Is Iraq the "Other War?"

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I can recall a former colleague of mine some years ago speaking of the "drip, drip, drip" of bloody news that haunted the British military in Northern Ireland for so many years. After the senseless death of five of our soldiers, we find ourselves experiencing much the same thing.
 
Without a doubt, tragedies like this will continue in Iraq as long as we maintain a presence there. The real question is whether anyone will notice.

The news was mostly an afterthought following the the firing of General David McKiernan. How the tide has turned. Where once stories about Afghanistan were confined to policy journals and obscure Washington think tanks, now it is Iraq that is slowly becoming the "other war." That is too bad, because there is still a great deal to be played out over there, especially after we leave. If we stop paying attention to Iraq, we risk not learning some important lessons about the limits of U.S. power, and the difference between human capabilitiy and human willingness.

Tuning out a war is a really sad thing to watch. Where it becomes dangerous, and ultimately tragic, is if we don't learn from our very visible mistakes.