Posted on 01/03/2007 6:19:30 PM PST by pissant
The Associated Press released an interesting set of statistics (host link stored for future ref) a couple of days ago that I would suppose were designed to suck away any optimism any fools who still support the mission in Iraq might have (bolds are mine):
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Government officials on Monday reported that 16,273 Iraqi civilians, soldiers and police died violent deaths in 2006, a figure larger than an independent Associated Press count for the year by more than 2,500.
The tabulation by the Iraqi ministries of Health, Defense and Interior, showed that 14,298 civilians, 1,348 police and 627 soldiers were killed in the violence that raged in the country last year.
The Associated Press accounting, gleaned from daily news reports from Baghdad, arrived at a total of 13,738 deaths.
Pretty grim, isn't it? And this is for "violence that raged in the (whole) country."
Man, what a downer. I mean, this is an honest-to-goodness Grade A bona fide quagmire.
Oops -- I started digging into US murder statistics, and what I found made me less depressed about Iraq, and more concerned about the US.
Let's put this in perspective. Below are 10 listings for US cities and years. Your mission to accomplish (so to speak), is to guess whether each particular city's murder rate in the year identified was higher or lower than the "violent death rate" in Iraq (which is, from all appearances, all-inclusive). Let's use the Iraqi government's higher number of 16,273 just for the heck of it, even though the Associated Press will "surely" be bothered that I'm exaggerating the level of violence compared to what their records show (somehow, I think they'll get over it). Using the government's figure means that Iraq's violent death rate in 2006 was 56.49 per 100,000 residents (16,273 deaths, and a population per Wiki of 28,807,000).
So here are the US cities and the related years:
1. New York City - 1990 2. Washington, DC - 1991 3. Gary, IN - 2005 4. Detroit, MI - 1991 5. Compton, CA - 2005 6. New Orleans, LA - 2006 7. New Orleans, LA - 2004 8. New Orleans, LA - 2003 9. Atlanta, GA - 1973 10. E. St. Louis, IL - 2004
Try not to peek ahead.
......
...... Done?
SURPRISE -- Every city and year listed had a higher murder rate than Iraq in 2006 -- except (surprise again) New York City in 1990 (Gotham's worst year on record for murder).
The murder rates were as follows (see related graph at UPDATE 2 below):
1. New York City - 1990; 30.7 (2,245 murders; population 7,322,000) 2. Washington, DC - 1991; 83.1 (482 murders; population 598,000 [1]) 3. Gary, IN - 2005; 58.0 4. Detroit, MI - 1991; roughly 60 5. Compton, CA - 2005; 67.1 6. New Orleans, LA - 2006; 67.5 (154 murders; population 228,000 [2]) 7. New Orleans, LA - 2004; 59.6 (275 murders; population 461,115 [3]) 8. New Orleans, LA - 2003; 57.7 9. Atlanta, GA - 1973; 57.7 (271 murders; population 470,000 [1]) 10. E. St. Louis, IL - 2004; 63.4
Does this mean Iraq is a walk in the park? Of course not.
Does this mean that Iraq is a hopeless quagmire that cannot be won? It would appear, at a minimum, that anyone who believes that carries a heavy burden of proof.
And to personalize it, dear reader, unless you've gone on record in favor of abandoning the residents of the cities listed above to their own devices at the times they were (or are) extremely dangerous places to be, it would seem that you have no basis for contending that we should do that to the people of Iraq.
Read the rest here:
http://newsbusters.org/node/9932
Bada Bing!
Maybe we should "redeploy" the residents of those cities, huh?
I'm sure Baghdad is safer than some parts of Chicago I've been in.
Houston got a redeployment from New Orleans. They didn't like it.
I like foreign entanglements that kill our enemies. that is one of the constitutional duties of the federal government. But yes, mayors, city councils, etc should get busy too.
And try to remember that the MSM doesnt delineate between accidental or intentional deaths in Iraq.
If you crashed your hummvee or were rolled over by one of out own tanks you get added to the list.
1/3 of the military deaths are accidents/friendly fire, if I'm not mistaken.
Iraq would probably have a higher death rate than our American cities if Iraq enjoyed the amount of diversity that we enjoy here in America. Look at the cities on the list.
LOL. If a city has "diversity" in its mission statement or charter, high crime is sure to be present.
I like foreign entanglements that kill our enemies.
yeah, enemies........................
something to consider, just who are the real enemies of the American people?
Theres a lot of heavy machinery running about in the dead of night with lights out.
Jihadis and leftists about covers the gammut.
Another stat Id be interested in is how many soldiers we lose stateside while on leave from the war zone. car/motorcycle accidents
If only they had "Martin Luther King Boulevard" and "Malcolm X Avenue" in Iraq, our troops job would be much easier.
ping
Yep. It's a real shame too.
Jihadis and leftists about covers the gammut.
interesting theory.................
it is doubtful that most of the criminals who could be considered "enemies" of Americans have any political ageenda at all.......................
jihadists are simply pawns and most violent criminals are sociopaths..............
Some of the must openly idiotic twisting of statistics we've yet seen in this war.
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