Obama’s War in Afghanistan

Friday, December 4th, 2009

The war in Afghanistan is being called Barack Obama’s Vietnam, with many ups and downs over the last couple of months. We took a look at what tweeple were saying when they referenced both Obama and the war in Afghanistan. The chart reveals a few interesting things.

1. Over the last three months, positive sentiments towards Obama and the war have been increasing. This suggests that people who are chatting on Twitter are feeling more positive about how he is dealing with this crisis.
2. A large blip in chatter volume occurred at the end of September and the start of October when controversy erupted over whether Obama should take a trip to Denmark to support the Chicago Olympic bid. Clearly, the fact that something as trivial as sports was getting more attention than something as serious as a war caused outrage for many, particularly when the Chicago bid failed.
3. The recent announcement that Obama would be sending thousands more troops into Afghanistan created another increase in volume accompanied by a decrease in satisfaction. Both pro and anti-war tweeple could express both outrage and approval with the combined message of sending additional troops and giving a timeframe for ending the war.

Even when the discussion is specifically focused on Afghanistan, other countries remain top of mind. Iraq leads the list representing 34% of discussions about other countries, and this is obviously because of the war occurring there. Pakistan follows with 25% of the mentions particularly in relation to stability of the region. In contrast, Vietnam has the third largest share of conversation with 16% due mostly to discussions about whether Afghanistan is “Obama’s Vietnam.”

Obama is dealing with far more issues than just the war in Afghanistan, each of which is just as serious. So stay tuned as TweetFeel continues to track the sentiment of tweeple about Obama’s performance.