Why don't they talk about the nice parts of Iraq?

Things are wonderful in the better Iraqi neighborhoods! Today's Washington Post reports that almost 25,000 Iraqi civilians and police officers were killed in 2006, with almost three quarters of the deaths occurring in the second half of the year... ... So, taking into account both the level of violence and the economy, is Iraq better off now than it was under Saddam? If you're a Sunni living in a mixed neighborhood in Baghdad, no. If you're a Shiite living in such a neighborhood, probably not. But if you're a Shiite living in the south or a Kurd living in the north, then you're almost certainly much better off now. Yes, I suppose this might be true in a sense. But lets take a slightly different example. The population of Iraq is about 26.8 million people. That means about .1% or the population was murdered last year. That's huge. Here's a better example. New York state has about 19 million people. If you were livingNew York, and you heard that 19 thousand people died due to, say, armed warlords in New York City, would YOU say things were going well? That whatever set off the warlords was, in fact, a wonderful thing? All I'm saying is that, regardless of how nice things might be elsewhere, the fact that people are still dying by truckloads should remain a huge concern. If the people in the safer areas aren't still concerned, then they are making the same mistake people make again and again. "It'll never happen here." Tags:Iraq