On Breaking Records

I've been a sports fan all my life and used to watch many of the broadcasts of the four major league franchises in Boston along with the Olympics and World Cup Soccer.

Over the past ten years my passion for sports has waned to the point that I now consider myself just a casual observer.

Yesterday the home run record for a career was broken and I couldn't get myself up to watch it. I could not waste my time to honor and respect a person who from all accounts has cheated for the last few years in order to reach this lofty feat.

The number 756 is meaningless to me.

What is meaningful is the record setting number of deaths of American service personnel that are involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom. As of August 8, that number is at 3,672. If we add the casualties in Afghanistan the number is over 4,ooo.

My blood starts to boil each time I think of the comments made by our illustrious leaders prior to the start of this war. "Shock and awe," the use of our mighty force would make the Iraqis succumb very quickly. Here's a quote from one of the masterminds of the war:

"The Gulf War in the 1990s lasted five days on the ground. I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks or five months. But it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that," Rumsfeld said on Nov. 14, 2002, three months before the invasion.

This genius, predicted that we would be out of Iraq in 5 months or less. It is now over 50 months and we are still there losing innocent lives every day, while Mr. Rumsfeld sits on his rocking chair collecting God knows how much in retirement benefits.

The following quote has me running to the medicine cabinet and reaching for another high blood pressure pill.

-- "It is easier to get into something than to get out of it," Rumsfeld wrote in his published list of truisms known as "Rumsfeld's Rules."

If you knew this why did you put us in the terrible prediction we're in now?

How the hell can I think of 756 when our young men and women are being killed and severely injured each day?

What record breaking numbers are we going to pass on to our children and grandchildren in the form of costs incurred to fight this senseless war?

All of this and we still haven't got a whiff of Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind to the 9/11 bombings.