More Americans View Afghan War as ‘Mistake’

Increasingly, U.S. citizens are coming to view the war in Afghanistan as a mistake, according to results of a Gallup poll released Feb. 19. According to results of a survey Gallup conducted Feb. 6-9, 49 percent of the 1,023 respondents now believe the 12-year-old conflict is a mistake, while 48 percent believe it has been worthwhile. Participants all were age 18 or older. The margin of sampling error for the survey results is plus or minus four percentage points at a 95-percent confidence level, according to Gallup. The number contrasts significantly with the same results when the war began in 2001, when fewer than 10 percent of all respondents stated they thought the conflict was a mistake. The number of people feeling that way has risen annually since then – up to 25 percent in 2004, and 40 percent in 2010. Fifty-nine percent of all Democrats and those whose politics lean toward the Democratic policy are more likely to view the conflict as a mistake, compared to 36 percent of Republicans and those whose politics lean toward the right.