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Originally Posted by Mazer
Still, the fact that Iraq is a warzone while New York and Chicago are not should temper our comparisons.
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i have to take exception to that. as you point out soldiers have important advance knowledge: they know they're going to be attacked. they train for it, equip for it, and america spends billions of dollars trying to minimize it. assuming the us fields the finest military in the world one must also assume it has the best gear and strategies to protect its fighters. yet in spite of this it's at least 80x more dangerous over there then it is compared to big and scary old nyc.
now imagine for a moment how difficult it would be to mug guy walking home from a nyc bar if he was encased in the latest body armor, or how tough it would be for a brooklyn babe to crack her boyfriend's skull if he had on one of the flak helmuts they wear in baghdad. imagine further if the potential victims of murder in the states
knew for a fact they were specific targets and trained and equiped themselves as thoroughly as us soldiers in iraq have for avoidance and defense. the murder rate in nyc would drop to near zero. most death by hand in the states is impulsive, it's not particularly well thought or planned, so if the easy opportunity never presents the crime doesn’t occur. this simply illustrates how astounding it is that anyone would dare to claim iraq isn't really any more dangerous than the typical american city. iraq is overwhelmingly more dangerous - to the point of being beyond any meaningful comparison. such claims to the contrary are nothing more than the worst kind of propaganda from the right. they at once attempt to placate the citizens with lies (as intended) while making light of the extraordinary danger u.s. fighting men and women find themselves confronting day after day. the authors and other idiots like britt hume who spew this garbage should apologize to their readers and to the soldiers over there who have to put up with its stench oozing out of mess hall loudspeakers tuned to fox.
- js.