Let’s examine those horrible Iraqi death tolls in comparison with say other regions of the world… Read on… Interesting yes?
Where’s the link?
HG
And the details.
[quote]In 2003, New Orleans
[quote]The city
“Well, how about visiting a country that’s ancient, historic, beautiful and exotic - Iraq? Sure, there’s a little war going on there, but when you look at the violent death statistics in the world, it’s safer than a number of other popular travel destinations. Believe it or not.”
You mean Baghdad is safer than Washington, Baltimore and Atlanta and it’s actually just another popular travel destination for those too smart to swallow all those anti-Bush lies?
I don’t know, dude. You go first. 
It probably would be higher for Baghdad but people are regularly traveling to other parts of Iraq most notably Kurdistan. So for IRAQ as a WHOLE, the numbers are lower.
Fred
[quote]According to the health ministry, 762 people were killed as a result of terrorist activity in April: 686 civilians, 54 police and 22 members of the Iraqi army.
Talabani earlier said that Iraqis
[quote=“fred smith”]It probably would be higher for Baghdad but people are regularly traveling to other parts of Iraq most notably Kurdistan. So for Iraq as a WHOLE, the numbers are lower.
Fred[/quote]
The trick would be travelling to Kurdistan without having to fly into Baghdad. I wouldn’t recommend the borders with Turkey or Iran at the moment as there is fighting going on there now between the PPK and Turkish and Iranian troops.
Maybe a good stiff ten-day camel ride from Jordan or Saudi Arabia avoiding all the main highways with their militia checkpoints would do it? Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Tally ho!
And you might want to move up your Kurdistan holiday travel plans just a bit . . .
Iraq’s Impending Fracture to Produce Political Earthquake in Turkey
". . . In August 2006, General Ozkok will retire in favor of Turkish Ground Forces Commander General Yasar Buyukanit. General Buyukanit appears to have much more hawkish views toward the birth of an independent Kurdistan and Turkey’s Kurds than General Ozkok. Buyukanit raised many eyebrows at home and abroad after stating that he would personally lead the Turkish military into northern Iraq should Iraqi Kurds establish an independent state.
In order to launch a military action against Iraq’s Kurds and to contain the threat of secessionist activity by Turkish Kurds, the Turkish military has already begun to militarize southeastern Turkey. With Europeans focusing heavily on Turkey’s ability to improve its human rights record, military action against Kurds in Iraq, military action against an independent Kurdistan and renewed oppression of Turkey’s own Kurds will bring Istanbul’s E.U. accession process to a screeching halt. . . ."
Using the numbers from today’s independednt that someone is being killed every hour in Basra, that city (of 2.5 mil) would have a murder rate of about 350/100,000. (almost 7 times the NOLA rate.) Assuming my math isn’t buggered.
I really don’t get the point here. How many people are being killed in any given place?
It’s tragic wherever it is and for whatever reason, whether its Iraqi terrorists or American soldiers who do the killing, whether its here or there. a table giving comparative killings in the world to prove a political point seems a distraction from the real issues, Fred, and a pretty low one at that.
I think that you do. Can I prove that? no… haha
depends doesn’t it?
yes…
Yes, but is it the same on a moral scale? I don’t think so, do you?
What are the real issues? Apparently, many on the left seem to think that we are the problem and that the killings in Iraq are newsworthy and that this is somehow proof that we were wrong to invade. It is a huge political issue and one that does distract from the worthy nature of this fight. Constant media coverage of this, endlessly bemoaning this, that and the other needs to be “uncovered.” I think statistics like this do it quite well. Would the media like to ask the tough questions about why so many of our cities are so dangerous and why the murder rates are so high there? Would you like to ask those questions? Would you really like to find out why? Or would those enter danger zones?
You can call me Frederick P. Smith v. haha
No. What is low is the moralizing left that pretends that it actually cares about Iraqi deaths. We know that isn’t true or they would have been even more vocal when even more Iraqis were being killed (under Saddam right?). No. I think I will stand by these numbers and I am even more pleased that posting them has created the proper “outrage.” How interesting? Hardly. How amoral. Definitely.
Ah yes, I can see I was over familiar, I apologise.
Well, Mr. Smith, I am not myself “outraged” merely saddened. It may well be your post was intended to balance or measure, I still find it low. Provocation for the sake of provocation is rather sterile I feel. I do admire your prose style however.
Well, let’s also look at our little friends in Venezuela… An even higher murder rate than Iraq? and no American troops “destabilizing” the country? No bombs to destroy the fabric of society? No destabilizing attempts to foist democracy on a nation when a strongarmed dictator would better preserve stability? Oh that’s right. They have the strongarmed dictator but murder rates have still soared? How can this be? And will those peace activists in DC and San Francisco now be marching to bring an end to the deaths in Venezuela, all of which can no doubt be attributed to “oil?”
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … 01803.html
[quote]“If you’re not rich, the police here don’t care about taking your case,” said a humiliated Ricardo, 41, who described his attacker as a neighborhood thug. “That’s why so many people here take justice into their own hands. You need to do something to protect your family. I have to do something, because I see the man who did this every day.”
It’s that sort of cycle that gives Venezuela a solid claim to the dubious title of the world’s capital of violent crime. According to U.N. figures, the rates of gun-related violence are higher here than anywhere else on earth. The rank stench coming from the police office – a building that doubles as a morgue – is a rotten byproduct of a homicide rate that in recent years has eclipsed that of Colombia, a country torn by 40 years of civil strife between armed militias. Bullets fly so often in Caracas that even the white truck that ferries dead bodies from the barrios to the forensics building has a bullet hole in its driver’s-side door.
The frustration among crime-weary Venezuelans recently has become a political issue, erupting into several large street protests demanding that Hugo Chavez’s government do something to stem the violence. Chavez’s opponents are trying to make crime a central theme of the December presidential elections, demanding action from a president they say has neglected the issue since taking power in 1999.
Many of the protesters have suggested that Chavez has divided Venezuelan society with his frequent criticism of the country’s upper class, rhetoric they say has incited lower classes to violence against the wealthy. They also argue that crimes against the poor have been overlooked by a police force tainted by widespread corruption.
Venezuela, a country of 26 million, has recorded an average of nearly 10,000 homicides a year
since Chavez took office. The homicide rate, 37 deaths per 100,000 people, is more than double what it was in the 1990s
.[/quote]
This is kind of the “which is better, life in Iraq or a poke in the eye with a dirty stick?” approach, I think.
Why “life in Iraq”, of course! Case closed! Mission accomplished!
How about an apples-to-apples comparison? Say, homicide deaths per 100,000 in Iraq in the three years prior to the U.S. invasion including those at the hands of Saddam’s thugs versus homicide deaths per 100,000 in the three years after.
After all, that was the whole “point”, wasn’t it?
I am glad to hear that you are starting to think…
No but perhaps some comparison is important every now and then… surely that is not unreasonable?
Would you also include the millions who died in Saddam’s four wars? Just curious…
Not exactly. I am merely pointing out that for the left to march for peace… well, I am suggesting that they may want to look at the leader who has brought the greatest number of deaths to the civilian population under his rule rather than filtering this through an approach that seems to be We will criticize only when the US is involved.
So why not explain to me why Iraqi civilians deaths which are most attributable to gangsters, thugs, terrorists, etc. have concerned citizens marching in protest against the US government, while the actions of Chavez which have resulted in far more civilian deaths than even in Iraq have the same people marching in support of his policies and applauding his bravado?
Fred, if you can get another message from your parallel universe back here to the reality-based people on planet Earth, how do you keep pulling these conservative rags out of your nether regions? Could you tell us your reading list so I can have my internet filters block it? Well, I guess I don’t need that since nobody has even heard of or read them anyway? The New York Sun? Give us a break. How about the Washington Times? Is this one also owned by your Most Reverend Moon? Probably has only a few hundred subscribers too.
The Sun was created to establish a pro-free market conservative broadsheet in New York City to rival the New York Times. One of the founders of the Sun, in fact, previously established and edited a website devoted to issuing daily critiques of the Times. Like the Washington Times, which was launched as a conservative rival to the Washington Post, the Sun is close to the Republican Party and conservative intellectuals. Especially on foreign policy issues the Sun’s editorial opinions resemble those of the Jerusalem Post or the neoconservative The Weekly Standard magazine.
Here’s a good article from Salon debunking yet another of Fred’s famous sources:
dir.salon.com/story/news/feature … index.html
Give it a rest Fred.
Let’s be nice gents.
Please save the attacks for the news or the newspapers in this case, and not for posters.
Thanks
jdsmith
IP co-mod