Are We Safer?

Wasn’t the bombing of Afghanistan supposed to make Americans safer and more secure? A just-released Gallup Poll might raise some doubts as to whether that goal is being achieved. Gallup conducted face-to-face interviews with 10,000 people from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, Lebanon, Kuwait, Morocco, and Jordan. Fifty-three percent of those interviewed expressed an unfavorable opinion of the United States and only 22 percent had a favorable opinion. The lowest was Pakistan, whose government was formerly a strong supporter of the Taliban but is now a friend of the U.S. government—only 5 percent of the respondents there hold a favorable view of the United States. Although a majority of the 10,000 respondents believe that the September 11 attacks were morally unjustified, 77 percent believe that the U.S. government’s attacks on Afghanistan were morally unjustified. In Indonesia, 89 percent oppose the attacks. Respondents described the United States as “ruthless and arrogant.” Meanwhile, despite the deaths and injuries of thousands of Afghan people who had nothing to do with 9/11, Osama bin Laden, who was the prime reason that the U.S. government attacked and bombed Afghanistan in the first place, remains at large.https://www.washtimes.com/national/20020228-17825979.htm