No, actually, it doesn't

In 2006, 67 people were killed in Compton. What that means is that if Compton were the size of Basra, it would have had 1,139 murders in 2006.

[From Basra and Compton | The Agonist]

And yes I do understand what a rate is. If Compton (that's in California) were the size of Basra it would be far bigger - some 17 times bigger by this guy's - Alex Thurston's - numbers and a far, far different place than it is. And there's no telling what it would be like then. Newark (that's in New Jersey), in Thurston's words "another dangerous American city," about double Compton's size, is by Thurston's calculation safer than Basra, so why not argue that cities get safer as they grow and by the time Compton got to Basra's size there'd be no crime at all?

Yeah, I know, that doesn't make sense. Either. But what might make sense is to point out that Basra, unlike Compton or Newark, has suffered an invasion by a foreign power and a five-year occupation, which makes it very different from any American city right there.

Thurston, writing at The Agonst, argues somewhat torturously that, in the name of pragmatism, the British should complete their withdrawal from Basra since...

...once violence reaches first world levels, occupation becomes hard to justify. We don't, after all, have occupying forces in Sudan, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka, Palestine, Pakistan - or Compton.

...although Thurston, himself, having it both ways, believes "almost all violence is unacceptable." Or almost both ways, that is.

I don't know if the British should pull out of Basra or not but basing that decision on the claim that Basra is now safer than Compton (but more dangerous than Newark) and the US (remember, it's the Brits doing the pulling out here) doesn't have an occupying army in Sri Lanka seems, well, pretty lame to me.