Baghdad – Another U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, the military said Thursday, pushing the four-year death toll for American forces to 3,501, according to an Associated Press tally.

The count includes 23 deaths in the first six days of June, an average of about four per day.

Words fail.

I guess we’ve all seen this in the news by now.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A military panel recommended that an Iraq war veteran who wore his uniform during an anti-war demonstration lose his honorable discharge status, brushing away his claims that he was exercising his right to free speech.

Don’t ever let them kid you, folks. There is no one in an American uniform actually fighting to protect our freedom, or for that matter to protect us from terr’r. They’re fighting to project megalomaniacal Power, and it’s authority must be respected.

Here’s something I’ll betcha the Shrub hasn’t carefully considered. The longer our troops stay in Iraq, the better the other guys get at killing off our young people.

As U.S. troops push more deeply into Baghdad and its volatile outskirts, Iraqi insurgents are using increasingly sophisticated and lethal means of attack, including bigger roadside bombs that are resulting in greater numbers of American fatalities relative to the number of wounded.

Insurgents are deploying huge, deeply buried munitions set up to protect their territory and mounting complex ambushes that demonstrate their ability to respond rapidly to U.S. tactics. A new counterinsurgency strategy has resulted in decreased civilian deaths in Baghdad but has placed thousands of additional American troops at greater risk in small outposts in the capital and other parts of the country. [The Washington Post]

Well, we all knew this was coming. Permanent bases in Iraq. It’s been prophesied by many in the blogosphere, including All That Arises. They’ve been pouring the concrete of this insanity since the statues of Saddam came down.

We’re never getting out. The troops are never coming home. How will the children ever learn peace?

is going home, having resigned as the “face” of the antiwar movement. Here’s part of her letter to US.

The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. I have tried ever since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives. It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most.

I submit that she has done more than her share. I hope that is some consolation.