[traderrob6]

South Africa, has a higher violent death rate per 100,000: 49.6 per 100,000. Even Jamaica has a higher violent death rate than does Iraq: 32.4, and Venezuela comes in at 31.6 violent deaths per 100,00

Third rate cities? Better brush up on your geography.

[jiggyboy]

Cities! New Orleans and DC are well-known to be of third-world caliber when it comes to murders &c. You can't compare cities and countries directly. New Orleans' murder rate is ten times the national average for example.

I didn't harrumph about the comparisons to Colombia or South Africa. One might argue that Colombia is a special case because of all the drug murders or that South Africa is a special case because of all the government-sponsored death squads, but of course that is the point, that these countries and Iraq are all special cases in different ways. Those are valid comparisons.