i apologise if this issue has been done to death. i am australian, and the general view here is that the afghanistan war is very different to the iraq war. iraq is seen as a mistake, an ongoing nightmare which we are pulling out of because we should never have been there in the first place.

afghanistan is seen differently. it is viewed as a just war, a neccessary war driven by totally different reasons and with a different aim. australia has had one death in iraq which was interpreted as a complete waste, totally unneccesary and unjust and another good reason to get the hell out. there have been several deaths in afghanistan which is seen as the inevitable toll of war, but we still need to stay the course and fight the good fight.

i was wondering if the same sort of division is seen anywhere else. the media tend to report on both wars as if they are the same thing, but nobody else thinks of them as related at all. does america, or any of the other involved nations, have the same kind of view ? and is the media interpreting them differently or just the population ?