Well, being someone who usually likes hard data before I spout off about a subject and seeing as how I have thought this for some time, but could not really back it up with anything, I was happy to see this headline today:
Michigan Congressman says Parts of Iraq are as Safe as Detroit
Now I can’t verify it, but Rep. Walberg seems to think so after talking to folks who have come back:
During an interview Monday with WILS-AM in Lansing, Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, said the returning troops he has talked with “indicate to me that 80 to 85 percent, in a conservative fashion, of (Iraq) is reasonably under control, at least as well as Detroit or Chicago or any of our other big cities. That’s an encouraging sign.”
While I do make a monthly sojurn to Chicago to drill, I do not routinely head into Detroit, even though it is only 45 minutes away. Two reasons really: not a lot I want to do there and the perception of lawlessness.
Of course, the local politicians are a little upset.
“It’s absurd to compare Detroit and Iraq in any way,” James Canning, the spokesman for Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, said Wednesday. “Unfortunately, for years people have beat up on the city of Detroit. Detroit is the word for negative. We are working very hard to transform that image of our city.”
Interesting comparison overall.
Accurate? I can’t say for sure, but Detroit does have a higher crime rate than the US as a whole and record numbers of people are leaving Wayne County where Detroit is located.
Read both articles and see what you think.
Actually, Detroit is a very appropriate comparison to Iraq, since the Detroit Metropolitan area is home to the largest Expatriate Iraqi community in the US.
People often look at me funny when I tell them that I grew up with Arabs, the Detroit school system was full of kids with names like Haddad and Badeen, we thought nothing of it back in the 60s and 70s. Working summers on the assembley line in my college years, all the signs were in English and Arabic; when my Grandmother had gone to work there in the 40s, they were in Polish…
I believe Detroit has the largest Arab-American population period. Am I wrong?
Actually, it’s not Detroit with the Arab population, it’s the suburbs. Dearborn is a city of approx 150K that is majority arabic, and is the largest single concentration in the US. Many of the other burbs have substantial arab communities as well.
I grew up in Detroit, my dad was a cop there. Many of the other reservists in my unit are cops and firemnet there. The place is a lawless dump that makes the south side of Chicago look like Beverly Hills.
yah, I think your “dump” comment is well placed.
When I visited Jerusalem, the Jewish quarter was immaculate. Not a spot of trash to be seen.
Arab east Jerusalem however, was exactly how you described it. A trash heap. For all the stink that Muslims make about how holy and important Jerusalem is to their faith, they treat the place like a back alley brothel….not a “holy city.”
He should have said Houston instead of Detroit. Even the Police Chief is afraid to live in Houston, he lives in Colorado.
Houston is hands down the most dangerous city in the U.S. to live in.
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA