Not only does Mexico lead all countries in the number of homicides, but Mexico’s yearly murder rate almost equals the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq since the invasion.
According to the North American AP news service, 1871 U.S. soldiers have been killed since the Iraq war started in 2003 [NOfP: includes combat and non-combat fatalities].
In contrast, Mexican statistics show a yearly average of 1666 homicides (numbers from 1999 to 2003).
Thus, on average, 935 American soldiers die annually in Iraq, while in Mexico, 2021 homicides were reported in 1998; 1821 in 1999; 1690 in 2000; 1594 in 2001; 1637 in 2002 and 1589 in 2003.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Depends on Where You're Standing
Pedro at The Quietist is in Mexico and spotted this in today's El Universal:
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1 comment:
C_S:
Thanks for that Chinese government link, which indeed is instructive. The quoted statistics are roughly accurate: 1,381,259 total victims of violent crime in 2003, of which 14,408 (not 16,503) were homicides. Nonetheless, contrary to the PRC's claim that "the number of violent crimes in many US cities were on the rise," the preliminary 2004 data show murders decreased by 3.6 percent as compared with 2003.
By the way, Stefan Sharkansky calculated a few years ago that black men between 18 and 30 were safer as soldiers in Iraq than in Washington, DC. (Comparison of combat-related fatalities in Iraq with DC 2000 murder rate.) About the same time, Tony at Tallright Blog compared the number of wounded troops in Iraq with the Lost Time Accident Frequency in major international industrial corporations, finding it about equal to major oil & gas companies and contractors, and well below U.S. rubber industry employees. Importantly, Tony concluded:
"Moreover, it is only those industries and companies who make genuine efforts to protect their workers who publish data, so it is likely that the unpublished accident rates of many industries are quite a bit higher than those above. The death rate of coal-mining in China or construction in India may well be in a similar ballpark as that of US forces in Iraq."
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