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.
When I read something, I compare it to what I know. In philosophy, the question is: Is an argument internally consistent?
New Orleans Police officers killed in the line of duty, 2005-2007: 0.
http://secure.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=50&tabid=23
U.S. Casualties in Iraq, 2006: 785 KIA, other deaths 77, 6416 WIA.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_casualties.htm
Iraqi security forces, KIA, 2006: 1543
http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/iraq/articles/20070103.aspx
If New Orleans was more dangerous than Iraq, one would expect that at least one police officer would have been killed in the line of duty since 2004. Not so, according to the NOPD web site.
When I read something, I compare it to what I know. In philosophy, the question is: Is an argument internally consistent?
New Orleans Police officers killed in the line of duty, 2005-2007: 0.
http://secure.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=50&tabid=23
U.S. Casualties in Iraq, 2006: 785 KIA, other deaths 77, 6416 WIA.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_casualties.htm
Iraqi security forces, KIA, 2006: 1543
http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/iraq/articles/20070103.aspx
If New Orleans was more dangerous than Iraq, one would expect that at least one police officer would have been killed in the line of duty since 2004. Not so, according to the NOPD web site.
The author of the article under-reported Iraqi deaths. For U.S. murder deaths, the one data point I checked. New York City, was off by 50%. The premise of the article -- that U.S. high-crime cities are more dangerous than Iraq is bunk.
Here in Baltimore, three murders in the first three days of the New Year. Looks like we're right on target.
No, his premise is that the murder rate in "chimpy Bush's quagmire worst blunder in US history" is similar to that of some of our big cities have had in the past.
Once again, you can say apples and oranges, but he used the AP-Iraq Gov't death numbers
Past U.S. murder rates are not readily available. The one data point I checked, New York City, was off by 50%.
If you truly believe Iraq is safer than high-crime U.S. cities, past or present, I can only wish you a wonderful life. You'd have to go back to the Civil War to find higher intensity combat in the U.S. than is occurring currently in Iraq.
In 2005, the most recent year available, there were 16,400 murders in the U.S. for a population of 296.4MM. According to Strategy Page, Iraq experienced 16,400 Iraqi deaths from political violence in a population of 27.6MM. Of course this excludes the 835 American service members killed in action or died from wounds. Further, it excludes murders in Iraq. Additionaly, it excludes hostile forces killed in action. Finally, it excludes coalition troops and contractors who were killed.
Then there is the obvious fact that 150,000 U.S. troops are committed to combat in Iraq. In contrast, even the highest-crime U.S. cities are patrolled by police officers in unarmored sedans. In New Orleans, cited as a high-crime city, no police officer was killed in the line of duty in 2005, 2006 or 2007 to date.
ping for later.
I'll bite...
Liberals?
Nope, it's ideology, not occupations that are the bane of our existance
16,273 / 365 = 44.58 violent deaths per day.
Perspective;
Saddam executed an average of 69.4 people for every one of the 8,646 days he was in power. That is just those he executed, it does not include other violent deaths ie crime and war deaths like the 1,000,000 or so Iraqis who died during Saddam's wars of aggression against Iraq or Kuwait.
ping to 111
That'll leave a mark. (Massachusetts took in a coupla score thousand of Katrina refugees. I told my wife we wouldn't have any shortage of bar tenders, prosititutes, drug dealers or car jackers for the next couple of decades.)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.