The opening paragraphs of a piece by Jaime O'Neill:

More than 3,700 Iraqi citizens died in that country's violence during October, perhaps three-quarters of them in Baghdad, a city of 6 million people. If an American city the size of San Francisco were to suffer a proportionate level of violence, it would mean about 10 or 11 dead people each day, bleeding to death on Market Street, or calling for help as they wait for an ambulance that never shows up at some blast-blackened Starbucks on Van Ness Avenue.

But that, of course, is only the dead. Many more are injured, rushed to San Francisco General or any of the other hospitals now overwhelmed by the horrendous wounds caused by daily explosions and flying metal. Then, too, ever-larger numbers of San Franciscans are sick, and it has become more difficult for them to get treatment. Doctors have fled, trying to get their own families away from the violence. Others would flee, too, but the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate are nearly impassable to all but military convoys, those soldiers also at risk whenever they travel.

Now imagine the families of the 300 dead people in San Francisco -- all the fathers or mothers, brothers or sons, uncles and cousins. Conservatively, let us imagine that each fatality left behind six surviving relatives. That's 1,800 people, newly aggrieved and angry, a huge pool of anger and grief created during that one month of October, now ready to join the thousands upon thousands of angry and aggrieved people who lost loved ones in all the months that preceded October.

here's the link to the entire article: 

 http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/12/10/ING89MRGNK1.DTL