War-torn Iraq has about 26 million residents, a peaceful California perhaps now 35 million....
As a fifth-generation Californian, I deeply love this state, but still imagine what the reaction would be if the world awoke each morning to be told that once again there were six more murders, 27 rapes, 38 arsons, 180 robberies, and 360 instances of assault in California — yesterday, today, tomorrow, and every day. I wonder if the headlines would scream about “Nearly 200 poor Californians butchered again this month!”How about a monthly media dose of “600 women raped in February alone!” Or try, “Over 600 violent robberies and assaults in March, with no end in sight!”
Monday, October 30, 2006
Iraq versus California
A piece by Victor Davis Hanson is making the rounds today, in spite of being written back in April. If you haven't read it, it will probably knock your socks off. Here is a taste.
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3 comments:
As a general rule, Iraqis go about their daily business much like we do, just not on such a economically high level, because of the oppression of the Hussein years. It's very probably more dangerous to live in certain sections of Detroit, St. Louis, or Camden, New Jersey than in most parts of Iraq.
Hanson did a masterful job of illustrating the comparative crime statistics.
This is the first time I see such intellectual dishonesty from Hanson. He should be ashamed of himself. The argument was barely passable in the beginning of 2005, not now.
Anybody familiar with arithmetic and homicide numbers can easily come up with murder rates in Baghdad 10 to 30 times higher that in the worst city in the US (Washington DC).
Insurgent attacks are undisputably going up, literacy rates down, oil production and electricity supply are worse than under Saddam. Some statistics can be seen at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/post_saddam_iraq/html/1.stm
It took poor judgement to get our country (US) into Iraqi mess, it is plain stupid to insist on keeping on the policy once it is proven to be wrong, but it will be outright irresponsible to try to justify the stupid decisions with fake arguments.
"It is worse than a crime; it is a mistake."
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