The people of our readership area appear evenly split over the president’s decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, according to our latest online Press Democrat Editorial Board survey.

We also asked readers their opinion about the president’s decision to set a date of July 2011 for bringing some of the troops home. In addition, we sought to find out how optimistic North Coast residents are about the chances of success for the president’s plan. Let’s just say, it’s not high.

Most interesting finding: Readers are divided over the president’s troop surge, but a strong majority are pessimistic that it will be successful and that the Afghan military will be ready to take control of the nation’s security by mid-2011. This suggests there are a fair number of people out there who support Obama’s plan – a plan they believe will fail.
Does that make sense?

We will report on the preliminary results of our latest survey in our lead editorial on Sunday. To see it, click here.

To take the survey itself and read all of the comments left by readers, click here.

– Paul Gullixson