(Image source: The U.S. Army / Flickr)
BY NICOLE THOMPSON
ANCHOR EMILY SPAIN
You're watching multisource world news analysis from Newsy.
According to a new poll - ten years after the U.S. first invaded Afghanistan, some of those doing the fighting are saying - it’s not worth it. The Pew Research Center released the poll Wednesday, revealing that...
“While post-9/11 veterans are more supportive than the general public, just one-third... say that, given the costs and benefits to the U.S., the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have both been worth fighting.”
HLN’s Robin Meade breaks the statistics down further.
“While most Americans support the troops, less than half think right now that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been worth the cost. That’s from a new Pew research poll. Even Veterans are ambivalent. Just half think that the war in Afghanistan think that the war was worth fighting, and less than half support the war in Iraq.”
The results are surprising some WNBC commentators, leading them to speculate on what’s behind the results.
“But I think that now people are saying that a decade in Afghanistan is a long time. And unlike World War II, you don’t see the front line moving forward. There’s not that clear sense of a campaign.”
“Or a clear sense of what is going on. And I think it’s just so surprising to hear this from the Veterans. You wouldn’t expect something like this.”
And CNN’s Zain Verjee says, the veterans’ negative feelings might have to do with a rough experience that most people back home just don’t understand.
“A lot of them too go through a lot of emotional and psychological scarring when they’re out in war zones, and they just say that there’s a massive gap of understanding between them and their families and their friends and the wider society when they come back home.”
Finally, USA Today reports, the gap between citizens’ understanding of military experiences and the reality of it is unprecedented and definitely a problem. The article quotes a study co-author as saying...
“‘Usually when we fight wars, no matter how many people actually fight it, the war itself feels like more of a national experience.’”
The survey also found post-9/11 vets are more likely than the general population to align Republican and disapprove of President Barack Obama as commander in chief.
Transcript by Newsy.
