Have you noticed a shift in the sort of news stories the media is publishing about the war and the military? 

Of late, we’ve seen a lot of high-profile news stories that aren’t so much about the war in Iraq, but rather about the men and women who have fought in that war.  We’re told that these veterans are homeless and living on the streets.  We’re told that they have dangerous mental problems.  We’re told that their combat experiences are making them want to commit suicide.

Prior to this trend, the media’s coverage of military matters mostly focused on the situation in Iraq.  We got stories about car bombings, civilian casualties, American casualties and the perceived (by journalists) overall hopelessness of the war.  So why has this new trend of stories about suffering soldiers and veterans replaced the previous trend of abject pessimism about (and hostility towards) the war?  Probably because the only stories coming out of Iraq right now are stories like this one:

Which contain details like this:

Lynch said while there are still Iraqi political problems at the national level, at the grass roots there is a growing movement to end the fighting and get on with life. His division has recorded a 74 percent drop in monthly attacks, an 81 percent drop in civilian casualties and an 85 percent drop in coalition casualties since May 2007.

He said that the recent progress could still be lost, but that U.S. commanders finally had a good feel for the battlefield and how to defeat the insurgency.

“We’ve always said that the only way we are going to win this counterinsurgency fight in Iraq is through the people of Iraq,” he said. “If they perceive security, they are going to continue to move in the right direction.”

What’s particularly frustrating is that while Iraq was previously the media’s #1 topic, the moment things go well with the war the articles indicating that get published on Saturdays, and buried deep in print publications.  And what replaces them in the high-profile story slots are the stories promoting the “wacko veteran” narrative.

Why should this be so?  If Iraq was an important story when the war looked gloomy, is it not equally important (if not more so) now that the future of the conflict looks more sunny?