What if America was Iraq?

I dug up this article that Juan Cole wrote last year, taking what's happening in Iraq and translating it into an American setting so that people can truly grasp the level of violence and anarchy there. The situation hasn't exactly improved in a year, so it's worth reposting. The war supporters try to blow off the violence ("Stuff happens", as Rummy would say) and play up small victories here and there, but if this was their country, they wouldn't call it anything but an unmitigated disaster.

Read the link and think if anything that occurs in that environment can genuinely be called a success...

What if America was Iraq?

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...