McChrystal flap probably wasn't enough to turn Americans against the war, but as a tawdry new development at the end of a string of gruesome events transpiring on the periphery of the national consciousness, the episode was enough to cause the electorate to push their chair back from the kitchen table and stomp over to see just what the hell you kids are doing in here that's making all that racket?!

Mommy and Daddy obviously didn't like what they saw:

• The thousandth U.S. death of the war;


• The trillionth dollar spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars;


• That the war had surpassed Vietnam as the longest war in U.S. history, by some counts;


• That the pivotal campaigns in the counterinsurgency strategy were ridiculously bogged down; and


• That June 2010 had already become the deadliest month of the war.

Pentagon officials are now running around trying on some of their most Orwellian rhetoric to date (No! Really! We're not bogged down!) trying to sooth Congress and the extraordinarily cranky electorate, but it's too late. The tanks are rolling into Baghdad, despite Bob's insistence to the contrary.

For their part, the hawks in Congress are dangerously misreading the tea leaves. Some are calling for scrapping the July 2011 withdrawal date and for staying in Afghanistan indefinitely. Others are insisting that protections for civilians in the war zone should be loosened. But these vicious chest-thumpers are missing the point: Americans don't want more and more brutal war. We want our troops home, yesterday.

Prior polling had shown a strange dichotomy: Americans didn't support the Afghanistan War, but they approved of President Obama's handling of the war. The White House could wave away dismal polling numbers for support/opposition to the war by pointing to the high approval numbers for Obama's handling of the war, and Congress could hide behind "supporting the president." No more. Americans are fed up with this brutal, costly war.

Memo to politicians: Love the Afghanistan War in public at your peril.

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