Perspective

Recently on a forum, a number of folks including moi were discussing the recent abominable broad-daylight rape (survived) by an oblivious 22-year old airhead in Chicago, and a conversation point came up.

In the AAR discussion of fail that contributed to the event, and in the course of pointing out any number of better choices by the lady involved, a serving troop opined that we of the forum were wrongly blaming the victim.

Firstly, no. As a rule, no one, including the twentysomething oblivious twit, deserves to be raped. The only deserving person in this tale is the rapist, who deserves a long stretch in prison, ideally after a suitable thumping via PR-24 until he looks like Rodney King's "after" pictures. But short of not helpfully tying herself up and wearing a hood, there was little the victim did right, starting with traipsing through Chicago oblivious, and wholly dependent on sunlight and the kindness of strangers for her protection. The flaws in that plan, somewhat tardily, are now apparent to her, having survived the horrendous ordeal.

So in the course of discussing the particulars, a conversation point came up.
I asked Mr. Currently Deployed, "How many grunt patrols in A-stan deploy with troops wearing their ear buds and listening to their music on 10?" (As had Our Victim.)

To which the retort from our man in Kandahar was "If being in an American city is like a combat tour in Afghanistan, we have much bigger problems."

So, apparently it's still news somewhere that the United States murder tally of approx. 16,000+ (go ahead, check the FBI stats) in any average year going back a generation makes the United States over 80 times more dangerous than Afghanistan in any year of the ten-year ongoing war there.

If you hadn't noticed that the body count in any number of American metropolii is higher than the military in the whole of Afghanistan on its worst day, you need to get out more, or read more widely. Chicago is orders of magnitude worse than Afghanistan.

In the last 10+ years since 2002, we've suffered 2100+ military deaths in Afghanistan. Chicago does that number of homicides in 4-5 years without breaking a sweat. Chicago, for it's size (1/1000th) and population (1/10th) relative to Afghanistan, is 20-50 times more unsafe than Afghanistan.

In fact, the stories of troops from everywhere surviving one or multiple tours in the sandbox, only to subsequently get whacked stateside, are legion.

So anyone wandering the streets of Chicago similarly cluelessly can expect similar or worse results than the victim in this sad tale.

Homicides, 2002-present, cities only, not counting surrounding environs:

NYFC = 6,005
Chicago = 5,426
L.A. = 4,761
Detroit = 4,061
Philadelphia = 3,867
Washington D.C. = 1,958

Those six cities alone are twelve Afghanistan wars.

So no offense to anyone with a tour or three there, but comparatively, Afghanistan is an effing church picnic, because the victims here don't routinely have Level IV body armor, an M-4 assault rifle and 300 rounds, a squad of guys backing them up, MRAPS to ride in with a crew-served weapon manned in the turret, and handy air strikes on call.

Which also points out that if the Taliban ever showed up in Bed-Stuy, the Southside of Chicago, or S. Central or East L.A., they'd likely get their asses handed to them. Even our street thugs are tougher than they are. The Taliban don't amount to MS-13 or the Crips on the world food chain of thuggery.

So in either group's turf, it behooves one to try using their eyes, ears, and brains simultaneously to avoid trouble, rather than trusting to the Force or Magic Fairy Dust to protect you.

Thus endeth the lesson.