I just read that there were 16,912 murders in the US in all of 2005.
Baghdad alone had 1,398 murders last month, not including soldiers or civilian victims of explosions - so that number does not include car bombs and IEDs. If we assume only (only!) 15 more deaths by bombs or of soldiers per month (and 50 people were killed in Baghdad in just one day of car bombing in February, and 5 more just today, so it's a conservative guess), that brings the total to 1413 last month - and rising monthly.
Extrapolating that to a full year, this comes to 16,956 per year. By itself, Baghdad's surpasses the entire US in murders. Not just murder rate - but number of murders. (The murder rate is 50 times higher in Baghdad vs. the entire US).
Baghdad, a city of 6 million people, now has more murders than our entire 300-million-person country. And it's getting worse by the month.
Why haven't we seen this in the media?
Wake up people!
