Protect Our Police

In a recent post I referred to the troops in Iraq as "the world's largest police force." It got me to thinking. Phoenix recently mourned the death of a young police officer shot and killed in the line of duty. Last year there was a similar incident.

Much of America is calling for withdrawal of the troops from Iraq without any sense of what happens afterward. The idea is "Who cares about Iraq??? No more Americans should die!" What if we took this same approach here?

"Police officers are dying trying to enforce the law here in Arizona. Who cares about enforcing the law? No more police officers should die!"

The logic seems identical. It sounds quite noble. We love our police officers. They are brave and honorable men and we don't want them to be killed. Let's get them out of harm's way. That's the same thing the "pull out now" folks are saying about the troops in Iraq.

It begs the question(s). Do we actually want to pull our police force out of harm's way ... at any cost? Apparently we want to pull our troops out of harm's way at any cost. Why not our police? And is it really honoring those people to remove them from the job they so dearly want to accomplish? I mean, if you said, "We're pulling you police officers off the streets because we want to protect you from getting killed in the line of duty," would they thank us and see it as honoring? Do you suppose the military men and women in Iraq would? And if the right thing to do is to pull our troops out of Iraq, why is it not the right thing to do to pull our police off our streets? Is it because we have a right to lawful society, but Iraq doesn't? That can't be right, can it?

Like I said, it made me think ...