| I sympathize with the author's point of view, but we've also got ten times the population of Iraq. That makes Iraq's death rate ten times ours. |
While the news media is very quick to announce the deaths of U.S. troops serving in Iraq, they simply ignore the rising violence in this country. We have lost 4,114 soldiers since the start of the Iraq War in March of 2003. During that same time period, more than 89,000 Americans have fallen victim to murder inside the borders of their own country (Figures for the first half of 2008 are based on the number of murders occurring in major cities and past FBI statistics).While we are constantly reminded of the number of the death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq, it pales in comparison to the annual number of U.S. murders. The loss of every soldier is certainly a tragedy and represents a life-changing loss to that soldier's family. However, those 4,114 families can take some comfort in the fact that their loved-one died in the service of his country and was in control of his own destiny. In contrast, tens of thousands of American families can find no comfort because their loved-one died a senseless death at the hands of a murderer...For them there will be no taps, no folded flag, no heroic sacrifice, only a violent and untimely death.
Since the start of the Iraq War, U.S. news casts have been filled with images of a violent Iraq. However, the press has failed to report that many of our own cities have become lawless war zones. Consider the following number of murders in major U.S. cities which occurred in 2007 alone:
-Philadelphia...394
-Chicago...442
-New York...494
-Baltimore...282
-New Orleans...209
On April 27, 2007, New Orleans recorded its 62nd murder of the year. At that time, the city's population was 223,000. On that same day, Iraq had recorded 6,523 murders for the year in a country with a population of 29,267,000. Analysis of those figures gives New Orleans a murder rate of 1 in every 3,597 people, while the murder rate for Iraq is much lower with 1 in every 4,486 people...So where is the non-stop media attention and protests for those being slaughtered in New Orleans?
We have heard President Bush as well as administration officials often justify our involvement in Iraq by telling us that our troops are saving Iraqi citizens from Saddam's infamous 'rape rooms.' Though Bush may have made saving Iraqi women from rape a priority, he has never even commented on the large number of American women raped in this country annually. In 2005 alone, 92,837 rapes were reported in the U.S. Considering that rape is an incredibly under-reported crime, is much higher ( Most experts believe that only about 1 in 10 rapes are reported, the actual number occurring in this country is believed to be closer to 920,000).
The press and our politicians do not like to talk about sobering U.S. crime statistics for a number of reasons. The mainstream press does not like to delve too deeply into the subject due to the fact that minorities commit a disproportionate amount of crime. Politicians tend to shy away from the subject for that same reason, but also because high crime rates make elected officials appear useless and ineffectual. In the case of President Bush, his refusal to defend the U.S.-Mexican border has left many Americans victims of violent crimes at the hands of illegal aliens. In fact, illegal aliens now account for 29 percent of this nation's prison population.
The reasons why someone turns to a life of crime are numerous, but a child without two parents who lives at or below the poverty level, is much more likely to go to prison than to college. With out-of-wedlock births sky-rocketing, a worsening economy, and illegal aliens (and drug gangs) continuing to stream across the border, we can expect the violence in our beleaguered cities to continue to unabated.
Whether you are killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq or a drug dealer in the United States, dead is dead.