Republican wisdom....

[uscitizen]

Detroit likened to Iraq
Violence equal, lawmaker says

March 22, 2007

BY TODD SPANGLER

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

A Republican congressman representing rural southern Michigan is taking heat for saying that most of Iraq is at least as under control as Detroit is.

Freshman Rep. Tim Walberg's comments, made Monday on WILS-AM in Lansing, didn't sit well with Democrats -- who issued a news release Wednesday -- or the office of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

"Any reference to Detroit as a war zone is absurd," said Matt Allen, the mayor's spokesman.

Walberg of Tipton didn't quite say Detroit was a war zone. He said most of Iraq "is reasonably under control, at least as well as Detroit."

http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic...0424/1001/NEWS

[toby]

Sounds like a liberal. >We shouldn't be in Iraq when we have problems right here at home!

[Thorn]

"Any reference to Detroit as a war zone is absurd," said Matt Allen, the mayor's spokesman.

No, it isn't absurd. I used to work at the Med. school at Wayne State in downtown Detroit. The parking garage across the street had two armed attendants 24/7. Nobody dared to walk anywhere at lunchtime, even to a restaurant a couple of blocks away. Violence was a way of life there. Almost everything in the city is in terrible disrepair.

One of the big problems is that as the city became more dangerous, the tax base moved out to the 'burbs and the only people left living there were those who couldn't afford to move out. A lot of businesses moved also. It got so bad that the city instituted an income tax for those who worked in the city (like everybody at Wayne State, for instance), regardless or where they lived. I used to go way out of my way to drive home along I-75 so as to avoid the dangers of driving up a much closer city Avenue. The term "war zone" was applied to the area long before I lived there, and certainly was in use during my stay. I'd be very surprised if anything much has changed.

[Cypress]

A Republican congressman representing rural southern Michigan is taking heat for saying that most of Iraq is at least as under control as Detroit is.


"Most" of Iraq is empty desert, mountains, or orchards.

So from a strictly geographical perspetive, the congressmen is right. It's a classic Bushism. A tactic used over and over. Like how Iraq was "harboring" Zarqawi before the war. He wasn't in a part of iraq controlled by saddam, but "techincally" he was within the borders of iraq.

Now, empty deserts and orchards aside, I think I could walk through the most dangerous part of Detroit, and still have a better than 50% chance of survival.

In most major iraqi cities, I couldn't walk around alone, unescorted, and ungaruded for 30 minutes, before a sectarian militia or insurgent group kidnapped me and beheaded me.

[Thorn]

Now, empty deserts and orchards aside, I think I could walk through the most dangerous part of Detroit, and still have a better than 50% chance of survival.

In most major iraqi cities, I couldn't walk around alone, unescorted, and unguarded for 30 minutes, before a sectarian militia or insurgent group kidnapped me and beheaded me.

In Detroit, you might be accosted by a 12-yr-old kid with a gun. When I was there a young postdoc was walking home from work, the kid tried to hold her up, she didn't take it seriously and walked away. He shot her in the back and killed her. Later the news coverage included statements from the kid's grandmother about what a wonderful boy he was, etc., etc. This sort of thing went on almost daily.

Thugs broke into Rosa Parks' apartment and beat her up. Rosa Parks!!! There were some serious repercussions against the perpetrators over that, and not just from the law.