Quietly, July is turning into one of the bloodiest months of the Iraq war for U.S. armed forces. "Since the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003, only three months have had a higher average of daily losses than this month: April and May of this year and last November, which saw an average of almost four US and coalition military deaths per day," an article in the Boston Globe points out today. In fact, the U.S. casualty rate has spiked since the handover. Halfway through July, U.S. forces have seen about as many deaths this month as they did in the entirety of June.

Said it before and I’ll say it again: let’s get the hell out of there! And with the scheduled departure date from Iraq being January 27, many more will die unnecessarily.

We’ve done what we’ve gone there to do and now it’s time to quickly train Iraqi troops and police to do the dirty work of keeping the order. Put the people to work to re-build utilities and infrastructure and ultimately let them work it out.

To be losing men on a daily basis is sad and wasteful.

Whenever our troops transition from being a wartime force to a peacekeeping occupation force, they become a target. Throw in the fact that our politicians want to them to be sensitive, politically correct softies and it just increases the chances of more Americans coming home in body bags.