Americans suffer outbreak of good sense
http://pewresearch.org/reports/?ReportID=45
A Diminished Public Appetite for Military Force and Mideast Oil
September 6, 2006
Five years later, Americans’ views of the impact of the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks have changed little, but opinions about how best to
protect against future attacks have shifted substantially. In
particular, far more Americans say reducing America’s overseas
military presence, rather than expanding it, will have a greater
effect in reducing the threat of terrorism.
By a 45% to 32% margin, more Americans believe that the best way to
reduce the threat of terrorist attacks on the U.S. is to decrease,
not increase, America’s military presence overseas. This is a stark
reversal from the public’s position on the first anniversary of the
Sept. 11 attacks. In the summer of 2002, before serious public
discussion of removing Saddam Hussein from power had begun, nearly
half (48%) said that the best way to reduce terrorism was to increase
our military involvement overseas, while just 29% said less
involvement would make us safer.
Similarly, in 2002 a 58% majority felt that military strikes against
nations developing nuclear weapons were a very important way to
reduce future terrorism. Today, just 43% express the same level of
support for such action.
Yet most Americans do not believe that the ability of terrorists to
launch another attack against the U.S. has been diminished. Rather,
62% say terrorists’ capabilities are the same (37%) or greater (25%)
than they were at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. This view
has remained stable since the summer of 2002.
Opinions about how to deal with terrorism have changed over this
period. An increasing number of Americans see nonmilitary approaches
– such as decreasing U.S. dependence on Middle East oil and avoiding
involvement with the problems of other countries – as effective in
this regard. Fully two-thirds (67%) say that decreasing America’s
dependence on oil from the Middle East is a very important step in
preventing terrorism – the highest percentage for any option tested.
A year after the attacks, only about half of Americans (53%) saw this
as a very important way to reduce future terrorism.
The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People
& the Press, conducted Aug. 9-13 among 1,506 adults, finds that
nearly every American (95%) can still recall exactly where they were
or what they were doing when they first heard the news of the Sept.
11 attacks, and roughly half (51%) say that the attacks changed life
in America in a major way. On a personal level, 22% report that their
own lives have changed in a major way because of the events of Sept
11, up slightly from 16% one year after the attacks occurred. In the
view of nearly half of Americans (47%), the 9/11 attacks are about as
serious as the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and another 35%
say the Sept. 11 attacks were more serious than that event.
Public concerns about another terrorist attack have neither increased
nor decreased substantially in the years since the attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In October 2001, just over a
quarter (28%) said they were very worried about another attack, a
proportion that fell to 16% by the summer of 2002, and stands at 23%
in the current survey. The current survey was largely conducted
immediately after the Aug. 10 revelations that a major terrorist plot
against trans-Atlantic jet liners had been foiled.
The public also continues to give the government generally favorable
ratings for its response to terrorism. Most say the government is
doing very well (22%) or fairly well (52%) in reducing the threat of
another attack. But a majority believe that the ability of terrorists
to launch another major attack in the U.S. is the same (37%) or
greater (25%) today than it was at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Just a third say the ability of terrorists to strike the U.S. is less
now than it was then.
Read the full report at people-press.org