{"id":695,"date":"2005-01-18T18:20:41","date_gmt":"2005-01-18T18:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:08:58","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:08:58","slug":"pine_bluff_and","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=695","title":{"rendered":"Pine Bluff and Mosul"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a list of MSA’s (Metropolitan Statistical Areas<\/a>) in the United States.<\/p>\n

New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, LA
\nVictoria, TX
\nDetroit-Livonia-Dearborn, MI
\nPine Bluff, AR
\nLaredo, TX
\nShreveport-Bossier City, LA
\nRichmond, VA<\/p>\n

…what’s interesting about them?According to the FBI, they had rates of murder and non-negligent manslaughter comparable to the estimated rates in Iraq right now (14 – 20\/100,000 population per year – from Strategypage<\/a>, with a hat tip to Outside The Beltway<\/a>).<\/p>\n

|MSA | – | Rate per 100,000|
\n|New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, LA | – | 25.5|
\n|Victoria, TX | – | 25.4|
\n|Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, MI | – | 19.5|
\n|Pine Bluff, AR | – | 16.9|
\n|Laredo, TX | – | 14.7|
\n|Shreveport-Bossier City, LA | – | 14.5|
\n|Richmond, VA | – | 13.6|<\/p>\n

Does this mean all is well? No. Is this acceptable – in Iraq or in Pine Bluff? No.<\/p>\n

But those of us who haven’t closed our minds are all struggling the question we keep coming back to – what are we facing? What are the facts? How widespread is the violence, and how likely is that we’ll be able to contain and reduce it? Is it as widespread and deep as suggested by the opponents of the war? As narrow and shallow as suggested by the supporters? Or – as is likely – somewhere in between.<\/p>\n

When you read stories explaining that all is lost in Iraq – or that victory is just around the corner – take a moment and think about who’s saying it. I’d have more respect for the ‘all is lost’ folks if it didn’t fit so neatly into an anti-war or anti-Bush agenda, and for the “it’s a day at the beach” folks if the opposite wasn’t true.<\/p>\n

I tend to fall into the “things aren’t as bad as Juan Cole, Robert Scheer, and the New York Times say they are” camp, in part, because I keep seeing numbers like these.<\/p>\n

If there was a true uprising among the Iraqis, we’d be seeing far, far higher US and Iraqi death rates.<\/p>\n

This is a data point – one of the many we need to figure out what’s up – that suggests to me two things: 1) that we don’t face a true uprising against the U.S. and Coalition presence; and 2) that we’ve got some serious work to do both in terms of actually improving things on the ground and in terms of getting a true(er) picture out of what things on the ground look like today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a list of MSA’s (Metropolitan Statistical Areas) in the United States. New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, LA Victoria, TX Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, MI Pine Bluff, AR Laredo, TX Shreveport-Bossier City, LA Richmond, VA …what’s interesting about them?According to the FBI, they had rates of murder and non-negligent manslaughter comparable to the estimated rates in Iraq right now (14 – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}