Keep in mind that John is assuming that the number of violent Iraqi deaths reported by the "objective" MSM are accurate & not typical of their other gross exaggerations intentionally used to damage the Bush Admin.
The major media in this country is not known for its lack of objectivity except within the Republican community.......I suspect the right would not find an objective media acceptable. In fact, some would say they were too objective three years ago when Bush was misrepresenting the facts about Iraq.
Another point not addressed is that Iraq has recently been freed from 3 decades of rule from a genocidal dictator - there certainly are going to be many, many tens of thousands of folks who have old scores to settle that will certainly drive up the number of violent deaths dramatically.
Yes, that's true but so what? There are genocidal dictators all over the globe. I hope you don't think the US has the resources to overthrow all of them.
Out of curiosity, I did a little research to get some perspective on these numbers. Based on a population of 6,000,000, an annualized murder rate of 1,500 per month in Baghdad yields 300 per 100,000 population, the usual measure by which murder rates are expressed. This is a high number of course, since it assumes that the record level of violence in July is sustained for 12 months.
For purposes of comparison, I looked up historic murder rates for some American cities. Washington, D.C. has historically had one of the highest murder rates among American cities. It peaked at 80 per 100,000 in 1991. So in July, Baghdad experienced a murder rate close to four times what we had in the nation's capital fifteen years ago. At 140 per 100,000, Iraq's murder rate in July is a little under twice Washington, D.C.'s 1991 rate. Another interesting comparison: Baghdad's July rate is a little lower than the 350 per 100,000 murder rate at which Medellin, Colombia peaked, also in 1991.
Is this guy trying to make a point, or is he simply doing some numbers crunching?
Many similar comparisons could be drawn, and one could argue endlessly about such statistics. But I think that in broad terms, these comparisons confirm what I would intuitively judge about the current situation in Iraq: the violent death rate there is significantly higher than a "normal" murder rate, even a relatively high one such as Washington, D.C.'s. At the same time, it is a fraction (perhaps one-quarter) of the death rates that have typified actual civil wars. Thus, Iraq is currently suspended in a kind of middle ground; if American and Iraqi troops succeed in imposing relative calm on Baghdad, the violent death rate will likely recede to a high but "normal" level. On the other hand, if the rate of violence continues to climb as it has over the last several months, it conceivably could reach a level that would represent a real civil war.
That's like me saying AMD [the stock] could go up Tuesday or it could go down. Thanks for telling me something I did know. |
