Who do you view as credible sources? How about Iraqi ministry of health? They reported 13,896 violent deaths in 2005, and 12,320 for 2006. First of all do you believe these numbers? Secondly, even if you do, do you think more than 10,000 violent deaths a year for a population of 26 million is a good thing?
Iâm skeptical of the numbers and yes, if true the numbers are high. I wonât concede that civilian violence was any less under Saddam because frankly, no one knows because Iraq was a closed society back then, and AP wasnât repeating Iraq death statistics every other day. There have been problems with the Iraqi Ministry of Health from the beginning of the Iraq campaign. I recall they were counting deaths from day-to-day crime, and deaths from Saddamâs regime as deaths caused by coalition forces. Until America gets more involved in Iraqâs government, Iâll never trust this ministry. Deaths attributed to coalition forces are now deaths caused by sectarian violence. âSectarian violenceâ often replaces day-to-day civilian violence in the news because it alludes to this fictitious media-invented âcivil warâ that American Iraq policy supposed to have created. If you look at global homicide statistics, Iraq is not insanely high, but up there at the top with Columbia âif the Iraq numbers are accurate. Iâll concede that itâs at least as bad as Columbia. Thatâs not good, and why America needs to get more involved in the Iraqi government âto not only quell the civilian violence but balance the anti-occupation propaganda the AP and UN lapdogs routinely suck up to. The AP doesnât talk about Columbia homicide statistics every other day, and thatâs my real point here. Some cultures are inherently more violent than others, and I donât think our policy makers know why one Iraqi murders another, and their assumption that Iraqis can govern themselves was dead wrong. If American policy makers are more involved in Iraqâs daily affairs, and see the hospital reports for themselves, theyâll be better at finding solutions, rather than playing second-fiddle defense to news agencies, the UN, or other âindependentâ agencies that attribute all this to sectarian violence and who have a grudge against U.S. foreign policy.
If the following is true, then maybe the Iraqis are better off and don't want US to get involved any more. http://newsbusters.org/node/9932 By the way, I find it asinine that an US resident would want more US involvement in Iraq... perhaps my assumption is wrong... sam is not an US resident but maybe a concubine of a mad mullah wanting the US to liberate the women in the middle east.
Ok, for the sake of argument, let me grant you the following points so we can start from a common ground: 1. The death rate under Saddam must've been bad, although we don't know the exact number. 2. The death rate today is probably not worse than under saddam, but still pretty bad (up there with Columbia). 3. The death rate in Columbia is really bad compared to other nations. Do you agree with these? If yes, then let me point out the following: These death rates are unusual. They are not what a normal, civilized society should be, no matter what the culture is. In the case of Columbia, it's clearly caused by the US war on drugs. Once we legalize drugs, we remove one of the biggest source of violent crimes in this country and in Columbia. No one would think that Iraq under Saddam was a normal country. So we expect an unusually high death rate. Therefore even if today's death rate is no worse than under Saddam, it's no consolation. Today Iraq's death rate is 10 times those of neighboring countries. You cannot attribute that to cultural differences. If you don't want to call these deaths sectarian violence, but just call them crimes, that's fine. But that's an unusually high crime rate. Something is wrong in that society. Since the US is the occupying force there, it is natural to attribute at least part of the responsibility to the occupying force. In fact, throughout history, the occupying force has always been blamed for unnatural deaths of the people under their rule, be it the Nazi's, the Japanese, the Soviets, the Israeli's, or the US in Iraq. There has never been an exception. To deny that the US has the responsibility in Iraq, while the only real authority there is the US, is dishonest.
It's a dishonest comparison. Try compare Washington DC (the highest murder rate in that table) with Baghdad. It's hard to get good numbers for Baghdad but we know the lower limit: Iraqi Health Ministry claimed that August had the lowest violent death rate in Baghdad, at 550, according to Fox http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2006Aug31/0,4670,IraqViolentDeaths,00.html July was almost 3 times higher at 1500. Let's really lowball the numbers and say every month the death toll was 550. Over 12 months the total number of violent deaths in Baghdad would be at least 6600. Now let's do the comparison: Washington, DC - 1991; 83.1 (482 murders; population 598,000 [1]) Baghdad - 2006; 110.9 (6600 murders; population 5,948,800) Of course, the murder rate in Washington DC was peak in 1991, and had steadily declined every year until it started to rise again in the past two years (wonder why?). The murder rate in Baghdad, OTOH, has been steady since we started looking at it.
__________________________________________________ Maybe you should define "bigotry" since you are soo good at displaying it.