The Age: Police find 42 bodies dumped in Baghdad

[grytpype]

http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Police-find-42-bodies-dumped-in-Baghdad/2006/05/31/1148956400114.html

It's a short article, here's the whole thing:

Police find 42 bodies dumped in Baghdad

May 31, 2006 - 3:44PM (Australian time)

Forty-two dumped bodies have been found in different parts of Baghdad over the last 24 hours - many of them shot, bound and showing signs of torture, police sources said.

Most of them were found in eastern Baghdad, the sources added.

Twelve were in one place in the Baladiyat district and eight in the nearby Sadr City area of the capital.

The discovery of dumped bodies is common in Iraq, especially since the February bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in the city of Samarra which touched off a wave of sectarian killings and revenge attacks sparking fears of a full-blown civil war.

The new Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has vowed to rein in violence that has killed thousands of people since the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.

[grytpype]

1. I got into an argument on fark.com with some freetard...

... he was saying that Iraq is much safer than Washington D.C.

Now, when was the last time that 42 headless tortured bodies turned up in Washington D.C.?

And this kind of shit happens EVERY DAY over there.

[theabbot]

2. Are we talking about human bodies...

Or just Aye-rabs?

Come to think of it, most o' them peeples in Dee-Cee are subhuman too...heh, heh.

(sarcasm, obviously).

[rodeodance]

3. actually, there was teaser yesterday on some cable station saying this-

that irag may be safer than some US cities. But I did not listen to the segment.

[ovidsen]

7. What an idiot!

Your POS adversary was probably referring to this piece of crap being passed off as a news story.

Comparing the death rate of DC to all of Iraq would be like comparing the death rate of Utah to Baghdad. It does not compute.

[4dsc]

8. King of Iowa

The article quotes King of Iowa.. He's are real piece of work..

Despite media coverage purporting to show that escalating violence in Iraq has the country spiraling out of control, civilian death statistics complied by Rep. Steve King, R-IA, indicate that Iraq actually has a lower civilian violent death rate than Washington, D.C.

[Barrett808]

9. Can we come up with a statistical analysis that debunks the claim?

I've seen Freepers claiming this for some time. I've typically gone this way to demonstrate how wrong-headed the idea is:

Estimate the population of Iraq at 25 million;
Estimate the population of the US at 250 million (low, I know);
Rule of thumb: multiply any death toll by a factor of ten to get rough equivalent in the US.

So, 40 people turn up tortured and murdered in Iraq last night; that would be similar to 400 Americans turning up dead. Four thousand Iraqis killed since January; that would be 40,000 Americans.

I think my estimate is more revealing and accurate than Rep. King's estimate.

[Barrett808]

11. Professor Pollkatz debunks here:

You're far more likely to die violently in a Red state than a Blue state
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1324593

[Barrett808]

12. Violent Death Rate in Baghdad: 35 times Higher Than New York City

...However, comparing the violent death rate in a single city to one across an entire country is not a fair comparison - better to compare city to city, no?

Baghdad might be a good place to start. From the Washington Post:

"Baghdad's main morgue -- which handles only the remains of victims of violent or suspicious deaths, not including bombing victims -- issued 1,155 death certificates in April, the U.N. agency reported...

The morgue issued even more death certificates for killings in Baghdad in March -- 1,294, the U.N. report said. Most of the victims were shot to death."

The population of Baghdad is about 6 million. Using the morgue figures from the last two months, we can extrapolate to get 14,700 deaths per year. Using the magic of math, that works out to a sad 245 violent deaths per 100,000 people in Baghdad, per year.

So Baghdad's violent death rate is about five times that of our most dangerous city, New Orleans. Or 35 times higher than New York City (7.0 in 2004), a city with a similar population.

http://blueworksbetter.com/ViolentDeathRateBaghdad

[ck4829]

4. I think we found those mass graves

[donheld]

5. I think we caused many of those mass graves

I really do.

[rodeodance]

6. seems they do not bother to bury them--just dump the bodies.

[Barrett808]

10. Just like the bad old days at El Playon in El Salvador. n/t