dong20
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solong said:Now Mr. Dong, when I said that we have made Iraq safer than we are right here in the United States in any of our MAJOR cities, I meant that, and I am not using my powers of persuasion at all. I'm using the FBI's own crime statistics. I didn't make them up....)
I don't think anyone is disputing the US figures, they are a matter of record.
solong said:I live in a small town and last night on our evening news was a typical report of two more murders here. Night before last we had one and several woundings. Night before that was muggings and a firefight outside a bar, etc. etc. and one person murdered, for sure. In a town of 440,000, we had 130 murders last year. That's 29.54 murders/100,000 population. Now let's translate that to Baghdad. In order to just keep up with our small town rate here, we would have had to lose, in just ONE YEAR'S TIME, in Baghdad, 1625 Americans to equal the same murder rate that we have right here on a regularly monthly basis. I don't see the media blowing their stacks over us!
However, that isn't fair, because our military are scattered all over Iraq. So were you to do it right, and extrapolate the 29.54 murders/100,000 throughout the nation of Iraq, instead of just concentrating them all in one small area, you'd get a true picture, and you'd see then that if Iraq claims 55 million population for instance (hypothetical), we would by now have counted 16,250 bodybags coming home, PER YEAR! That would be our home town murder rate-- no more or less.
As iraq has a population of about 25/26 million what is this 55 Million (hypothetical) about? You are not comparing reality so the comparison is meaningless.
solong said:So, frankly, Dong, I don't see your point, but if you can multiply, using the FBI's own figures for murder throughout the United States, then you have to see mine. I made my point with the simplest of tools. Arithmetic.
I can see your point just fine, I just disagree with you.
solong said:I just love it when I'm right. Nobody can do anything about the facts. But you gotta be careful where you get your (so-called) "facts." I am using proven death toll by murders. I don't want to see some liberal whack-job's assertions because I won't even reply to that. I want to see hard evidence, like I've given you.
Arrogance is poorly received here
Solong as I said before raw figure hide the true situation on the ground but if you want to insist:
Lets take some murder rate (per 100k) examples - 1980, 2004 and 2005:
1980
US:10.2
Iraq: 5 (Source United Nations http://www.uncjin.org/stats/wcsascii/wcsone.txt)
2004
US:5.5
Iraq:43.5 (11312 Civilian deaths March 2004-March 2005)
2005
US :Not yet available - lets say 5
Iraq: 48.52 (12617 Civilian deaths March 2005-March 2006)
Iraq figures 2004 and 2005 source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr13.php and I am sure these are conservative numbers.
Of course it's hard to define murder in a war zone but as you can see the figures for 2004 and 2005 are almost ten times those in 1980 for Iraq but only 50% for the US.
So one can infer US is now twice as 'safe' but Iraq is now 10 times more dangerous. Do you feel safer solong? Your post suggests not.
You are asserting that US troops have made Iraq safer than it was prior to 2003, well I ask you; safer for whom? US and/or coalition troops....you cannot be serious, Iraqi civililans...surely not (if so then the estimated 100000 civilans killed since 2003 would take issue with you on this point but sadly they are dead).
Quoting from an aricle by Stephen Soldz in 2004:
"Perhaps the best known estimate of civilian deaths from the fighting is that of the Iraq Body Count project.[5] This British-based group of researchers has systematically examined the western press and collated all accounts of civilian casualties. They tabulate all deaths that are independently reported by two sources. Based on this rigorous methodology, they estimate civilian casualties from the invasion until October 29, 2004 at between 14,181 and 16,312. Other estimates have come from the Brookings Institution[6] (between 15,200 and 31,400 "killed as a result of violence from war and crime between May, 2003 and September 30, 2004." Some of their estimates are based on Iraq Body Count data), and the Iraqi People's Kifah[7] (through a household survey they identified 37,000 deaths between March and October 2003).
With the exception of the People's Kifah estimates, which might be considered suspect as they are an anti-occupation organization and they have published no details about their methods (and which only covers the first eight months of war and occupation), these estimates largely are based on western press accounts. As is acknowledged by Iraq Body Count, such accounts likely underestimate deaths as many, perhaps most, battles and other military actions, and resultant Iraqi deaths, are often not reported unless coalition forces suffered casualties.[8] Additionally, in recent months western reporters have been unable to move about Iraq independently, meaning that even such high-profile claims of mass civilian deaths from US bombing as the killing by US bombing of upwards of 45 Iraqis at a wedding party in the town of Mogr el-Deeb in May[9] could not be independently verified. Thus, all previous estimates of Iraq civilian deaths since the invasion are probably on the low side."
The Study Methodology
The researchers used a traditional epidemiologic technique called a clustered sample survey. Without getting into technical details, the country was divided into a number (33 in this instance) of subgroups and a community was randomly selected from each cluster. In each community, Global Positioning System (GPS) devices combined with random numbers were used to select a particular point in the community. Then the nearest 30 household were surveyed; these 30 households are referred to as a cluster.......
Discussion and Critique of Results
By the luck of the draw, the Iraqi city of Falluja was included in their sample. The researchers found an enormous number of deaths in that besieged city, much higher than in any over cluster they sampled. Researchers call such an observation an outlier and have developed a number of techniques for dealing with them. These researchers used the most conservative approach: namely, they presented many of their data excluding Falluja. With this exclusion they found that mortality (deaths) rose from 5.0 deaths per 1000 people per year to 7.9 deaths.
Public health researchers usually report such data as the relative risk of death post-invasion, compared to pre-invasion. A relative risk greater than 1.0 means that more people died after the invasion than in an equivalent time period before the invasion. With Falluja included, the relative risk post-invasion was 2.5, whereas with Falluja excluded it was 1.5. so they estimated that roughly 50% more people died post-invasion than had died in the same time period before."
The whole article is available here :http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=6565%20
But to keep balance and support your assertion:
Reporting from the New York Times in Jan 2005 showed that Iraq had 202 murders in 14 days or 14.4 per day during the first two weeks of that year. Iraqi population estimates vary, but for comparison purposes Chicago had 450 confirmed murders in 366 days with a population of 2.8 million which equates to .439 murders per million per day. The two would be equal if Iraq's population was 32,858,867 people! Population estimates vary but about 25 million people live in Iraq. Therefore, the streets of Iraq are about as safe as the streets of Chicago.
Whatever you or I say about 'figures' which as I just demonstrated can be made to say whatever one likes, the true test of your convictions will be, be bearing in mind my previous paragraph an honest answer to this simple question:
It's 2 am, you are a little drunk and unsure of your way, walking home alone down poorly lit streets and think you see someone following you..."
Where would YOU rather be solong? Baghdad or Chicago or even your home town?