Rumsfeld

Well, this the first day without Rumsfeld and this the first first day with Robert Gates - hopefully we didn't go out of the frying pan and into the fire. I also saw the article last week on Hannity and Colmes on Rumsfeld's last visit into Iraq.

I remember in Driver's Ed in High School that we were taught that a person had a better chance of dying in Vietnam than they had of dying on the roads in America. Me, I was Navy ROTC after I was rejected from Annapolis. Then when I changed schools (Viginia Tech to Temple U) I dropped ROTC as well - no scholoarship (that was in 1986 and 1987). Then when I tried to enlist in 1992 (Air Force enlisted) I was medically rejected. Maybe its better that I didn't get a scholoarship; the whole thing is kind of fuzzy and blurry.

So in ten or thirty years teens will be getting taught that they had a better chance of dying on American roads versus being in Iraq. But Hannity and Colmes had interviews in Rumsfeld on his last visit in Iraq as the Secretary of Defense. During part of the time they also interviewed soldiers and marines. Listening to the people, mostly soldiers and marines, over there was very much like listening to my Dad - both of my parents are fairly militant Bushians. And except for mindless political rhetoric they didn't say much that was enlightening.

Considering that almost three-thousand people died in Iraq versus some six-hundred-odd thousand that have been sent there (I don't know any real numbers, I'm just typing speculatives), that's a 0.5% of dying in Iraq. I don't know highway fatality number either.

But we're at a critical point right now. Nearly as many people died in Iraq versus people who died on 9/11/01 in New York. That doesn't include Afghanistan, Washington, or Pennsylvania. but the "about" numbers are good enough right now. Only two more years of W.

The whole mindset of wanting to fight and kill and die just because someone else says so is a foreign concept to me. Maybe that's why I'm not military.

Anyway, take care,

Jay