May 2, 2005
Many of you have likely heard about the shooting incident in Iraq way back on Mar. 4, 2005, where Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena and her convoy were shot at by American troops. In the shooting, one of her bodyguards was tragically hit by a bullet and killed. The irony of the story is that she had been kidnapped by insurgents and the convoy had just paid a ransom, picked her up, and was returning to friendly territory. However, they were in a speeding car, at night and had reportedly given the American guards no warning whatsoever of their arrival. The American reports state that they followed standard procedures such as flashing bright lights at the car and firing off warning shots, in order to get the car to stop. For all they knew, it was a suicide bomber. When the car didn't slow down, the soldiers opened fire on the engine and front of the car in an attempt to disable it. One of the bullets ricocheted into the cabin of the car and fatally struck the body guard.The Americans have claimed sorrow, but maintained innocence, recently clearing those soldiers involved of any wrongdoing. The Italians were furious, stating that they had been insulted by the Americans and that the real story was different. Sgrena is an anti-war, leftist journalist and has stated the car was going no more than 30 mph and also that the Americans fired at them on purpose because they didn't like what she was doing (and also that the Italians had paid a ransom). She has had no proof to her claims, but it turns out the Americans do have proof to their claims. It turns out a satellite happened to film the incident, and that footage is what cleared the Americans. Interestingly, the LA Times took a Reuters story mentioning the satellite information, but simply edited out the satellite-related info. Via Powerline and Patterico. Hmm.
Posted by charr at 7:42 PM
Reader Comments
I read a news article saying they had satellite photos showing the vehicle at different times and that they had to calculate the speed of the vehicle. It is odd that they don't make the information public now that they have it.Maybe it's a right-wing conspiracy!
There is a little move detail about the incident here at Yahoo. It looks like they did simple math to arrive at about 60mph. My hunch is that the satellite is classisified military property.
I just love how you so deftly infer here that anti-war, so-called "leftists" are simply liars!The reasons the Italians are so outraged are clear; this war was WRONG to begin with, due to the outrageous, ubiquitous "rightists" lies that launched this unjust, misguided debacle, and the wrongs just keep getting compounded on a daily basis. We have no business being/remaining there. We have no business sending toops to die in some insane Iraqi power struggle that has been going on for centuries, and this all because war is so profitable for the few evil men (and women if you count Condi Rice) that love to wage it (Dick Cheny himself made bank to the tune of approx. $1B, largely on war profits, last year).Just today it was reported that $100M in reconstruction aid is unaccounted for. American tax payers are hemmoraging money like nobody's business to cover Bush and Co.'s lying butts, about $300B and counting so far.I know you think Bush is some great guy Cameron. I dare you to read this article (link that follows) and tell me with all the integrity you can manage to muster, that if even 50% of what is stated is (un)true, that Bush and that gang of liars in the White House don't deserve to be impeached for treasonous behavior:
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0416-20.htmI realize it's long, but critically important.(Link to $100M fraud article:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050505/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_money )
Anon,
I did read part of that "I heard..." article and realized it's fairly predictive in it's theme. There are lots of quotes, and I tried checking a lot of them, but I could only find one on a reputable non-leftist site, and that was at CBS, which has it's own issues. That URL is here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/28/iraq/main575469.shtml and Colin Powell offers up several clarifications for his comments.However, on to the main part of the article - it follows a common leftist tactic of battling based on hindsight. If the intelligence given to the administration was as it appears to me (critical but flawed), then there was every reason to preemptively attack. If you insist on placing blame, then the intelligence organizations would be a better place to start. What they really had, I don't know, but I do know that Saddam battled UN sanctions and demands for 12 yrs w/o coming clean and I remember that nearly all the major nations at the time were under the impression Saddam still had weapons. We may never know what really happened to those weapons, but I couldn't call them lies.
LOL -- There you go again; "leftist" sites are not reputable [sound of Karl Rove clapping loudly]. You "rightists" are at least consistant; you think nothing of spending $70M to investigate a democratic stain on a blue dress, but simply shrug your shoulders when Rove and co. suggest that noboby in the white house (commander in chief, chair of joint chiefs of staff, secy. of defense, etc. etc.) is culpable or responsible for what is shaping up as the greatest military blunder / miscalculation in American history, and all you have to say for it is "it was flawed intelligence". Where's the "independent" criminal investigation? Where's Ken Starr when real crimes are committed, weighty lies are told (tens of thousands dead, ten times that many wounded, hundreds of billions wasted)? Ah, but that's the beauty of declaring war! We'll never know, it's classified! Stamp it top secret! "The intelligence community" becomes this faceless, nameless black box of a scapegoat, unaccountable, unresponsible. How convenient. How sick. Waging war on "impressions" is a crime Cameron. The fact that you don't seem to care about the real crimes here, but can feel outrage over Michael Moore (when you've never even watched one of his films) is so pitifully, painfully laughable in comparison [sound of shaking my head in utter disbelief]. Sigh. Well, you've at least proven yourself a true representative of the Republican party, merrily straining at gnats while swallowing camels...
And you are "merrily" entitled to your own opinion. If you don't like mine, then move on to one you like.
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I read a news article saying they had satellite photos showing the vehicle at different times and that they had to calculate the speed of the vehicle. It is odd that they don't make the information public now that they have it.Maybe it's a right-wing conspiracy!
Posted by dan at May 2, 2005 11:03 PM