The Health Care Legislative Ruse Is Sickening !

Ne'eman discusses Israel's next round with Iran.

I have maintained for several years there would be a war and I still believe it will come - not because Israel wants one but because the feckless West leaves them no alternative.
Obama continues making speeches, NATO is busy figuring out how to lose in Afghanistan and the really big news is about Cheetah and his declining sponsors. Meanwhile Iran keeps perfecting its rocketry and nuclear arsenal. (See 1 and 1a below.)

Is this is what Obama meant about wealth transfer? The new class of wealthy 'fat cats' are our bureaucrats. (See 2 below.)


While do good liberals keep doing their thing, more black youth on the receiving end remain unemployed. (See 3 below.)

As the heated battle to pass a health care bill increases - any health care bill will do so Obama can claim a victory and increase his self rating to an A - the public's enthusiasm cools.

Today, while driving back home from Atlanta, I listened to the reading of Bernie's (The Socialist Senator) 700 plus page amendment to the health care bill. It was unintelligible garbage. It took so long to read, Bernie was forced to pull it. Now the strategy is to blame Republicans for being obstructionists, when in fact, they deserve medals.

Two things came to mind as I listened to this pathetic attempt at making us all subject to a government run health care system: First, the amendment's language was aptly suited for lawyers because ambiguity supports litigation. Whoever wrote this amendment should be hung by his tongue but before doing so forced to eat all the "whereases."

Second, it has become fashionable for legislators not to even read what they pass let alone be expected to understand it.

This is the government we have imposed on ourselves. Meanwhile our elected officials go on spending sprees with abandon running up enormous entertainment and travel costs.

The entire affair was a sickening experience. (See 4 below.)

Dick

1)Israel's Next Round With Iran & Co.
By Yisrael Ne'eman

Very unfortunately Israel's next war is looming on the horizon. When exactly, is hard to say – most likely within ten months fitting in perfectly with the settlement "building freeze". The Iranians have rejected all suggestions for compromise over their nuclear weapons program and experts suspect they may have developed a bomb already and if not, then within the immediate future. All threats of sanctions make no impression. Policy positions in both the public and private sphere remain identical, to "wipe Israel of the map". Iranian Pres. Ahmedinejad who enjoys the full backing of Islamic Council leader Khamenei is consolidating a military/police dictatorship within the framework of an Islamic republic.

Iran is moving towards a totalitarian society similar to Mussolini's fascist Italy, Hitler's Nazi Germany, Stalin's Bolshevik Soviet Union and Mao's Peoples Republic of China. With the increasing numbers of internal enemies the Tehran leadership is becoming more repressive daily. On the foreign front the "threat" of Zionism and the West in general are and will continue to be amplified in a desperate effort to unify the Iranian masses against these supposed ultimate evils. Lest one forgets, the reformists led by Mousavi favor nuclear development for military purposes no less than Ahmedinejad and his radical supporters. Israel is the lightning rod for the ultimate extermination of "evil" in the eyes of the Khomeinist Shiite extremist revolutionaries.

Hezbollah has recovered from the 2006 summer war with Israel and is said to have at least 15,000 men, 2.5 times the manpower they had three and a half years ago. If last time their rocket capabilities stood at some 12,000 – 15,000 today estimates hover beyond 50,000 with thousands capable of hitting the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. UN Resolution 1701 proved to be a complete washout despite the deployment of UN and Lebanese government forces on Israel's northern border. All know both forces can be removed in a flash should hostilities break out. The increasingly Shiite influenced Lebanese Army could conceivably join the Hezbollah. In violation of this resolution and previous ones (425 and 1559) Syria and Iran are resupplying the Hezbollah militia/terrorists mostly through the cross border route between Lebanon and Syria. Hezbollah Sec. Gen. Hasan Nasrallah now awaits his orders from Tehran – when to go on the attack.

Hamas took a pounding in last year's Cast Lead Operation and the organization has not fully recovered. If last year there were some 600 tunnels between Gaza and Sinai today the estimates go as high as 1,000 in addition to smuggling at sea. The supposed contraband blockade to be enforced with European assistance agreed upon last winter has come to naught. The Hamas too has tens of thousands of rockets and of longer range than last year. This time Hamas may very join Hezbollah in rocketing Tel Aviv.


So far the Israeli response is to prepare for the "fateful moment" through military and civilian exercises. We can call this period "The quiet before the storm". As pointed out yesterday by Gen. Yadlin, Israel's intelligence chief, since the Cast Lead Operation all has been calm. Very few shells have come out of Gaza (mostly mortars) and no Israeli soldiers or civilians have been killed either by rockets or terror attacks in the past year (2009 – not including the Operation itself). But it is very deceptive as all sides rearm and retrain.

In Israel there is the continuing media overemphasis on the deal to release Gilad Shalit. Everyone's heart goes out to him but releasing 1000 terrorists, many of them with multiple murders of Israelis on their hands will not increase security. Supposedly the Israeli armed services and the pro- Fatah Palestinian security apparatus (Gen. Dayton's force) will keep constant watch on those released.



Following the media time dedicated to the demands to release Shalit at "any price" and "immediately" one gets the impression such a move will solve all of Israel's problems. Any opposition to such a heavy price is brushed off. So here is the perfect palliative since very few want to fully delve into what lurks around the corner. The only serious hint of concern by the government is in the upcoming distribution of gas masks to the 70% of the population living in the north and central regions. The south is left out due to lack of funds. Hint – Hezbollah and Iran have chemical weapons, Hamas does not and the government is going on the assumption that the Iranians will not use such weapons on Beersheva and the Negev. Does anyone expect Iran to play by these rules?



Israel, the West or both need to neutralize the Iranian nuclear facilities before weapons can be produced and dropped on the Jewish State. (Note - most of Europe is in Iranian missile range as well.) Then all hell will break loose. Missiles and rockets from Iran, Gaza and south Lebanon can be expected to land all over Israel, completely covering the country, Tel Aviv will lose its bubble status enjoyed over the past 19 years, previously lost in 1991 when Iraq's Saddam Hussein's scuds hit the city.



And what of Syria? That is anyone's guess. They can be expected to weigh the odds of "loss-gain" and then decide whether to join the fray or not. Assad will enjoy his wild card status.



But that's not all. Although there should be contingency plans the expectation in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) is for Gen. Dayton's force to keep the Fatah Palestinians out of the fray and hold back any Hamas challenge. The chances of such an eventuality recede when releasing 1000 Hamas terrorists. With Israel facing a very destructive missile war it is naïve to believe they will stay out of the anti-Israel line up. Hamas will be emboldened, garnering more support through the prisoner deal and openly challenging Pres. Mahmoud Abbas and PM Salam Fayyad for control of the West Bank. No one knows whether Gen. Dayton's force and the populace will remain loyal to Fatah. If not, Israel will be forced to put down a major uprising similar to that of the Low Intensity Conflict – LIC (AKA – Second Intifada) of 2000-04. This will involve tens of thousands of troops. The absolute worst case scenario is the Dayton force taking up arms against Israel, a rerun of the Palestinian Authority police actions at the outset of the 2000 LIC.



The ripple effect will hit Israeli Arabs or "Palestinian Arabs with Israeli citizenship" as many define themselves. Will they too rebel, at least in part as happened with the pro-Palestinian demonstrations turned riots in October 2000 in support of Yasir Arafat's LIC? Nine years ago the Triangle in the Wadi Ara region and the central Galilee were completely shut down cutting off much of the north from the rest of the country. During the 2006 Second War in Lebanon there were pro-Hezbollah demonstrations but as aggravating as they were to Israeli Jews (and many Arabs as well) they remained peaceful.



Gilad Shalit as the great smoke screen will continue to dominate public discourse. Life is a bit too calm and most have lapsed into complacency. No real discussion exists about the response of West Bank Palestinians and Israeli Arabs should the Jewish State face an existential threat.



Israel is heading into the great unknown. Iran needs to be derailed from its nuclear plans and everyone else deterred. Anti-Israel ripple effects in the Arab/Moslem world can go much further than discussed above. Hence it is most important to contain and knock out Iran before we are all locked into a no-exit conflict. It is much better for Israel should the West take action against Iran. Israel's capabilities are quite limited when adding in the necessity of defending against threats from Gaza, south Lebanon, possibly Syria and the unpredictable actions in the West Bank and among Israeli Arabs. For Israel to go it alone is extremely dangerous.


Western involvement however, will involve a price in the form of an agreement with the Fatah led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. This will inevitably lead to a two-state solution, not exactly with borders or conditions favorable to Israel.

1a)New Hamas West Bank commanders set to revive anti-Israel terror


Since early 2007, Hamas has refrained from orchestrating terrorist activity against Israel from the West Bank, focusing mainly on its missile barrage against southwestern Israel from the Gaza Strip. Now, military sources report, the Palestinian extremists have changed course. Hamas' military chief Muhammad Jabary has established a new regional West Bank command corps for a fresh terror campaign against Israel, including suicide attacks, from the territory controlled by the rival Fatah and Palestinian Authority.

Jabary used the discussions on a Palestinian prisoner swap for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, which took place in Cairo and Damascus during October and November, for getting together with Hamas West Bank operatives and refreshing the regional command. He also obtained top-level sanction for the new terror offensive from Hamas' Damascus-based political bureau chiefs and its Shura council.

This decision has a dual motive, according to intelligence sources:

One: To compel Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu to bow to every last Hamas' condition for the release of Sgt. Shalit, who was kidnapped by Hamas more than three years ago and for whom Israel has agreed to free about 1,000 jailed Palestinians.

Some issues are still outstanding and delaying a deal. In some Israeli quarters, it is feared that the release of hundreds convicted hard-core terrorists would augur a fresh upsurge of violence. Hamas means to prove that the escalation will happen anyway without regard to the prisoner swap; it has meanwhile toughened its bargaining tactics. Hamas' politburo chief Khaled Meshaal declared in Tehran Tuesday, Dec. 15, that to bring the Israeli soldier home, Israel must bow to all of Hamas' conditions.

Two: To give their arch foe PA chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas a harsh lesson, Hamas means to discredit both his partnership with the Americans, who have created, armed and funded a new Palestinian national security force, and his security ties with Israel, as useless for stopping Hamas mounting terrorist attacks from the West Bank.

Military and intelligence sources were therefore made uncomfortable by Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen Amos Yadlin's public assertion Tuesday that West Bank-sourced terror was under better control than ever before. Addressing the National Security Research Institute, Yadlin said the year just ending had been very quiet. In deed, he said, "not a single Israeli soldier or civilian had died at the hands of terrorists up until winter 2009 - a manifestation unprecedented in recent decades."

Israel's intelligence community felt that such declarations are an invitation to trouble especially since the last three weeks have seen ominous signs of Hamas gearing up for another wave of violence.

On Dec. 2, Egyptian units discovered a large cache of bomb belts rigged for detonation and 15-kilo explosive charges - some fitted with detonators, others with timers. The cache had been secreted out of the Gaza Strip into Egyptian Sinai for smuggling across its long border with the Negev into Israel. The arms were believed destined for suicide bombers standing by on the West Bank for orders to go into Israel.

On the night of Nov. 25, Israeli forces intercepted a lone suicide bomber heading either for Israel's southern port-resort town of Eilat or a Negev army base with big bomb stuffed into his backpack.

Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant, OC Southern Command and the Gaza front, who is a lot closer to the Hamas scene, was a lot less upbeat than the MI chief when he spoke Tuesday: He warned that the present calm was extremely fragile and the Gaza war front bound to explode - even though it could happen in the space of weeks or months.


2)Federal Employees at the Trough
By Paul B. Matthews

Last week, USA Today reported that nearly one in five federal government employees now earn over $100,000. The paper also reported the average federal salary rose to $71,260, almost $31,000 more than the comparative average private-sector wage.


Within the Department of Defense, over 10,000 employees (as of June 2009) now earn at least $150,000 per year, a 5½-fold increase in the number of employees eclipsing this salary threshold from just eighteen months ago.


At the same time as federal employee salaries have been soaring, total private sector earnings have steadily declined as the unemployment rate escalates (now at 10%) and the average workweek declines. In fact, in November, private-sector employees worked an average of just 33.2 hours, slightly above the all-time low set in October (33.0 hours) and well below the forty hours guaranteed to federal employees. Simultaneously, average private sector hourly earnings totaled $18.74 per hour, significantly below the implied hourly wage rates ($34.25 per hour) paid to the average federal employee.


However, simply analyzing the growth in total paid compensation fails to capture the true explosion in benefits paid to federal workers.


For example, government employees almost never work on weekends. And if a federal employee does work on Sunday, he becomes eligible for Sunday Premium Pay. Federal employees are also entitled to compensatory time off in lieu of overtime pay, a benefit few private sector firms are able to offer.


Paid time off for federal employees is also extremely generous. Employees with less than three years' tenure earn twelve paid days off per year. For service between three and fifteen years, workers are guaranteed eighteen days off with pay. And when an employee reaches fifteen years of service, this benefit grows to twenty-four days.


Federal employees are also guaranteed ten federal holidays with pay.


With all this time off, some government workers might be hard-pressed to use actually use it. No worries -- federal workers have a very liberal carryover policy: thirty days for all employees. However, if you get stationed overseas, this policy expands to forty-five days. And if you become classified as a "Senior Executive Service," a "Senior-Level" [employee], or a "Scientific or Professional Employee," the policy expands to ninety days.


Naturally, at retirement, or if an employee decides to leave government service, any unused time is compensated for with cash -- a lump-sum payout that could easily amount to between $6,000 and $17,800 based on the "average" federal salary figure. For senior-level employees who earn the highest pay levels, such payouts could easily total $30,000 and might even exceed $50,000, thereby eclipsing the average annual salary of an American in the private sector.


The benefits continue. On top of paid time off, federal employees are also eligible for half a day of sick time per biweekly pay period. Thus, in a 52-week year, each full-time employee may accrue 13 days of sick time. There are also no limits on the amount of sick leave an employee may accumulate. Moreover, when an employee retires, any unused sick pay is added to the calculation of the employee's retirement annuity, thereby increasing the value of the annuity payouts received by federal employees during retirement.


And yet there is still more. As part of the Student Loan Repayment Program, a benefit enacted by Congress in 2007, all federal government employees are eligible for up to $10,000 per year in student loan forgiveness, a benefit capped at $60,000 per individual. (This benefit requires ten years of government service.)


Health care benefits provided to federal employees are also quite extensive and lucrative. Notably, there are a minimum of nine national pay-for-service health care plans from which an employee may select. To supplement these nine national plans, there are a number of additional agency-specific plans as well as state-specific HMO, HDHP, or CDHP plans that are also employee options.


On top of basic health care insurance plans offered to its employees, the federal government also provides a full range of vision and dental care plans. Of course, all of these insurance programs are heavily subsidized (up to 50% of the total cost for a family policy) by the U.S. taxpayer.


Finally, the federal government even provides a subsidized life insurance to its employees. Under this program, employees pay only two-thirds of the monthly insurance premium while the U.S. taxpayer covers the rest.


On top of all these incentives, Congress has recently decided to expand the handouts. While consumer prices have steadily declined throughout 2009 (the annual CPI rate fell 0.2% through October), the U.S. Congress just passed legislation that would provide an across-the -board 2% pay raise for all federal employees. As such, federal employees will soon receive a 2.2% real pay increase as private sector wages remain stagnant or fall.


Currently, the U.S. Office of Personal Management estimates that there are just over 4.2 million federal employees. Thus, based on the average salary figures reported by USA Today, total wages paid to all federal employees now total nearly $300 billion per year, or about $1,000 for every man, women, and child in the United States. Add to this figure the costs of insurance, paid time off, and retirement benefits (which have not even been quantified here), and the total federal outlay to "pay" federal employees soars by billions more.


Simply stated, this trend cannot be sustained.


With last year's U.S. federal deficit of more than $1.4 trillion, it will become increasingly difficult to reduce the government's level of red ink, particularly if the federal government continues to expand. However, it now seems quite obvious that the government employment will continue to expand, especially under a nationalized health care system or once Obama's new Consumer Financial Protection Agency officially becomes part of the government Leviathan.


Americans and the media remain almost uniformly against the large bonuses being paid to Wall Street bankers -- even though these bonuses must come from the (albeit subsidized) revenues generated by these firms. Given what has been going on in the public sector, perhaps it's about time for Americans to refocus their anger on the public bureaucrats who feed daily at the trough of the tax dollars generated by their indentured servitude in the private sector.


Paul B. Matthews is a consultant and a Texas-licensed CPA. He is a former hedge fund manager.

3)Collusion Against Our Youth
By Walter Williams


I've grown somewhat weary writing about the devastating effects of minimum wage laws but The Wall Street Journal's "Black Youths Miss Out on Good Job News," (Dec. 4, 2009) warrants another try. Today's overall teenage (16-19) unemployment rate, at 25 percent, is the highest since World War II. Black teenage unemployment, at 50 percent, is also the highest since World War II.


How do you think the Reverends Jackson and Sharpton would explain the unemployment difference between black and white teens? You can bet the rent money they would say: It's racial discrimination. Let's investigate. Was racial discrimination in 1948 greater or less than racial discrimination today? In 1948, the unemployment rate for white 16-17 year olds was 10.2 percent while that for blacks was 9.4 percent. Among white 18-19 year-olds, unemployment was 9.4 percent and for blacks it was 10.5 percent. During that period, not only were the unemployment rates similar, black teenagers were either equally as active as whites in the labor force or more so.


According to the widely shared Jackson/Sharpton vision of the world, racial discrimination must have been less during the late 1940s than it is today. In fact, as early as 1900, blacks as a group were more active in the labor market, a statistic known in economics as labor force participation rate, than whites. This was true up until the late 1950s. Anyone with one ounce of brains would reject the argument that less racial discrimination accounts for the lower black teen unemployment rate and greater labor force participation during earlier periods.


So what might help to explain? The major villain is the minimum wage law. With each increase in the minimum wage, black teen unemployment rose relative to whites and teen unemployment rose relative to adult. Why? Put yourself in the place of an employer and ask: If I must pay to whomever I hire $7.25 an hour, plus mandated fringes such as Social Security, vacation, health insurance, unemployment insurance, does it pay me to hire a worker who is so unfortunate so as to have a skill level that allows him to contribute only $5 worth of value an hour?





Most employers would view hiring such a person a losing economic proposition. Therefore, the primary effect of a minimum wage law is that of discrimination against the employment of low-skilled workers.


Teenagers tend to be low skilled. They lack the experience, knowledge and maturity of adults. That means they will be the primary victims of a minimum wage law. But why are black teens more heavily impacted than white teens? Black teens are far more likely to come from broken homes and attend some of the worst schools in the nation. Therefore, a law that discriminates against the employment of low-skilled workers will have a greater impact on black workers. Moreover, the minimum wage subsidizes racial discrimination. After all, if you must pay $7.25 an hour to whomever you hire, you might as well hire people you like the most, even if they are of identical skill.


The little bit of money a kid could earn after school and on the weekends is not nearly as important as the other benefits from early work experiences. Any kind of job, paying any wage, teaches a youngster that he must be on time, respect supervisors, develop good work habits, plus there's the self-esteem and pride that comes from being at least financially semi-independent. Early work experiences benefit any kid but are far more important for kids from broken homes, who reside in crime-ridden neighborhoods and attend rotten schools. If they are to learn anything that will make them a more valuable employee in the future, it will have to come from work; they won't learn it at home or in the schools. For Congress to enact higher and higher minimum wages, to benefit their union supporters, is shameful and cruel.


4)Public cooling to health-care reform as debate drags on, poll finds
By Dan Balz and Jon Cohen

As the Senate struggles to meet a self-imposed, year-end deadline to complete work on legislation to overhaul the nation's health-care system, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds the public generally fearful that a revamped system would bring higher costs while worsening the quality of their care.

A bare majority of Americans still believe government action is needed to control runaway health-care costs and expand coverage to the roughly 46 million people without insurance. But after a year of exhortation by President Obama and Democratic leaders and a high-octane national debate, there is minimal public enthusiasm for the kind of comprehensive changes in health care now under consideration. There are also signs the political fight has hurt the president's general standing with the public.

One bright spot for the president in the poll is Afghanistan. His announcement Dec. 1that he was ordering an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to that country, to bolster the 68,000 already there, wins majority support. More than half of all Americans, 52 percent, approve of how he is handling the situation there, up from 45 percent before the speech.


But Obama and the Democrats have had decidedly less success convincing the public that their health proposals will bring positive change. More than half of those polled, 53 percent, see higher costs for themselves if the proposed changes go into effect than if the current system remains intact. About as many (55 percent) say the overall cost of the national health-care system would go up more sharply. Moreover, just 37 percent say the quality of their care would be better under a new system; 50 percent see it as better under the current set-up.

Even among those who presumably stand to benefit most from a major restructuring of the insurance market -- the nearly one in 5 adults without coverage -- there are doubts about the changes under consideration. Those without insurance are evenly divided on the question of whether their care would be better if the system were overhauled.

The findings underscore the political risks for Obama and the Democrats as they push to enact health-care legislation. Democrats believe passage of the bill will give them a political boost, despite the fractious debate that has surrounded the legislative struggle. But they are moving ahead in the face of a sharply divided country, with no certain guarantees that their efforts will be rewarded politically.

* * *

Obama's domestic battles have taken their toll, as his approval ratings on key issues have sunk to the lowest points of his presidency. On health care, 53 percent disapprove of his performance, a new high. On the economy, 52 percent disapprove, also a new high mark in Post-ABC polling. Same on the deficit, on which 56 percent now disapprove of his stewardship. On the politically volatile issue of unemployment, 47 percent approve of the way Obama is dealing with the issue; 48 percent disapprove.

Under the weight of these more negative reviews, the president's overall approval rating has dipped to 50 percent, down from 56 percent a month ago. Other national surveys have recorded his ratings at or below 50 percent in recent weeks, but this is his lowest level yet in a Post-ABC News survey.

The erosion in the president's standing has been driven by continued slippage among political independents, particularly among independent men. For the first time, a majority of independents disapprove of his overall job performance, and independents' disapproval of his handling of health care and the economy tops six in 10.

Americans still trust the president more than Republicans in Congress to handle the economy, health care and energy policy, although they do so by smaller margins than in recent months. Obama's advantage on the economy has been sliced in half since June, and he now holds just a narrow seven-point edge on health care.

At the same time, nearly a quarter of those who disapprove of Obama's handling of health care say they trust neither party on the issue, a sign that Republicans still have work to do to win the confidence of many Americans.


Some of the changes away from the president and the Democrats in this poll stem from a more GOP-leaning sample than in previous surveys. In this poll, the Democratic advantage in partisan identification has been shaved to six points, the first time in more than a year that the gap has been lower than double digits. There is also near-parity between the parties, when nonpartisans who "lean" toward one party or the other are counted, also a first for 2009.

The numbers of Democrats, Republicans and independents varies by poll, with each random sampling of adults producing slightly different population estimates. Samples are statistically adjusted to known census demographics, but not to predetermined levels of partisanship, which themselves change over time. A single poll is not enough to draw conclusions about a lasting GOP resurgence, or a short-term shift.

* * *

Following the twists and turns of the health-care debate has proved dizzying for insiders and the public alike, with provisions appearing and disappearing as Democratic leaders in the House and Senate try to assemble enough votes to pass legislation. The survey suggests the advocates of comprehensive reform have not been able to produce broad national support for change.


In the poll conducted this month, 51 percent say they oppose the proposed changes to the system; 44 percent approve of them. Two-thirds say the health-care reforms would add to the federal deficit, with two-thirds of those people calling such an increase "not worth it."

More than six in 10 favor expanding Medicare to people ages 55 to 64 who lack insurance--a proposal included in one Senate compromise effort that appears unlikely to survive final negotiations. By a 2 to 1 margin, more Americans say a new system will weaken rather than strengthen the Medicare system.

On the issue of whether and how to expand coverage to those who do not have it, 36 percent favor a government plan to compete with private insurers, 30 percent prefer private plans coordinated by the government and 30 percent want the system to remain intact.

On Afghanistan, the president's improved standing stems from a popular policy position -- about six in 10 back his decision to send the new forces -- and is bolstered by other big movements in public views on the war.

A narrow majority, 52 percent, see the war in Afghanistan as worth its costs, a six-point increase from last month. Most, 56 percent, now see success in Afghanistan as critical to making progress in the broader war on terrorism, the most to say so in polls back to July 2008.

For the first time, Democrats tilt toward seeing winning the Afghanistan war as essential to the overall campaign against terrorism (48 percent say so to 41 percent who say it is not). Independents -- 56 percent say essential, 38 percent say not -- are also more in this camp than ever.

One of the motivating forces here is that nearly three-quarters of Americans are "extremely" or "very" angry at the Taliban for having supported Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda before Sept. 11, 2001. Across party lines, those who are intensely angry at the Taliban are more apt to see success in Afghanistan as critical to winning the U.S. campaign against terrorism.

At the same time, barely half of those polled are confident the president's new strategy for Afghanistan will succeed, with about one in 10 highly confident.

About four in 10 say the July 2011 timeline Obama set for the beginning of a troop drawdown is "about right," about three in 10 want the pullback to start sooner and about two in 10 want it later. Regardless of their assessment of the timing, most, 55percent, oppose Obama's having set a specific deadline for this to occur, with Republicans and independents broadly opposed and Democrats largely supportive.

More than seven in 10 expect large numbers of U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan for many years to come, with a near-even split among those who anticipate a long-term deployment on whether that is allowable. Republicans and Democrats are about equally likely to foresee a lengthy U.S. military role there, but Republicans tilt toward supporting this, with Democrats against it.

The poll was conducted Thursday through Sunday by conventional and cellular telephone among a random national sample of 1,003 adults. The margin of sampling error for the full survey is plus or minus three percentage points.