Criticism of Obama to Increase as Vets, Public Side Against Wars?
A Pew Research Center poll released Wednesday found that just 34 percent, of post 9/11 veterans believe the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were worth fighting, which corresponds with a Washington Post-ABC news poll conducted in June that found that 54 percent of the public felt the U.S. should not have fought those wars.
The latest poll results from the Pew Research Center could very well provide ammo for Republicans challenging President Barack Obama as the 2012 campaign season approaches.
Democrats maintain, however, that the Obama administration officials have been making great progress leading the United States' efforts to combat terrorism, a sentiment that may be guiding its commitment to continue in Afghanistan.
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This past July, in a primetime speech to the nation, President Obama declared that he would "remove 10,000 of our troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, and we will bring home a total of 33,000 troops by next summer."
Recently, in her opening statement to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, spoke of the effectiveness of the military's counterterrorism efforts.
"We have had some real counterterrorism successes. Witnessed the take down of Bin Laden and the high number of al-Qaida leaders killed or captured recently. In fact, more than one-half of al-Qaida's top leadership has been eliminated according to a speech in June by John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism," Feinstein said during the panel meeting.
Despite their sentiments against the war, however, 96 percent of veterans of the post-9/11 era polled by the Pew Research Center are proud of their military service.
A total of 1,853 war veterans were surveyed in the Pew Research Center study, including 712 vets who served in the military after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2011.
