A week ago Ann Coulter posted a column on her website where she claimed that Iraqis were safer than Detroit residents, and insinuated that our troops were safer in Iraq than Chicago. Setting aside the implicit insults to the Second City and Motor City, the way in which she used the statistics from this CNN story is among the most dishonest I have have ever read.
Iraq claimed the lives of nineteen of our young men in May, a tragedy no matter the context. Yet this is still a positive trend in a country where over a hundred deaths a month is common. Yet Ann Coulter uses the statistic in a patently dishonest attempt at ridiculing liberals, and implicitly claims Detroit residents sacrifice more living in their city than our soldiers do risking their lives in Iraq:
Monthly casualties in Iraq now come in slightly lower than a weekend with Anna Nicole Smith. According to a CNN report last week, for the entire month of May, there were only 19 troop deaths in Iraq. (Last year, five people on average were shot every day in Chicago.) With Iraqi deaths at an all-time low, Iraq is safer than Detroit -- although the Middle Eastern food is still better in Detroit.
Apparantly Coulter would rather give hazardous duty pay to Anna Nicole Smith's publicist than our troops.
The first thing to jump out at the informed reader is her conflating the number of people SHOT in Chicago to the number of people KILLED in Iraq. Naturally, the number of troops shot is likely far higher than those killed. With modern medicine and our Army's well developed system of dealing with casualties, our troops ideally receive care from the combat lifesavers in their platoon to the medic in their company all the way to the ER in Germany. Oftentimes casualty rates can be many times higher than death rates.
According to Wikipedia and the Chicago Police Department there were 435 murders in Chicago last year for a murder rate of 15 people per 100,000 residents. 150,000 troops currently reside in Iraq. Were Iraq as dangerous as Chicago, only 2 would have died in May. In other words, the murder rate for American troops in Iraq is 151 per 100,000. That makes Iraq roughly 10 times as dangerous as Chicago, and that doesn't even count Iraqi, insurgent, contractor, or other Coalition troop deaths.
What about Detroit, a city Coulter apparently considers worse than Baghdad? Their homicide rate was 40 per 100,000 residents, making Iraq roughly 4 times as dangerous as the most dangerous place in America, again without even accounting for Iraqis, insurgents, contractors, and allies.
The criminal abuse of statistics is not a new tactic in politics, but Coulter has taken it to new heights in her career. Her rabid fanbase seems willing to accept anything she says without even remotely reflecting on the facts. But that's not what is most despicable about this article. By minimizing the danger our soldiers are facing in Iraq, she minimizes the sacrifices they make every day. Attitudes like hers are exactly the reason that our soldiers waited years to receive adequate body armor and up-armored Humvees. Attitudes like hers are the reason that President Bush is able to reminisce about wars he's never fought in. Attitudes like hers are the most disrespectful kind of dishonesty toward the people who signed up to defend her and her vile propaganda.