Editorial, The Age, August 30, 2010
THE US is on the eve of ending combat operations in Iraq. After 2721 days of war, in which 4734 coalition soldiers and 9961 Iraqis serving alongside them died, such a moment might in other circumstances be a cause of excitement and celebration. A year-long withdrawal of US troops and equipment leaves an ''advise and assist'' force of 50,000, less than a third of the ''surge'' peak of 2007. Yet when President Barack Obama stands in the Oval Office this week to declare the end of combat, the occasion will be haunted by memories of his predecessor's premature claim of victory back in May 2003.
In contrast to George Bush's declaration, there will be no fighter jet landing on an aircraft carrier, no banner declaring ''Mission Accomplished'' after barely six weeks of war. There will probably be no repeat of the declaration that ''Iraq is free'', marking ''one victory in a war on terror that began on September 11, 2001''. Mr Obama will not draw the false link between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist attacks, which the Bush administration drew upon to justify going to war on the false pretext that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Instead, Mr Obama has overseen a reassessment of the mission in order to fulfil an election promise to bring combat troops home from Iraq, as did the Rudd government in June 2008. If the job is done, it bears little resemblance to the original 2003 goals for ''Operation Iraqi Freedom''.
Far from being established as a regional beacon of democracy, Iraq and its people fear what lies ahead. Almost six months after national elections, a government has yet to be formed and the two main political parties have suspended talks. As the US troops left, co-ordinated bombings across the country killed scores of people and wounded hundreds. According to Iraqi officials, 535 people were killed in July, the bloodiest month since May 2008.
The attacks have been blamed on al-Qaeda terrorists who, although not active in Iraq under the Sunni-dominated dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, are now a dangerously destabilising influence in a Shiite-Sunni power struggle. While Iraqis' courageous support for elections may yet lead to a more stable, pluralistic democracy, which serves as a counterweight to theocratic Iran, the Shiite majority could just as likely align Baghdad with Tehran once the last US troops leave by an agreed December 2011 deadline.
With combat operations at an end in Iraq, the even longer war in Afghanistan is due for reassessment. ''Operation Enduring Freedom'' came under the same rhetorical banner as the Iraq war - although the architects of the September 11 atrocities were at least to be found in Afghanistan. Victory was similarly declared too soon as the US turned its attention to Iraq, at great cost to the mission in Afghanistan. Australian forces withdrew in late 2002, only to have to return in September 2005. Each year since 2003, the annual death toll of coalition soldiers has greatly increased. Of the 2030 killed, 462 have died this year. Twenty-one Australians have been killed - 10 in the past 11 weeks.
In the US and Australia, the loss of lives, including more than 100,000 civilians, and the costs, well over $US1 trillion, have turned the public against wars that were meant to last months, not years. Defence Minister John Faulkner has conceded that recent losses would ''cause some to question why we are in Afghanistan''. However, Labor and the Coalition speak as one in asserting that the mission is vital to Australia's security and that the Taliban must be defeated to ensure Afghanistan is not a base for terrorism. They have at last agreed, though, to a proper debate on a deployment that could continue for years. Mr Obama's timetable for withdrawal from next July has been challenged by his commander David Petraeus, who says the current troop surge must be given time to work. In that case, the mission will have to be better explained and justified to a war-weary public. What exactly does ''until the job is done'' mean?
The prospect of criminal charges against Defence Force commandos is a reminder that this is an ugly and unconventional war. Military force alone will not bring victory, nor is it the best way to deal with the shifting global threat of terrorism. Without a political breakthrough, which also depends on an increasingly unstable Pakistan, the war could last indefinitely. Reining in corruption, achieving basic competency in government and the military and creating enough stability to enable civil society to function would rate as a success.
It is naive to think that when troops withdraw they will leave behind a country that has been liberated from repression, the drug trade and feudal warlords. The coalition forces that invaded in October 2001 are still obliged to restore a level of order. The result is unlikely to live up to the original mission goals, nor compensate for the human and financial costs of the war. As in Iraq, we may get barely a whiff of victory. A realistic reappraisal of Afghanistan - in short, more honesty about our options - is needed to develop an exit strategy that does not amount to defeat. Time, money and public patience are running out.
Source: The Age
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Let's debate Afghanistan, but give us the facts first
Tom Hyland
Sunday Age, August 29, 2010
Where there is no information, there is no hope of a meaningful discussion.
IT HAS taken nine years, the deaths of 21 Australian soldiers and a hung parliament, but now our politicians agree: they will have a debate on Afghanistan. The Greens have long called for one; so have former and serving soldiers. Now Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott reluctantly concur.
But now comes the hard part, because many of those agreeing to a debate want the discussion to reach the contradictory conclusions they cling to. The Greens want the troops out now. Gillard and Abbott say any debate will not divert them from their commitment to the war. The soldiers who want a debate appear to be the only ones with open minds, even though they have the most at stake.
If the debate is to go beyond the reiteration of entrenched views, it would help if the government gave us some unadorned facts about what our troops are doing, why they are doing it, and whether it has any chance of success. The last point is the crucial one.
While media commentators say a rising death toll is undermining popular support for Australia's commitment, the evidence is that it is the perception we are not winning - not that Australians are dying - that is the key factor in the war's unpopularity. This disenchantment, reflected in opinion polls, comes despite strenuous efforts by governments and defence officials to restrict the flow of information about our role in the conflict.
An American academic, in an analysis published by the US Army War College, of all places, has tracked the drop in public support for the war in Australia and five other countries with troops in Afghanistan. The academic, Charles Miller, traces declining Australian support back to 2007, when Australia had lost just four soldiers, when the conflict barely rated in public discussion and when it had bi-partisan political backing.
This is the issue governments fail to address. Instead, there is a constant refrain that we are making ''progress'' in our stated aim, which has settled on training Afghan troops so they can take charge of security and we can leave. We do not know what this confidence is based on, nor do we know how politicians decided to cap Australia's contribution at 1500 troops, a number the government says is ''about right''. The politicians dodge the question by saying they're acting on the advice of the generals. Generals, however, operate within politically imposed parameters.
Without facts free of spin, any debate will take place in an information vacuum. We don't know how the government settled on troop numbers, nor is there any detailed explanation of the work the soldiers are doing, the analysis that underpins it and how this will meet the stated aim.
If the promised debate raises questions for the government, it poses diabolical political and ethical issues for the Greens, soon to gain the balance of power in the Senate.
As they lose their political impotence, they will have to ditch their assumed purity.
The Greens' stated policy is for the immediate withdrawal of troops. Beyond that, there is wishful thinking. NSW Green Lee Rhiannon, for instance, reckons our military budget could be spent on aid programs for Afghan women and children. Yes, but who will deliver that aid when the Taliban think aid workers are legitimate targets, as are girls at schools built by foreign aid money?
There are other questions for those advocating unilateral withdrawal. It might not trouble the Greens, but where would it leave our relationship with Barack Obama, or our commitment to the 46 other countries with troops in Afghanistan?
And what about the Afghans who have worked with us? Do we abandon them?
Independent Andrew Wilkie has highlighted the dilemmas in staying, and going.
''It is clear,'' he says, ''that on one hand there needs to be foreign forces in Afghanistan to create the stability to allow the government to establish itself. But on the other hand, it's the very presence of those forces which is fuelling this ongoing war, mostly by nationalists, not by terrorists.
''Ultimately, we have to get out as quickly as we can and let Afghanistan find its own natural political level and a lot of people will die in the process.''
Our soldiers will not have a say in the debate, even if we know what some of them think. Writing on the Lowy Institute's blog in July, an anonymous soldier lamented the failure of politicians and defence chiefs to spell out a detailed, public policy underpinning the campaign.
''That Australians neither understand the war nor why its soldiers' sacrifice is needed in Afghanistan is shameful,'' he wrote.
''The government, ADF and media are all to blame for this ignorance. If we are to risk life and go to war, the policy must be properly articulated. As it stands, the state of Afghan discourse in Australia is emblematic of our commitment to the war effort and Afghan people: token.''
Tom Hyland is The Sunday Age's international editor.
Sunday Age, August 29, 2010
Where there is no information, there is no hope of a meaningful discussion.
IT HAS taken nine years, the deaths of 21 Australian soldiers and a hung parliament, but now our politicians agree: they will have a debate on Afghanistan. The Greens have long called for one; so have former and serving soldiers. Now Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott reluctantly concur.
But now comes the hard part, because many of those agreeing to a debate want the discussion to reach the contradictory conclusions they cling to. The Greens want the troops out now. Gillard and Abbott say any debate will not divert them from their commitment to the war. The soldiers who want a debate appear to be the only ones with open minds, even though they have the most at stake.
If the debate is to go beyond the reiteration of entrenched views, it would help if the government gave us some unadorned facts about what our troops are doing, why they are doing it, and whether it has any chance of success. The last point is the crucial one.
While media commentators say a rising death toll is undermining popular support for Australia's commitment, the evidence is that it is the perception we are not winning - not that Australians are dying - that is the key factor in the war's unpopularity. This disenchantment, reflected in opinion polls, comes despite strenuous efforts by governments and defence officials to restrict the flow of information about our role in the conflict.
An American academic, in an analysis published by the US Army War College, of all places, has tracked the drop in public support for the war in Australia and five other countries with troops in Afghanistan. The academic, Charles Miller, traces declining Australian support back to 2007, when Australia had lost just four soldiers, when the conflict barely rated in public discussion and when it had bi-partisan political backing.
This is the issue governments fail to address. Instead, there is a constant refrain that we are making ''progress'' in our stated aim, which has settled on training Afghan troops so they can take charge of security and we can leave. We do not know what this confidence is based on, nor do we know how politicians decided to cap Australia's contribution at 1500 troops, a number the government says is ''about right''. The politicians dodge the question by saying they're acting on the advice of the generals. Generals, however, operate within politically imposed parameters.
Without facts free of spin, any debate will take place in an information vacuum. We don't know how the government settled on troop numbers, nor is there any detailed explanation of the work the soldiers are doing, the analysis that underpins it and how this will meet the stated aim.
If the promised debate raises questions for the government, it poses diabolical political and ethical issues for the Greens, soon to gain the balance of power in the Senate.
As they lose their political impotence, they will have to ditch their assumed purity.
The Greens' stated policy is for the immediate withdrawal of troops. Beyond that, there is wishful thinking. NSW Green Lee Rhiannon, for instance, reckons our military budget could be spent on aid programs for Afghan women and children. Yes, but who will deliver that aid when the Taliban think aid workers are legitimate targets, as are girls at schools built by foreign aid money?
There are other questions for those advocating unilateral withdrawal. It might not trouble the Greens, but where would it leave our relationship with Barack Obama, or our commitment to the 46 other countries with troops in Afghanistan?
And what about the Afghans who have worked with us? Do we abandon them?
Independent Andrew Wilkie has highlighted the dilemmas in staying, and going.
''It is clear,'' he says, ''that on one hand there needs to be foreign forces in Afghanistan to create the stability to allow the government to establish itself. But on the other hand, it's the very presence of those forces which is fuelling this ongoing war, mostly by nationalists, not by terrorists.
''Ultimately, we have to get out as quickly as we can and let Afghanistan find its own natural political level and a lot of people will die in the process.''
Our soldiers will not have a say in the debate, even if we know what some of them think. Writing on the Lowy Institute's blog in July, an anonymous soldier lamented the failure of politicians and defence chiefs to spell out a detailed, public policy underpinning the campaign.
''That Australians neither understand the war nor why its soldiers' sacrifice is needed in Afghanistan is shameful,'' he wrote.
''The government, ADF and media are all to blame for this ignorance. If we are to risk life and go to war, the policy must be properly articulated. As it stands, the state of Afghan discourse in Australia is emblematic of our commitment to the war effort and Afghan people: token.''
Tom Hyland is The Sunday Age's international editor.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Civilian Death Toll Soaring In Afghanistan
By James Cogan
WSWS.org August 3, 2009
A report issued late last month by the Human Rights Unit of the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) sheds light on the rising number of innocent Afghan men, women and children who are being killed in order for the US and its allies to consolidate their neo-colonial occupation of the country.
The UNAMA report contrasted the number of officially recorded civilian deaths for the first six months of 2009 with the number in previous years. From January 1 to June 30, it registered 1,013 civilian fatalities, ‘compared with 818 for the same period in 2008, and 684 in 2007’. In other words, as the Obama administration has escalated the war and sent thousands of additional troops and aircraft to Afghanistan, the number of civilian deaths has soared by 24 percent.
The military activities of both the Taliban-led insurgency, dubbed in the report ‘Anti Government Elements (AGEs), and the operations of the so-called Pro Government Forces (PGFs)—foreign troops and Afghan government security forces—contributed to the body count.
Insurgent roadside bombings and suicide bombings were blamed for 595 deaths or 59 percent of the casualties. In many cases, civilians were killed during attacks on occupation military targets. American and NATO forces drive convoys through residential areas and have established bases inside Afghan towns and villages in order to prevent them coming under the direct control of the Taliban.
Included in the number of civilian deaths caused by the insurgency are also a number of pro-occupation government officials and employees who were assassinated.
The occupation forces killed 310 of the civilian deaths recorded by UNAMA, or 30.5 percent. ‘Unknown’ or unconfirmed parties were held responsible for the remaining 108 fatalities, or 10.5 percent.
Air strikes were the main cause of fatalities inflicted by the US and allied forces. UNAMA recorded 40 air attacks that, combined, caused 200 deaths. In June alone, six air strikes killed 51 people, suggesting that the rate is climbing despite proclamations by American generals that greater care is being taken to avoid what the military still calls ‘collateral damage’.
UNAMA’s assessment of the impact of air strikes would be challenged by many in Afghanistan. The report accepted, for example, the official figure that 63 civilians died in the hours-long May 4 aerial assault on the village of Bala Baluk, in the western province of Farah. Locals continue to insist that the number who died was at least 144. It also accepted that the hundreds of alleged Taliban killed in remote areas of the country by air strikes were in fact combatants.
According to a tally compiled by Associated Press, American and NATO forces claimed to have killed more than 2,310 Taliban this year. In 2008, the tally was over 3,800. With the scale of fighting escalating, the new commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, ordered occupation forces in mid-June to stop giving any estimates on alleged Taliban casualties.
The air strike figure also does not count the hundreds of men, women and children who have been killed this year by missile strikes launched from unmanned US Predator drones over the border in the tribal agencies of Pakistan. The anti-occupation insurgency is supported by the ethnic Pashtun population of the region. In retaliation, the US military is waging a systematic campaign of killings and terror against them.
On June 23, a single US attack on a funeral procession in South Waziristan killed over 80 people. In just two days in July, Predator strikes killed another 80.
Other civilian deaths that may not have been counted, or been falsely reported as Taliban fatalities, are those inflicted during the regular raids conducted by special forces’ units on the homes of suspected insurgent leaders, fighters or financiers.
The report noted: ‘Implementation of search and seizure operations (including night time raids) are also of concern, and there have been reports of a number of joint Afghan and international military forces operations in which excessive use of force has allegedly resulted in civilian deaths.’ Agencies such as UNAMA rarely have the ability to independently verify who, and how many, are killed in such actions.
Overall, the UNAMA report makes a pessimistic estimate of the situation facing the US-led occupation in Afghanistan. Far from Obama’s surge curbing Afghan resistance to the presence of foreign troops, the Taliban and other insurgents are gaining support and expanding the territory in which they operate.
UNAMA noted: ‘As the conflict has widened and deepened throughout 2007, 2008 and into 2009, almost a third of the country is now directly affected by insurgent activities with differing intensity. Armed conflict is particularly prevalent in the South, South-East, East, Central, and Western regions of the country. It is also spreading into areas formerly relatively tranquil, such as the North and North-East.’
The occupation forces, in response, are ‘attempting to quell the insurgency and responding to insurgent activity within civilian areas, [and] are also conducting more operations in areas where civilians reside. These factors have resulted in a rising toll in terms of civilian deaths and injuries and destruction of infrastructure, including homes and assets, which are essential for survival and the maintenance of livelihoods.’
The result will be greater numbers of Afghan civilians losing their lives, particularly in the continuing air strikes against alleged Taliban targets. On July 30, the Los Angeles Times reported that McChrystal had instructed that the Predator drones previously used for hunting for Al Qaeda leaders in remote mountainous areas of the country be focused instead on operations in ‘major insurgent strongholds’—i.e., areas with large civilian populations.
McChrystal has also requested that at least another dozen of the unmanned aircraft be dispatched from the US to Afghanistan. Central Command has further ordered the redeployment of U2 spy aircraft, combat engineer units, road-clearance teams and helicopters from Iraq to the burgeoning war in Afghanistan.
Underscoring again the fraudulent character of the ‘war against terrorism’, an unnamed official told the Los Angeles Times: ‘We might still be too focused on Bin Laden. We should probably reassess our priorities.’
McChrystal himself declared in a recent interview: ‘I don’t think there is enough focus on counter-insurgency. I am not in a position to criticise counter-terrorism, but at this point in the war, in Afghanistan, it is most important to focus on almost classic counter-insurgency.’
Far from being against terrorism, the war is against the Afghan people. The consequence of the rising death toll among both civilians and insurgents will be wider hostility toward the occupation forces and greater sympathy for the armed resistance to their presence.
At the same time, the surge is leading to a rise in US and NATO casualties. In July, foreign occupation forces in Afghanistan suffered their worst casualties of nearly eight years of war, with 75 losing their lives. In just the first two days of August, nine US and NATO troops have been killed—a rate as high as the worst days of fighting in Iraq.
The UNAMA report predicted that a sharp upsurge in violence would take place over the next several weeks, as the Obama administration and its allies attempted to hold a stage-managed presidential election in the country—including in areas controlled by the Taliban, where Afghan President Hamid Karzai is viewed with contempt.
WSWS.org August 3, 2009
A report issued late last month by the Human Rights Unit of the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) sheds light on the rising number of innocent Afghan men, women and children who are being killed in order for the US and its allies to consolidate their neo-colonial occupation of the country.
The UNAMA report contrasted the number of officially recorded civilian deaths for the first six months of 2009 with the number in previous years. From January 1 to June 30, it registered 1,013 civilian fatalities, ‘compared with 818 for the same period in 2008, and 684 in 2007’. In other words, as the Obama administration has escalated the war and sent thousands of additional troops and aircraft to Afghanistan, the number of civilian deaths has soared by 24 percent.
The military activities of both the Taliban-led insurgency, dubbed in the report ‘Anti Government Elements (AGEs), and the operations of the so-called Pro Government Forces (PGFs)—foreign troops and Afghan government security forces—contributed to the body count.
Insurgent roadside bombings and suicide bombings were blamed for 595 deaths or 59 percent of the casualties. In many cases, civilians were killed during attacks on occupation military targets. American and NATO forces drive convoys through residential areas and have established bases inside Afghan towns and villages in order to prevent them coming under the direct control of the Taliban.
Included in the number of civilian deaths caused by the insurgency are also a number of pro-occupation government officials and employees who were assassinated.
The occupation forces killed 310 of the civilian deaths recorded by UNAMA, or 30.5 percent. ‘Unknown’ or unconfirmed parties were held responsible for the remaining 108 fatalities, or 10.5 percent.
Air strikes were the main cause of fatalities inflicted by the US and allied forces. UNAMA recorded 40 air attacks that, combined, caused 200 deaths. In June alone, six air strikes killed 51 people, suggesting that the rate is climbing despite proclamations by American generals that greater care is being taken to avoid what the military still calls ‘collateral damage’.
UNAMA’s assessment of the impact of air strikes would be challenged by many in Afghanistan. The report accepted, for example, the official figure that 63 civilians died in the hours-long May 4 aerial assault on the village of Bala Baluk, in the western province of Farah. Locals continue to insist that the number who died was at least 144. It also accepted that the hundreds of alleged Taliban killed in remote areas of the country by air strikes were in fact combatants.
According to a tally compiled by Associated Press, American and NATO forces claimed to have killed more than 2,310 Taliban this year. In 2008, the tally was over 3,800. With the scale of fighting escalating, the new commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, ordered occupation forces in mid-June to stop giving any estimates on alleged Taliban casualties.
The air strike figure also does not count the hundreds of men, women and children who have been killed this year by missile strikes launched from unmanned US Predator drones over the border in the tribal agencies of Pakistan. The anti-occupation insurgency is supported by the ethnic Pashtun population of the region. In retaliation, the US military is waging a systematic campaign of killings and terror against them.
On June 23, a single US attack on a funeral procession in South Waziristan killed over 80 people. In just two days in July, Predator strikes killed another 80.
Other civilian deaths that may not have been counted, or been falsely reported as Taliban fatalities, are those inflicted during the regular raids conducted by special forces’ units on the homes of suspected insurgent leaders, fighters or financiers.
The report noted: ‘Implementation of search and seizure operations (including night time raids) are also of concern, and there have been reports of a number of joint Afghan and international military forces operations in which excessive use of force has allegedly resulted in civilian deaths.’ Agencies such as UNAMA rarely have the ability to independently verify who, and how many, are killed in such actions.
Overall, the UNAMA report makes a pessimistic estimate of the situation facing the US-led occupation in Afghanistan. Far from Obama’s surge curbing Afghan resistance to the presence of foreign troops, the Taliban and other insurgents are gaining support and expanding the territory in which they operate.
UNAMA noted: ‘As the conflict has widened and deepened throughout 2007, 2008 and into 2009, almost a third of the country is now directly affected by insurgent activities with differing intensity. Armed conflict is particularly prevalent in the South, South-East, East, Central, and Western regions of the country. It is also spreading into areas formerly relatively tranquil, such as the North and North-East.’
The occupation forces, in response, are ‘attempting to quell the insurgency and responding to insurgent activity within civilian areas, [and] are also conducting more operations in areas where civilians reside. These factors have resulted in a rising toll in terms of civilian deaths and injuries and destruction of infrastructure, including homes and assets, which are essential for survival and the maintenance of livelihoods.’
The result will be greater numbers of Afghan civilians losing their lives, particularly in the continuing air strikes against alleged Taliban targets. On July 30, the Los Angeles Times reported that McChrystal had instructed that the Predator drones previously used for hunting for Al Qaeda leaders in remote mountainous areas of the country be focused instead on operations in ‘major insurgent strongholds’—i.e., areas with large civilian populations.
McChrystal has also requested that at least another dozen of the unmanned aircraft be dispatched from the US to Afghanistan. Central Command has further ordered the redeployment of U2 spy aircraft, combat engineer units, road-clearance teams and helicopters from Iraq to the burgeoning war in Afghanistan.
Underscoring again the fraudulent character of the ‘war against terrorism’, an unnamed official told the Los Angeles Times: ‘We might still be too focused on Bin Laden. We should probably reassess our priorities.’
McChrystal himself declared in a recent interview: ‘I don’t think there is enough focus on counter-insurgency. I am not in a position to criticise counter-terrorism, but at this point in the war, in Afghanistan, it is most important to focus on almost classic counter-insurgency.’
Far from being against terrorism, the war is against the Afghan people. The consequence of the rising death toll among both civilians and insurgents will be wider hostility toward the occupation forces and greater sympathy for the armed resistance to their presence.
At the same time, the surge is leading to a rise in US and NATO casualties. In July, foreign occupation forces in Afghanistan suffered their worst casualties of nearly eight years of war, with 75 losing their lives. In just the first two days of August, nine US and NATO troops have been killed—a rate as high as the worst days of fighting in Iraq.
The UNAMA report predicted that a sharp upsurge in violence would take place over the next several weeks, as the Obama administration and its allies attempted to hold a stage-managed presidential election in the country—including in areas controlled by the Taliban, where Afghan President Hamid Karzai is viewed with contempt.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Poll finds 51% oppose role in Afghanistan
Tony Wright
The Age, March 30, 2009
AUSTRALIA'S involvement in the war in Afghanistan is increasingly unpopular, despite Prime Minister Kevin Rudd backing at the weekend a larger role for military trainers in the conflict.
The latest Age/Nielsen poll has found 51 per cent of voters oppose Australia's current involvement. Two-thirds of voters oppose any increase in the number of Australian troops in Afghanistan.
The findings follow Mr Rudd's enthusiastic response in the US to President Barack Obama's revamped strategy to try to win the war.
The strategy — an integrated approach of increased military effort, training of Afghan security forces and civil aid —was described by Mr Rudd as "absolutely right".
Although he insisted there had been no direct request from the US for more Australian forces during his visit to Washington, his support for the renewed American effort was interpreted as flagging the likelihood that Australia would increase its troop commitment.
Mr Rudd admitted during a TV interview in the US last week that the war in Afghanistan did not have broad voter support in Australia.
Today's poll confirms that opposition is increasing. In February 2006, an Age/Nielsen poll found that 48 per cent of Australians opposed the war, while 45 per cent supported it. Support has now slipped to 44 per cent, and opposition is the majority position. In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, a Nielsen poll in October 2001 revealed 70 per cent support for the war on terrorism, though Afghanistan was not specifically named in the question.
The Age, March 30, 2009
AUSTRALIA'S involvement in the war in Afghanistan is increasingly unpopular, despite Prime Minister Kevin Rudd backing at the weekend a larger role for military trainers in the conflict.
The latest Age/Nielsen poll has found 51 per cent of voters oppose Australia's current involvement. Two-thirds of voters oppose any increase in the number of Australian troops in Afghanistan.
The findings follow Mr Rudd's enthusiastic response in the US to President Barack Obama's revamped strategy to try to win the war.
The strategy — an integrated approach of increased military effort, training of Afghan security forces and civil aid —was described by Mr Rudd as "absolutely right".
Although he insisted there had been no direct request from the US for more Australian forces during his visit to Washington, his support for the renewed American effort was interpreted as flagging the likelihood that Australia would increase its troop commitment.
Mr Rudd admitted during a TV interview in the US last week that the war in Afghanistan did not have broad voter support in Australia.
Today's poll confirms that opposition is increasing. In February 2006, an Age/Nielsen poll found that 48 per cent of Australians opposed the war, while 45 per cent supported it. Support has now slipped to 44 per cent, and opposition is the majority position. In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, a Nielsen poll in October 2001 revealed 70 per cent support for the war on terrorism, though Afghanistan was not specifically named in the question.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
