Juan Cole has a thought provoking post comparing what the US would look like if it had the level of violence and insurgency that Iraq has today. Basically, he takes all of the figures for violence and multiplies everything by 11 (the population difference between Iraq and the US).
His basic point is that Bush is insane for saying that Iraq is making progress, because (converting Iraqi statistics over to US based ones), if our country had this level of violence we would not be optimistic about anything at all.
I'm not sure that just multiplying everything by 11 is a valid way to compare countries and societies, but it is an interesting exercise. Certainly, it does make you wonder how they are going to have real elections there, given the scope of violence across the country, much less rebuild the place.
Obsidian Wings has a similar post up, with some interesting discussion, if anyone is interested.
Posted by baltar at September 22, 2004 02:59 PM | TrackBack | Posted to International Affairs