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Poll: Afghanistan Another Vietnam? Most say 'Yes'
WASHINGTON - A slight majority of Americans think that the war in Afghanistan is turning into another Vietnam, according to a new national poll which also indicates that nearly six in 10 oppose sending more U.S. troops to the conflict.
Fifty-two percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday say the eight year long conflict has turned into a situation like the U.S. faced in the Vietnam War, with 46 percent disagreeing.
According to the poll, 59 percent of people questioned opposed sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan with 39 percent in favor. Of the 59 percent opposed, 28 percent want Washington to withdraw all U.S troops, 21 percent are calling for a partial American pullout, and 8 percent say the number of troops should remain the same.
"Has Afghanistan turned into Barack Obama's Vietnam? Most Americans think so, and that may be one reason why they oppose sending more U.S. troops to that country," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Older Americans are most likely to see parallels between Afghanistan and Vietnam - possibly because they remember the Vietnam War, rather than reading about it in textbooks."
President Barack Obama and his top military, national security and foreign policy advisers are conducting an intensive strategic review of the U.S. military presence in the war-torn country. The president is weighing a suggestion by the top American military commander in Afghanistan to increase force levels by as many as 40,000 troops.
More than two-thirds of people polled say it's unlikely Afghanistan will have stable government in the next few years. And that was before Monday's release of a United Nations report alleging widespread fraud in the recent Afghanistan elections. According to the survey, around two-thirds also feel that its unlikely that without American assistance, the Afghan military and police will be able to keep their country safe and secure or prevent terrorists from using Afghanistan as a base of operations for planning attacks against the U.S.
The poll indicates that six in 10 Americans feel it's necessary to keep U.S. forces in Afghanistan in order to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States. And a similar number say the conflict in Afghanistan is part of the war against terrorism which began with the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
"That's probably the reason why Afghanistan is still more popular than the war in Iraq," Say Holland. "Many Americans make the connection between 9/11 and Afghanistan, and the public recognizes that there is little chance that the Afghan government can deal with terrorists on its own."
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted Friday through Sunday, with 1,038 adult Americans questioned by telephone.
The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
- Posted in
29 Comments so far
Show All...and now we're bombing Cambodistan.
"Many Americans make the connection between 9/11 and Afghanistan." What connection? No Afghans were even remotely involved in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It would appear that America's politicians realize that the bigger lie that they can tell, the more likely it is that the mainstream media will run with it and that the gullible public will buy that lie. It would also seem that the idea of the US government is to blame those ubiquitous terrorists as they make very convenient scapegoats for what appears to be the government's own malfeasance regarding those attacks.
If we want to respond to 9/11 then lets bomb Saudi Arabia.
Have fun, ya'll, strolling into the graveyard of empire...
We may have to wait to leave until Malia is of military age.
Why wait? Indoctrinate her now!
Send recruiters to talk at her school. Set up the US Army's virtual firing range in the gym during career days. Cut her school lunch program so she is unable to concentrate on her studies because of hunger. Increase her class size due to budget cuts. Drive her teachers into the arms of the private, for profit school system. And don't forget to take away her options for higher education and gainful employment, because she is a minority who does not deserve 'Equal Opportunities'...
Oh. I forgot.
She is the spawn of one of the elite. She attends a special school that is immune to any of these things.
She is exempt from the daily realities the other 99% of the US population have to face, because of her father's position, political ties, and wealth.
I am sure that will be a great comfort when the mobs of enraged unemployed come howling to the steps of the White House. She will be able to watch in magnificent isolated splendor as her daddy's troops mow them down with machine guns...
Yeah Galenwainwright, sorry ,I doubt the Quakers at Sidwell Friends school would allow recruiters on campus.That said we have not seen that type of mob since the "Bonus Army " camps and ,massacre,something most people didn't learn about in history. peace p.s. opt out materials to protect your kids from military recruiters can be obtained from the A.F.S.C.
It certainly would be interested to see a statistical break down based upon age groupings of the respondents to this CNN opinion survey, comparing Afghanistan today to Vietnam of 40 years ago. CNN Polling Director Keating Holland's comment is worth emphasis: "Older Americans are most likely to see parallels between Afghanistan and Vietnam - possibly because they remember the Vietnam War, rather than reading about it in textbooks."
This says a great deal about the revisionist history of the 60's and early 70's found in most American textbooks. It also illustrates the successful, stubborn tenacity of right wing ideologues in academe, inside the DC beltway think tank matrix, and in US mainstream pop culture, hell bent upon recasting the massive, grassroots peace movement of that era as some sort of nonmajoritarian aberration - a brief, stab-in-the-back-of-the-troops hiccup amidst the grandiose, still unfolding saga of American exceptionalism. Sadly, candidate Barack Obama's own insistence upon "transcending" or "moving beyond" those "old partisan divisions of the recent past" served to accelerate such dangerous mass myopia.
On a more positive note, it's good to see polling data showing "many Americans make the connection between 9/11 and Afghanistan [unlike the more widely discredited, less popular occupation of Iraq]....."
The text of the 2001 AUMF resolution passed by the Congress justifies a military presence in Afghanistan solely for the specific, limited purpose of bringing the perps of the 9/11/01 WTC attack to justice. Nothing about nation building. Nothing about womens rights. Nothing about oil or gas pipelines. Nothing about a clash of civilizations. Nothing about suppressing international heroin trafficking. Nothing about propping up the civilian government of neighboring Pakistan. Nothing about bringing stability or the blessings of democracy out of the chaos of civil war that had plagued Afghanistan since the late 1970's.
The point to be made here is all about mission creep. If the Obama administration wants to maintain (or, heaven forbid, wants to escalate McChrystal-style) the current US military/CIA/mercenary contractor presence in this region of the world, then the White House needs a new, revised Congressional resolution authorizing this different mission. I say, let the House and Senate floor debate begin.
In the alternative, why not simply announce that all US forces will depart within 90 days of Osama bin Laden, Zwahiri, and the few remaining foreign Al Qaeda members allegedly involved in 9/11 being turned over to a neutral Muslim state for eventual trial? This is precisely what Mullah Omar of the Taliban offered to do in early October of 2001 of course, but the Bushies chose instead to go with Pentagon hi tech shock and awe.
What's wrong with this as a straight up, candid exit strategy? It might have a suprizing positive impact upon the anti-American political dynamics swirling on the ground in this region of the Muslim world. More important, this is the exclusive legal basis (according to existing federal law) why any US forces remain stationed in Af/Pak at all. How could such a withdrawal offer possibly hurt?
Bill from Saginaw
Interesting comment Bill,it would be nice to know the questions on the poll.To me it says six out of ten respondants still, don't have a clue. peace
"More than two-thirds of people polled say it's unlikely Afghanistan will have stable government in the next few years."
Forget Afghanistan, I'm wondering whether the USA will have a stable government in the next few years!
Umm.. no?
Given the Tea Baggers and their propensity to carry guns everywhere Obama is.
Or how the 'democratic' Brand Obama government uses excessive force on unarmed and unresisting demonstrators.
Or how there is an incredibly active movement composed of Corporate backed fanatic Christians bent on creating a dictatorial theocratic police state government domestically, and calling it a 'free democracy'.
Well, the USA doesn't have a stable government now, hasn't for a long time, plenty of decades already; unless we're to consider bad, rotten, rogue government continuing, relentlessly, regardless of which of the two main parties is in power in the White House, Congress and Senate a stable form of government, "of course". I don't consider the latter stable, certainly not to my liking anyway.
So, if the USA is to have a stable government in a few years, people better get to real work to make this happen, because the present forecast doesn't look favourable at all. Voters would need to vote for Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Ron Paul, ... people who evidently are the most trustworthy for ending U.S. empire, globally. Well, for trying to end it, that is. Anyone who tries to do so better wear bullet proof ... everything.
Artist: Country Joe And The Fish
"I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag"
Well, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He's got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Afghanistan
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Afghanistan;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Come on Wall Street, don't be slow,
Why man, this is war au-go-go
There's plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of its trade,
But just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
They drop it on the Viet Cong.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Afghanistan.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Well, come on generals, let's move fast;
Your big chance has come at last.
Now you can go out and get those reds
'Cause the only good commie is the one that's dead
And you know that peace can only be won
When we've blown 'em all to kingdom come.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Afghanistan;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to Afghanistan.
Come on fathers, and don't hesitate
To send your sons off before it's too late.
And you can be the first ones in your block
To have your boy come home in a box.
And it's one, two, three
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Afghanistan.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Still timely, after all these years.
How valid can this "poll" be? The Vietnam fiasco ended 35 years ago. That means that any candidate over 40 that participated has only second hand knowledge of this black mark against the American empire. We know that the present day textbooks and media are whitewashing our starting that war, just as they are doing for Afghanistan. I suspect that if only those of us that lived through Vietnam were polled the percentage would be closer to 90%. CNN America is a member of the American media and is only a little behind fox in skewing the news and statistics.
That's good to read.
I don't know what I'd answer to such a poll, because of not knowing enough about how much the two are comparable. However, they both definitely have strong commonalities or common features. They're both wars of aggression. They both involve bombing of many civilians and destruction. They both include covert CIA and, I guess, other U.S. black ops, like for committing acts of terrorism then U.S. then turns around and claims were committed by the so-called enemy. They both include use of weapons that should never be used. I'm not sure if I'm recalling this correctly, but believe to have read that the U.S. has used some white phospherous in Afghanistan, which'd compare to the use of napalm in Vietnam; and the U.S. uses radiological weapons, D.U., in Afghanistan.
Vietnam, however, lasted not 8 years, but 13, by real counting; and speaking of only U.S. warring there. Most people I read about the number of years the U.S. warred there say 8, maybe 9, but I've read a number of times, from different people, that the real number is 13, and while I forget who the last of these articles was by, he or she provided a good historical explanation of what the 13 years consisted of. It was all U.S. warring on Vietnam.
Well, in five years the U.S. will still be in Afghanistan, so we can just as well consider the 13 years in Vietnam a pre-matched figure in Afghanistan; perhaps.
Other than for this, I don't know how else they are comparable.
And I don't need the comparison with Vietnam to be totally against the war in Afghanistan, as I've been since hearing or reading the first mention of recourse to war there due to 9-11; all the more against it the second Bush said the Taliban had had nothing to do with 9-11. Even without that truism from Bush though, I would've still be against recourse to war, due to understanding that the attacks in and on the U.S. on 9-11, if the Taliban and Usama Bin Ladin were really behind this, would've been out of [retaliation] and not aggression. So it's not responding with war that could be justified. The only justified thing to then do is to work on making peace and to provide due reparations; and the U.S, and NATO countries, OWE A LOT to MANY people in MANY countries. But Bush gave us the truism that the Taliban had had absolutely nothing to do with the 9-11 attacks.
Well, there's one difference from the Vietnam War. The U.S. didn't war there based on any Vietnamese people, or anyone any Vietnamese people were in relations with, having supposedly attacked the U.S.
But the U.S. did war there based on LIES and, I guess, an awfully distorted understanding of communism as the North Vietnamese lived it, as well as a blind hatred of this socio-economic-political system called communism. (I'm not sure if calling it a socio-economic-political system is accurate, but I think it is.) So this is another common features of both wars; based on U.S. leadership lying their "heads off" or "souls away (to perdition)".
Another difference is that Pres. JFK did not start the war in Vietnam, a predecessor did, when considering the full 13 years of the war, instead of the incorrectly revised-downward 8 years. And JFK came to want to fully withdraw the U.S. from this historical war. Nominally speaking anyway, Bush started the war in Afghanistan, so Obama is in a position sort of like JFK, only the handling is far different, darkly different; and without speaking of the color of the skin Obama has. Obama, his administration, even truly cosidering ending the war in Afghanistan? He might say so in public, but his public words usually or always are just to try to appease the population of voters, really intending to deceive them; just that he wants to be gentle in his ways about this, instead of frankly, bombastically, ... forward, like Bush was and which is why "leftists" in the U.S. hated him while liking Obama, who's always lying, instead of saying what he's really going to do. He let's you down more gently, while escalating the wars more than the Bush administration did. Quite an appeasing little president, n'est-ce pas?!
So, well, how do these comparisons, so far, balance out; is Afghanistan just another Vietnam, or are they different enough to say so, all while recognising that they're both hellishly, extremely, ... criminal, from start to finish, whenver the end will be with the war in Afghanistan, which is an end many people living today may not get to live to see the date of?
Perhaps I'd just tell the pollster that sure, they're both similar wars, they're both hellbent criminal, through and through, start to finish! Or tell the pollster to f*ck off with his or her stupid questions!
These polls strike me as rather dumb.
How about doing some real survey research, to survey what voters or anyone in the population, really knows about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to have people list what they know of these wars, and then tabulate this information while also applying relevant statistical calculations. Once completed, and it'd need to be honest, then publish the report.
I wonder how many people would include terrorist covert ops by the USA, as well as UK, f.e.
Or, a questionnaire could be created, listing questions to get people's responses to whether they believe certain aspects of what's going on and has already gone on in these wars. Again, the above example fact could be treated as a question and people could be asked for this for three wars, the present ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Vietnam War. F.e., "The U.S. has employed and continues to employ covert acts of terrorism to blame this on the so-called enemy. Do you believe this is true in the case of the war in Iraq? ... the war in Afghanistan? ... the past Vietnam War?". The questionnaire wouldn't have that exact format, for the three wars would be represented by individual or separate columns of check-boxes to the right of the question(s).
It'd be a survey to try to get a fair idea of what the heck people understand about the reality or realities of these wars.
Very Well Said, Mike Corbeil. Thank you for putting front and center that it is not so much "afghanistan becoming" another vietnam -- but that WAR is wrong - plain and simple.
it is wrong for the USA to involve itself in these foreign adventures trying to be the world's Lord and master and 'decider'.
rather than just compare "afghanistan and vietman" - it really should be about the US POLICY of continual , perpetual war
EVERYWHERE.
if it's not vietnam, it's russia, if not russia, it's china, if its not china, it's iraq, if it's not irag, it becomes iran. etc.etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
THAT"s the real "story" of the USA.
Definitely is and we learn that it is when we apply ourselves to some real reading outside of msm "news" media. I think TomDispatch.com has been such a provider of articles, but definitely know that www.globalresearch.ca has been. I'd name others, but being human, can only do limited reading anyway. At GR, there've been plenty of articles by ... oh, some number of different and independent authors, who describe U.S. policy, i.e., "National Security" policy, as you just did; only more elaborate.
And it literally is about U.S. "National Security" policy, which is a dark and sick farce. Oil, securing access to natural resources of other countries is literally part of U.S. "National Security" policy, and it doesn't speak of achieving this through friendly and fair business relations; although, it might not literally say that this has to be achieved through wars on others, either. I forget if I read that it does speak of use of wars, but even if it doesn't say that, then it's still frightening for what it does say. And it seems to be quite emphatic about the need to secure natural resources (of other countries) for the needs of the U.S. And that is not as much about the needs of U.S. citizens as it is about the "need" of related U.S. corporations to secure streams of big profits for themselves.
U.S. "National Security" is about making sure that the U.S. is globally dominant, which in itself clearly is an inherent and serious threat to the rest of this world. After all, for a country to work on making sure it's the globally dominant power, which involves politically, economically, and militarily, it's pretty clear that other countries are to be kept in line with respect to the "National Security" policies of the real ruling elites of the U.S. government. How could that not be perceived as a real threat, and as hegemony? Well, if others were asleep, then they might miss this obvious implication.
The U.S. doesn't have to explicitly threaten others. They only need to learn about U.S. "National Security" policy to feel or realise that they are threatened. It's a policy of "world war", war on this world, nature or kind; "for crying out loud".
And while the government's not presently threatening Russia and, it seems, also China in any explicit or stated terms, they remain targets of this U.S. policy-making. Plenty of people who've had articles posted at GlobalResearch.ca have explained this quite well, enough; but it's also rather implied in the fact that U.S. national security policy is about achieving global dominance. To achieve the latter, obvious targets inherently are going to be the main counter-powers, especially when they're both in need of the same or enough of the same natural resources from foreign sources.
China's obvious. Everyone knows that China has a growing need for importing energy resources, oil and natural gas. Russia, we might think that it has enough oil of its own, but we nevertheless know that it's working to acquire access to foreign oil reserves, or shares of them anyway.
The competition is quite fierce for oil.
"Iraq approves oil deal with BP-led consortium",
by Sinan Salaheddin, AP, Oct 17 2009
http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=59014
That's NOT only about the BP-led consortium, which presently consists of BP and CNPC of China, for while they're the sole ones to presently have obtained secured deals with Iraq after the June bidding, this is NOT the end of the story. Many other foreign oil cies are still in the bidding for the second round, which will be in December, or so it's scheduled to be anyway. MANY other cies. None of the others won with the June bidding, for they were charging Iraq too much. Iraq's demand is to be charged no more than $2 per barrel and BP and CNPC matched this requirement. The others didn't with the first round, but it seems that plenty or all who didn't, at first, will for the second round, in which 45 foreign oil cies are going to be bidding.
I didn't know there even were that many foreign oil cies. But before this BP-led consortium win, China had been the only country or government to have secured an oil business deal with Iraq and from what I recall have read of this, it's quite a deal and China apparently deals [fairly].
There'll surely be natural gas. We already know or can know, with some reading, that while China's already been working on securing access to Caspian sea region gas, the U.S. has been working on obstructing this.
[Global dominance], and therefore hegemony, is the plan.
Carry it further: if it's not Iraq it's the Civil War, if not the Civil War it's the Indian Wars, if not the Indian Wars it's the Mexican and Spanish Wars. The United States existence is based on war and we have always been involved in one. THAT'S the real story of the USA.
Mr. Obama, may I introduce you to one Lyndon Johnson of Texas. Mr. Johnson, it turns out, had a fairly good domestic policy and also passed much needed civil rights legislation. But he was not a very popular president, mostly because he was mired down in a place called VietNam. He was a Democrat, who decided not to run for re-election. You don't have to study history to know the consequences of an unpopular war. It only happened 40 years ago.
But then, I imagine you are busy being the house ***** for our real rulers. Too bad. You are such a personable, intelligent, good looking president. We all expected a little more from you.
Didn't LBJ only get to sit in the big chair because his boss, JFK, had his head blown off in Dallas? Right after said boss made the decision to get out of Viet Nam? And the US military, MIC and CIA got really pissed?
Evidently, plus the corrections he wanted to make vis-a-vis both Cuba and the USSR. It may not have only been with the video which is for a presentation on some of the U.S. history during the Pres. JFK administration years by Gore Vidal, but he describes, including with a photo. of him speaking with Pres. JFK when he was coming off an airplane from some trip, that he questioned JFK about the Cold War with the USSR, that it was all bs, and Gore Vidal says that JFK replied that yes, it was all about [apparences], only apparences.
Anyway, it seems that the MIC and CIA, as well as Joint Chiefs of Staff who were obsessed to win against the USSR, all knew about his desire to correct these above relations and this did not sit well with any of them at all.
I believe it, this version of history, too. It's definitely credible, imo.
It may be credible, but the fact of the matter is Lyndon Johnson carried out the domestic policies that Kennedy failed to carry out, he caused civil rights legislation to be passed that Kennedy failed to get passed. He had no reason for this other than a desire to help the poor and give blacks some of their rights. Bob Kennedy hated Johnson. That Johnson carried out Bob's brother's domestic agenda is admirable. Johnson's foreign policy was also the same as John Kennedy's. If John Kennedy intended to 'correct' it, probably only Gore Vidal and a few government agencies knew for sure. Kennedy never got the chance. Which is why Mike's version of history is so credible.
Personally, I believe Kennedy was murdered by those that represented ultra conservative views: exiled Cubans, mobsters, members of government agencies, not to mention the elite oligarchy that rules this country. These groups were hobnobbing in Cuba during the Batista regime so they were used to working together, they had the most to loose when Castro liberated the Island and the most to gain if Castro was put down, and they had absolutely no morals. If they ever got wind that Kennedy wanted to 'correct' his foreign policy, they would strike like a viper (or like Oswald). To me this view of history makes the most sense. I always follow the money and power trail.
Except that there is zero proof that anyone in Afghanistan had anything to do with 9/11. But Fuggit right? Let's believe whatever nonsense the government tells us, including redefining the fundamentals of science and bending the laws of physics to tell a fairy tale.
The U.S. is a doomed sub-species of Homo sapiens.
The North Vietnamese were just "godless commies" going to steal our precious "American Freedom". But there's oil in them thar piplines, OIL, I tell yas!
hey, what I remember is this little anecdote from the life and time of John Pilger. Well, he was in US for one pretext or another and so were some Russian delegates. After the whole event was over, the Russian exclaimed," We spend scores of money, come up with new laws and by-laws, threaten, use force and send people to Siberia to achieve the level of unanimous agreement people in US have with the Govt."
So, are you really telling us that although the citizens of US believe that they should not send out more troops to Afganistan, but then, without these troops there is not going to be any political stability???
US Media, choose sides! And get real!
Just as 'Vietnam' (including Cambodia and Laos) was a part of the insane war against Communism, so too is the aggression in Afghanistan (AfPak theater) part of the insane war against future terrorism.
Just as the Tonkin Gulf resolution was never repealed nor revisited until after the madness of Vietnam ended, so too does America ignore the law that started and fuels the DAFT war (and the aggression in the AfPak theater).
Even many people who understand the significance of the previous Congressional sanctification of violence ignore the current legislative example.
Personal note: my name is on the Vietnam Memorial wall twice - one West, one East. If I had been a bit older, my name might be etched into that sad beautiful stone a third time.
O'Nam.