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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Monday, July 10, 2006

Did you know?

Did you know that Ramadi, the center of the Sunni based insurgency in Iraq and the focus of US military efforts in Anbar, was a city of only 400,000?

That puts it on par with Tulsa, Omaha, or Sacramento.

(This post is mostly a space filler between pictures.)

Also, a flashback. Remember in August of election year 2004, Bush called Iraq a "catastrophic success?" I went looking for that article tonight (it's been archived,) but the Time magazine title line tells us enough about that election year.

Inside the Mind of George W. Bush
For this President, the essence of wisdom lies in knowing when not to change
By Nancy Gibbs and John F. Dickerson

9 Comments:

  • Hmm interesting way of putting it.

    By Blogger Yatima Meiji, at 10:00 PM  

  • Ramadi was a city of 400,000, and 30-40% of it will now be bulldozed and replaced by a US base and a park.

    My Uncle is a Marine and is just north of there in Hit, Iraq right now. That country is in seriously bad shape.

    By Blogger Peter Matthes, at 10:10 PM  

  • Yatima, occasionally I'm struck by odd things out of this conflict.

    Peter, as you noticed, I was careful to use the past tense. I posted about the demolition of the city center awhile back.

    And wish your uncle well. We all want him back.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 10:40 PM  

  • If I could correct a sentence: For this President, the essence of wisdom? Lies!

    Or perhaps I was just reading it wrong.

    By Blogger Cartledge, at 11:52 PM  

  • Well, usually slips like that occur because they have some basis in truth, eh?

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 7:31 AM  

  • I actually did know that. I was running numbers on violent deaths per 100,000 in American cities to compare it to Iraq. I can't seem to find any data on Ramadi, but the number must be outrageous.

    By Blogger Praguetwin, at 10:35 AM  

  • Well, nobody knows on Ramadi. There have been points where the citizens couldn't go outside,so hospital and morgue are out of the question. Also, with refugees fleeing out of the city, it's impossible to track who left and who died, not to mention the inflow of unknown insurgents from other towns.

    The totals for Ramadi will never be known.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 1:47 PM  

  • Catastrophic success, that's a good one.

    By Blogger Justin, at 7:13 AM  

  • I don't know why it came back to me.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 10:47 AM  

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