Baghdad car bomb kills six, wounds 14

Seven killed in Iraq bombing

Militants shot dead two off-duty policemen

Iraqi special forces kill one militant, detained eight others

37 armed militants arrested, 24 bombs defused in Baghdad

Gunmen assassinate Shiite official in Iraq

Roadside bomb wounds Iraqi Islamic Party official

Two bodies found in Baghdad, one found in Mahaweel on Friday

Roadside bomb wounds policeman in central Baghdad

In April there were 52 American’s killed
In May there were 19 American’s killed
In June there were 29 American’s killed
A total of 4114 American’s have been killed since the war in Iraq began.

Could somebody please tell me exactly what it means when we hear the media and our government saying that violence is down in Iraq?

While I’ll agree that the amount of American’s killed has dropped since April; It’s also increased since May.

In 2007 we had 117 American’s killed in Afghanistan.  So far this year, in less than 5 months, we’ve had 67 American’s killed.  There have been 542 killed since the war there began.

I’m afraid we didn’t learn from other’s history there in the Middle East.

A refresher course:

The Iran-Iraq War was a war between the armed forces of Iraq and Iran lasting from September 1980 to August 1988.

The war began when Iraq invaded Iran on 22 Sept 1980 following a long history of border disputes and fears of Shia insurgency among Iraq's long suppressed Shia majority influenced by Iran's Islamic revolution.

Although Iraq hoped to take advantage of revolutionary chaos in Iran and attacked without formal warning, they made only limited progress into Iran and within several months were repelled by the Iranians who regained virtually all lost territory by June 1982. For the next six years Iran was on the offensive. Despite several calls for a ceasefire by the United Nations Security Council, hostilities continued until 20 August 1988. The last prisoners of war were exchanged in 2003.

 
Here’s a bit of history for you on the Soviet and Afghanistan war.
 

The Soviet war in Afghanistan lasted 9 years.  Initially Soviet deployment of the Army in Afghanistan began on August 7, 1978. The final troop withdrawal began on May 15, 1988, and ended on February 15, 1989. Due to the interminable and inconclusive nature of the war, the conflict in Afghanistan has often been referred to as the Soviet equivalent of the United States' Vietnam War.

Do you get the picture I’m sending you?

Either we decide to 'stay' in Iraq and Afghanistan 'forever' or we consider our successes as a victory and pull out while we can.

We've killed or captured thousands of terrorists and al qaeda.  We put them into a situation where they must completely rebuild to continue.
 
We've given Iraq time to rebuild their nation and government, along with a fighting machine of their own.  Same goes for Afghanistan.

It's time to pull out now, while we can still consider our mission accomplished.