As Afghans hold election, U.S. support for war plunges

Posted by CODEPINK Staff

In a lead-up to his excellent initial analysis of the Afghan election on his blog today, president of the Global Americana Institute Juan Cole posted this tidbit: a new Washington Post- ABC News opinion poll shows that for the first time in two years, Americans who said that the war was worth fighting fell below 50 percent, all the way down to 47. Only 31 percent felt strongly about it being worth fighting.

An increasingly American opposition might become sufficient pressure to push Congress to cut war funding. Cole writes:

The bad news for Obama is that liberals and Democrats are far more hostile to the Afghanistan War than are Republicans. The Democratic majority in the House and the Senate could, if these numbers keep going south, become sufficiently afraid of their constituents that they vote to stop funding the war. Some close observers of Washington think the president only has a year or two before that confrontation with Congress takes place.

Meanwhile, violence amid yesterday's election left  50 dead and most likely explains the relatively low turnout in some provinces, even though 95 percent of polls were open. Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah both claimed victory, but the electoral commission refused to accept either claim on Friday morning. Check out Cole's report here, which includes video from Al Jazeera.