Reply #1: Even Byrand's comparisons are fallacious. . .

[Journeyman]

She compares overall numbers and death rates per 100,000, when a truer comparison -- at least in regards the US involvement -- is to look at these numbers in terms of law enforcement.

Here's how I describe Iraq to those who see it as "less dangerous than (such and such city or region in the US)" . . .

Iraq is approximately the same geographic size as California, has roughly the same population (25 million), and about the same number of foreign troops as California has law enforcement (~150,000). For the past three years, the foreign occupation troops (that would be US) have functioned as the law within Iraq.

Would anyone in this country be complacent if -- on average -- 2.3 policemen were being killed in California every day? If 2700 police officers had been killed in California in the past three years, would anyone feel this was anything less than total anarchy? Would any pundit scoff and compare California to, say, Darfur, and conclude that the situation's acceptable because it could be much worse?

And this doesn't begin to include the even larger toll of Iraq policemen killed since the American attack, or the heart-wrenching toll of civilian dead. Who believes that carbombs and IEDs, dozens of citizens dead in the streets on a daily basis, thousands kidnapped and hundreds assassinated, beheadings, churches bombed and clergy hacked to death with machetes, undrinkable water, people freezing to death in the dark . . . who believes such a total disintegration of civilized society in the most populous State of the Union would warrant a shrug or a smirk or a dismissive wave of the hand? Who would send snarky emails about such Left Coast chaos? And how long would a politician -- any politician in any state or at any level -- how long would they last in office if they made smug and condescending comments about how well the true situation is in California? How obscene would observations about school paintjobs be in such a crisis?