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Friday, 18 March 2011

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Among American people :

Opposition to Afghan war highest ever

AFGHANISTAN: A new poll shows that opposition to the Afghan war among American people has hit a record high, with nearly two thirds of them saying the war is no longer worth fighting.

According to the Washington Post -ABC News opinion poll published on Tuesday, 64 percent of respondents say they are opposed to the war in Afghanistan “considering the costs vs. the benefits to the United States, as compared to 31 percent of people, who think otherwise, a Press TV correspondent reported.

Analysts say this is the highest proportion yet opposed to the Afghan war, which has claimed the lives of an estimated 2,366 troops since it began in 2001. The war costs the United States over $100 billion a year.

Nearly three quarters of Americans also say US President Barack Obama should order the drawdown of a “substantial number” of combat troops from Afghanistan this summer, according to the survey.

However, only 39 percent of respondents say they expect Obama to withdraw large numbers of US-led soldiers from the war-wrecked country.

Defense analysts and other lawmakers are more skeptical that billions of tax dollars used for development aid isn’t helping Afghanistan as much as it is supposed to. They also believe that it is unlikely that the growing opposition sways Obama for an incremental drawdown of the war efforts.

“I would be very surprised if more than a few hundred troops were withdrawing,” US Senator Susan Collins told Press TV.

Meanwhile,the figures came on the very same day that US Army General David Petraeus, who is the top US commander in Afghanistan, testified before a Senate committee hearing on the future of Afghanistan and claimed that US-led forces are making progress in the unpopular war.

In a four-hour hearing that was his first since taking command in Kabul last summer, Petraeus also claimed that there has been a significant halt to Taliban momentum in battlefields, thus enabling the US troops to begin pulling out in July

He cautioned, however, that security progress is still “fragile and reversible,” with much difficult work ahead when the Taliban launch an expected spring offensive.

Last year was the deadliest of the nearly decade-long war for foreign troops, with more than 700 killed, compared to just more than 500 in 2009.

Despite the presence of some 150,000 NATO forces, the violence and daily militant attacks have not been subdued in Afghanistan.

Press TV

 

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