Monday, August 24, 2009

Most Brits want troops out of Afghanistan

Morning Star Online, Aug 23, 2009

by Daniel Coysh

Two separate opinion polls have laid bare the British public’s desire to see British troops to be pulled out of Afghanistan.

A BPIX poll for the Mail on Sunday newspaper found that 69 per cent of respondents did not believe that British forces should be fighting in Afghanistan, compared to just 31 per cent who thought that the mission was worthwhile.

The poll of 2,000 adults showed that three-quarters of those questioned did not swallow the government’s line that fighting in Afghanistan is making British people safer from terrorism.

Over the past few weeks, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his Cabinet have repeatedly claimed that the war is part of efforts to keep Britain’s streets safer from attack.

A ComRes poll for The Independent on Sunday found that 60 per cent want British forces to be withdrawn from Afghanistan as quickly as possible, while 33 per cent disagreed.

The BPIX poll found that 72 per cent of respondents thought that Mr Brown was handling the war “badly” – with 32 per cent saying that he was doing “very badly.”

A mere 1.5 per cent thought that he was doing “very well.”

Hapless Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth received similar ratings, with 1.6 per cent saying that he was handling the war “very well” and 38 per cent saying that he was doing “very badly.”

Britain has about 9,000 troops in Afghanistan. The British death toll now stands at 206, nearly 30 more than were killed in the five years that British soldiers were in Iraq.

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