I believe that much of the public's view of the wars is shaped by an almost exclusively negative coverage in the media. I long ago stopped looking for any positive stories at all other than in local papers and online sources, and if returning troops have one thing in common, it's their indignant view of how the media has painted what they have been doing.

That Afghanistan is not as reviled as Iraq is from lack of media coverage dedicated to producing that view, something not true of the war in Iraq.

It's attractive to think that five years after the invasion of Afghanistan, the media would be touting the reconstruction projects, pointing out the progress, and pushing the positive side. That Democrats would be telling us that rebuilding Afghanistan so terrorism can't find another foothold is worth the money and lives.

But I somehow suspect the coverage would still be about coalition deaths, the attacks from Pakistan terror bases, the IEDs, the suffering Afghanistan civilians, the prison in Guantanamo, the interrogation techniques, intelligence methods, why we haven't killed the current leader of al Qaeda, why we killed civilians in our last attempt to kill the current leader of al Qaeda, the poppy crop, and any other handle the media and the Democrats could use to beat down the war.

I'm going by long-term patterns of behavior here. Maybe I'm overly cynical about it.