Does public opinion on Afghanistan even matter?

[Bragi]

The usual silence from pro-war media and leaders has greeted the latest public opinion poll showing, once again, that Canadians do not support the mission in Afghanistan.

See http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/290195

What is becoming clearer all the time is how little public opinion on war actually matters in the major "democratic" countries.

Majorities in the almost all the major countries fighting the Bush war on terror in Iraq or Afghanistan (The US itself, Canada, the UK, Spain, Australia, Holland, Italy, etc.) have long called for ending these wars.

Notwithstanding this, elected political leaders and media talkers in these countries just operate as though the public is an ignorant child that doesn't understand the way things work, and continue to send more troops to die, while blathering on about "supporting the troops".

Quite sad, really. When public opinion doesn't matter in terms of something as crucial as a war, it is impossible not to conclude that democracy itself has broken down in these countries. The fact that almost no-one talks about this in the media is symptomatic of this breakdown.

- B

[IntravenousDemilo]

1. The sad thing is...

...we don't have a long and august history of political assassinations in Canada, so I guess we're screwed.

[nAtionAstray]

2. Current Public Opinion doesn't trump responsibility

Although I agree that it seems like the governments fighting in the current Iraq & Afghan wars do not seem to care about the public majority of opinion, the truth is; these wars were not started yesterday, they were started half a decade ago, and just because we are not happy now, does not mean we do not have huge responsibilities to the peoples of countires we destroyed

When war began, the Afghan mission was widely supported among the involved countries' public, just because we are where we are now, and it doesn't look good, the public wants out. How is that fair?! Also, like the Iraq war, much of the U.S. public supported (not all) invasion at the time, although public opinion has changed dramatically, that doesn't change that fact that the decision was made, the damage was done, and leaving with the job half-done will destroy hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives because 3,000 U.S. lives is too much!

Although the public may not like it, they had their parts to play in this mess, and would do Iraq & Afghanistan a favor in discovering the fact that regardless of what they think, the world is watching. And if we pull out and leave those countries in anarchy, the harbingers of democracy will become a contradiction.

[daleo]

3. We are "fighting for democracy"

Thus, public opinion must be ignored.