Iraq is in chaos. Death and destruction are everywhere. It's the most dangerous place on the planet. That's the message we have drilled into us every day by the American media. Things may not be quite as the media reports them, however. Andrew Walden at FrontPage Mag has the data:
Iraqi civilian death statistics compiled by Rep. Steve King, R-IA, indicate that, contrary to the impression made on the evening news, Iraq actually has a lower civilian violent death rate than Washington, D.C., and pre-Katrina New Orleans. Iraq is also substantially safer than several foreign countries. After seeing media coverage of Iraqi violence King said: "I began to ask myself the question, if you were a civilian in Iraq, how could you tolerate that level of violence. What really is the level of violence?"
King calculates an annualized Iraqi civilian death rate of 27.5 per 100,000 based on U.S. military and independent statistical sources.
Ironically, Venezuela has 31.5 violent deaths per 100,000 - 14.5 percent higher than Iraq.
Venezuela is not alone in suffering at the hands of left-wing dictators or wannabe dictators: Columbia, hounded by leftist narco-guerrillas, every year loses 61.7 of its citizens to violence per every 100,000.
South Africa, led by an increasingly corrupt African National Congress loses 49.6 per 100,000 to violent deaths every year. In Jamaica-ruled for decades by the socialist People's National Party-it is 32.4.
In Russia, as the Soviet system disintegrated, the count of violent deaths-outside the Gulags-soared. In 1998 there were 30.6 homicides per 100,000 population. Three years after end of Saddam's socialist dictatorship Iraq is actually more peaceful than was Russia seven years after the end of socialist USSR.
But high murder rates are not limited to overseas leftist-ruled countries.
In Washington, D.C., it is 45.9 violent deaths per 100,000. This means civilians living in Washington D.C. .... are 63.5 percent less safe than Iraqi civilians.
Other American cities with higher violent civilian death rates than Iraq include:
Detroit: 41.8 per 100,000
Baltimore: 37.7 per 100,000
Atlanta: 34.9 per 100,000
St. Louis: 31.4 per 100,000
The American city with the highest civilian death rate was New Orleans before Katrina-with a staggering 53.1 deaths per 100,000-almost twice the death rate in Iraq.
Hudson makes the point that the foreign countries with high death rates are all ruled by leftists and the American cities with such terrible rates are all governed by Democrats. Be that as it may, it will come as a surprise to most Americans that an Iraqi is safer in his city than an American is in his. Who'd have thought that would be the case after watching the evening news.