Public support will vanish without Afghan war progress this year, Gates says

Source: Associated Press

Public support for the war in Afghanistan will evaporate unless the nations leading the fight against insurgents can show by the end of this year that the 8-year war is not locked in stalemate, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday.

"All of us, for our publics, are going to have to show by the end of the year that our strategy is on the right track, making some headway," Gates said ahead of meetings with NATO allies long weary of the war.

Gates and other U.S. leaders have set such unofficial deadlines before, and they have proved elastic. Several times last year Gates said the American public needed to see progress within a year or 18 months. In August 2009, he said progress had to be demonstrated "this year."

Gates also said he expects to begin handing over responsibility for security in some areas of Afghanistan as soon as winter. That would be ahead of the deadline President Barack Obama set to begin to bring U.S. forces home in July 2011. There is no firm end date for how long U.S. forces will stay.


Read more: http://www.cleveland.com/world/index.ssf/2010/06/public_support_will_vanish_wit.html

I doubt that a majority of the public even knows that we're still there (or even remembers that we were there in the first place).

& schools & good shit for Afghanistan that we aren't even getting anymore, it was about OUR NATIONAL SECURITY!! It's just more of the same shit.

Half the public doesn't know where there, and the other half wants us out.

I guess it's the third half that support the war.

Isn't that the American dream?

ABC News/Washington Post Poll. June 3-6, 2010. N=1,004 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.5.


"All in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, do you think the war in Afghanistan has been worth fighting, or not?"

Worth Not worth
fighting fighting Unsure
% % %


6/3-6/10
44 53 3

"All told, do you think the United States is winning or losing the war in Afghanistan?"

Winning Losing Neither/Tie Unsure
% % % %


6/3-6/10
42 39 12 7


http://www.pollingreport.com/afghan.htm

Get the fuck out!

It's time to declare peace and come home.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4420960

F.U. gates.

watch for a "major development" in Afghanistan, soon :eyes:

Get it done or get out. Endless wars are ALWAYS failures.

well said: "endless wars are ALWAYS failures"