ABSTRACT
Public support for America’s war efforts has become a conventional part of American life since the Vietnam War. Since then, pollsters have regularly asked the average American to indicate his or her support for a particular conflict and have examined the conditions of that support. Such data have been collected about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, showing varied support by social group and over time. Initially, just before the Iraq War in 2003, public support for the wars was strong. A dramatic decrease in support began in May of 2004, when polls started showing less than half of Americans believed that it was worth going to war in Iraq (Everts and Isernia 2005), with support varying by social group. Twenty-nine percent of African-Americans supported the invasion of Iraq, for instance, compared with 78 percent of Whites (Jones 2003). These differences continued after the war began (Newport et al. 2007). Similarly, Republicans and people who are in the military show greater support for the war than Democrats and civilians (Rohall and Ender 2007; Rohall et al. 2006).
