Friday, September 5, 2008

MURDERS: CHICAGO VS IRAQ

An estimated 125 people were shot and killed in Chicago over this summer. That's nearly double the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq over the same time period. Since Obama now claims to understand the surge's success in Iraq, will he try it in his hometown where murders in Chicago exceed troop deaths in Iraq? More people, where he lives and represents, were shot dead than in Iraq and the population in Iraq is roughly 5 times greater than Chicago. Interesting. Here's the story.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you actually believe that only US soldiers live in Iraq, or are you being deliberately disingenuous with the comparison?

In either case it doesn't say an awful lot about your powers of reasoning.

orient-lodge.com said...

I disagree with anonymous about this. It is true that it is at best an artificial and perhaps disingenuous comparison. On the other hand, people are dying needlessly both in Iraq and in Chicago and we do need policies to address both.

The reasons are different. In Iraq, we are are trying to bring peace through military force. While the surge has decreased the fatalities, it has failed in the greater purpose of getting the Iraqi's to work together towards self-governance.

If anything, the threat of pulling out troops may be more effective in forcing the Iraqi's to address their internal issues than us continuing to stay there as a peacekeeper.

Chicago is different from Iraq, but has some interesting similarities. In Chicago, many of the shootings were gang related, just as much of the fighting in Iraq is related to different factions.

So, why do people get involved with gangs, or with the different factions in Iraq, and how do we address it?

Much of it comes from a lack of hope. If you are a poor young black man in our countries inner cities, you don't have a lot to hope for, especially as our economy gets worse and worse.

Sen. Obama understands this. He has worked in the inner city. I runs on a platform of hope and of fixing the economy that has been so badly damaged by the current administration.

Sen. Obama is the best candidate for addressing not only the war in Iraq, but also the continued violence in all of our American cities, including Chicago

DanaDebbie said...

Thanks Anonymous and orient-lodge.com for your great comments! We appreciate them!

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