Perspective

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.

Saddam was killing 250,000 Iraqi's a year, the equivalent proportionally of 2,750,000 Americans each year. That's 10% of the population over the last decade. Make a list of yourself and 9 relatives. Cross out one name from that list. That person is gone. It's illegal to have a funeral or mourn that relative. Don't believe that's true? Cross out another name. After Saddam fell, many Iraqis were able to follow a tradition of theirs of hanging a black banner in front of their home to honor dead relatives. They were all shocked to discover their street full of black banners. Those 250,000 Iraqi's/year doesn't even include those killed in the Iran/Iraq war.

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 everywhere you went, you had to watch everything you said, or you would just disappear? What if you could never trust a stranger because they might turn you in to the secret police? What if there was not just one White House, but a hundred spread all over the country? What if you were unable to get any medical care, while every day Saddam got fatter?

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?

What if there were no reporters, just government spokesmen? What if any foreign press that came to the US were trapped in three-star hotels in Washington, DC and dependent on government "translators" to know what was happening even in Washington, DC. What if each story filed by the foreign press had to be "acceptable" to the governement, or the foreign press wouldn't be allowed to come back?

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?

Saddam had 2 million soldiers. What if the Army in America numbered 22 million people? What if it was setup such that most soldiers didn't even get enough food to eat and were dressed in rags? What if 5 million of those soldiers lives were thrown away trying to invade Canada, and then when that didn't work out, invading Mexico? What if invading Mexico provoked such an international outcry that the rest of the world then killed another 2 million people throwing the Army out of Mexico?

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 several times a year, a major government figure would just "disappear" never to be heard from again? What if the President killed his own son in law? What if the President, instead of competing in an election, just killed the entire Democratic leadership?

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?

Imagine the Mafia running the police, where bribes and corruption are so rampant that if a crime is committed against you, you don't report it, you go to the patriarch of your clan instead.

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 the Air Force bombed Los Angeles with chemical weapons killing 400,000 people and poisoning the ground because they didn't like how they voted? What if Canada then started flying fighter jets over California to prevent it from happening again?

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 even pulverizing the Vietnam Memorial over on the Mall? 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 you weren't allowed to worship in the National Cathedral at all? What if the government started trying to kill everyone in the MidWest? What if just stating your opinion was a death sentence?

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 planning a major car trip meant budgeting bribes for all the policeman along the way? What if coming back from a Southern State mean your wife might be strip-searched & raped? What if your wife always went to the supermarket in a group because she might get raped by the police if she was caught alone?

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 no one had electricity at all outside of Washington, DC? What if most of the employment was in the army, which often didn't feed or clothe its members, while fighting and losing a war against Canada? What if you had lots of oil, but no oil refineries so that you had to export your oil to Mexico, and then re-import gasoline? What if you had hospitals, but no medical supplies?

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 John Gotti was President? (And BTW, Juan Cole displays his ignorance of Ruby Ridge, and also of the expatriates who have come back to Iraq. What if Jonas Salk had left the US because he disagreed with the government, and then came back to run for Congress after John Gotti had been deposed..)

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 there were no elections?

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?

What if, as your people starve, the UN sends pieces of paper to John Gotti telling him to stop, which he uses to wipe his ass in his giant palace? What if, after you get rid of John Gotti, someone from France sneers because only 90% of your politicians are elected because you've only had local elections, and not national elections? What if people who lived in dictatorships mocked your government as being "unelected"?

In conclusion: Juan definitely has a point, and his original posting puts things very much in perspective. Reading his posting, you can see how far the Iraqis have to go. But to measure progress, you have to understand where they've been. President Bush is obviously being over optimistic, but the rest of the coverage is being over pessimistic. When I read Iraqi and soldier blogs, I get a sense that Bush is closer to being right then wrong. The Iraqis have come a long way in a short time, and though they have a long way to go, progress is a matter of two steps forward one step back.