The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll found that a startling 45 percent of Americans said they do not think the war in Afghanistan is worth fighting, despite the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which provoked the war in the first place.
The growing disenchantment with the Afghan deployment hasn't reached the level of national frustration with the Iraq war, but after more than six years with U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan and violence on the rise, Americans are becoming increasingly wary about the country's involvement.
Fifty-one percent of Americans now say that the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan has been unsuccessful, up from 24 percent in fall 2002.
With casualties in Afghanistan now exceeding Iraq casualties, the transformation of the Afghanistan Campaign into just another "bad war" has been clear for some time:
When these months become routine, the hand off will take place. Our Left is anti-war. They are most comfortable when our military loses. They are only pro-Afghanistan War because they need a crutch to support their efforts to lose the Iraq War. It would look bad to the majority of Americans who like victory if the Left was openly against both wars, since that would merely make our Left appear as defeatists rather than wise stewards of our security who want to cut our losses in the doomed distraction from the real war in Afghanistan.
I've called this since August 2006. The Afghanistan War will be the bad war soon enough. No matter who is elected president and no matter how much opponents of the Iraq War claim we are distracted by the Iraq War from fighting the real war on terror in Afghanistan. Do recall that at one time, many on the Left claimed Afghanistan was a distraction from the war on terror.
I'm not sure why anybody is startled by the poll numbers.
