OK – Now the photo seems to be one of an unrelated Iraqi’s car that was rammed by the car that the terrorists used WHEN THEY KIDNAPPED Sgrena. Why AP decided to show that car during their video report regarding the ‘inspection stop shooting’ - is very hard to say.
In addition, for those who might be able to make out a little Italian, this Italian paper (Corriere della Sera) seems to say that ‘the damaged car’ is being ‘quickly’ shipped to Italy (L’auto colpita presto in Italia). Could be wrong through -
After reading the last 100 posts it is evident that there isn’t enough information to make any kind of judgement.
What is known about Giuliana Sgrena is that she said (or was coerced to say) 'My Name Is Giuliana Sgrena: I Write for a Newspaper Which Opposed the Sanctions and the War Against Iraq’
She is also on record as being in sympathy with opposition forces:
quote from link above: Sheik Hussein al Zobey, Sunni coordinator of the refugee camps inside the University of Baghdad, uttered an impassioned appeal for the journalist’s release: “In the name of truth, free her. I appeal in the name of those who come to help us. I ask the kidnappers to free Giuliana, who has promised to help us. She has laughed and played with our children—and has cried with us.”
Her own words translated: That I needed to help them to ask [Silvio] Berlusconi to withdraw the troops. They saw all what happens in Italy, demonstrations against the occupation, demonstrations for my liberation. And so they [became] aware that I was really working against the occupation and people were supporting me and so they told me: “We have seen that you are very appreciated in Italy”. And that helped me to be freed.
Whether or not she deliberately allied herself to their cause her release is responsible for funding them to the tune of millions of dollars. No good will come of this, both for Italians in Iraq and for the weapons the money will buy.
What nobody has talked about is the time of the event. This occurred at night, most likely during curfew. If that is the case, any car on the road would be looked at with greater suspicion. If the checkpoint was properly laid out then the car would have had to slow to make right angle turns. Any acceleration out of the final curve would have been viewed as a run on the checkpoint. The number and type of bullets used will be documented. Most likely the engine block was shot with a 50-cal. bullet with the intent to destroy the motor. And if the car is new enough, the computer will retain the driving statistics of the last moments. Time will tell. More information is needed to do anything other than guess at the events.
.50-cal would be most likely on an APC or a Tank… which seems consistent with the “Tank” story.
I agree that more information is required… but all sides will start spinning wildly and grasping to any small details to defend their version. Its unlikely we will ever get as solid info as would be desirable. A foto of the car certainly would be a good first step…
I’d just like to point out that if you put a .50 cal hole in the engine block the car will keep moving. Basic laws of physics. This may have been a misinterpretation by a soldier that the car was still trying to charge the patrol.
As to the conflicting stories about the spotlights, I say: how many passengers pay as much attention to the road as the driver? We need and should rely on the driver’s story as opposed to the journalist’s. She may have been looking somewhere else when the lights were flashed and never saw them before the shooting happened and the driver threw himself over her.
I do think that we are seriously mis/under-informed. But what I think is the most reasonable explanation is that for some reason or another, a soldier fired multiple rounds at the engine block. However, the car is moving, and while the first bullet may have hit the engine, the rounds following moved up into the passenger compartment as the car moved forward.
I think we’re asking the wrong question here. So far we’ve discussed whether the troops were misinformed, under the wrong impression, or acted rashly. I think the real question is “Is someone responsible for their actions if they were not aware they were doing wrong?” I predict that many people will say no, “how can you be responsible for what you didn’t know?” But I believe you are responsible. Is the fool on the throne to be pardoned simply because he is a fool? This is a question that pertains to so many things about this war, from whether Bush knew there were no WMD’s or whether Rumsfeld knew about Abu Garhib. If these soldiers were ignorant that they were doing ill, I don’t think we can punish them, but that doesn’t make them innocent. Oedipus did not know the man he killed was his father, nor that the woman he married was his mother; But he felt guilty and gouged his eyes out all the same. I would be very disappointed if anyone made the claim that these soldiers are innocent; they may be unpunishable, but they are far from innocent.
Let us not forget that many atrocities in the twentieth century had people beating their breasts saying “we did not know, you cannot blame us.” (I’m thinking things like the Nuremburg trials and the Communists in East Europe like Czechoslovakia after the USSR invaded them)
That said I have a few questions/problems that I don’t feel were addressed fully:
Since when does a mere patrol stop any speeding car under the threat of fire? it is an equally plausible situation that the car could have been fleeing violence rather than looking to inflict it.
Also, how can they even say firing shots is an appropriate warning? Most people’s instant reaction a gunshot is 1) freeze(bodily, not the car) 2) “where did that come from” 3)either stop or speed up to escape the gunfire. A gun shots I imagine would slow down reaction time on average.
And please correct me if I’m wrong, but if you’re in a tank, what do you have to fear from some car bomb? These things are designed to withstand tank shells at even their weakest points (between the turret and the body). Note: I am not a military expert.
Whew…
Maybe, if at the same time, you fling it in neutral. If a gear is engaged and the crankshaft suddenly stops, the car is going to be slowing down pretty damned fast.
Amazingly inaccurate. Improvided munitions of various sorts can and have damaged Bradleys and Abrams. Tanks are not the invulnerable beasts that some try to make them out to be.
Besides, what people are calling a ‘tank’ was more likely a Humvee or possibly Bradley, not a ‘tank’. The media is disgustingly inaccurate when it comes to stuff like that.
I partially disagree. Depends how badly the engine is damaged and whether or not its a manual. You punch through a reciprocating part like a rod and the engine will grenade. If it seizes, a manual transmission will cause the drive wheels to lock.
Your tank theory does not consider that the person operating a machine gun is outside the tank and will be killed in an explosion. Also, the same person is part of a unit. He is responsible for others, not just his personal safety.
I would like to know how the chain of communication could be so poorly coordinated between the Italians and the Americans. According to various articles the Italians were in contact with their Embassy who was presumably in contact with the American Embassy. Not sure how long it took from the time they picked up the Journalist but they should have verified their approach to the airport if it was during curfew. It’s just common sense. Suicide bombers continually attack these troops. They have to be on-edge every second they are standing there.
Would be nice if they established a common visual signal that means “slam on the fucking brakes NOW”. Also don’t know why they don’t use pop-up wedges that will bring a 40,000 lb truck to a complete stop. I could build one in about an hour.
Good point, just add that on a wet road (wet enough for there to be puddles) a car can hydroplane, that we don’t know where in the engine the car was hit, and I might think (though I’m no mechanic) that there might be a possibility of the crankshaft (or whatever corresponding part, I know little about cars) would simply break (particularly if you put a bullet hole through it) and allow the tires to spin freely. Maybe, I can’t defend that last part.
Thanks, obviously I am victim of a public misconception. However, I’d like to stress that I don’t think a patrol should open fire on random speeding cars. People do speed sometimes, whether recklessly or for a reason (e.g. pregnant lady about to give birth). A checkpoint guard I could understand, but not a patrol.
Assuming a single warning shot was fired at the car’s engine block. Please remember that this isn’t Hollywood, where the Sheriff casually shoots the pistol out of the bad guy’s hand. You have a moving target, troops that are probably pumped up with adrenalin due to the very real dangers of their surroundings, and an engine of unknown size and placement in the car’s engine compartment. Depending on the size of the engine and placement of the shot, it is entirely possible for the bullet to go through the radiator, past the engine, through the firewall, and wound or kill someone in the passenger compartment. Very few people, whether military or civilian, have the training and constitution needed to take a rapid and accurate aimed shot at a moving target under combat conditions. In real life, their adrenalin starts flowing and their accuracy goes to hell. That’s why you sometimes read about shootouts where both parties empty their weapons at each other from short range and nobody is even wounded.
Add to the facts above, Caliapri’s decision to forego an available escort from the Italian embassy while driving the seven mile span of road and chose instead an unprotected rented pickup.
This considered with other evidence/statements begins to piece a picture of some design by the Italians to keep information of Sgrena’s release from the US. This very possibily could be since it could be inferred from the fact of a release and the Italian government’s history, that a ransom was paid — i.e. money put in terrorist pockets. Hence, the further efforts to disguise by use of a rented pickup truck. I am now beginning to wonder whether there isn’t some possibility that Calipari and his crew wanted to avoid US personnel whenever possible along that seven mile road. I have to wonder now if the Italian efforts to avoid US detection wasn’t a factor in the result. Note that the Sgrena pickup was the only car/truck fired on that night.
To me at least, this situation is beginning to look more like the description offered by Robert Maginnis, retired military analyst.
There’s no suggestion that they were avoiding checkpoints from anyone involved, be they Italian or US Army - they drove with the internal lights of the car on precisely to identify themselves to checkpoints.
It has been established clearly in this thread that US checkpoint and patrol protocols are inadequate and confusing. It is also pretty clear that as this is the case troops are erring on the side of caution and engaging and killing innocent civilians out of understandable fear.
That does not make it acceptable to kill on suspicion. If you can’t do checkpoints properly don’t do them at all. And it’s certainly not a given that possible US deaths that might come from a vehicle moving in ways you don’t like outweigh the certain deaths of civilians resulting from opening fire in uncertain circumstances.
As the occupying power the US has responsibility for the safety of civilians and in my mind a lax checkpoint and patrol policy that accepts the deaths of innocents as the price of troop safety is at best flawed and at worst contrary to morality and the Geneva Conventions.
As people have already said - reverse the nationalities and wonder what tune people would be singing. It wouldn’t be ‘damn right they got wasted, it’s their own fault. Good on you, pizza-eating ass-kickers.’
I didn’t know that this had been conclusively proved…I thought it had merely been hypothisized, and very inconclusively from my perspective. Interesting. I must have missed the memo.
tagos – I see you’ve reach a number of ‘clearly established’ conclusions and ‘sheer facts’ already. Since this seems clear to you — why do you think Calipari decided to rent a pickup truck for this job rather than use an escort from the Italian embassy? I’d be interested in your insight –
I did read it. I remain unconvinced. I’ve seen no evidence that our checkpoint system is seriously flawed, nor that such shooting incidents are anything more than anomolies…certainly not every day occurances. And Christian Science monitor, while not a complete BS cite, is not exactly who I’d look to as an authority on this question in any case…certainly not to the extent that I’d say case closed on their word.
I disagree as to what it might or might not mean in general (and I’m unsure how representative it is to say that this happens frequently), and I also disagree that we can draw any kind of evidence based on THIS particular event as the stories are conflicting as to what happened…and I think its inconclusive as too which story is more (or less) accurate. We simply don’t have enough facts (to spell it out plainly, we don’t KNOW how the Italians were driving towards this checkpoint or what exactly happened), and we many never have enough facts in this case as its all based on observational anacedotes of the folks involved…notoriously bad sources of data.
So again, in YOUR mind this might be a closed case, but to me its anything but.
… And in addition to Caliapri’s choice of vehicle and security – which remains a riddle IMO, if not possible negligence ---- I’ll submit these questions which I hope are answered before the investigation is completed (i.e. for those who aren’t afflicted with a ‘Ward Churchill like’ rush to judgment)—
Why was the Sgrena pickup truck the only vehicle fired on that night? What was it that the vehicle did to cause the fire — that is, if you don’t buy Sgrena’s assertion that it was a planned assassination by the US? Recall that it is Sgrena who is making that unsupported allegation.
Second, I certainly hope there were pictures taken of the pickup truck by the US military or the press before it was handed over. If so, those pictures clearly haven’t been made available to the public ------ why? (A picture of a pickup with 300 to 400 .30 or .50 machine gun bullet holes in it would be obvious and would be consistant with one of Sgrena’s many allegations. However, a pickup with 300 to 400 machine gun bullet holes, even if .30 rather than .50, would naturally lead to the next question – how did anyone survived?)
That’s completely unrealistic. This is a war zone. The preferred method of attacking checkpoints is a suicide car bomb. The soldiers dealing with this have seconds to make a decision. Checkpoints should be approached accordingly.