US opinion polls

J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. rosserjb at jmu.edu
Wed May 19 11:12:02 PDT 1999


Well, I have brought in the article from yesterday's Washington Post that reported declining support for the war effort. It was drawing on the ABC/Washington Post poll. I shall simply quote below from the article.

"The percentage of Americans who back the air campaign has dropped from 65 % in late April to 59% in the latest survey. Opposition grew from 30% to 38% in the same period.

58% of those surveyed say NATO should negotiate with Serbia [sic] on terms to end the conflict, while 38% say the allies should require Serbia to accept existing NATO requirements for peace--a view expressed by equally large proportions of Republicans, Democrats, and independents.

Six in 10 say Milosevic should be required to remove most of his troops from Kosovo--a key NATO peace condition-- while nearly four in 10 said troop withdrawals should be up for negotiation. 54% say the return of all refugees to Kosovo should not be open to negotiations, while 42% say it should. But 55% say a settlement allowing Kosovo limited self-rule should not be a requirement for peace.

The survey revealed that the American public is backing away from sending combat troops into Kosovo. Barely half of those interviewed--52%--say they favor sending in soldiers if the air campaign fails to produce peace, down from 56% in a Post-ABC News poll conducted three weeks ago.

At the same time, the proportion who oppose the use of ground troops increased from 40% to 46%, with most of the jump in opposition coming from independents. Among these voters, opposition to the bombing increased by more than 10 percentage points.

For the first time in Post-ABC News surveys, a clear majority of Americans--56%--say they would oppose sending ground troops into Kosovo if it meant that the US would suffer "some" casualties.

.........

The latest Post-ABC News poll suggests that Clinton's recent humanitarian pleas have not won him additional support for his actions in Serbia. The US has done "the right thing" getting involved in Kosovo, according to 54% of those interviewed, unchanged from a survey in late April.

What has increased in recent polls is the sense that neither side is winning in Kosovo. Fewer than half of those interviewed-- 45%--believe that the US and its allies are achieving victory, while 22% said Serbia is winning. But the proportion who say neither side is winning now stands at 28%, up seven percentage points since April."

BTW, it is pretty clear that what would serously tank support for the war would be some dead Americans. We are not surprised at the sloppy, high altitude, video games style approach to fighting that the US and NATO have engaged in. Barkley Rosser



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