A majority (60%) of citizens from 23 countries support the actions of a number of countries that are part of NATO, and with the support of the Arab League, to enforce a no‐fly‐zone and intervene militarily in Libya.Not too many surprises really. Thus far, the mission has had no casualties on the part of the interveners, Qaddafi has continued to provide good reasons for those who hate him to continue doing so, and so we can expect support to be pretty positive. Given that NATO is dropping bombs on Muslims, the Saudi and Indonesian results are actually pretty positive. Shows how much the Saudis hate Qaddafi.
Most likely to support this action is South Africa (83%), followed by Belgium (83%), Australia (77%), India (75%), France (72%), Sweden (71%), Canada (70%), Brazil (68%), Japan (68%), Spain (64%), South Korea (63%), Poland (62%), the United States (61%), Germany (59%), Great Britain (58%), Hungary (54%), Mexico (53%), and Italy (52%).
Of all the countries surveyed, those countries least likely to support the mission are: Russia (23%), Turkey (35%), Argentina (38%), Indonesia (46%) and Saudi Arabia (50%).
The results also show that Merkl really blew it--the pacifist Germans to support the bombing campaign about as much as the trigger-happy cowboys (that would be the US and the Brits).
It is funny that the Brits are the least enthused of the Commonwealth countries (South Africa, Australia, India, Canada). That is surprising. Any reactions from the readers?
3 comments:
If I recall correctly, South Africa, India and Canada did not participate in the "Coalition of the Willing" that went into Iraq. Australia and the UK did, but the UK contributed significantly more troops. The UK, Canada and Australia also participated in Afghanistan, but I believe the UK contributed the most troops. So the UK numbers could be the result of war fatigue, particularly given popular opposition to Iraq before they went in.
Any sense of how much people care about Libya vis-a-vis other issues?
Fascinating that, aside from Russia, the UNSC abstainers have shown solid popular support for the military action. In addition to Germany, look at those numbers for India and Brazil!
(I suppose there can be no poll in China.)
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