Afghanistan

Summary of Findings The public took a renewed interest in the war in Afghanistan last week as President Obama unveiled plans to send more troops there while vowing to start bringing them home in 2011. Still, as many people say they talked with friends about Tiger Woods’ troubles as Afghanistan. More than four-in-ten (43%) say […]

The President’s long-awaited decision on how to wage war in Afghanistan was the No. 1 story last week, surpassing coverage of the two big domestic issues—the economy and health care. But a scandal-scorched athlete and some White House party crashers found their way into the top stories as well.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism did not issue a News Index report this week, but the data is available.

The contrast between attitudes toward military involvement in Afghanistan and Iran fits into a temporal pattern. Americans generally like their wars to be successful or short -- and ideally both.

Americans and Western Europeans agree on the extremist threat from Afghanistan and Pakistan, but divisions remain over the Afghan war

While Americans across the country honor the nation’s veterans today, most do not think the government gives enough support to soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Only a quarter of the public can correctly estimate the number of U.S. military fatalities in Afghanistan.

As Obama weighs difficult choices in Afghanistan, the public also appears to be finding it difficult to judge the merits of different options for expanding, maintaining or contracting the U.S. effort on that front.

Coverage of health care was up last week, the economy was down and the war in Afghanistan remained about the same. But together, this trio continued their run atop the news agenda, a pattern we began to see settle in earlier this fall.

Afghanistan President Harmid Karzai has been much in the news lately, but he still trails far behind the top newsmaker among overseas leaders this year, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.