Two hundred and seventy seven U.S. soldiers have now died in Iraq, which means that, statistically speaking, U.S. soldiers have less of a chance of dying from all causes in Iraq than citizens have of being murdered in California…which is roughly the same geographical size. The most recent statistics indicate California has more than 2,300 homicides each year, which means about 6.6 murders each day. Meanwhile, U.S. troops have been in Iraq for 160 days, which means they are incurring about 1.7, including illness and accidents, each day.
Do people who watch Fox News really believe this garbage?
Even using Hume's numbers (Iraq's death toll is now over 300 since this was broadcast, and I think he may have overstated the number of murders in California), the California murder rate per 100,000 citizens per year is 6.5497. The death rate per 100,000 soldiers in Iraq (assuming 130,000 soldiers) roughly extrapolated out to a year (550 deaths) is 423.0769.
So, no, Brit: if the murder rate in California matched the death rate of US soldiers in Iraq, we'd have over 148,000 Calfornians murdered every year instead of 2300. Conversely, if soldiers in Iraq were dying at the California murder rate, only nine would be dead instead of 277.
Moron.
Ryan
