Where War Deaths Are Worst

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Friday, January 04, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Warfare: Quick, which nation shows average civilian deaths at 33 a day in the last third of 2007? Now name the one where civilian deaths average 19 a day? If you guessed Iraq and Venezuela, you'd have it backward.

Shocking? Of course. But true. With even Venezuelan officials admitting their country clocked 12,249 murders in 2007, Hugo Chavez's socialist "sea of happiness" resembles a war zone. In December alone, Venezuela had 670 murders while Iraq had 476 — and that number is falling fast.

This is Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, the place wildly praised by Hollywood eminentos like Oliver Stone and Sean Penn, and its crime is so bad it tops that seen in actual warfare.

People like Stone and Penn frequently criticize the Iraq war effort and its progress toward peace. But not once have we seen any of them express outrage at the slaughter brought to the streets of Venezuela courtesy of Hugo Chavez, a supposed champion of the poor.

Some champion. On Jan. 1, around the same time Hollywood film director Oliver Stone was loudly praising Chavez's revolution in Caracas, 63 murders started off Venezuela's New Year; 35 died the same day in Iraq.

Labels: Chavez, Hollywood bias, Iraq