America As Iraq

The Coffee Shop
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If America were Iraq, What would it be Like?

President Bush said Tuesday that the Iraqis are refuting the pessimists and implied that things are improving in that country.

What would America look like if it were in Iraq’s current situation? The population of the US is over 11 times that of Iraq, so a lot of statistics would have to be multiplied by that number.

Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week? That is a number greater than the deaths on September 11, and if America were Iraq, it would be an ongoing, weekly or monthly toll.

And what if those deaths occurred all over the country, including in the capital of Washington, DC, but mainly above the Mason Dixon line, in Boston, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco?

What if the grounds of the White House and the government buildings near the Mall were constantly taking mortar fire? What if almost nobody in the State Department at Foggy Bottom, the White House, or the Pentagon dared venture out of their buildings, and considered it dangerous to go over to Crystal City or Alexandria?

What if all the reporters for all the major television and print media were trapped in five-star hotels in Washington, DC and New York, unable to move more than a few blocks safely, and dependent on stringers to know what was happening in Oklahoma City and St. Louis? What if the only time they ventured into the Midwest was if they could be embedded in Army or National Guard units?

There are estimated to be some 25,000 guerrillas in Iraq engaged in concerted acts of violence. What if there were private armies totalling 275,000 men, armed with machine guns, assault rifles (legal again!), rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar launchers, hiding out in dangerous urban areas of cities all over the country? What if they completely controlled Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Denver and Omaha, such that local police and Federal troops could not go into those cities?

What if, during the past year, the Secretary of State (Aqilah Hashemi), the President (Izzedine Salim), and the Attorney General (Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim) had all been assassinated?

What if all the cities in the US were wracked by a crime wave, with thousands of murders, kidnappings, burglaries, and carjackings in every major city every year?

What if the Air Force routinely (I mean daily or weekly) bombed Billings, Montana, Flint, Michigan, Watts in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Anacostia in Washington, DC, and other urban areas, attempting to target “safe houses” of “criminal gangs”, but inevitably killing a lot of children and little old ladies?

What if, from time to time, the US Army besieged Virginia Beach, killing hundreds of armed members of the Christian Soldiers? What if entire platoons of the Christian Soldiers militia holed up in Arlington National Cemetery, and were bombarded by US Air Force warplanes daily, destroying thousands of graves and pulverizing the Vietnam Memorial? What if the National Council of Churches had to call for a popular march of thousands of believers to converge on the National Cathedral to stop the US Army from demolishing it to get at a rogue band of the Timothy McVeigh Memorial Brigades?

What if there were virtually no commercial air traffic in the country? What if many roads were highly dangerous, especially Interstate 95 from Richmond to Washington, DC, and I-95 and I-91 up to Boston? If you got on I-95 anywhere along that over 500-mile stretch, you would risk being carjacked, kidnapped, or having your car sprayed with machine gun fire.

What if no one had electricity for much more than 10 hours a day, and often less? What if it went off at unpredictable times, causing factories to grind to a halt and air conditioning to fail in the middle of the summer in Houston and Miami? What if the Alaska pipeline were bombed and disabled at least monthly? What if unemployment hovered around 40%?

What if veterans of militia actions at Ruby Ridge and the Oklahoma City bombing were brought in to run the government on the theory that you need a tough guy in these times of crisis?

What if municipal elections were cancelled and cliques close to the new “president” quietly installed in the statehouses as “governors?” What if several of these governors (especially of Montana and Wyoming) were assassinated soon after taking office or resigned when their children were taken hostage by guerrillas?

What if the leader of the European Union maintained that the citizens of the United States are, under these conditions, refuting pessimism and that freedom and democracy are just around the corner?

Source: http://www.juancole.com/2004_09_01_juancole_archive.html#109582366638394688

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A very good exercise for American minds.

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The problem is, we can’t imagine it. We honestly have no idea. It’s a big country on the verge of civil war. Some parts of the country are fine, some are beyond our reckoning … I would guess that most of our soldiers on the ground don’t even have much of an idea. I recently spoke at length with a coworker (Army reservist) who is home on medical leave and he even said he doesn’t really know what’s going on there now. His quote, “Now they are just killing each other, which is a good thing for us (U.S. soldiers) I guess … I don’t know what’s going to happen.” Most U.S. military are hunkered down for 12 hours, then out busting ass in very large groups for 12 hours (makes sense). Very little interaction with Iraqis in most places any more, due to the insecurity (there was a lot more interaction a few months ago). The situation is abysmal for many people in many places. What a mess. -TB

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Tibbs, you know damn well what the point is, so stop asking stupid questions. Most people here (including me) know f*ck all about Iraq’s geography/size etc. apart from the location of the latest hotspot. This rephrases what’s happening in Iraq in terms your average American can better understand and then asks the question “if all this was happening in America, would you think that ‘things are improving’?” as your president claims.

It’s an attempt to rephrase the problem in terms people are more likely to understand.

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You don’t know shit about what I know so stop making stupid comments.

By that I meant that you are smart enough to realise that it was an attempt to rephrase the problem and that the point was that things are not improving. Bush likes to portray things as improving, when in fact they have got steadily worse since the end of the war.

but at least those stupid Americans can’t understand

I never claimed Americans were stupid, so don’t put words in my mouth. Everyone finds things easier to comprehend when they are expressed in familiar terms. It has nothing to do with intelligence.

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It is also possible that some improvements are being made with regards to infrastructure, etc., while some areas are admittedly bad, even worsening. Too bad we Americans are not so enlightened and erudite as the rest of the folks on the globe. Thanks so much for the education.

9

I would organize “The Slowtwitch Militia”. It would be cool; a bunch of dudes (and chicks) patrolling the streets on tri-bikes with automatic weapons.

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If we had those problems, I would pray some country would dedicate resources to help us fix those problems and turn our country around.

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Whatever happened to the Democratic party of my youth? That was the party whose president urged us to pay any price, bear any burden in the protection of liberty and freedom.

I think I have Kennedy’s quote about right, but it has been so long since I heard it, I am no longer certain.

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Very kind Tibbs, but I am just a chicken hawk living off the freedom protected by men like you.

Thank you.

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Great. What’s your point? It sure is freaky to be a cloistered white middle class American just figuring out that the world is a violent place, isn’t it?

Now do the same pointless exercise for the Sudan. And Nigeria. And Bosnia. And Pakistan. And Mozambique and Zimbabwe (remember AIDS?). And Afghanistan (where Ossama is still running around free, and we have done jackshit to repair the infrastructure that the Taliban destroyed). And Saudi Arabia. And South Africa (the highest rape rate -outside of war zones - in the world, and in the top five AIDS rate). And Columbia (mass genocidal extinctions of indigenous peoples, world’s largest drug cartels, and herds of homeless abandoned children being shot dead on the streets by the police every day). Or the United States (with the highest crime and violence rates in the industrialized world. More people died of gunshots in the 90’s in Cali than any other cause). Or Mexico.

Here’s some American violent death stats. Get your brain around these:

In a single year, 3,012 children and teens were killed by gunfire in the United States, according to the latest national data released in 2002. That is one child every three hours; eight children every day; and more than 50 children every week. And every year, at least 4 to 5 times as many kids and teens suffer from non-fatal firearm injuries. (Children’s Defense Fund and National Center for Health Statistics)

In 2001, 8,226 African Americans died from homicide, the sixth leading cause of death for this population. Homicide is the leading cause of death for African Americans aged 15-34, and is one of the top five leading causes of death for those aged 1-44. Even when differences in age distributions were taken into account, African Americans were 5.3 times more likely than Whites to die from homicide in 2001.

In 2001, 211 American Indians died from homicide, which is now the eleventh leading cause of death for this population overall, and the third leading cause of death for American Indians age 1-9 and 15-34. Even when differences in age distributions were taken into account, American Indians were 1.7 times more likely than Whites to die from homicide in 2001.

In 2001, 543 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) died from homicide, which is now the tenth leading cause of death for this population overall, and the third leading cause of death for AAPIs aged 15-34. Even when differences in age distributions were taken into account, AAPIs were more likely than Whites to die from homicide in 2001.

In 2001, 3,331 Hispanics died from homicide, the sixth leading cause of death for this population. Homicide is the second leading cause of death for Hispanics aged 15-34; the fourth for those aged 1-14; and one of the top five leading causes of death for those aged 1-44. Even when differences in age distributions were taken into account, Hispanics are more than twice as likely as Whites to die from homicide in 2001.

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Great God Almighty, I’m agreeing with Tibbs, Brian286, and mojozenmaster, all in the same thread.

What if America was Iraq? What if water were wet? It’s a ludicrous comparison. Sophmoric.

America is *not *like Iraq. We don’t share a common culture. Any comparison that ignores that basic, fundamental fact is moot from the outset.

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In Webswims defence (he’s probably asleep now), I think the thrust of the piece was to make a juxtaposition of conditions, rather than cultures, and to wonder aloud whether we would tolerate these conditions and the statements about progress and the like in the face of our every day experience.

Fair enough, it’s not the best comparison, but it does raise a point about so many people being keen on war as long as it isn’t in their back yard…

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it’s not the best comparison, but it does raise a point about so many people being keen on war as long as it isn’t in their back yard…

Ok from the original post:

Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans

If that pace stayed consistent that is roughly 170,000 deaths a year. Looking at our history we know what war in our backyard is about and most Americans understand what this means. America has paid its own price in blood for its freedom. Keep in mind that our Civil War cost over 600,000 lives in 4 from 1861-65. If you take a 170,000 deaths a year that means we could keep this pace for over 3 years and it would put in in the ball park of our Civil War. In our fire bombing of Tokyo in Japan at the end of WWII there were over 100,000 deaths in a few days.

All I am trying to say is that in light of other wars these numbers are low and in ending wars or gaining freedom there seems to be a high price always.

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while the numbers might be low when compared to the civil war and ww2, the vast vast majority of americans have no recollection of that other than history classes and so it doesn’t have the same impact.

i think some of the criticism of the original post is misplaced. as was pointed out, it was not saying america is literally iraq. it was attempting to offer figures and geographic locations that americans can get there brains around and to ask if things of that nature were happening in the u.s., would we consider it “making progress”.

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Thanks goobie, that’s exactly the comparison I was trying to make.

I’m well aware the the US & Iraq have vastly different cultures, but that wasn’t the point of th exercise. And in case anyone didn’t notice, I didn’t write the piece; Juan Cole did. He’s an American, and the professor of history at U of Michigan, with a specialisation in the Middle East, and his current research areas are Shiites in Iraq & Iran, as well as Muslim radicalism and more specifically Al Q and the Taliban. As such, he’s eminently qualified to comment on the current situation in the Middle East.

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he’s just an armchair quarterback like the rest of us and his piece is nothing more than opinion

Just an armchair quarterback who can read & speak Arabic, who has extensive contacts in Iraq and the M.E… Therefore he can read the M.E. papers to get the opinion of people who live in the area, talk to people on the ground who have lived through pre- and post-war times and not rely solely on Western media for his information.

Given that his area of expertise is the Shiites in Iraq (who you may remember were the ones who bore a significant share of Saddam’s brutality along with the Kurds) I’d say he’s well aware of the situation under Saddam. Certainly more aware of it than you or I.

So, if you honestly feel that his opinion carries the same weight as “the rest of us” you’re sadly delusional.

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This comes from a freakin’ Web Blog!! Tibbs keeps a web blog! Millions of people keep blogs!

What’s your point? That all blogs are a load of rubbish, irrespective of who writes them? That’s totally asinine! Most people judge a writer’s opinion based on their qualifications in the relevant field, NOT on the medium in which they choose to express that opinion. You’re really showing your stupidity with that comment.

If it makes you feel any better, here’s a page of essays he has published, in newspapers such as the Guardian, Le Monde, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News:
http://www.juancole.com/essays/essays.htm

He also has his CV online if you’d like to check out books & papers he’s written, along with conferences he’s been invited to speak at, including some at Oxford, Yale and MIT. He’s hardly some quack:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jrcole/cv.htm

I don’t care whether you agree with him or not Brian, but you can’t claim that his opinion is worthless merely because he expressed it on his personal blog.

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I’m well aware the the US & Iraq have vastly different cultures, but that wasn’t the point of th exercise.

Fair enough. It’s probably true that Americans do not sufficiently grasp the full horror of war today. I personally think this is an area in which our media fails tremendously to fulfill its responsibility.

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It’s ironic that in the era of 24hour instant news, our media actually doesn’t have people aware of the horror of war. What amazes me even more though, is the short attention span of Americans. Even after we were attacked on 9/11 it didn’t take long for people to put it out of their minds. Obviously the circumstances are different, but how can we expect people to fully grasp the concept of a society at war when they are so quick to put our own tragedies out of their minds?