[Peace-discuss] NYT Exploits Own Iraq Death Toll Denial to Trash Venezuela

[David Green]

Bob, thanks for taking the time to do this.

Of course, Romero didn't make a serious effort to put the Venezuelan murder rate 
in any kind of explanatory context, in general or in terms of changes over time. 
On this chart from 2006, we see (quite interestingly) that Venezuela is still 
behind Colombia, the world leader.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita

It's possible by now that Venezuela is close or ahead--it would appear that it's 
murder rate has gone from being 31 per 100,000 to somewhere between 50 and 60. 
That is, for the whole country, homicide rates are probably higher than for 
Baltimore, Detroit, and Washington D.C.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

Nevertheless, like in the U.S., certain parts of Caracas are so murderous that 
they skew the figure for the entire country. Part of putting the national 
figures in perspective would be to sort things out, instead of lumping them 
together, of course. 


But that's obviously not the purpose of the article. It's to bash Chavez, and 
imply that his policies are somehow responsible. And they may be, in some sort 
of unintended manner that wouldn't necessarily reflect badly on his efforts for 
greater economic equality. One hypothesis might be that the nature of the 
institution of the police in Venezuela (or in Caracas, or the poor areas of 
Caracas) has something to do with this.

It's just be accident that the populations of Iraq and Venezuela are comparable. 
Even if Venezuela's was twice as big, I'm sure Romero would have still proceeded 
with a nominal comparison based on Iraqi Body County figures.

DG




________________________________
From: Robert Naiman <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com>
To: Peace-discuss List <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Tue, August 24, 2010 3:40:06 PM
Subject: [Peace-discuss] NYT Exploits Own Iraq Death Toll Denial to Trash 
Venezuela

It's bad enough that the editors of the New York Times have refused so
far to tell the truth about what we know about the magnitude of the
death toll in Iraq as a result of the US invasion and occupation of
the country since 2003, according to the standards that are used to
describe human tragedies for which the U.S. government does not bear
primary responsibility.

But now the New York Times has exacerbated the harm of its denial
about the Iraqi death toll, by using its own failure to accurately
report the death toll in Iraq as a benchmark for comparison to other
human tragedies: in particular, to claim that murder in Venezuela
claimed more lives in 2009 than did violence in Iraq. The New York
Times editors are like the boy who killed his parents and demanded
mercy on the grounds he was an orphan.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/nyt-exploits-own-iraq-dea_b_693041.html


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/24/161914/546

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/688

--
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org

Urge Congress to Support a Timetable for Military Withdrawal from Afghanistan
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/feingold-mcgovern
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