Many political commentators bemoan the lack of coverage of the cost of the war in Iraq, even as the number of American soldiers killed there inexorably approaches 2,000 - one writer this week even compared the level of public awareness of the Iraq war to that of the "forgotten" Korean War. If the Iraq war is forgotten, then what is the war in Afghanistan?
Last Friday was the four-year anniversary of the heavy bombing that began the fighting to depose the Taliban nearly a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The same day marked another milestone - the American soldier killed by a mine in a southern province was the 200th killed in and around the country.
This year has been the deadliest yet for Americans fighting a war largely overshadowed by the far deadlier and more controversial conflict in Iraq, and the number of American and NATO soldiers stationed there has steadily increased since 2001 to nearly 20,000 now.
The continued violence in the cripplingly poor nation is important beyond its scale for several reasons, not least because it was there that Osama bin Laden planned Sept. 11 and where he most likely remains.
Those affiliated with al Qaeda and Taliban forces are able to inflict more violence than at any time since 2001. They pose more of a regional and global threat than at any time since the United States last abandoned Afghanistan, after funding the mujaheddin who first fought the Soviet occupiers, then a vicious civil war before turning against America. Drug production continues at such a pronounced rate that some Afghans are arguing that legalizing opium is the country's only option.
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The question is why Afghanistan received so few American troops and so little policy attention in the time between the beginning of that war and the war in Iraq that this situation of spiraling violence and political stagnation has come to pass.
As the Iraq war rightfully dominates American's foreign policy concerns, we would be wise to ensure that "the other war" isn't allowed to fall too far out of our minds again - especially considering the consequences of the last time we forgot Afghanistan.
Chris Narkun
Opinion editor
