More than 1 in 4 Americans said recent events in Afghanistan changed their views. Poll: Half want faster Afghan pullout

Half of Americans believe the United States should speed up the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, according to a poll Thursday conducted after a U.S. soldier allegedly went on a shooting rampage that killed 16 Afghan civilians.

While 50 percent said the U.S. should pull troops faster than originally planned, 24 percent they’d prefer sticking to the original timetable of leaving by the end of 2014, while 21 percent said troops should remain until they’ve accomplished their goals, a USA Today/Gallup poll found.


Democrats and independents were more likely to favor speeding up the withdrawal process, with 53 and 54 percent, respectively, supporting the move, while 40 percent of Republicans said the same.

There are currently about 90,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

On Sunday, a U.S. Army sergeant reportedly opened fire in a southern Afghan village while its residents were sleeping, killing 16 people — nine of whom were children. The incident came on the heels of another event that had heightened U.S.-Afghan tensions — the burning of Qurans by Americans soldiers at an air base near Kabul that resulted in angry protests across the country.

More than one in four Americans, 27 percent, said these recent events have changed their minds about how long troops should remain in Afghanistan, leading them to believe that the pullout should take place sooner than the original plan. Just 6 percent said that in the aftermath of the series of mishaps, they’ve changed their minds to believe that U.S. troops should actually remain in the country longer, while the majority, 60 percent, said the incidents didn’t change their mind about the withdrawal plan.

And the majority of Americans, 59 percent, believe that sending troops into Afghanistan was the right thing for the U.S. to do – slightly lower than the 62 percent who expressed this opinion in Dec. 2009.

The USA Today/Gallup poll was conducted March 13 among 1,006 adults, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

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