rihabcharida charida's List: New poll: 61% of Australians want troops out

• Stand Fast is a group of veterans and former military personnel who oppose the current wars of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

• The poll found 19 per cent want an immediate pull out, while 43 per cent want troops home by Christmas.
• A new poll has found 62 per cent of people want to see all Australian troops home from Afghanistan within six months.
• The poll of 500 people was taken on Wednesday and Thursday, and came in a week when two Australian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan and a Victorian soldier, killed in the previous week, was buried.
• The poll found 19 per cent want an immediate pull out, while 43 per cent want troops home by Christmas.
• Yesterday, hundreds of mourners gathered at St Andrew's Cathedral in Sydney for the funeral of 32-year-old Sergeant Brett Wood, a decorated commando killed in Afghanistan on May 23.
• Just a week later, 25-year-old Queensland-based Lance Corporal Andrew Jones died when he was shot by a rogue Afghan soldier.
• On the same day, a Victorian-based pilot, 27-year-old Lieutenant Marcus Case, was killed in a Chinook helicopter crash during a resupply mission.

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•   <!-- google_ad_section_start(name=story_introduction, weight=high) -->  NEARLY two in three Australians want the Government to pull our troops out of Afghanistan.  <!-- google_ad_section_end(name=story_introduction) --> 
• As the Australian death toll mounts, only a third of voters agree with the existing bipartisan policy of remaining in the war-torn country "for as long as necessary".
• To the question "should Australian troops remain in Afghanistan," 19 per cent of the 500 polled responded negatively, saying they should be brought home immediately.

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• An Essential Poll released today showed that 61% of respondents thought Australia should withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, 24% thought we should keep the same number and 7% thought we should increase numbers.
• Support for withdrawal of troops has increased by 11% since this question was asked in March last year.
• It is a tragedy that three more Australian soldiers have been killed in this near-decade long war but it is ordinary civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan who have been the biggest victims in this war.
• Some 3.3 million Afghans have fled their country as refugees or are internally displaced and tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have been killed and many more maimed and wounded, according to UN figures.
• Australia has around 1550 combat troops in Afghanistan as part of the 100,000-strong US-NATO command. They are taking part in the summer military offensive in the southern province of Kandahar.
• The former Howard Liberal-National government joined the war against Afghanistan without even a discussion or vote in Parliament.
• The Rudd government should immediately allow a debate in Parliament to explain to the Australian people exactly how being in a war of occupation in central Asia helps protect the Australian people’s interests.

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