Pittsburgh mourns fallen officers, America neglects fallen soldiers
Eric Probola
Issue date: 4/23/09 Section: Perspectives
It was an amazing sight.
As the funeral procession left downtown Pittsburgh and made its way to Oakland, pedestrians lined Fifth Avenue. It was a mixture of business people and doctors, students and professors, all common people who felt that they should take a moment out of the rush of the day to witness the event. The police cars came and parked on the street. With police sirens ringing intermittently in the air, the cars parked on the street until most of the lanes on Forbes and Fifth avenues were completely filled with cars.
One can have mixed feelings about cops. On the day of the service, a young gentleman at the bus stop wondered aloud why there are no funerals like this for victims of police violence. Certainly, the majority of cops perform their duties in the way they are told, but we do not have to look far for incidents of police misconduct. But one feels nothing but sympathy and sadness for these men shot and killed in the line of duty by a racist with a love for guns. However, with all those feelings alive in me, as I watched the funeral procession, I began to wonder why we are so selective about whose deaths we honor.
This past March, the war in Iraq turned six years old. As I write this, 4,273 American soldiers have lost their lives in the war. I should also mention that 318 soldiers from various other nations have also been killed. Along with the deaths of soldiers, around 655,000 Iraqi civilians have died. The war in Afghanistan has claimed 1,132 U.S. and Coalition soldiers' lives. Yet the news of these deaths is relegated to the back pages of the newspaper, if they are mentioned at all. Besides, Barack Obama won and everything is right in the world. That is, if you ignore the fact that he is postponing our exit from Iraq while simultaneously escalating the war in Afghanistan. Perhaps we had Obama wrong the whole time; maybe he does want to radically change this country. After all, everyone knows the best way to destroy an empire is to let it fight a war in Afghanistan.
As the funeral procession left downtown Pittsburgh and made its way to Oakland, pedestrians lined Fifth Avenue. It was a mixture of business people and doctors, students and professors, all common people who felt that they should take a moment out of the rush of the day to witness the event. The police cars came and parked on the street. With police sirens ringing intermittently in the air, the cars parked on the street until most of the lanes on Forbes and Fifth avenues were completely filled with cars.
One can have mixed feelings about cops. On the day of the service, a young gentleman at the bus stop wondered aloud why there are no funerals like this for victims of police violence. Certainly, the majority of cops perform their duties in the way they are told, but we do not have to look far for incidents of police misconduct. But one feels nothing but sympathy and sadness for these men shot and killed in the line of duty by a racist with a love for guns. However, with all those feelings alive in me, as I watched the funeral procession, I began to wonder why we are so selective about whose deaths we honor.
This past March, the war in Iraq turned six years old. As I write this, 4,273 American soldiers have lost their lives in the war. I should also mention that 318 soldiers from various other nations have also been killed. Along with the deaths of soldiers, around 655,000 Iraqi civilians have died. The war in Afghanistan has claimed 1,132 U.S. and Coalition soldiers' lives. Yet the news of these deaths is relegated to the back pages of the newspaper, if they are mentioned at all. Besides, Barack Obama won and everything is right in the world. That is, if you ignore the fact that he is postponing our exit from Iraq while simultaneously escalating the war in Afghanistan. Perhaps we had Obama wrong the whole time; maybe he does want to radically change this country. After all, everyone knows the best way to destroy an empire is to let it fight a war in Afghanistan.
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