Ramadi Quotes

In an instant, he became convinced that what really tied the universe together was not the bright light and airy-fairy bullshit that spiritual people were always trying to sell. It was blood spilled in violence; it was split-second rage exacting eternal consequences, and it could happen just as easily in Owensville, California, as in the streets of Ramadi. ~ Christopher Rice

Right, because they're looking at also organizing the Sunni tribes up around Mosul to take back that city as well. That's the second largest city in Iraq. That's going to be a very, very tough fight. And the Shia militias were not used in Ramadi, and we're told by the Iraqi generals that they don't want any Shia militias up in Mosul, either, to take back that city. So - but again, that's going to be a very, very tough fight. ~ Tom Bowman

Absolutely, it's a Sunni area. So the key here, once Ramadi is taken that you have the Sunni tribal fighters, Sunni police in there patrolling the city. ~ Tom Bowman

Well, Ramadi is a provincial capital of Anbar province. It's a sprawling city west of Baghdad. It's a poor city, endless cinderblock houses and high-rises almost as far as the eye can see. ~ Tom Bowman

To my surprise, it was a place where my thoughts were the most lucid. I wasn't bogged down in random trivial details or the luxury of time-consuming over-analysis. This place forced you to live because at any moment, life could be lost. Ramadi forced me to die unto myself. ~ M.B. Dallocchio

I had at least thought there would be nobility in war. I know it exists. There are so many stories, and some of them have to be true. But I see mostly normal men, trying to do good, beaten down by horror, by their inability to quell their own rages, by their masculine posturing and their so-called hardness, their desire to be tougher, and therefore crueler, than their circumstance. And yet, I have this sense that this place is holier than back home. Gluttonous, fat, oversexed, overconsuming, materialist home, where we're too lazy to see our own faults. At least here, Rodriguez has the decency to worry about hell. The moon is unspeakably beautiful tonight. Ramadi is not. Strange that people live in such a place. • • • ~ Phil Klay

There are a lot of car bombs and roadside bombs, house bombs, even, in this city planted by ISIS. So - but it's going to be a tough fight ahead, and the Iraqi generals expect to take the city back, the city of Ramadi, by mid-January. ~ Tom Bowman

Let me say for the record that I believe the credit in Ramadi and in all of Iraq should go to the Army and Marine warriors who fought there as well as the SEALs. It should be fairly proportioned out. Yes, SEALs did a good job, and gave their blood. But as we told the Army and Marine officers and enlisted men we fought beside, we're no better than those men when it comes to courage and worth. ~ Chris Kyle

U.S. has been trying to encourage Iraq to pass a law that would provide money and training and weapons for a Sunni national guard that could be effective in places like Ramadi, like Mosul ~ David Ignatius

Wish we could, and allow the Taliban or anybody else to reclaim that country. But what we must do is some progress in Iraq, where finally the Iraqi army, which has not been a particularly effective fighting force, retook Ramadi. ~ Bernie Sanders

But the U.S. has to be careful. If our strategy depends on Sunnis doing the fighting to clear Mosul and Ramadi - and, as near as I can tell, that is the strategy - then you have to be careful that Sunnis don't perceive the U.S. to be operating arm in arm with Iran or with Iranian-backed Shiite militias that Abadi - Prime Minister Abadi is using in Iraq, so that, in effect, we're fronting for Iran. ~ David Ignatius