Mounting casualties
On Tuesday the worst possible news began spreading through our community. Spc. Eric Hull, an Army Reserve cook, was killed Monday by a land mine while hauling supplies from the airport into Baghdad. Hull, a 1998 graduate of Uniontown Area High School, had everything going for him. A wife of nearly five years; a daughter soon to turn 3; a son, just turned 1; a new home in Menallen Township that was completed while he was off serving his country.
Hull’s tragic death comes months after President Bush delivered his fly-by address aboard an aircraft carrier, stating the worst in Iraq was over. The flashy bombs have ceased. But the worst is far, far from over as casualties continue to mount almost daily.
Hull’s death brings this war closer to home and leaves a terribly empty hole in the lives of those who knew and cared for him.
And if his death isn’t enough to jar us all into remembering that Iraq remains an unstable, violent backdrop, a suicide bombing Tuesday of a hotel housing the United Nations should.
The U.N. is in Iraq strictly for humanitarian reasons and to help Iraqis build a government. Early on, the U.N. divorced itself from military activity in Iraq. Yet that didn’t stop it from becoming a target of an attack that left at least 20 dead and dozens more wounded.
President Bush called it an act of “terrorists.” Although there is speculation, no one has officially linked the truck bombing to al-Qaida or to Saddam Hussein holdovers.
If it turns out to be the work of al-Qaida or of Saddam, then it just adds to the failure of Bush’s quest to rid the world of these evil-doers. The president led us into Iraq firmly convinced that Saddam and his band of henchmen harbored terrorists and were planning to launch lethal attacks against Americans. On the premise that our world would be made safer, the U.S. invaded Iraq. If landmines still litter the country, blowing up our soldiers nearly every day, and if terrorists can still blow up buildings housing peacemakers, how much safer is our world?
Has the president sacrificed lives for little gain?