thedrifter
10-23-03, 05:57 AM
10-22-2003
Safer in Baghdad Than Most American Cities
By Alan Caruba
It’s no secret that most of the mainstream U.S. media was against the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq and, even during the brief combat phase, was already calling it a “quagmire.” Since the declaration that major combat had ended in May, every single casualty has been reported. The implied message is that we should get out of Iraq, that our mission there is foolhardy and wasteful of our soldier’s lives.
On Saturday, Oct. 18, when The Star-Ledger newspaper in Newark, N.J. – the largest circulation daily in the state – lled page one with the headline “Postwar Iraq GI death toll passes 100,” I was reminded that, on the previous day, the Essex County edition had a story that reported, “So far this year, 65 people have been slain in Newark, sometimes in spurts as in the one beginning Oct. 3 when four people were killed and eight injured by gunshots or stab wounds during a 32-hour period.”
Does it seem to you that, statistically, your life is at greater risk in Newark than downtown Baghdad or Basra? Now Essex is just one of twenty-one New Jersey counties and you can be pretty sure that, in this state alone, more people have been shot, stabbed and beaten to death than the entire U.S. military currently engaged in some serious fighting in Iraq. And that’s just from January of this year.
But let’s not restrict ourselves to New Jersey. As your local newspaper or television news reports each U.S. combat loss in Iraq, a nation the size of California, back in May when the major combat phase was over, the police in Phoenix, Arizona, were puzzling over why the homicide rate there was up 67 percent over the previous year. By May, 105 citizens had met violent deaths.
By August, New Orleans had chalked up 150 homicides and that isn’t even counting the rest of Louisiana. Only 146 U.S. soldiers had died in the brief period of combat that led to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. If the current rate of corpses keeps piling up in the Crescent City, law enforcement authorities there think it will be on track to become the nation’s murder capitol for the first time since way back in 1964.
While the news media keep reminding us that we are, indeed, suffering losses in Iraq due to cowardly and murderous former supporters of Saddam Hussein, plus all kinds of al Qaeda riff-raff, with who-knows-how-many Iranian provocateurs, the murder rate in Philadelphia, by early August, was up 23 percent with – are you ready for this – 198 killed. At that pace, by the end of 2003, the city will experience 337 murders. Across the nation in Oakland, California, that city was marking its 76 murders as of late August.
And in Washington, D.C., our nation’s capital and workplace of so many Democrat politicians eager to denounce the President, by June the District had reclaimed its status as the murder capital of the United States. According to FBI statistics, the city had a higher homicide rate than any other city in the nation with more than 500,000 residents.
Yes, dear reader, statistically you have a better chance of being shot to death in Washington, D.C. than in Baghdad. So, the next time your local daily or nightly TV news trumpets the number of U.S. battle casualties in Iraq, you should probably give some thought to wearing a bulletproof vest if you plan to visit the Lincoln Memorial.
Contributing Editor Alan Caruba is the author of “Warning Signs” and his weekly commentaries are also posted on www.anxietycenter.com, the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center. He can be reached at ACaruba@aol.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=225&rnd=881.2360670193015
Sempers,
Roger
:marine:
Safer in Baghdad Than Most American Cities
By Alan Caruba
It’s no secret that most of the mainstream U.S. media was against the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq and, even during the brief combat phase, was already calling it a “quagmire.” Since the declaration that major combat had ended in May, every single casualty has been reported. The implied message is that we should get out of Iraq, that our mission there is foolhardy and wasteful of our soldier’s lives.
On Saturday, Oct. 18, when The Star-Ledger newspaper in Newark, N.J. – the largest circulation daily in the state – lled page one with the headline “Postwar Iraq GI death toll passes 100,” I was reminded that, on the previous day, the Essex County edition had a story that reported, “So far this year, 65 people have been slain in Newark, sometimes in spurts as in the one beginning Oct. 3 when four people were killed and eight injured by gunshots or stab wounds during a 32-hour period.”
Does it seem to you that, statistically, your life is at greater risk in Newark than downtown Baghdad or Basra? Now Essex is just one of twenty-one New Jersey counties and you can be pretty sure that, in this state alone, more people have been shot, stabbed and beaten to death than the entire U.S. military currently engaged in some serious fighting in Iraq. And that’s just from January of this year.
But let’s not restrict ourselves to New Jersey. As your local newspaper or television news reports each U.S. combat loss in Iraq, a nation the size of California, back in May when the major combat phase was over, the police in Phoenix, Arizona, were puzzling over why the homicide rate there was up 67 percent over the previous year. By May, 105 citizens had met violent deaths.
By August, New Orleans had chalked up 150 homicides and that isn’t even counting the rest of Louisiana. Only 146 U.S. soldiers had died in the brief period of combat that led to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. If the current rate of corpses keeps piling up in the Crescent City, law enforcement authorities there think it will be on track to become the nation’s murder capitol for the first time since way back in 1964.
While the news media keep reminding us that we are, indeed, suffering losses in Iraq due to cowardly and murderous former supporters of Saddam Hussein, plus all kinds of al Qaeda riff-raff, with who-knows-how-many Iranian provocateurs, the murder rate in Philadelphia, by early August, was up 23 percent with – are you ready for this – 198 killed. At that pace, by the end of 2003, the city will experience 337 murders. Across the nation in Oakland, California, that city was marking its 76 murders as of late August.
And in Washington, D.C., our nation’s capital and workplace of so many Democrat politicians eager to denounce the President, by June the District had reclaimed its status as the murder capital of the United States. According to FBI statistics, the city had a higher homicide rate than any other city in the nation with more than 500,000 residents.
Yes, dear reader, statistically you have a better chance of being shot to death in Washington, D.C. than in Baghdad. So, the next time your local daily or nightly TV news trumpets the number of U.S. battle casualties in Iraq, you should probably give some thought to wearing a bulletproof vest if you plan to visit the Lincoln Memorial.
Contributing Editor Alan Caruba is the author of “Warning Signs” and his weekly commentaries are also posted on www.anxietycenter.com, the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center. He can be reached at ACaruba@aol.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=225&rnd=881.2360670193015
Sempers,
Roger
:marine: