Eight dead and 49 wounded in Chicago this weekend read this morning's headlines. After 178 years of occupation, it is obvious that we are unable to quell the violence in Chicago and we should bring our people home.Week after week the carnage piles up. Memorial Day weekend saw 10 dead and more than 40 wounded with monthly death tolls usually higher than Baghdad or Kabul.
While 2011 saw a slight decline in murders from 2010 (2010 saw 431 murders through December 29, there were 432 in the same period in 2010), they soared by 60 percent during the first quarter of 2012 to 120 compared to 75 in the same period of 2011.
Americans have apparently been unable to quell the violence despite having several National Guard and Reserve military units permanently based in the vicinity. At the current pace, we are on track to see more violent deaths in Chicago than US soldiers killed in Iraq in 2003 (486).
We should simply admit that we have tried, but we have failed. We should begin the withdrawal of our people from Chicago.