From the Hartford Courant via CNN comes word that the US army is now systematically deploying the mentally ill to combat positions in Iraq. Please tell me you're surprised by it; there must be someone out there who's still an optimist.

Ritchie acknowledged that some deployment practices, such as sending service members diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome back into combat, have been driven in part by a troop shortage.

"The challenge for us … is that the Army has a mission to fight. And, as you know, recruiting has been a challenge," she said. "And so we have to weigh the needs of the Army, the needs of the mission, with the soldiers' personal needs."

And there you have it: "We've run out of sane people, and it's more important to us to have soldiers with guns pointed at the Iraqis than it is for us to take guns away from the acutely suicidal, so deal."

Twenty-two U.S. troops committed suicide in Iraq last year. That number accounts for nearly one in five of all noncombat deaths and was the highest suicide rate since the war started, the newspaper said.

The paper reported that some service members who committed suicide in 2004 or 2005 were kept on duty despite clear signs of mental distress, sometimes after being prescribed antidepressants with little or no mental health counseling or monitoring. Those findings conflict with regulations adopted last year by the Army that caution against the use of antidepressants for "extended deployments."