best of the best

This is a few months old, but it's a must-read.

Juan Cole, an historian at the University of Michigan, writes Informed Comment, and is a wealth of information about the Middle East. His post, "If America were Iraq, What would it be Like?" won the Koufax Award for Best Post of 2004:

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.

Read it here and pass it on.