Americans More Pessimistic About Afghanistan

November 24, 2009 11:07 AM | | Comments (0)

Two-thirds of Americans think the war in Afghanistan is going badly, and a slim majority (52 percent) say they are opposed to the war, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll taken Nov. 13-15.

Opposition to the Afghan war has fluctuated between 58 percent and 46 percent over the last three years of CNN polls, but the belief that the war is going very or moderately badly has increased in 2009, with 42 percent saying it is going moderately badly and 24 percent saying it is going very badly.

For the combined total, that's an increase of 5 percentage points from May and up 11 percentage points from March of 2007.

While 56 percent say the "surge" in Iraq of 20,000 additional troops was a success in the war there, public opinion is divided, 50 percent to 49 percent, on whether to send more troops into Afghanistan, the poll said. And opposition increases to 56 percent if the number of additional troops sent to Afghanistan is reduced below 34,000.

The poll is based on telephone interviews with 1,014 adults nationwide, 928 of whom are registered voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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Categories: CNN

Tags: Afghanistan

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