Hyperbole much? :rolleyes:
Cite? The radio news this morning said one bullet killed the man and wounded her. Where are you getting the hundreds of bullets fired from?
Lets take a look at these conflicting versions…
zuma has already proven that even the communist reporter has admitted they were travelling fast.
This one isn’t a conflict. The US and Italian positions are not mutually excusive. The Italian claim that it had passed through three checkpoints and was 700 meters from the airport has nothing to do with the US claim that it was speeding along and fired at as a last resort by that checkpoint.
Why would the US shoot without warning? This just doesn’t make sense. Bright lights were used, and maybe some of the rounds fired were warning shots? Doesn’t seem to be any conflict there.
The Italian’s statement that there were hundreds of spent cartridges in the car doesn’t make any sense. The empty cartridges would be lying around by where the US troops were shooting from, not where the target was.
Making the shot up car wait for an hour makes sense also. If you don’t know if it’s a car loaded with explosives or not I would wait also. They were probably following procedures at that point designed for thier safety. At any rate, since the Americans aren’t denying this, I don’t know why it’s included as a “conflict”.
The Americans were told in advance that the Italians were going to be paying the terrorists 10 million dollars to release this journalist? I doubt it. From everything I’ve heard about this story, the Italians wanted secrecy for this mission. They knew the Americans would not approve of paying for her release.
Sgena’s claims are laughable. If they wanted her dead, she would be dead. She’s an anti-American communist who sympathizes with the terrorists. It’s no surprise that she would jump to blame the US. What is shocking is that people on the SDMB would actually believe this tripe.
It may seem like hyperbole to you but for most of Europe this would be an average assessment of the willingness of US forces to A/ get things right and B/ admit to it when they get things wrong.
A consistent pattern within the European Press is that US forces act blindly and in an unskilled manner with a great deal of overkill and then engage in aggressive PR to avoid culpability and responsibility.
Having just returned from the US, I can see how this picture would seem alien to anyone being informed by US TV News or by local papers. Whilst I was there, the only beacons of fair and reasonable news coverage were the NY and LA Times when available. All else seemed aggressively ‘my country right or wrong’ and 'back our troups.
And I didn’t watch Fox News once!
It si worth comparing the reactions of US and UK armed forces to allegations and proved events around the torture of Iraqi prisoners. US reaction was to blame it on a few bad apples and claim that everything was being done to avoid this happening in future (despit the publication of the torture directives from the Bush Admin). The UK response was to put the head of UK forces in a public arena to issue a full apology to the Iraqi people and to the Arab world- can you imagine Bush doing that.
US PR goes down so well in the US but is so often the cause of anti-Americanism outside the States- everything is interpreted differently in the two areas.
If it were an earnest, but mucked up, attempt to kill a journalist I’d be happier… but I think its just one more roadblock and trigger happy kiddie soldiers incident. This probably happens all the time in Iraq and innocent Iraqis get shot up regularly but don’t make the news. These US soldiers probably will get a reprimand and no dessert for a month slap on the wrist. This sends the clear message that civilians lives are worth shit.
I don’t think any dopers actually said Sgena’s claims of being a “target” are beleivable… but what is unbeleivable is how much effort your putting to make this big fuck up of an incident seem trivial and not blamable on the US or their troops.
One shot taking out the engine… killing an agent and lightly wounding a woman… you should be questioning that possiblity… no ? Last I heard warning shots aren’t aimed at people… but fine…
This has to be a tragic accident. I doubt any news outlets will be reporting anything close to hard facts as yet. And Sgrena, let’s face it, is hardly likely to be in a rational frame of mind at the moment.
The conspiracy hypothesis makes no sense at all though.
What’s unbelievable is your post #24. It’s clear that your hatred of the US troops in Iraq blinds you to any possibilty other than their uncaring murderous guilt.
As noted above a large proportion of the world would tend to concur with Rashak Mani. Unless you have access to news sources other than US mainstream media (a few newspapers excepted) then you would not know how US military and political cock-ups/conspiracies/other events are reported. The world has a long memory for events like this one and is much more aware of the patriotic spin that works with the US population and alienates the rest of the world.
Reading and watching the US media alone, one would not be aware of the global views of the US military intervention in Iraq and other unsupported acts (Kyoto, World Court, reaction to the UN, Globalization etc etc.) The US general media is extremely narrow, politically castrated and biassed heavily to conservatism compared with the rest of the developed (and much of the lesser developed world.)
Of course, being immersed in the mono-culture that is US news and current affairs, it is almost impossible to form a clear view of how the US is really perceived abroad.
The evidence for this is above!
If we divorce ourselves from political leanings, which I am trying to do, we know only these facts for certain:
The car was travelling at a very high rate of speed
US troops fired at the car, number of shots are unknown, and killed one of the occupants.
I think it may have been proven that a bright light was flashed… anyone have a cite for or against that?
First let me agree with Debaser here – and I suspect there are even more on this board with that sentiment who don’t express that – than some would expect. Note the sorts of responses from some just after the successful Iraqi elections.
Anyway, back to the OP —
There are reports now that Italian agents might be responsible for more of this than simply not stopping their car at the Baghdad road checkpoint. – read –
For an honest, non-partisan look at what these checkpoints are really like, the Christian Science Monitor has a great article.
We do not 'know’that the car was traveling at a very high rate of speed- she said that they were going 40-50 kph - 25-30 mph.
An unbiased account would be:
A car was traveling towards a US checkpoint
The US forces opened fire without any overt sign of aggression from the vehicle
A non-combattant was killed and a rescued hostage was injured.
This is explicable as:
A/ A horrid accident caused by a joint misunderstanding
B/ A likely outcome of scared/trigger happy/gung-ho US forces who are more frightened for their lives than respectful of the rights and lives of lesser speices
C/ An overt act of State terror against a non-compliant ally.
Explanation A will play well in most of the US press whereas B and C will be more widely discussed outside the US news bubble.
[QUOTE=tagos]
US: The soldiers used hand signals and bright lights and fired warning shots before hitting the car with shots
Italy: There was no warning. Three to four hundred rounds were fired, afterwards the car seats were covered in spent cartridges. The Americans forced the Italians to remain in the car without medical attention for an hour
[QUOTE]
Can’t say one way or t’other, but this stinks to high heaven. Aren’t “spent cartridges” ejected from the gun after firing? For the car to be “covered in spent cartridges” would, IMHO, mean that the soldiers were firing inside the car.
Something just don’t add up here…
The woman now admits warning lights were shined on the speeding car, according to bloomburg:
"It wasn’t a checkpoint, but a patrol that started shooting after pointing some lights in our direction,’’
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=aRueVtaX.ri0&refer=europe
first - it is not accepted the car was travelling at high speed. It is denied by those in the car and the Italian Govt.
[QUOTE=Pjen]
We do not 'know’that the car was traveling at a very high rate of speed- she said that they were going 40-50 kph - 25-30 mph.
QUOTE]
The woman herself said the car almost lost control avoiding puddles. Those are her own words. The car was speeding.
Wrong- partial misquotation. The space between the light going on and the shooting may have been minutes, it may have been seconds, it may have been almost instantaneous.
A quote from the driver (posted above if you had looked:
"However, according to the daily Corriere della Sera, the Italian intelligence officer who drove the car and who survived the attack insisted they were travelling at just 40 to 50 kilometres an hour (25 to 30 mph).
He was quoted as saying: “All of a sudden, a searchlight went on. Immediately afterwards, the shots began. The fire lasted for at least 10 seconds.”
Your rush to grab at such straws shows your keeness to exonorate the troups without waiting for a full investigation on both sides.
While he’s lying about the speed of the car, I am not accusing him of lying about the time between the warning lights the soldiers gave him and the shors they fired. We’ll see where that goes. I am not exhonerating anyone. There will be a thorough investigation and then the facts will come out.
[QUOTE=zuma]
Rubbish. On bad roads in bad weather you can lose control of a car. Only the guilty troops are claiming high speed and WTF should we believe them? Besides - they’d been passed through 2 previous checkpoints on the route - they thought they were home and dry, thought that maybe, who knows, trained soldiers wouldn’t blast the shit out of them on the off-chance?
[QUOTE=zuma]
As I noted above, these two descriptions refer to two different events-
Event 1:
Earlier in an area where there were buildings:
"The car kept on the road, going under an underpass full of puddles and almost losing control to avoid them. We all incredibly laughed. It was liberating. Losing control of the car in a street full of water in Baghdad and maybe wind up in a bad car accident after all I had been through would really be a tale I would not be able to tell. Nicola Calipari sat next to me. "
Event 2:
Later when they were approaching the checkpoint.
"However, according to the daily Corriere della Sera, the Italian intelligence officer who drove the car and who survived the attack insisted they were travelling at just 40 to 50 kilometres an hour (25 to 30 mph).
He was quoted as saying: “All of a sudden, a searchlight went on. Immediately afterwards, the shots began. The fire lasted for at least 10 seconds.” "
"They passed two American checkpoints along the airport road without incident and were 700 metres or so from the airport building. The road narrowed to a single, one-way lane and took a 90-degree turn. The car was going slowly now, approaching the end of the journey.
“At last I felt safe,” Ms Sgrena said. “We had nearly arrived in an area under American control, an area more or less friendly, even if it was still unsettled.”
Then, turning the corner, they found their progress baulked by an American tank. They were blinded by a powerful light. “Without any warning, any signal, we were bombarded with a shower of bullets,” Ms Sgrena said. “The tank was firing on us, our car was riddled with bullets. Nicola tried to protect me, then his body slumped on top of mine, I heard his death rattle, then I felt a pain but I couldn’t tell where I had been hit. Those who had fired came up to the car, but before I was taken to the American hospital there was an interminable wait, it’s hard to know how long I was lying there wounded but perhaps it was 20 minutes.” "
You do understand the process of passage of time 
It is likely that they sped earlier to avoid re-capture by other insurgents, but slowed their pace when they were in a less dangerous zone, only a few hundred meters from the airport