Having served as a soldier in the U.S. Army and as a U.S. Marine, I was outraged when I saw the most recent John Kerry campaign commercial (and now his comments in the debate) blaming President Bush for the death of servicemen and women and the kidnap and murder of Americans in Iraq. While tragic, folks working in or visiting these areas have a reasonable expectation of some great harm coming to them.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, there is a country that has an average of 800,000 child abductions each year. This country had 16,420 murders and 198,850 incidents of rape or sexual assault in 2003. Guess what America… It’s YOU. Where is the outrage for these statistics? Why isn’t the media covering this information? The people represented by these statistics had a reasonable expectation that they could go about their daily routine without the threat of violent crime, yet deaths in Iraq pale in comparison to what is happening right here at home.

I suggest that Kerry pick a real issue to go after a sitting president with. It is a miracle that only 1,000 service men have died in Iraq since the end of major combat operations while 16 times that number have been cut down right here at home in half the time.