Thursday, July 31, 2003 11:15 a.m. EDT
Washington, D.C., More Deadly Than Iraq
The Washington press corps has begun its daily drumbeat over U.S. casualties in Iraq, with reporters citing "body count" statistics as evidence that the Bush administration is "losing the peace."
And while even a single U.S. soldier's combat death is one too many, the truth is, more Americans are being killed daily in Washington, D.C., than in Baghdad.
Since President Bush told the nation on May 1 that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 52 U.S. soldiers have been killed in hostilities, according to statistics complied by Reuters on Thursday.
In the same period of time, however, 66 Americans were attacked and killed on Washington, D.C.'s mean streets, a city with a total population of 600,000.
To be sure, with just 148,000 soldiers on the ground in Iraq, the per capita danger for our GIs is significantly higher. Still, there were a whopping 262 murders last year in the nation's capital, according to statistics compiled by SafeStreetsDC.com.
The press seems perfectly willing to tolerate D.C.'s daily body count without so much as a peep about the failure of local authorities to keep the peace in America's most dangerous city.
newsmax.com |
