Various Pundits: "Baghdad is no worse than LA"

[ck4829]

So, residents of Los Angeles, how many car bombings, massacres, execution style shootings, and suicide bombings happened in your city today?

[Zomby Woof]

1. That's not our style

We're more into drive-bys and carjackings. When we're not tied up on I-10 or the Golden State Freeway.

All morbid kidding aside, comparing the daily carnage in Baghdad to L.A. is asinine media spin at its most cynical and exploitative.

[ingac70]

2. No one with two brain cells to rub together believes this BS.

http://icasualties.org/oif/

[porphyrian]

3. Yeah, car bombs go off all day long in LA. - n/t

[lligrd]

4. Good, That Should Keep The Coward Cons Out Of LA

We don't want them here anyway.

[Cobalt-60]

5. Its been a while since I was in LA.

Last time I must admit that no one though enough of us to fling even a single RPG.

[madrchsod]

6. so los angeles barely has a functioning medical system,

a 10 o'clock curfew,limited electricity,water, sewer delivery and last but not least no police force. wow i did`t know la was that bad

[Bjorn Against]

9. I also heard...

In order to walk through the safe LA marketplaces you have to have to wear a bullet proof vest and have one-hundred armed soldiers, three blackhawk helicopters and two Apache helicopters to protect you. With just that minimal effort you will be able to declare the streets of LA safe.

[Cha]

7. If I were a Los Angelino I would

tell the pundits to fucking go to Iraq and then tell me what the fuck they know.

[rasputin1952]

8. I don't see these pundits roaming the streets of LA ...

The same who refuse to go to the streets of Baghdad...:eyes:

[Pirate Smile]

10. They should read this CNN article and then I'd like to see them try to make that statement.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x273225

[Journeyman]

11. Here's the true comparison . . .

Iraq is approximately the same geographic size as California, has roughly the same population (25 million), and about the same number of foreign troops as California has law enforcement (~150,000). For the past four years, the foreign occupation troops (that would be US) have functioned as the law within Iraq.

Would anyone in this country be complacent if -- on average -- 2.4 policemen were being killed in California every day? If 3500 police officers had been killed in California in the past three years, would anyone feel this was anything less than total anarchy? Would any pundit scoff and compare California to, say, Darfur, and conclude that the situation's acceptable because it could be much worse?

And this doesn't begin to include the civilian toll. Who believes that carbombs and IEDs, dozens of citizens dead in the streets on a regular basis, thousands kidnapped and hundreds assassinated, beheadings, churches bombed and clergy hacked to death with machetes, undrinkable water, people freezing to death in the dark . . . who believes such a total disintegration of civilized society in the most populous State of the Union would warrant a shrug or a smirk or a dismissive wave of the hand? Who would send snarky emails about such Left Coast chaos? And how long would a politician -- any politician in any state or at any level -- how long would they last in office if they made smug and condescending comments about how well the true situation is in California? How obscene would observations about school paintjobs be in such a crisis?

[Journeyman]

14. Great opinion piece in The LA Times that imagined Baghdad in Los Angeles. . .

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-morrison8mar08,0,3904965.column?coll=la-home-commentary

If L.A. were Baghdad
Imagine our reaction to suicide bombers killing 40 USC students and blowing up South Coast Plaza in the same month.

by Patt Morrison

March 8, 2007

WE'RE SLIDING into Year Five of the war in Iraq — a country that, as we've been told, is the size of California.

Sometimes I've wondered what it would be like, an Iraq-sized war in Iraq-sized California. I asked my colleague Doug Smith, who's spent a lot of time in Iraq, to give me a sense of how the war would play out, overlaid on California.

<snip>

Set aside the causes in Iraq, the cast of killers and why they're killing. What is it like to live these stories every day, not just read them? What if all those murdered Iraqi police and recruits wore the badges of California cities and towns? What if it weren't a hundred Iraqis being killed every day but a hundred Southern Californians? Over a year, that would be like killing every man, woman and child in Dana Point.

Each of the incidents outlined below happened in the last month in Iraq; I just moved them to familiar locales and agencies, approximating where they could have happened after comparing a map of Baghdad and Iraq with one of L.A. and California.

<well worth the read> . . .

[Jack Sprat]

12. Just a pretty April day in Baghdad. ah yes.

Gene Kelly and Juliet Prowse are probably dancing in the market with Guy Lombardo playing on the street corner. It's a wonderful Baghdad day for all the young Iraqis in love.

[devilgrrl]

16. You are so dating yourself. Juliet Prowse? Guy Lombardo? Been awhile since I've heard those names.

;-)

[Jack Sprat]

18. Heck, I was a rifleman on the Marne in 1914.

Remember Mary Pickford? Eddie Cantor? Dwayne Hickman?

[devilgrrl]

19. Why, I went high school with them!

:silly:

[TreasonousBastard]

13. Always be assholes saying that sort of thing, but...

I wonder who's listening?

:scared:

[MADem]

15. I wanna know which roads I should avoid there due to IEDs, myself! NT

[robinlynne]

17. Anyone who says that deserves to go to Baghdad. I'm sure the people there could

use a lot of help!

[Bad Thoughts]

20. I kill with good looks and sharp wit

not bombs.

[magellan]

21. It's so easy to say SHIT knowing they'll never have to test their theory

And that's all I got to say about stupid pundits. Aside from: if it's such a nice place, why don't they enlist?