Foreign news

CGTN Think Tank survey: 84.6% believe U.S. war against terrorism in Afghanistan has failed

Published

4 years ago

August 29, 2021

Images of Afghans chasing a U.S. transport plane at Kabul airport shocked the world after Taliban took over Kabul on August 15. As for the costly and longest-ever war waged by the U.S., 84.6 percent of global poll respondents believe it failed.

The CGTN Think Tank conducted a global survey in Chinese, English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Russian on social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Weibo from August 20 to August 26.

There have been more than 140,000 responses including liking, sharing and commenting on this online poll consisting of three questions.

80% say U.S. failed Afghanistan War

The United States launched the Afghanistan war in the name of counterterrorism in 2001 and made a hasty troop withdrawal in 2021. The first question is, do you think the U.S. war against terrorism in Afghanistan has failed? Why?

Among respondents from various countries who participated in liking, sharing and commenting, 84.6 percent believe that the U.S. war against terrorism in Afghanistan has failed and English speakers cast the highest number of votes – 77 percent. Arabic-speaking netizens showed a clear-cut stance, with over 90 percent of the comments tending to believe that the U.S.’s anti-terrorism war in Afghanistan failed.

On YouTube, the number of comments topped those of Facebook and Twitter.

The survey analyzes the comments of six language groups: Chinese, English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Russian, and finds that the respondents in different languages tend to believe that “the United States has failed in the war on terrorism in Afghanistan,” but the reasons for the failure vary widely.

French-speaking participants compared the anti-terrorism war in Afghanistan with the wars in Iraq and Vietnam, saying that the United States lost its return on investment.

Many English-speaking respondents said that the U.S. war in Afghanistan was based on lies and disinformation, so was doomed to fail.

Wars waged by U.S. cause ‘destruction and turmoil’

After World War II, the United States launched wars in Vietnam War and Afghanistan, among others. The second question is, what do you think those wars have brought to these countries?

Global respondents in the six languages use highly consistent wording in this order of frequency words: destruction, turmoil, division, death, despair, pain and hatred.

According to the survey on Facebook, 88.89 percent of Spanish-speaking respondents, 82.14 percent of French-speaking respondents and 88 percent of Arabic-speaking respondents agree that “the war has brought negative impacts to relevant countries after World War II.” At the same time, Russian-speaking netizen responses to this survey question were nearly twice the number of the other two questions.

The survey analyzes the comments and finds that respondents believe that “such series of wars have brought violence, poverty, suffering and even destruction.”

Some English-speaking netizens believe that the series of wars launched by the United States have brought destruction to the war-torn countries, causing heavy casualties of innocent civilians and intensifying hatred between different countries and the United States.

A widespread perception among Arabic-speaking netizens is that U.S. military interventions have brought destruction, backwardness, instability, famine and death.

U.S. ‘not a superpower for the well-being of the world’

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has said that the U.S. is “the most warlike nation in the history of the world,” and the country has enjoyed only 16 years of peace in its 242-year history. The third question is, what do you think led to the U.S. becoming so “warlike”?

This question had the highest participation rate among respondents, with 80.2 percent showing a negative attitude towards belligerence.

In this poll, 89.63 percent and 87.23 percent of Spanish-speaking netizens on YouTube and Facebook respectively commented negatively on the cause of the belligerence.

The third question also had the highest participation among Twitter users. The number of responses in this single question accounts for 45 percent of the total number of responses in the survey.

One English-speaking netizen said, “I think the U.S. uses the term superpower not for the well-being of the world, especially the poor countries, but for plundering money in Muslim countries and seeking development in the name of creating terrorist organizations to make people think that terrorists are Muslims. Then they plunder resources and then leave to attack other countries, in order to make their own country safe.”

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Foreign news

French Envoy Seeks Collaboration With NAN To Boost Seamless Relationship

Published

1 month ago

February 5, 2025

The Gleamer

The new French envoy to Nigeria, Marc Fonbaustier, on Wednesday called for collaboration with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) toward strengthening the mutually beneficial relationship between the two countries.

Fonbaustier, who is the French ambassador to Nigeria and the ECOWAS, made the call when he paid a courtesy visit to Malam Ali Muhammad Ali, NAN’s Managing Director, in Abuja.
The ambassador said that his purpose of visiting was to pay tribute to the MD, and to seek collaboration in three areas with a view to promoting stronger, seamless and fruitful partnership between both countries.

He added that Nigeria and its people were hospitable, especially to the foreigners and ambassadors alike.

He added that Nigeria was a country with so much energy, strength, stamina and so many talents.

In Nigeria, with the population of this size, it is inevitable that the elites of the country are very outstanding, “and there may be a Franco/Nigeria moments now”, he jokes.

According to him, France and Nigeria can collaborate more and learn from each other.
“I could feel it particularly during the state visit of President Bola Tinubu which took place in November 2024.

“I was there and I could see the intensity, the strength and the scope of the partnership, and I am here to scale up that partnership in all sectors.

“I am coming here for three reasons, first, to pay a tribute to the NAN MD and his team for the quality of this agency. We can testify that the contents that you publish are very factual, and also very well set up and structured.

“You do fact checking and you really do try to provide the community with quality information. I think, as a French ambassador, I can recognise that as part of a living democracy,” he said.

The French ambassador said the second reason for the visit was to intimate the NAN MD of France’s eagerness to go on partnership with NAN saying he hoped for assurance of a seamless, fluid and easy relationship.

He said that his third reason stemmed from his observation that NAN recently signed some partnership framework agreements with Egypt and China, saying “it may be time to think of balancing this partnership with others”.

“Especially with French, and to talk with Agence France-Presse (AFP) to see if there’s ground for a closer relationship between NAN and AFP.

“Which is also a recognised agency like yours, and I bet you the sky will be the limit to the collaboration, ’’he said.

Responding, the NAN MD informed the envoy that the agency was African’s biggest news content provider on account of its size.

Ali gave the envoy a little details of the agency’s operation and its outreach, saying “as our continent’s biggest news content provider, we have offices nationwide and in selected African countries.

“We have offices in countries such as South Africa, Cote d’ivoire, Addis Ababa, and then we have offices also beyond the shores of Africa. We have in New York and we are the only resident wire service in the United Nations.

“At a time in the past, the agency had 11 foreign offices, including Moscow, and presently, we are trying to re-open some of our shut offices, especially in London.
“We value partnership and understanding that we have with similar news organisation such as Reuters and, incidentally, we have a long standing relationship with AFP which you just raised.
“I know for years we have exchange of news between NAN and AFP but it’s a cooperation that we will like to strengthen and with your greater involvement,’’ he said.

The MD commended the ambassador for reaching out and engaging with some Nigerians communities to douse the tension of the allegation made by the Nigeriens.

He also lauded the envoy’s leadership and visibility to Nigeria and the ECOWAS, “which has helped to douse the perception and misconceptions about France, especially in the Sahel”.
“I think you have helped to reverse some of this perceptions. I thank you for the kind words that you said about the agency and about our management.

“We also see partnership as an important tool in checking the spread of fake news.
“We’ve seen instances where fake news has done great deal of damage, and with the coming of social media it has done even greater damage.

“Our country is facing a lot of challenges, one of which is the increasing insecurity, and the social media has been used by those who do not want to see our country to prosper,” Ali said.
He further said that NAN was a credible news agency that always fact check to correct the wrong narratives by those who are in the business of causing troubles.

He also told the envoy that the agency has its content in the Nigerian indigenous languages, starting with Hausa and it would proceed to Yoruba and Igbo languages later, “then later in future to French.

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