Opinion
 

America should get civilians out of Iraq

By Paige Nieto

Friday, June 18, saw the beheading of yet another American hostage in Iraq and raises many questions about what's going on overseas. Specifically, why are American civilians still in Iraq?

The last few months have seen many Houstonians (as well as other civilians with absolutely no military training) following the call of the almighty dollar overseas into a war zone.

Perhaps at the beginning of the year, when there was relatively less action overseas, such pursuits seemed relatively harmless. Now, however, given the often violent hostility toward U.S. soldiers and civilians, it doesn't seem so safe.

So why would anyone want to go -- or stay -- in Iraq through such obviously turbulent times? Paul Johnson, an American civilian engineer, worked on Apache helicopters -- a job which his captors said earned him the horrible manner in which he was executed.

In response to the hostility in Iraq, President Bush said America will not retreat or be intimidated. It has never been the policy of the United States to negotiate with terrorists (and there's no reason to start now). I hope Bush is only referring to the military personnel on the ground. They are trained to deal with the situation, and they know what is involved with the job for which they signed up.

But Paul Johnson was not trained for the situation. The truth is that it shouldn't have happened to him, and considering this is the second beheading of an American civilian in about a month, it will in all likelihood not be the last.

One would think that the situation would prompt officials to pull all civilians out of Iraq, including engineers with no military training and even Halliburton employees. They have no place there and need to come home immediately before all-too-recent history repeats itself. It's sad enough that we already have civilian casualties in Iraq, but when people who aren't qualified to be in a hostile war zone are there anyway, it makes it that much worse. They are the ones who will suffer, along with their loved ones.

America needs to stand up and put a stop to allowing U.S. civilians to be in Iraq. We don't have to bend to terrorists, but we can and should bring our civilians back home. Military prisoners of war are one thing -- they have military training. These hostages, however, are just innocent people caught in the crossfire who truthfully had no place in a war zone.

As a military wife whose husband is serving in Iraq with the United States Marine Corps, I am more scared than I can possibly explain knowing what he faces by being there. However, I am a military wife. I knew the implications of his job when I decided to marry him.

But Paul Johnson's wife probably never in her worst nightmares thought her husband could die like this; her husband, after all, was a civilian. He shouldn't have been put in a situation that required military training he didn't have.

My heart goes out to Paul Johnson and his family, and especially his wife, for she probably never thought she would have to bury her husband this way.

Nieto, a columnist for The Daily Cougar, 
can be reached at dccampus@mail.uh.edu.