At least 45 international troops — including at least 27 U.S. forces and 13 British — died in Afghanistan in June, the deadliest month since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion to oust the Taliban, according to an Associated Press count.
In Iraq, at least 31 international soldiers died in June: 29 U.S. troops and one each from the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan. There are 144,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 4,000 British forces in additional to small contingents from several other nations.
The 40-nation international coalition is much broader in Afghanistan, where only about half of the 65,000 international troops are American.
So the process of the "good" war in Afghanistan becoming "bad" proceeds:
If we are not fighting in Iraq, I've long held, the so-called "good war" in Afghanistan will become bad in the views of our anti-war side. Now the anti-war side protests Iraq and claims that they oppose Iraq in order to commit resources to the "real" fight in Afghanistan.
And if both presidential candidates take the position that we should stay in Iraq until the Iraqis can defend themselves, the pivot will be complete and the signal given for the anti-Iraq War movement to become the anti-Afghanistan War movement.
Heck, given enough time, will the Iraq War become the "good war" that the Afghanistan/Pakistan fight distracts us from?
