US Troops 'May Have Opened Fire Deliberately'

[rexbo 104]

The young soldiers manning this checkpoint were NOT thinking, "Oh, there's that communist Italian hostage that just paid $1,000,000 ransom for her release, funding thousands of more roadside bombs and hundreds of more Iraqi and American deaths, let's take her out!" But, maybe they should have...

US Troops 'May Have Opened Fire Deliberately', Says Freed Reporter

An Iraqi lawmaker, Younadem Kana, said he had ”non-official” information that a one million dollar (£760,000) ransom was paid for Sgrena’s release, Italy’s Apcom news agency reported.

[Auburn85 432]

Again, comfort for the enemy

Our troops should be given the benefit of the doubt, but lately they haven't.

[AURaptor 1,126]

If the US wanted her dead, she'd be dead. Period

The lack of logic and the mindless accusations being tossed around are beyond comprehension.

The US troops have been dealing w/ car bombs and suicide attacks for months now, and how the Italians can't get that through their soggy, noodle filled skulls is amazing.

[Piglet 0]

And our motive for killing the Italian on purpose would be what?

Man, until you been where our troops have been you can't go sitting in judgment on them. They got to make life and death judgment calls every minute. Today they shot the wrong person and everyone's upset. Tomorrow, maybe they wait too long and a suicide bomb goes off, killing dozens of innocents and the same people will be all, "why didn't those useless troops do something?" Gosh, in war, people get killed sometimes. Get used to it. Better our guys do the killing than the getting killed.

[AUloggerhead 2,252]

Link

... In an interview, without backing up her claim, Sgrena said it was possible she was targeted deliberately. The journalist, who works for the communist newspaper Il Manifesto — a fierce opponent of the war and a frequent critic of U.S. policy — said she knew nothing about a ransom, and offered no details on the talks.

"The fact that the Americans don't want negotiations to free the hostages is known," she told Sky TG24 television by telephone, her voice hoarse and shaky. "The fact that they do everything to prevent the adoption of this practice to save the lives of people held hostage, everybody knows that. So I don't see why I should rule out that I could have been the target."

In an article Sunday, Sgrena said her captors warned her shortly before her release to beware of the Americans. She later told Italian state TV RAI that "when they let me go, it was a difficult moment for me because they told me, 'The Americans don't want you to return alive to Italy.'" Sgrena didn't elaborate, and it wasn't clear if "they" referred to her captors. ...

This ... (calm down Log, this is a family site) ... 'journalist' is also on record as praising her abductors/captors for treating her humanely. WTF? If someone kidnapped me, threatened to cut off my head & videotaped me pleading for my life unless a ransom was paid ... I sure as heck wouldn't be calling that humane treatment. If the US wanted her dead, then why did they give her emergency medical treatment? This was a tragic accident in a war zone. At first I was thinking, "well there's a couple of $1,000 in US medical care down the drain." On second thought, the best thing going for us is she is still drawing a breath -- even though she's denouncing the US with every utterance. The fact that she is even alive defies every anti-Amercan charge she makes.

[CCTAU 3,341]

Moral of the story, don't drive on a road toward ANY military operations without proper identification. This could have easily been another suicide bomber.

Second moral, next time use a rocket!

[AURaptor 1,126]

This looks more and more like a staged event from the start. I wonder if she got a cut of the ransom $$ for 'playing along' like an actual hostage? I wonder if she gets more $ now that one of her countryman died in this stunt.

[Ranger12 46]

And our motive for killing the Italian on purpose would be what?

Man, until you been where our troops have been you can't go sitting in judgment on them.  They got to make life and death judgment calls every minute.  Today they shot the wrong person and everyone's upset. Tomorrow, maybe they wait too long and a suicide bomb goes off, killing dozens of innocents and the same people will be all, "why didn't those useless troops do something?"  Gosh, in war, people get killed sometimes. Get used to it. Better our guys do the killing than the getting killed.

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AMEN!!! As a veteran, this makes me sick to here the media be so quick to judge. It makes me even sicker for those guys to be accused by the terrorist funding Italians that we did it on purpose. Like Rexbo said, those men were not thinking about some hostage, all they say was another car speeding car with a suicide bomber. I have heard that there may have been a breakdown in communication. Apparently, MI was supposed to have told all the checkpoints at the airport that a recovered hostage was expected, but the word was obviously never given. Here is my problem with the whole store, bases upon my experience. If this hostage and Italian intelligence agent was expected, why were they not provided with the proper communication equipment in the car to radio ahead to all the checkpoints? I agree there is a breakdown somewhere, but not in the soldiers that had all of 2-3 seconds to make a life or death decision.

[Auburn85 432]

Woops, I used an "amen" gesture n another post

[AUloggerhead 2,252]

Link

Italian Reporter: U.S. Tank Shot Me

The claims of an Italian journalist who says U.S. troops shot her for no reason after she was released by terrorist kidnappers on Friday keep getting wilder and wilder.

Now Giuliana Sgrena, who writes for the anti-American newspaper Il Manifesto, insists that U.S. forces used a tank to gun her and her entourage down.

"A tank started to shoot at us without any sign or any light," Sgrena maintained to reporters on Monday. "It was not a checkpoint, so I can't explain it."

She also hinted that U.S. forces deliberately targeted her, saying that they had been told she and her rescuers were on their way.

"Our car was driving slowly," and "the Americans fired without motive," she wrote in a report for Il Manifesto on Sunday.

U.S. military spokesmen have admitted that troops fired on Sgrena's car, but did so only because it was trying to run a military checkpoint, but that no tanks were involved in the incident.

A TANK! Why, that's an outrage! The soldiers shooting that tank ought to be courtmartialed ... for missing the target! Keep talking, byotch.

[AURaptor 1,126]

Journalist : " America Cruise Missiles were shot at me "

[Auburn85 432]

Had we known she was anti-American, she wouldn't have the luxery of even spewing this non-sense

[CCTAU 3,341]

And had they waited, we could be burrying parts of our soldiers now. Better them than us. ALWAYS!

[WarTim 3,457]

Make no mistake, IF the US military wanted her dead, there would be folks looking for dna "scraps" of her today.

[vatz22au 142]

Moral of the story, don't drive on a road toward ANY military operations without proper identification. This could have easily been another suicide bomber.

Second moral, next time use a rocket!

149767[/snapback]

Ass.

Your logic scares me.....thank god no one gives you power of any sort....your not good enough to handle it.

Ya I think its bs that she claims they did it purpose.

You also have to consider that the U.S. gave no warning and just fired, so dont blame "w/out proper identification". Obviously of all the people in the convoy, someone had your stupid "identification". The U.S. gave no warning and opened fire probably "mistakenly" thinking it was another suicide bomber. I dont blame "identification" here.

And your tone with innocent lives here is also way out of line. We dont measure lives based on "whats gonna cost us more or less in the end". If the U.S. had followed proper protocol and gave a warning, maybe this situation wouldnt have been heard of. Coming from someone who wants Roy Moore to be governor....shouldnt you be more sympathetic to innocent lives?

[Ranger12 46]

Ass.

Your logic scares me.....thank god no one gives you power of any sort....your not good enough to handle it.

Ya I think its bs that she claims they did it purpose. 

You also have to consider that the U.S. gave no warning and just fired, so dont blame "w/out proper identification".  Obviously of all the people in the convoy, someone had your stupid "identification".  The U.S. gave no warning and opened fire probably "mistakenly" thinking it was another suicide bomber.  I dont blame "identification" here.

And your tone with innocent lives here is also way out of line.  We dont measure lives based on "whats gonna cost us more or less in the end".  If the U.S. had followed proper protocol and gave a warning, maybe this situation wouldnt have been heard of.  Coming from someone who wants Roy Moore to be governor....shouldnt you be more sympathetic to innocent lives?

Your youth and ignorance show on this. What the heck do you know about proper protocol when it comes to this situation?! When you are in a warzone and only have a few seconds to make a decision, then rules of engagement do not always call for a warning shot and wait for proper identification! The Italian "intelligence" officer is the one that did not follow proper protocol. He is the one that should know not to go speeding into checkpoints without follow the proper identification procedures. It his fault that an innocent life was taken. Where the hell was his communications equipment? Next time, before you go talking about "proper protocols", you may need to know what you are talking about. Better yet, you may have want to have been in that situation first.

[vatz22au 142]

Ass.

Your logic scares me.....thank god no one gives you power of any sort....your not good enough to handle it.

Ya I think its bs that she claims they did it purpose. 

You also have to consider that the U.S. gave no warning and just fired, so dont blame "w/out proper identification".  Obviously of all the people in the convoy, someone had your stupid "identification".  The U.S. gave no warning and opened fire probably "mistakenly" thinking it was another suicide bomber.  I dont blame "identification" here.

And your tone with innocent lives here is also way out of line.  We dont measure lives based on "whats gonna cost us more or less in the end".  If the U.S. had followed proper protocol and gave a warning, maybe this situation wouldnt have been heard of.  Coming from someone who wants Roy Moore to be governor....shouldnt you be more sympathetic to innocent lives?

Your youth and ignorance show on this. What the heck do you know about proper protocol when it comes to this situation?! When you are in a warzone and only have a few seconds to make a decision, then rules of engagement do not always call for a warning shot and wait for proper identification! The Italian "intelligence" officer is the one that did not follow proper protocol. He is the one that should know not to go speeding into checkpoints without follow the proper identification procedures. It his fault that an innocent life was taken. Where the hell was his communications equipment? Next time, before you go talking about "proper protocols", you may need to know what you are talking about. Better yet, you may have want to have been in that situation first.

150359[/snapback]

Again, blasted because im young and I have the ability to see stubborness when it shows in full forms. Basically my post was stating that innocent lives shouldnt be thought of as "resource material".....

Dont know how my youth and ignorance show on this, just basically stating that innocent lives were lost and that they shouldnt be compromised in a statement," next time we use a rocket!".

Take the "im in the old club" goggles off and note the point im making. No youth or ignorance shows on this, just support for human life.

[Tigermike 3,050]

The ransom of the red reporter

Michelle Malkin

March 9, 2005

International furor over Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian communist writer who claims American troops in Iraq may have deliberately shot at her car after she was released by kidnappers, misses the bigger scandal.

The scandal is not that an anti-war propagandist has accused the U.S. of targeting journalists. That's par for the course. (Yes, hello again, Eason Jordan.)

The scandal is not that mainstream media sympathizers are blaming our military and dredging up every last shooting accident along the treacherous routes to Baghdad Airport. Again, no surprise here.

The scandal is that Italy -- our reputed ally in the global War on Terror -- negotiated with Sgrena's Islamist kidnappers and may have forked over a massive ransom to cutthroats for Sgrena's release.

Where is the uproar over this Islamist insurgency subsidy plan?

Iraqi politician Younadem Kana told Belgian state TV that he had "non-official" information that Italy paid the terrorists $1 million in tribute. The Washington Times, citing the Italian newspaper La Stampa, pinned the ransom figure at $6 million. Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that the Italian government forked over between $10 million and $13.4 million to free Sgrena.

Whatever the final tally, it's a whopping bounty that will undoubtedly come in handy for cash-hungry killers in need of spiffy new rocket-propelled grenade launchers, AK-47s, mortars, landmines, components for vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, and recruitment fees. (To put this windfall in perspective, bear in mind that the 9/11 plot was a half-million dollar drop in the bucket for Osama bin Laden.)

Or maybe Italian advocates of this terrorist get-rich-quick scheme think the thugs will spend their money on Prada handbags and Versace couture.

Both the Italian government and members of the Iraq Islamic Army who abducted Sgrena vehemently deny that money was exchanged. Yet, even as his government officially rebuffed reports of a ransom arrangement in the Sgrena affair, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was quoted by the newspaper Il Messaggero conceding: "We have to rethink our strategy in dealing with kidnappings."

A little late for a do-over, don't you think?

According to the New York Post, Lucia Annunziata, former president of Italian state television RAI, said government sources estimate Italy has paid kidnappers nearly $15 million for hostages in the past year alone. Indeed, last September, Gustavo Selva, chairman of parliament's foreign affairs committee, confirmed that two Italian aid workers -- who praised their kidnappers as "resisters" -- were freed after the government paid at least $1 million in cash to their Iraqi captors.

The admission came after heated denials by top government officials. Selva, auditioning Italy for a spot in the Axis of Weasels pantheon, mused at the time: "In principle, we shouldn't give in to blackmail, but this time we had to, although it's a dangerous path to take because, obviously, it could encourage others to take hostages, either for political reasons or for criminal reasons."

How do you say "No duh" in Italian?

To be fair to Italy, which continues to maintain a 3,000-troop presence in Iraq despite enormous anti-war pressure, its reported payoffs to terrorists are dwarfed by the mollycoddlers in Manila and Malaysia, who have fed Abu Sayyaf's head-chopping kidnappers tens of millions in tribute over the past several years -- money that is now reportedly being channeled to worldwide al Qaeda operations.

Still, you would expect a country that once embraced the defiant spirit of Fabrizio Quattrochi -- the murdered Italian security guard taken hostage in Iraq last year who stoically told his assassins, "I'm going to show you how an Italian dies" -- to resist the Quisling impulse with every fiber of its collective being.

The consequences of capitulation are bloody obvious. When you allow your people to be used as terrorist collection plates, the thugs will keep coming back for more. Might as well hang a sign around the neck of every Italian citizen left in Iraq: Buon appetito.

Michelle Malkin is a syndicated columnist and maintains her weblog at michellemalkin.com

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michell...m20050309.shtml

[Ranger12 46]

Vatz, I pointed out your ignorance for thinking you knew the rules of engagement for that situation. I don't recall saying that the accident was justified. If you would have only talked about how the innocent life was horribly lost because of miscommunication, then you would have been alright. But, when you started blasting those soldiers for not following the correct procedures, that was when your youth and ignorance on this matter was revealed. Again, I only called you out on your "knowledge" of the rules of engagement, so please make you are reading all of the post correctly. Your response only justified my calling you out.

Now, on Tigermike's post. I don't agree with his no "innocent" lives were lost philisophy. However, his anger, like mine, was the fact that the Italians were negotiating with the terrorists. The dead officer is not to blame for that. However, if the Italians are to keep circumventing the war againts the terrorism, then they are going to have to deal with the consequences. In this case, they chose to fund terrorists by paying them for a hostage, thus not having our support on this. That also meant that apparently their intelligence office did not have the proper communication equipment or know the correct procedures to follow when coming up on a military checkpoint. Regardless, it is the Italian governments ignorance that killed the officer, not a group of soldiers that had to make a split second decision to take out the car or risk themselves being killed with a carbomb. Like the saying goes "Hindsight is 20/20", but in time of war, we don't have the luxury of "waiting to see what happens" alot of times.

[jaydubb121 22]

I agree with the article posted by TigerMike. There were no "innocent" lives lost.

Anyone paying off the terrorists is not innocent. He should be tried in the world court for aiding the terrorists. I doubt if the penalty for that is death, but I guess it doesn't matter now.

[Ranger12 46]

I agree with the article posted by TigerMike. There were no "innocent" lives lost.

Anyone paying off the terrorists is not innocent. He should be tried in the world court for aiding the terrorists. I doubt if the penalty for that is death, but I guess it doesn't matter now.

150512[/snapback]

Guys, even though we all agree that paying terrorists for hostages is wrong, let's not be so quick to judge the intelligence officer as not being "innocent". He was simply following orders given by his superiors. I think it is going to far by judging this man because he was doing his duty, regardless of how misguided his government is. Yes, he could have refused, but then what? He loses his job and is probably blackballed in his country. He and his family pay. You are being hypocritical if you say our guys were just doing thier job, but then be criticial for the intelligence officer for doing his. Please try to put some persepctive on this. Remember, it is the hostage that is saying all this bs, not the dead intelligence officer. However, I would agree to slam the loudmouthed communist hostage and the Italian government.

FYI...there are some less then honorable things that our country has been guilty of before also. Thing is, they are not public knowledge. CIA has had agents do things that we would never do publicly as a nation. Those CIA agents were just doing their job as ordered by their superiors. When you are in the clandastine services, like the Italian intelligence officer, it is almost impossible to reject a mission and turn down an order. If you do, then your career and possibly another chance to make decent living are gone.

[vatz22au 142]

I agree with the article posted by TigerMike. There were no "innocent" lives lost.

Anyone paying off the terrorists is not innocent. He should be tried in the world court for aiding the terrorists. I doubt if the penalty for that is death, but I guess it doesn't matter now.

150512[/snapback]

Guys, even though we all agree that paying terrorists for hostages is wrong, let's not be so quick to judge the intelligence officer as not being "innocent". He was simply following orders given by his superiors. I think it is going to far by judging this man because he was doing his duty, regardless of how misguided his government is. Yes, he could have refused, but then what? He loses his job and is probably blackballed in his country. He and his family pay. You are being hypocritical if you say our guys were just doing thier job, but then be criticial for the intelligence officer for doing his. Please try to put some persepctive on this. Remember, it is the hostage that is saying all this bs, not the dead intelligence officer. However, I would agree to slam the loudmouthed communist hostage and the Italian government.

FYI...there are some less then honorable things that our country has been guilty of before also. Thing is, they are not public knowledge. CIA has had agents do things that we would never do publicly as a nation. Those CIA agents were just doing their job as ordered by their superiors. When you are in the clandastine services, like the Italian intelligence officer, it is almost impossible to reject a mission and turn down an order. If you do, then your career and possibly another chance to make decent living are gone.

150543[/snapback]

I agree....following out an order by a superior is no reason to take the guy's innocence away.