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Today's Top News
63 Percent of Americans Oppose War in Afghanistan
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Opposition to the war in Afghanistan is at an all-time high, with 63 percent of the public now opposed to U.S. involvement there, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey. Just 35 percent of survey respondents say they still support U.S. involvement.
The increase in opposition to U.S. involvement comes as pessimism about how the war is going is rising. According to a poll done Dec. 17-19, 56 percent of the public believes that "things are going badly for the U.S. in Afghanistan."
"The war has not always been unpopular -- back in March, when a majority thought that the war was going well, the country was evenly divided. But by September, the number who said that things were going well for the U.S. in Afghanistan had dropped to 44 percent, and opposition to the war had grown to 58 percent," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Today, with Americans remaining pessimistic about the situation in Afghanistan, they also remain opposed to the war."
There are, however, at least two groups where there is still a slim majority of support for the war -- the Republican Party establishment, and Tea Party activists. Here's a look at the partisan breakdown of supporters and oppositionists:
TEA PARTY: 52 percent favor, 45 percent oppose.REPUBLICAN: 52 percent favor, 44 percent oppose.
CONSERVATIVE: 49 percent favor, 48 percent oppose.
DEMOCRAT: 24 percent favor, 74 percent oppose.
Story continues belowLIBERAL: 20 percent favor, 80 percent oppose.
INDEPENDENT: 35 percent favor, 63 percent oppose.
MODERATE: 32 percent favor, 66 percent oppose.
Income level also seems to play a significant role: 70 percent of people making under $50,000 annually said they oppose the war; only 54 percent of those making more than $50,000 annually said the same thing.
As the Los-Angeles Times reports, "This has been the war's deadliest year for noncombatants and combatants alike, with civilian casualties for the first 10 months of this year running 20% higher than the same period a year ago, according to the most recent figures available from the United Nations."
The number of foreign troops killed in the nine-year war has hit an all-time high, with more than 700 lives lost. Nearly 500 U.S. servicemembers were killed this past year alone, according to the site iCasualties.org.
A new report by Reporters Without Borders also finds that the country remains dangerous for journalists. There was a "major increase" in the number of journalists kidnapped in 2010, with Afghanistan a hot spot of trouble. "The case of French TV journalists Hervé Ghesquière and Stéphane Taponier and their three Afghan assistants, held hostage in Afghanistan since 29 December 2009, is the longest abduction in the history of the French media since the end of the 1980s," writes the organization in its report.
There are approximately 140,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan. Last year, President Obama ordered 30,000 more U.S. troops be sent there. He has promised that the United States will begin withdrawing troops in July 2011.
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103 Comments so far
Show AllWhat the average American thinks about the war in Afghanistan has very little or no consequence to our Government. The American Government with its sycophant and psycho President and war party Congress, are, and have been, for a very long time in the egregious, business of the war racket. The evil trillion $ war business will never end until an antidote for this mental miasma is found through psychopathology or some other means.
Not far off.
All this does, the survey of Americans position on the war, is give the war machine a better idea of the time line for the rape and pillage process.
Americans are saying "go ahead and rape the s*#t out of her, just make it quick". We were fine with the rape up until now, in fact we supported the snuff rape by a large majority for years but hey, she was asking for it so it's her own fault.
Besides the technology they are using is SOOOOOOO COOOOOOOL!
We don't want peace we want sustainable stuff.
If you really want peace give up your car, house, job, bank account, pension, 401K, flying, imported products.
Hows that going to go over?
What the average American thinks about the war in Afghanistan has very little or no consequence to our Government. The American Government with its sycophant and psycho President and war party Congress, are, and have been, for a very long time in the egregious, business of the war racket. The evil trillion $ war business will never end until an antidote for this mental miasma is found through psychopathology or some other means.
What the average American thinks of the war in Afghanistan is an ENABLER of that same war in Afghanistan.
Those "Average Americans" who can no longer support the war in Afghanistan are fine with it until it goes badly or it obvious it takes money out of their pocket.
This is like the schoolyard bully being opposed to bullying when someone starts to beat him up.
Those Americans opposed to the war from the start and opposed to it because war is WRONG and a crime have my respect. Those jumping off the bandwagon because it now going badly do not.
Truth and Words of Wisdom by GW North
The cries for blood revenge were shocking and appalling after the towers fell. War drums reverberated as the good citizens followed the toy commander's advice and went shopping. Then the good citizens lined up behind the toy commander when he "decided" to crush Iraq, again, in Gulf Slaughter II: the rematch. How proud they felt while sitting on cushy couches watching the "smart" missiles crash through walls and destroy families, water supplies, power plants, and sanity.
So many lives in the hands of evil fools.
So many fools following fools.
And all the "Support Our Troops" ribbons on all the vehicles of those who wanted other people's kids to do the dirty work.
There were some who were seriously convinced that we were fighting for our freedom... geez... and they enlisted or their parents were so proud that they were "protecting" all of us. And they would get killed and be heroes. Why don't they ask, if it's really true their country and future and freedom were at stake, why didn't any of the chickenhawks enlist?
"Support Our Troops" ribbons
the new victory gardens - such sacrifice!
OOPS, double post.
The monetary divide noted here could very well be due to the non participation of the higher income families in the armed forces.
I begin to think that its time to reinstate the draft. With ONLY physical deferrments. No more buying your way out by going to school.
why not bring back slavery while you're at it?
involuntary servitude is involuntary servitude, dude.
vdb
Being drafted isn't slavery. Serving is a civic duty which we have effectively "outsourced" or "privitized"
I have thought long and hard about this as I opposed the draft in every way (especially when I got the invitation). But the reason the Viet Nam war ended as soon as it did was the participartion by a cross section of our citizens and their knowledge from that.
Perhaps many in government, Bush and Cheney and others around the country wouldn't have been so hot to trot...and many in government if their own children were at risk.
I'm not totally convinced, but close.
"Serving is a civic duty"
killing is not a service.
Perhaps one of my buttons might serve as a happy medium regarding who should be forced to join the military:
"Draft the rich- It's their war"
Erroll
Well, they sure aren't participating now! Maybe you have the best point. :)
They didn't last time either did they? Thats why I said ONLY physical deferments.
"'m not totally convinced, but close."
mightymite, I think you are close, and I'm glad.
mighty
the rich ARE participating
by running the whole thing
by reaping billions
And I don't think all the kids who enlist are doing it for 'freedom'
they are doing it for the money
for their families
When they see their family suffering financial hardship the pressure to get that bonus must be dreadful
http://www.military.com/recruiting/bonus-center/
And they know the risk
They know it's bad
in the abstract
When they get there they learn it for real.
vdb
Perhaps you should be aware that killing is not synonymous with serving. But you should be aware that selective compliance has many sides.
Socrates and Plato have the best answers to this conundrum. I'd start with Socrates Apology (by Plato) though you may disagree with my choice.
"Perhaps you should be aware that killing is not synonymous with serving."
In the context of military "service", which is the topic we discuss here, it is.
The ultimate duty of a soldier is to kill - some are fortunate and never have to, but that is what they sign up to do.
Duty should never be dictated to the free and is something best left to an individual's conscience.
"The ultimate duty of a soldier is to kill"
Not true at all, though it certainly is possible in a war or in any confrontation. The duty of a soldier is to enforce the political will of his country on others if deployed.
The last thing any soldier would want to do is kill or engage in fighting for that matter. The only ones that say that have never done it. There are some though, but most of the stories you hear are exactly that. No one signs on to "kill"
The worst problems come from the rear, for example Abu Greb.
The problem is that you cannot be free if everyone exercises their individual conscience. Thats why I begin to favor the draft now after opposing it for so long.
Its just not easy. Say I decided not to report...am I responsible for the person that had to take my place? Some things are easy to place in their proper context, this isn't one of them.
The duty of a soldier during peacetime is to train for war.
The duty of a soldier during wartime is to kill and sieze property upon order.
I agree as well as blowing things up. The best thing that an American soldier can do these days is to belong to the GI Resistance and that would include speaking out against the bellicose actions of the government.
mite(mighty?). You say in response to previous poster, after quoting him/her:
"The ultimate duty of a soldier is to kill"
Not true at all, though it certainly is possible in a war or in any confrontation. The duty of a soldier is to enforce the political will of his country on others if deployed.
====================================
"The duty of a soldier is to enforce the political will of his country on others if deployed."
This is simply saying the same thing but in different words and so you have not gainsaid the quotation of the poster before you that you are using. For how does a soldier, fully armed to the teeth with the most efficient and lethal killing weapons and tactics technology can provide, and knowing only how to use them under command without question to "enforce the political will of his country [you mean its oligarchs who pay his salary to kill] on others" except by killing said others who may try him/her to use resaon instead of violence. Killing is the only thing a soldier is good at; reason, compassion, looking at others as humans like himself etc. are not part of his make-up. The soldier is trained as a killing machine, not as rational, debating, self-introspecting human. This is now confirmed by Neuroscience and human history. They posit that soldiers brains are on average fried up much like those of drug addicts and fundamentalist cult followers (here the cult being American exceptionalism). The military makes great efforts to recruit soldiers with just such brain configurations (damage and lack of humanity) than others who may pose problems of natural justice and constitutionality against unilateral, war crime wars on which the US now possesses an enviable track record near to Nazi Germany and the Roman Empire.
In short, no matter how you slice and dice it for the purposes of dissembling, ambiguation, prevarication and obfuscation, a soldier exists on a battlefield to just kill people without regard to combatant and noncombant alike.
I think this has gone far afield from the original point attempted by Mr.Mite.
It was the presence of a draft, thus affecting every American family, that gave impetus to the wide spread anti war movement. It is the absence of a draft that allows people to forget about Afghanistan and Iraq.
It is no accident that Bush/Cheney refused to consider re-instituting a draft, and the question of a soldiers purpose or duty is not really relevant, in my opinion, to the question of said draft.
reason: "Killing is the only thing a soldier is good at; reason, compassion, looking at others as humans like himself etc. are not part of his make-up."
I do believe that some soldiers who enlist are very patriotic and proud of their country, and are either brainwashed or have reasoning that tells them they are actually HELPING OTHERS in THEIR country, and that the many who die make it all worth it in the end. They probably think everyone wishes they could be like us. They have been raised to believe many lies they are told.
That's why there have been men of conscience who signed up for war believing a lie and then turned around to become veterans for peace. I cherish and believe THESE eyewitnesses to the evils of war.
"The problem is that you cannot be free if everyone exercises their individual conscience."
What is freedom other than exercising individual conscience!
"Freedom isn't free" -- THEN IT ISN'T FREEDOM IT'S SOMETHING ELSE!
Not one war in recent history, perpetrated by OUR country, has been legitimate in any way. That's why they all had to be sparked by a lie.
"Say I decided not to report...am I responsible for the person that had to take my place?"
No. Their leaders are responsible, as is the person who reports rather than deciding not to.
The person held 'responsible' will always be the most expendable individual on the bottom of Totem Pole.
"Serving is a civic duty"
TROLL - just because i was born here does not mean i agreed to sign up for empire and fight wars of aggression for corporate profit. i am not a patriot nor a nationalist. in my eyes, the state has no legitimacy. it is an organized system of violence run with the same logic of the mafia.
no thanks.
You wouldn't know a Troll if it ......
There are always the free loaders that want the benefit without the reponsibilities. They are of little use in any case.
I hope you find a country that suits you.
mightmite,
The freeloaders are your rulers! You know, the ones making all the money and asking us to sacrifice and do their evil.
Do you think we are benefitting by immorally invading and killing people in THEIR part of the world?
People who enlist are enabling war crimes. Do you think people had a duty to obey Hitler?
Do you think we could be more intelligent than ants?
WTH is wrong with NEGOTIATING for the resources we desire? Do you think no country would want to be trade partners with us? Don't you think paying regulated trade market prices would cost A HELL of a lot less than running wars every decade? If a country would not want to trade with us, another would.
mightymite, until people realize that we will never have any other kind of life than warring until we stop, then we can never become a force for world peace rather than a force for world war. Do you think our highest calling is to be the mightiest bully?
Patriotism and nationalism are tools used to make people into tools.
We are standing by while our country is taking away our freedom.
Serving is only a civic duty if your country is being legitimately occupied and attacked like in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Paul Revere
Selective compliance simply doesn't work unfortunately. I take your point and agree, felt the same way lastt time. but went because there really isn't much choice when you face the reality of it.
But if everyone had to go, perhaps everyone wouldn't be so anxious to send someone else (or anybody for that matter).
Its not an easy matter.
Mighty: The way I see it, the only way a draft would ever work is if the President and the war mongers in Congress and the Pentagon were first on the list of draftees. Cheney had 5 deferments in the Vietnam draft and Bush had his daddy pull strings for him. These cheer leaders for wars are always the same, these cowards love wars as long as someone else does the fighting! Second on the list of draftees would be the people in the press core and cable news like O'Reilly that love wars. That is one draft that may work!
"there really isn't much choice when you face the reality of it."
Sometimes it is difficult to make the right choice. But the truth is, there always is a choice.
Peace mightmite. This is a discussion we are having, communicating with each other, not a fight against each other.
mitymite; thought about what you are saying and there is only one way that the draft should be brought up and that is to put it in the political mix; force the assholes who have no problem sending somebody elses kids to war to make a decision on the draft. If I read the situation the way it is today it might be the one thing that would really polarize this country into doing something right for once. Talk about stiring up some shit!!! I would love it. Tony
mustbefree,
You say this country would do something right for once if there were a draft. Why wasn't having a draft during Vietnam enough to settle the matter?
On the other hand I am with you that some shit needs to be stirred up. But I would not be happy if we started a draft. We all know the rich can avoid it or get soft safe duty.
donnalou; My sense is that there would be no draft..ever; no money to make that way and no political positive; but in my view it would get a great deal more people thinking about this war that isn't a war but which is the killing of people for lucre. I think the draft is the one subject that would slap the people in the face and get their attention which is a good thing ; and thus the stiring up of shit.
I have no wish for anybody to die or be maimed or lose, as in the case of, a guy who considers himself a patriot or a person who will not go and kill for any reason and notice how we put the US of A people first and the people who suffer from any decision here are mentioned as an aside and that says alot too. War, what is it good for? Absolutly nothing!!! Tony
Utter and complete nonsense.
There is no F**ING way it the Citizens Civic DUTY to go to war when ordered. That is the biggest line of authoritarian fascist bullshit I have ever seen you post.
I pity the country where its citizens think this a rational response. It is INSANE.
Gw
As a Vietnam veteran I absolutely agree with you. For that commenter to claim, apparently with a straight face, that "service is a civic duty", is simply absurd. The word duty strongly implies that one is is obligated to perform a particular service which in this case would be military service. But that certainly cannot be true since the U.S. Congress outlawed the military draft in the early 1970s.
Errol, I understand the time and place of your service in Vietnam.
I do not respect you for that service yet I have the greatest respect for you. I respect you because you recognize what that service truly about .
I swear to my maker, to my god, to my parents and to my friends..I will NEVER take up arms against another human being because I am told it my DUTY to country to do so.
Shoot me first. Such a world is not worth living in.
Gw, I consider myself a human, not an american or any other label.
"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder." A. Einstien
mightmite's original point was to more directly involve those calling for war to participate.
Early Native American cultures had a whole different method than a draft by lot or conscription. If a tribal member felt a need to seek revenge, then he would state publicly that he was putting a war party together. Every individual had the choice of joining or not. He who declared the intention didn't get to sit back in camp by a cozy fire and wait to hear the results.
Peace and goodwill
Buck
Gw
Very well said. I attempted to explain to that commenter called jakenewton on another post ["Once Again..."] that it would make a whole lot more sense to lament the fact that those in the military had to be placed in untenable positions by illegally and immorally occupying other countries instead of bizarrely honoring them and thanking them for their service. I told him that the ones who deserve the highest respect are the ones who participated in the GI Rebellion that took place those many years ago and are doing the same thing now in regard to the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. But I suspect that what I said has simply fallen upon deaf ears to Mr. Newton.
"thanking them for their service"
the one that gets me - really gets me - is that the troops are doing everything which has been "asked" of them.
you don't ask robots - you order them.
perhaps, had they been asked, most would have declined.
spinning these heinous commands as requests suggests a need for gratitude.
vdb notes that "you don't ask robots-you order them." Bingo! Right on the mark. There are, I suspect, very few people in this country who are even aware of the GI Rebellion that took place in Vietnam those many years ago. This reflects back to his incisive observation as those military personnel were the opposite of robots as they recognized that they had a brain and that their consciences would not allow them to participate in the illegal and immoral subjugation of another country [as evidenced in the searing documentary Sir! No Sir!]. In a just world one would find streets named after these people and statues built in honor of what they did. But of course in this super patriotic country that we live in this is simply not going to happen.
It is regrettable that a whole lot more military personnel are not now emulating the examples of their forebears by speaking out against the illegal and immoral occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq even notwithstanding the fact that there is no longer a military draft in effect [which, even these many years later, I sometimes still find hard believe].
gwNorth: "I pity the country where its citizens think this a rational response. It is INSANE."
I pity the pitiable insane US too.
Civic duty is monitoring and participating in government, upholding laws as long as they accord with conscience, as they will if they are legitimate laws.
donnalou - thanks for all of your sane contributions; many of your answers were identical to what I would have said.
the draft was never a legitimate law in that it violates the constitutional prohibition against involuntary servitude.
(perhaps mightymite wishes he'd had the courage to decline Unca Sam's invitation)
I too have long held that if freedom's not free, then it ain't freedom.
may peace and happiness be yours in abundance this coming new year, and forever after.
Many thanks vdb, and to you as well.
"may peace and happiness be yours in abundance this coming new year, and forever after."
These are ours. ;) :)
Reminds me of something I heard recently -
"We don't own slaves anymore: We rent them."
I do support ONE type of draft.
Given the Senate and Congress or a Countries Parliament votes as to whether their country will go war.
Upon any YES vote 20 percent of all Politicians in those Houses, are drafted immediately and sent to the Front Lines until the war ends.
Only then will the Citizen get a truer picture of how "needed" a given war is.
I suspect the number of wars to defend "freedom and liberty" would plummet and there would be a lot more in the way of "freedom and liberty"