View Full Version : Major F-up in Iraq
George.
03-05-2005, 09:24 AM
Trigger-happy troops, or bad rules of engagement? With a system like this in place, I wonder how many Iraqi civilians are getting shot on a daily basis...
U.S. - Italy Relations Chilled by Killing of Agent (http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-iraq-italy-relations.html)
The United States and its staunch Iraq war ally Italy face their worst falling out in years after U.S. troops killed an Italian secret service agent and wounded an Italian reporter.
The shooting in Iraq on Friday, as the reporter was being whisked to freedom after being held hostage for a month, was sure to fuel anti-war activists in Italy and put pressure on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
U.S. troops at a checkpoint shot and killed agent Nicola Calipari and wounded journalist Giuliana Sgrena as they rushed to Baghdad airport.
The agent had helped free Sgrena a month after she had been kidnapped and held hostage. Sgrena returned to Rome on Saturday. Calipari's coffin will follow.
``The hardest moment was when I saw the person who had saved me die in my arms,'' Sgrena's long-time companion quoted her as saying on her flight back to Rome.
Elco's
03-05-2005, 09:27 AM
typical
George. is a non-American that continuely posts anti-American sentiments here. Grabbing every chance to slander the US and its military, using fodder provided by the liberal controlled media.
If you had 1 ounce of respect for you Northern neighbors, you would stop trying to create dissention here.
George.
03-05-2005, 09:42 AM
At least twice last week, soldiers under the command of the 69th fired on vehicles that they say ignored orders to stop.
The shooting raises questions about the rules of engagement for American soldiers here, particularly on roads frequented by civilian vehicles. The American military has never released statistics showing the number of incidents in which American troops have fired on innocent vehicles. But such incidents - including ones resulting in deaths - have taken place in recent months, and have been documented by reporters and photographers.
In January, soldiers with the 25th Infantry Division fired on a car carrying seven Iraqis, five of them children, after the driver ignored warning shots intended to dissuade the car from approaching an American patrol in the northern town of Tal Afar. The children's parents were killed, and one child was wounded. Photographs of the incident showed the surviving children covered in their parents' blood.
alteran
03-05-2005, 09:45 AM
From the AP
-------
The US military said the car was speeding as it approached a coalition checkpoint in Western Baghdad at 8:55 pm. It said soldiers shot into the engine block only after trying to warn the driver by "hand and arm signals, flashing white lights and firing warning shots".
Jack Heinlen
03-05-2005, 09:47 AM
Tragic. War. :( To our credit, we are examining, trying to do better. It can't be easy for young men, no matter how well trained, to not be a bit trigger happy at times.
George.
03-05-2005, 09:59 AM
The US military said ... soldiers shot into the engine block only after trying to warn the driver by "hand and arm signals, flashing white lights and firing warning shots".Are we to believe that the victims were sitting in the engine block, or that the bullets went right through the engine?
Are we to believe the Italians were so obtuse that they did not stop even though there were US troops ordering them to do so with "hand and arm signals, flashing white lights and firing warning shots?"
Domesticated_Mr. Know It All
03-05-2005, 10:07 AM
War is Hell.
This is tragic.
I'm a sad American today. :(
Don't blame the messanger, I thought about posting this story myself, it's news and will be discussed everywhere today for sure.
I don't see George as anti-American, maybe anti-War but so am I.
[ 03-05-2005, 11:11 AM: Message edited by: Mr. Know It All ]
alteran
03-05-2005, 10:11 AM
"Are we to believe that the victims were sitting in the engine block, or that the bullets went right through the engine?Are we to believe the Italians were so obtuse that they did not stop even though there were US troops ordering them to do so with "hand and arm signals, flashing white lights and firing warning shots?"
I'm just relaying what the AP article said George.
Perhaps you were there to witness the event and have firsthand knowledge of it. :rolleyes:
High C
03-05-2005, 10:14 AM
Originally posted by George.:
...Are we to believe the Italians were so obtuse that they did not stop...Have you ever driven in Italy?
George.
03-05-2005, 10:15 AM
As a matter of fact, yes. They drive quite well compared to Brazilians...
Domesticated_Mr. Know It All
03-05-2005, 10:19 AM
The story doesn't add up to me either Al, someone screwed up for sure and it seems they're covering their ass. :rolleyes:
I don't trust our government to admit any wrong doing or give the straight story. If that makes me un-American so be it. I call them as I see them but there will be more to this story when it's all said and done , you can bet.
George.
03-05-2005, 10:26 AM
I am just relaying what is on the press too, Al. That is why, after Elco's xenophobic little rant, I quoted further from the article. It says:
The shooting raises questions about the rules of engagement for American soldiers here, particularly on roads frequented by civilian vehicles. The American military has never released statistics showing the number of incidents in which American troops have fired on innocent vehicles. But such incidents - including ones resulting in deaths - have taken place in recent months, and have been documented by reporters and photographers. So you see, there actually are questions about American rules of engagement resulting in too many innocent deaths. I didn't make it up, I am just reporting it.
Ian McColgin
03-05-2005, 10:29 AM
Rush Limbaugh was boasting on his show about how his cavalcade roared through checkpoints all the time. He also boasted how many had copies of his latest book.
One can see how the communication that it was Rush roaring along got passed down the line a bit better than the communication that the negotiator, well known to US military authorities, and the lefty journalist were making their exit.
How come you don't "report it" when a speeding vehicle in Iraq drives into a group of soldiers, recruits or civilians, detonates, and kills a hundred or so of them? It's probably escaped your notice that fast moving exploding cars are a primary method of war for the terrorists. I'd love to see you manning one of those checkpoints, and watch you deal with a car speeding toward you and your men. I'm betting on a rapidly growing stain on your trousers.
Magwitch
03-05-2005, 10:35 AM
This story is being reported in the UK as "trigger happy US troops shoot first, ask questions later" combined with a story about "US kill more innocent Iraqi civilians than the bad guys do"
Not a good day for US PR.
IanW
jwaldin
03-05-2005, 10:42 AM
Well it's good to be back from a few months in the sun. The scuba diving was great and I even lost a few pounds.
Yeah that's right; Some Italian secret service men 'didn't realize there was a military roadblock' on the "Road To Death" so they just thought they could speed thru the road block right?
BS! The Fact is the death and injurys were caused when the car spun out of control after the troops shot into the engine block in order to stop the car. Given what has happened on that road the car could just as easily been loaded with high explosives. The occupants of that car got exactly what that deserved---well not quite.
The other Fact is the woman so-called reporter is a terrorist sympathizer who writes a steady stream of anti-American propaganda. Her so-called capture by the terrorists was actually a hoax which will soon be revealed. You heard it here.
Domesticated_Mr. Know It All
03-05-2005, 10:44 AM
"The other Fact is the woman so-called reporter is a terrorist sympathizer who writes a steady stream of anti-American propaganda. Her so-called capture by the terrorists was actually a hoax which will soon be revealed. You heard it here."
-------------------------------------------------
Well that would explain why they shot at her car. :rolleyes:
High C
03-05-2005, 10:45 AM
Originally posted by George.:
As a matter of fact, yes. They drive quite well compared to Brazilians...:eek:
Bill Perkins
03-05-2005, 10:51 AM
Was the checkpoint at a semi -permanent , known location , or had it been quickly set up ? I think I read the same article this morning , but couldn't find that info .
Bruce Hooke
03-05-2005, 11:09 AM
My take is that we do not know anywhere near enough to figure out what really went wrong. It seems obvious that only a fool (or a bomber) would not stop given all the signals that were reportedly being made to get them to stop. On the other hand, this sort of thing has happened enough times now that one starts to question whether there is more to the story.
I suspect the truth may be wrapped up in the actual circumstances on the ground there -- circumstances that probably radically reshape the decisions one makes while driving there.
What we do know is that someone from the government of a country that is one of stronger partners in the coalition is dead from friendly fire, and we should mourn his death; and, this event has certainly not done us any good on the world stage no matter whose fault it is. A sad day.
Elco's
03-05-2005, 11:40 AM
The Fact is the death and injurys were caused when the car spun out of control after the troops shot into the engine block in order to stop the car. Given what has happened on that road the car could just as easily been loaded with high explosives. The occupants of that car got exactly what that deserved---well not quite.
The other Fact is the woman so-called reporter is a terrorist sympathizer who writes a steady stream of anti-American propaganda. Her so-called capture by the terrorists was actually a hoax which will soon be revealed. You heard it here
:D with a kill ratio of 11:1 American lives have more value.
Chris Coose
03-05-2005, 11:47 AM
Clearly the Oyster.
Domesticated_Mr. Know It All
03-05-2005, 11:51 AM
I believe he's bumped his head again Chris. :D
Elco's
03-05-2005, 12:07 PM
lol
do you never think that I am not any of them? That I am in fact a singular registered member?
That many times I visit the forum but, unlike you, do not have the obsession to post every single day? Perhaps I am an experienced member of the boat-building/owning community with social ties that span this great nation? I am more than you can ever imagine. TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER! there is saw dust to be made!
It's not a major f-up. It's an example of how hard it is to identify combatant from non-combatant. Before you guys get on your partisan bandwagons,,you too Donn,,why not acknowledge the reality over there?
Us forces are very disciplined and protected, if you don't understand the signals, you're dead. There are a lot of dead. Also for US forces that have experienced battle in the cities the fighters didn't arrive in five ton trucks and all hop off yelling hut, hut, hut. The arrived willy nilly in taxis, sedans and school buses. Convoys are subjected to IEDs and car bombs. There are enough stories of civilian cars being destroyed because they followed too close to a convoy and they had civilians,,there are enough stories of cars with bombs getting into convoys. In the case of road blocks if you're trying to get THROUGH a dangerous area then SLOWING DOWN isn't what you do to survive when being shot upon. If the road block isn't clear, if the "warning shots" aren't clearly that because you're trying to get THROUGH a dangerous area then when do you make the decision from "we're taking fire, get the hell out of here!" to "those are warning shots from the road block up ahead, let's slow down becuase we will get shot by THEM and hopefully not but THEM behind us,,or next to us ,,or above us,,or,,,"etc.
There have been stories of fake road blocks so you could have Iraqi forces with non-US vehicles at the road block with the armored Humvee just out of site,,,but his 7.62 machine gun or .50caliber is covering the road.
So let's say you're trying to get THROUGH a dangerous road,,you take fire (warning shots) up ahead it looks like a road block but it doesn't look like the US forces,,it looks like the same bunch of Iraqi police that scatter when the sh*t hits the fan. So what do you do? Slow down to be a better target or punch it?
And that's what happens a lot at some check points,,civilian vehicls speed up or ignore the warning shots and get killed. Sometimes they're car bombs, sometimes they're not.
Then again having someone to blame is easier. I'll blame Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz for blowing of the generals who know about occupations and putting in an indequate force for securing the country in the post invasion phase. I'll blame GW for being a dumb Texan who's black/white values make for easy manipulation by the neo-cons. Who else,,,oh,,and all you folks that want to read the news and aren't content with the DOD and Gov't releases provided to FoxNews that encourage those foreigners to get the news. Yeah,,take that.
:D with a kill ratio of 11:1 American lives have more value.[/QB]With recognition to Saturday Night Live in the 70's,,,Elco you ignorant slut. ;)
If you want to look at kill ratios check out Falluja. No really. Start with the population. 300,000. They say upwards of 90% or more left. That leaves 30,000. They (US military/Fox) say we killed 1500 insurgents. How many did we lose,,80? Ok. Now it gets nitpicky. No one has really counted up the bodies and identities in Falluja,,at least in publically accessible news. But looking from a recently released statment by an intelligence officer in the Marines the number of "terrorist" associated with transnational terrorism,,or those footloose suicidal jihadists is somewhere around 5%,,I'm not talking Baathists,sympathetic unemployed and criminals. Ok 5% of 1500 is 75. Wow,,looks like getting them there before they get us here is not an efficient process.
Originally posted by Donn:
Absolute nonsense.your opinion. You don't think US forces are disciplined and effective in stopping a vehicle that doesn't heed warning shots?
or you do believe it's a major f-up? It's not. It's a common occurence just as IEDs and car bombs are a common threat to USforces and Iraqis.
or you don't believe that car bombs exist?
or you don't believe that civilians drive in Iraq?
or you do believe insurgents arrive in 5-tons hopping around like MontyPython going hut,hut,hut?
[ 03-05-2005, 01:49 PM: Message edited by: LeeG ]
I'm quite sure that they are able to do what they're there to do. I'm equally sure that they only have a few basic rules of engagement that they follow. It's the responsibility of the person(s) attempting transit, to be sure that they are within the limits of those rules.
From the limited real news I've seen, so far, a car was either speeding or not speeding down the Baghdad Airport Road, without an escort (shockingly stupid behavior for a country's top intelligence man), and they failed to convince the troops at a checkpoint that they were friendly.
We may, in the fullness of time, discover that the checkpoint was manned by rogue US soldiers, blinded by blood lust and power, and that they deliberately selected and disposed of the car-load of Italians, for no other reason than because it would be fun...but I doubt it.
Donn, you're not cute enough to play cute.
1. US soldiers were doing what they're supposed to do. The vehicle they saw coming didn't do what it was supposed to do. It was stopped. The US soldiers did the right thing.
2. It's quite conceivable that the Italians didn't have a dozen black Ford Excursions screaming "we're the good guys from KKR" or other visual indicators of a non-insurgent type. When you say they didn't have an escort it may well be that the US forces didn't have one available,it may well be that the commander could have said "we're kind of busy, you came in on your own, you can go out on your own." There isn't enough information to fault the Italians. Hell if you're going that route you could acknowledge that in 2002 the Italian Intelligence agency told the CIA and prez the forged document about uranium purchases was bunk and they didn't listen.
You think cooperation on the ground between an Italian journalist and US forces will be perfect?
Absolute nonsense to assign blame with insufficient evidence.
3. They hate us because we're free. :D :D :D :D :D :D
[ 03-05-2005, 02:05 PM: Message edited by: LeeG ]
Bruce Hooke
03-05-2005, 01:09 PM
Originally posted by Donn:
We may, in the fullness of time, discover that the checkpoint was manned by rogue US soldiers, blinded by blood lust and power, and that they deliberately selected and disposed of the car-load of Italians, for no other reason than because it would be fun...but I doubt it.Donn, I think you are missing the point. I read Lee's post to mean that the US soldiers are in a difficult situation and most likely acted pretty reasonably under the circumstances, BUT that given the conditions in Iraq the driver of the car may well also have acted reasonably when he came under fire. The driver probably had a few seconds at most in which to decide whether he was coming under fire from a legitimate road block or whether he was under attack by insurgents.
Chris Coose
03-05-2005, 01:14 PM
The shooting in Iraq on Friday, as the reporter was being whisked to freedom after being held hostage for a month, was sure to fuel anti-war activists in Italy and put pressure on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi Of all the speculation here, I'd guess this may be the piece most worthy of consideration in these kind of events.
Nope, Donn has to have someone to blame. It's the Italians fault,,and the partisan left wing media of course.
This link had a video from a private security firms convoy, it's since been made unavailable,,I'm guessing for privacy/property reasons. It was pretty good, about 10 seconds worth. A bunch of big heavy armored security vehicles flying through civilian traffic honking and moving cars out of the way, grenades and AK-47 fire went off. There was no hesitation, these guys floored it and they were all over the road flying down that avenue with multiple communications between cars and in the cars while civilians drove up on the curbs to get out of the way. There is NO time to think. If guns go off they GO.
OK,, it's not clear the Italians were transporting from the Green Zone so if they were going from Baghdad to the Airport would they call up the US Forces and say "hello Joe, we've got a 9pm flight could you send over a few armored Humvees?",,or "hello Joe, this Benito we're waiting for KBRs security Super Shuttle to take us to the airport,,we'll be in the black super stretch Humvee with fog lights,,,so let the boys in the check points know we're coming, ciao"
picture,,sorry no video (http://www.strategypage.com/gallery/articles/military_photos_200472810.asp)
George.
03-05-2005, 01:30 PM
Originally posted by Donn:
I'd love to see you manning one of those checkpoints, and watch you deal with a car speeding toward you and your men. I bet you would. But you won't. You know why?
Because I am not stupid enough to invade an unwelcoming country without enough troops, let the situation degenerate into a low-intensity civil war, and end up stuck in the middle of it with no smarter tactics than "manning checkpoints," which seem to be great for providing targets to insurgents, shooting up civilians, and little else...
For Elco and Donn, concerning your statements about the Italians. Think of the Italian who threw himself over the journalist to protect her.
One point,,in the story below the writer identifies the person with the grenade as a terrorist. How simple. We got one of the Al Qeda terrorists?
CAMP AL QAIM, Iraq(April 29, 2004) -- Recruits at the Corps' two recruit training depots will know Cpl. Jason L. Dunham.
They will know that the 22-year-old Marine lived up to the Corps' largest legends and laid down his own life to save those of his Marines.
Dunham, a machine gunner for Company K, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment was memorialized by his battalion April 29th here. A crowd of more than 500 Marines, sailors and soldiers gathered under a dark and cloudy sky for a memorial service to pay their last respects to a brave hero.
Dunham, from Scio, N.Y., died from his wounds April 24. Ten days earlier, the Marine dove on top of a grenade, absorbing nearly all the blast with his own body to save his fellow Marines.
"His was a selfless act of courage to save his fellow Marines," said Sgt. Maj. Daniel A. Huff, sergeant major for 3rd Battalion 7th Marine Regiment."This generation of Marines is as good as any generation we've ever had in the Corps."
Dunham was manning a vehicle checkpoint near Husaybah after a convoy was ambushed April 14. He observed car pull up and a man jump From the vehicle, sprinting away. Dunham - in full combat gear - chased the man down, tackling him to the ground. Other Marines came to assist in the apprehension when the terrorist pulled a pin from a hand grenade. Dunham dove onto the grenade, taking the blast into his own body, saving the lives of his Marines. Dunham suffered serious wounds, along with two other Marines. But were it not for his actions, all three might have died.
"He new what he was doing," said Lance Cpl. Jason A. Sanders, 21, from McAllester, Okla., and a mortar man with Company K. "He wanted to saveMarines' lives from that grenade."
Another mortar man with the company, Lance Cpl. Mark E. Dean, 22, from Owasso, Okla., described Dunham as an unselfish Marine. Dunham's enlistment was to end in June, but he voluntarily extended his contract to join his Marines.
"We told him he was crazy for coming out here," Dean explained. "He decided to come out here and fight with us. All he wanted was to make sure his boys made it back home."
"The only way to honor him is in his own way," said Capt. Trent A. Gibson, commanding officer for Company K. "We must continue to do our duty, take care of our Marines, lead by example and take the fight to the enemy." " Dunham dreamed of joining the Los Angeles Police Department after his tour. He was born Nov. 10, 1981 and joined the Marine Corps July 31, 2000. The Marine completed recruit training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina. He joined 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment in September 2003, serving with 4th Platoon as a machine gunner.
"What Corporal Dunham did equates to what a lot of heroes of our past have done to earn the nation's highest honor," explained Sgt. Maj. Wayne R. Bell, 1st Marine Division's Sergeant Major. "If it were up to me, he'd be put in for the Medal of Honor. From bits and pieces of what I'm hearing, it very well could be. "He'll be in the history books, like many of our Marines here," Bell added.
Dunham survived his wounds for ten days when his parents, Daniel K. Dunham and Natalie J. Sherwood made the decision to end life support for the Marine. According to Bell, Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Michael W. Hagee and Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, Sgt. Maj. John L. Estrada were at Dunham's bedside with his parents at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland when he died.
"That in itself speaks volumes knowing that no matter who it is - General Officer or a corporal - his act alone warrants a visit from the Commandant,"Bell said. "I know that the Marines who are alive today, because of what Corporal Dunham did, will never forget that Marine as long as they live.
"Corporal Dunham is everybody's hero," Bell added. "He sacrificed his life so his Marines could continue the mission."
"God made something special."
[ 03-05-2005, 02:47 PM: Message edited by: LeeG ]
Chris Coose
03-05-2005, 01:36 PM
Let's not overlook that 5 American soldiers were killed on Friday.
I remember when it was 1 a day and that got people kind of worked up.
This occupation is a nasty joke run by a madman.
George.
03-05-2005, 01:48 PM
As for the theory advanced by some here, with no basis on any information, that the Italians were killed and injured as the car swept off the road after being shot in the engine block...
Nicola Calipari was killed when he tried to shield the 56-year-old former hostage from gunfire as they approached a military checkpoint near the airport in Baghdad.
Calipari, who had worked to release other Italian hostages, died when he threw himself over Sgrena to protect her.
No, it's an experiment. It may succeed. It may not. It is definately a learning experience. What it isn't is a decision that used all of the best minds in gov't. It used the ones who are clear of their purpose and in power.
More absolute nonsense for Donn.
absolute nonsense from VOA (http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-03-05-voa19.cfm)
The journalist's partner, Pierre Scolari, who traveled to Baghdad to escort her back to Italy, says both U.S. and Italian forces were aware that she had been released from captivity and that her car would be passing through checkpoints.
Mr. Scolari said they were 700 meters from the airport and had already passed some U.S.-manned checkpoints.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
This link is from another perspective,,the reference to private security forces isn't mentioned much in the news but I've read in a few places that they are another face of the occupation the Iraqis experience.
unsafe at any speed (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7816132)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Here's a month old opinion piece about Airport Road.
airport road (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006214)
So why not reopen the road? Senior U.S. officials claim that by keeping Americans off the highway, they have removed a valuable "target set" for the insurgents. This may make tactical sense. As strategy, it makes none. By this logic, removing the Green Zone would amount to a U.S. victory. Banning U.S. officials from the road has merely encouraged the enemy to conclude that it enjoys more room to maneuver than American rhetoric would suggest--as indeed it does. No wonder, then, that Washington's management of the road has become the butt of jokes in Iraq. "How is it that you control Iraq," asks an Iraqi minister, "when you do not control this little road to the airport?" Good question.
[ 03-05-2005, 07:38 PM: Message edited by: LeeG ]
I told you what happened, Lee. Why are you wasting time looking for another reason? Do you seriously think that she/they were targeted for who they were?
Donn, I told YOU what I THOUGHT happened and you said "absolute nonsense". I do not think she was targeted nor did I imply that.
You need glasses: "It's not a major f-up. It's an example of how hard it is to identify combatant from non-combatant. Before you guys get on your partisan bandwagons,,you too Donn,,why not acknowledge the reality over there?"
[ 03-05-2005, 07:40 PM: Message edited by: LeeG ]
a portion from that left wing rag US New and World Report last month:
The highway connecting the Baghdad airport with the Green Zone--what the military calls Route Irish--has come to be known by many westerners in Iraq as "the road of death" and "the most dangerous road in the world." Late last year, insurgent attacks prompted the State Department and the British government to bar staffers from using the road, requiring helicopter transport between the airport and the Green Zone. Private security consultants recommend travel only in armored cars. As a result, the airport road became a symbol of the military's inability to provide security in Iraq.
New reality. Today, though, the major threat on the road may no longer be snipers, insurgents with grenade launchers, or suicide bombers. What drivers most need to fear: trigger-happy security contractors. "The most dangerous thing on Route Irish is its legend," says Lt. Col. Geoffrey Slack, whose 1-69 Infantry from the New York National Guard patrols the road. "As a result of its legend, civilian contractors fire indiscriminately."
To fight the perception--and the reality--of danger, the military has assigned a battalion to patrol the roughly 7 miles of airport road. Multiple humvees cruise back and forth round-the-clock. It has had an effect. There were 25 rocket-propelled-grenade attacks on military vehicles in October and November, which wounded two people. In December and January, there were just five--none hit their targets. According to military records, no one has been wounded by a roadside bomb on the highway since October, despite the fact that improvised explosive devices continue to plague the rest of the city. Although reports of small-arms fire remain high, the military says the accounts are unreliable. Security details hear gunfire from an American test-firing range and often take it for an attack. This month, two convoys of security contractors reported exchanging fire with insurgents; it turned out they were firing at each other. Car bombs have been the most deadly form of attack on the highway. From September through November, there were 18 suicide car bombs that killed 11 and wounded 59, according to the military. In December and January, four car bombs killed one and wounded 16.
What you THOUGHT happened is colored by your dislike for the war. I told you what things are REALLY like in a war zone, with an active terrorist insurgency.
If they had waited, after they 'secured her release,' and arranged with the powers that be, for transit to the airport, this wouldn't have happened.
They didn't wait. They decided to make the run instead. When you do that, you are responsible for the outcome.
Why is this so difficult for you to understand? It doesn't matter if you agree with the war or not...it's a fact. Everyone with access to news knows that this is one of the most dangerous stretches of road in the world. If you decide to try it, on your own, you have to be prepared to deal with the difficulties involved in doing so.
If I had 'secured her release,' I would have taken her directly to a US installation, and had my PM demand safe transport for her, either to the airport or to Italy. She was newsworthy enough that we would have ensured that passage, even though she had no business being there, or allegedly being captured, in the first place.
You are one thick headed individual. You attribute what is most likely an accidental shooting as the fault of the Italians because they didn't do what you suggest. That is called 20/20 hindsight,,and in this case on inadequate information. There's a difference between describing/reporting what happened, drawing inferences from that reporting, and saying what should have happened. You have skipped straight to the should haves. I didn't even get there.
1. do you know why they didn't have the armored SuperShuttle take them to the airport?
2. do you know the relationship of the Italian intelligence agents or the journalist with the people you ASSUME would secure her release?
no,,you were thinking what they did wrong. You are so defensive about anything the gov't or military does that your thinking is similarly biased.
For example if I post this link with an article about a school that's near airport road will you take it as proof of my bias against GWs competance or simply another perspective about people who use the road and don't get escorts to use it? I should clarify my statement as you are so damned literal to think this really is an anti-donn link or a anti-gw statement,,the link is another story about the road.
another anti-Donn story (http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/features/?id=12145)
Iraq's children are paying a heavy price in the insurgency that has gripped the country since the ouster last year of Saddam Hussein. Thirty-seven children were among 42 people killed in this area in September by a car bomb.
Security guards now check every person and inspect every vehicle before they enter the school compound.
"We're near the airport road where there are a lot of car bomb attacks. Most of our pupils have to take this road to get to school," said deputy head Azhar Akmush as she thanked God that none of her pupils had so far been killed.
Kidnappings are also a constant worry.
"One of our pupils, a 12-year-old, was held hostage for three days and was only released when his family paid a ransom of 20,000 dollars," she said.
"Many parents have decided not to send their children to school any more because they're afraid of kidnappings
[ 03-05-2005, 08:41 PM: Message edited by: LeeG ]
Kiss off, Lee. You can only discuss this issue from a position of supposition. You can't see it for what it is. I'm not gonna play that game.
damn, you're afraid to lose your position if there's not opposition. Sick puppy.
I don't blame the soldiers. I think they do very well. I don't blame the Italians. I say that accidents can happen and give some examples of how they've happened. The supposition is based in a very rich history of recent reporting. You say it's the italians and it wouldn't have happened if it happened your way.
If I coulda, woulda is the thrust of your position. I'm saying what happened is what's been happening. People get shot, the environment for warning shots is the same one with killing shots.
You need opposition. I pushed back. Time to take your ball elsewhere.
PeterSibley
03-06-2005, 02:08 AM
UPDATE
Our national broadcaster ,ABC, just ran a story quoting the Italian journalist in question.She said the car was not speeding , they were nowhere near a checkpoint and there was no warning.
George.
03-06-2005, 04:42 AM
Originally posted by Donn:
I told you what things are REALLY like in a war zone, with an active terrorist insurgency.
Tell us again when you were in a REAL war zone with an active terrorist insurgency, oh omniscient one...
Originally posted by Donn:
They didn't wait. They decided to make the run instead. When you do that, you are responsible for the outcome.
... she had no business being there, or allegedly being captured, in the first place.Of course. It is the victims' fault for being there. It's the driver's fault for "making the run." It is the Italian government's fault for not begging for US help on a simple airport transfer.
Siege mentalist is setting in. The neocons are becoming more and more rabid and incoherent in their attempts to shield this administration from ever taking ANY responsibility for ANYTHING.
Originally posted by George.:
Tell us again when you were in a REAL war zone with an active terrorist insurgency1969. You?
Now George, Donn aint no neocon, he's an apologist for the status quo. If a reporter provides unwanted news, it's left wing bias, if the administration makes a shift in rhetoric its adjusting to a new reality, if anyone critical analyzes the administrations past actions that's hindsight. When Donn plays monday morning quarterback it's ok,,he knows what it's like,,besides journalists are bad people anyway, they ask our leaders uncomfortable questions.
The accidental shooting is news,,the accidental shootings of iraqis isn't. Various articles have made an ineresting observation that more Iraqis have been killed from collateral damage in attacks against insurgents than have been killed by insurgents. That's some of the odd blowback that comes from insisting the invasion/occupation is a War Against Terror. From the beginning the rhetoric coming out of the WhiteHouse and Rumsfeld tried to associate the insurgency with Al Qaeda, Zarqawi,jihadists,,etc. and not as Iraqis. If they're Iraqis then it doesn't quite sound like a War On Terrorism. It sounds like "taking over the running of a country with a power vacuum, inadequate force, and no planning"....and that's just not an acceptable perception. So,,darn those journalists for making us care. And darn those italians for telling GW about bogus intel,,and dying for their journalist. oh darn.
tsk, tsk,,you shouldn't come back into the game. Shall we go over the military histories of the leaders who ok'd Rumsfelds plan? Hey,,maybe Gingrichs support of Chalabi was based on his years in Vietnam,,or maybe Chalabis stunning attempt at a coup in '95,,that brought Saddams retribution on some Kurds would be a good example. That's when the CIA dumped Chalabi and Gingrich et al really got warm and runny for him.
How about Wurmsers vision for replacing leaders willy nilly through the middle east, it worked in Iran why not do it again? How about GWs war experience,,Richard Perles?, Steven Hadleys, C.Rice,,Doug Feith (now he's a winnner). In all those neo-cons where's the one with combat experience like you had,,and knew something about Iraq?,,not Israel like Wurmser/Perle/Feith,,but Iraq?
Too much to ask,,it must be bad intel.
Jim H
03-06-2005, 07:46 AM
Originally posted by George.:
[QUOTE]
[qb]Are we to believe that the victims were sitting in the engine block, or that the bullets went right through the engine?
Are you an idiot or just slow? If they were trying to kill them they would be dead. Obviously the Italians failed to coordinate their plan with our forces.
tsk,tsk,, you guys are arguing at cross purposes. This stuff is news like saving Jessica Lynch is news. It digestible for consumers of news. For the people who live over there and the soldiers attempting to secure roads that have suicide car bombs there will be unintended deaths. Shooting an engine with a machine gun or .50 might allow the occupants to live,,but the intention is STOPPING THE CAR,,not saving the occupants. You really can't expect a big round to not cause some damage into the compartment given the glancing angles possible after going into the grill.
JimD, aren't you a bit over the top calling George an idiot when this was already posted in the thread. You don't have enough info to blame the italians. Stuff happens,,this was stuff.You guys are so defensive you can't even read the news straight.
"The journalist's partner, Pierre Scolari, who traveled to Baghdad to escort her back to Italy, says both U.S. and Italian forces were aware that she had been released from captivity and that her car would be passing through checkpoints."
[ 03-06-2005, 09:16 AM: Message edited by: LeeG ]
Originally posted by LeeG:
Shooting an engine with a machine gun or .50 might allow the occupants to live,,but the intention is STOPPING THE CAR,,not saving the occupants. You really can't expect a big round to not cause some damage into the compartment given the glancing angles possible after going into the grill.Gonna give us a lecture on ballistics, now?
:rolleyes:
Since you're so inclined to blame the rain for your not wearing a rain coat I'll be glad to explain a few obvious things,,,like it's not a sure thing everyone makes it across the road safely while crossing a red light.
In Generation Kill there are a few moments when the guys in the Bradleys were looking at fighters hiding behind palm trees and planterboxes. Turns out that doesn't stop .50 rounds and the flying shards of tree trunks from 25mm would send secondary projectiles. There were plenty of stories of civilian cars getting hit in the grill by everything from 7.62 to .50 to 25mm. Sometimes the occupants survived, most of time someone was hit.
You said you weren't going to play on this thread.
[ 03-06-2005, 09:27 AM: Message edited by: LeeG ]
Time for a PBS break. I'll make tea. Talk amongst yourselves.
Tea time with James Fallows (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/invasion/interviews/fallows.html)
More Donn bait. The thing that I've got from reading various stories is that it's often not clear what is a safe distance to be from a convoy or what is safe for the soldiers on the road. It just aint clear all the time. That the italians made it through other checkpoints, they say it wasn't clear this was a checkpoint and it was night would make this a likely case of mistaken identity. In Thunder Run there are a few incidents where a Bradley or US vehicle was sighting with night vision on vehicles 1500yds away,,and taking them out. Given the proximity to the airport and the hightened security on airport road it wouldn't be outside the possibility that someone didn't get the message they were ok.
dangerous roads (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20050305/ts_nm/iraq_shootings_dc)
George.
03-06-2005, 04:39 PM
Originally posted by Donn:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by George.:
Tell us again when you were in a REAL war zone with an active terrorist insurgency1969. You?</font>[/QUOTE]Oh, so those were terrorists? I thought they were godless commies... but maybe the label of the enemy evolves with the times - what doesn't seem to evolve is the system's need of an enemy.
George.
03-06-2005, 04:41 PM
Originally posted by Jim H:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by George.:
Are we to believe that the victims were sitting in the engine block, or that the bullets went right through the engine?
Are you an idiot or just slow? If they were trying to kill them they would be dead. </font>I am slow, especially when beating to windward in light airs.
But they DID kill a man, and he IS dead. According to your logic, that means they WERE trying to kill them.
If not, what does that make you? :rolleyes:
[ 03-06-2005, 05:43 PM: Message edited by: George. ]
Step right up, Ladies and Gentlemen! Watch George. dodge the issue, ignore questions, and generally make a fool of himself.
Isn't it fascinating how people who have no idea what they are talking about, feel compelled to do it anyway?
Magwitch
03-06-2005, 05:42 PM
Might be better if you realised that common opinion has it that US troops will often shoot "just in case",,,,, the car was going to fast/to slow/coming towards us/ in the wrong place/ at the wrong time etc etc so we shot at it.
Outside the US, folks, that's called trigger happy.
Forty years ago I found that US troops were happy to consider anything not obviously American to be a target.
It seems not much has changed. Very sad. How much longer do you expect your friends to wait for you to learn better?
IanW :(
imported_GregW
03-06-2005, 06:26 PM
I think to put this in perspective, one should try to put himself in the place of the soldiers manning the check point.
Manning a check point may sound easy, but it isn't. Why? Because sometimes inaction is more deadly than action, basically you're “dammed if you do, dammed if don't”.
So there you are at your check point going about your business, vehicles coming and going all the time, you do what you do, and the vehicles behave in more or less a predictable manner. All of a sudden you see a vehicle that isn't acting like all the others! What do you do?
Rule #1 Don't get yourself killed
Rule #2 The whole point of a check point is to control access, one doesn't control access by letting vehicles come and go as they please
Rule #3 You then have to stop the vehicle, and not only that you have to be sure whatever you do does indeed stop the vehicle, no time for half measures, remember rule number 2.
Remember all this may happen in a split second, not much time to sit around and debate or think about consequences. “Better be buried under six feet of paper than buried under six feet of dirt.”
Then all hell brakes loose, nothing ever goes according to plan.
The next thing you know there's a message on the radio telling you to expect a certain car ( that suspiciously looks just like the one you just shot the hell out of) to come screaming down the road and to let it through. “Holy F%$#%!!”
High C
03-06-2005, 06:49 PM
Originally posted by Magwitch:
Might be better if you realised that common opinion has it that US troops will often shoot "just in case"That's the problem with common opinion. It's just so......well......common...............
Steve Paskey
03-06-2005, 06:56 PM
Wait just a minute. Who says the car wasn't doing what it was supposed to do?
There were at least two witnesses who aren't getting a paycheck from Uncle Sam. Both of them say that the car was traveling at a normal speed, and that the US soldiers opened fire without a warning of any kind.
Yes, one of them is the journalist. Some of you think she's nothing but a communist and a terrorist sympathizer. So far as I know that's just jingoistic BS.
HOWEVER, the other witness is an Italian secret service agent. I can't think of any possible motive for him to lie. If anything, he's likely under pressure to make the Yanks look good.
Until I see some objective or disinterested evidence to the contrary, I believe the two Italians.
[ 03-06-2005, 08:02 PM: Message edited by: Steve Paskey ]
alteran
03-06-2005, 07:16 PM
Originally posted by Steve Paskey:
Yes, one of them is the journalist. Some of you think she's nothing but a communist and a terrorist sympathizer. From the AP,
..........."Sgrena, who works for the communist daily Il Manifesto"...........
Steve McMahon
03-06-2005, 07:34 PM
Originally posted by Donn:
Step right up, Ladies and Gentlemen! Watch George. dodge the issue, ignore questions, and generally make a fool of himself.
Isn't it fascinating how people who have no idea what they are talking about, feel compelled to do it anyway?Uh uh... now where's that cute pot / kettle picture that's been floating around the bilge... ;) LOL Mr Google you crack me up. :D
BrianW
03-06-2005, 07:53 PM
I feel bad for the Italian killed. Sounds like he was a man of honor.
I think Greg W's scenario above may be the most likely desciption of what happened.
I believe the Italians paid a ransom, and may have opened up another can of worms.
I don't care much for the journalist herself.
Leon m
03-06-2005, 09:14 PM
Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say, but you can learn
How to play the game -
It's easy.
Nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do, but you can learn
How to be you in time -
It's easy.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love. Love is all you need.
Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love. Love is all you need.
There's nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
There's nowhere you can be that isn't where
You're meant to be -
It's easy.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love. Love is all you need.
All you need is love. (All together now).
All you need is love. (Everybody).
All you need is love, love. Love is all you need.
Love is all you need.
Love is all you need...
(Yesterday)
(Oh yeah)
(She love you, yeah, yeah, yeah)
(She love you, yeah, yeah, yeah)
(Oh, yesterday)
skuthorp
03-07-2005, 01:41 AM
Quoting Jack H.
"Tragic. War. To our credit, we are examining, trying to do better. It can't be easy for young men, no matter how well trained, to not be a bit trigger happy at times."
Hard to criticise the soldiers involved, terifying situation for them and little time to make a decision. I dont support the war, but I support all our young people on the firing line. Safe home
George.
03-07-2005, 04:56 AM
Originally posted by Donn:
Isn't it fascinating how people who have no idea what they are talking about, feel compelled to do it anyway?Oh, I get it! Iraq is Vietnam, Act II! That's why you are such an infallible expert on Iraq! :rolleyes:
Unfortunately, that seems to be true for many supporters of this whole F'd up war. It was visible in the build-up to it and in the first giddy days of "quick victory." The US and its armed forces were redeeming themselves from the Vietnam debacle by getting it right in Iraq.
It was supposedly the same kind of conflict - evil communists/terrorists, fight them there so we don't have to fight them here, bring freedom and democracy to an oppressed 3rd-world country. Only this time the US armed forces would get to do it right, and not be interfered with or limited by politicians, and win a glorious victory. All the armchair warriors and frustrated veterans were cheering...
And then...
It turned into exactly the same kind of f-up as Vietnam. The politicians interfered and limited the armed forces. The "bad guys" turned out to be largely the same as the population of the country to be saved. Towns had to be destroyed in order to be saved. And the American troops, far from coming out as glorious victors, began to look like trigger-happy civilian killers.
For those who wanted a revanche, frustration compounded. And frantic theorizing to demonstrate why, in fact, the US is winning, doing no wrong, those who say otherwise are "traitors" and "hate America," and anyone being killed is a communist... oops, terrorist. :rolleyes:
Nothing in your rant has any bearing, at all, on the topic of this discussion. You're starting to sound like LeeG.
"How are you, George?"
The war is wrong.
"How's your boat?"
The war is wrong.
"What's happening in your home country?"
The war is wrong.
You're still dodging the issue, and avoiding questions.
[ 03-07-2005, 06:07 AM: Message edited by: Donn ]
George.
03-07-2005, 05:20 AM
You are beginning to sound like Sam...
You want answers? Ask the questions. You really want to know about my boat and my country? Had a great sail yesterday, SW force 4, sunny day. The country is both fine and messy, as always. Fortunately, the only place we have troops on foreign soil is in Haiti, on a peace-keeping mission.
Any more questions?
Originally posted by George.:
Any more questions?Just the one I asked above. When were you in a war zone with an active terrorist insurgency?
Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )
03-07-2005, 05:40 AM
:rolleyes: Uh Oh Donn is pulling out the old I was there so I know 40 years ago card, geesus give it a rest already :rolleyes:
War is hell, sh!t happens EVERYDAY this one just happened to get some press. There is a bigger issue than this singular incident. Why did we go into this war and where are the WMD and where is OSSAMA ??????
George.
03-07-2005, 05:51 AM
Originally posted by Donn:
When were you in a war zone with an active terrorist insurgency?Actually, a couple of times. In Colombia in 1989. In Mozambique in 1991. Both times I had the pleasure of being stopped by insurgents at checkpoints, in areas of the country that were considered "no-go" by the government. In Colombia, in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, on my way to a research station, I actually spent a couple of nights at houses along the trail that were FARC hideouts and weapons caches. The FARC were tamer back then, they had an "understanding" with the research station...
But I was just travelling throgh, not trying to fight them. And they weren't "terrorists." And neither were the Vietnamese.
Your turn: how does having been a grunt on a burnt mission to SE Asia, 35 years ago, qualify you to pontificate on the current occupation of Iraq?
It qualifies me to talk about the subject of this thread, which is not the occupation of Iraq. It qualifies me to describe, accurately, how things like checkpoints work, which is what I did.
"Grunt on a burnt mission?" "Vietnamese weren't terrorists." You're a true jerk, George.
Originally posted by Donn:
It qualifies me to talk about the subject of this thread, which is not the occupation of Iraq. It qualifies me to describe, accurately, how things like checkpoints work, which is what I did.
"Grunt on a burnt mission?" "Vietnamese weren't terrorists." You're a true jerk, George.Edited to add..."Grunt" is not an insult to a Marine. Try again.
Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )
03-07-2005, 06:08 AM
What exactly is an insult to a marine ? ;)
more for Donns education about Iraqi checkpoints
all you need is love (http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0307/p01s04-woiq.html)
On second thought, what I had posted here was maybe a bit too pointed and could be construed as an insult and not the playful tease it was intended to be. Some have thin skins and I shouldn't be an irritant. Look away. Nothing to see here. Never mind... :D
[ 03-07-2005, 08:44 AM: Message edited by: mmd ]
Art Read
03-07-2005, 06:42 AM
Appalling. Just appalling. Go to your rooms, all of you, until you can behave in a civilised manner.
Originally posted by Donn:
It qualifies me to talk about the subject of this thread, which is not the occupation of Iraq. It qualifies me to describe, accurately, how things like checkpoints work, which is what I did.
"Grunt on a burnt mission?" "Vietnamese weren't terrorists." You're a true jerk, George.We are witnessing the conversion of a no-nonsense guy bending to the apologist paradigm.
1. define the limits of the argument/reality. Although most would think the thread was about the Italian journalist surviving the airport road through an accidental shooting in Iraq it's really about checkpoints,,with references to Checkpoints in Vietnam 36yrs ago. It's not about Iraq or Iraqi checkpoints.
Then again the Vietnam war wasn't about the Vietnamese either.
Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )
03-07-2005, 06:47 AM
Originally posted by Art Read:
Appalling. Just appalling. Go to your rooms, all of you, until you can behave in a civilised manner.Hey Art off subject but there is a NEW guy, Glenn up in B&R that could use your advice on Dark Harbor 12 1/2 vs Haven 12 1/2
http://www.woodenboat-ubb.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=011119
jwaldin
03-07-2005, 07:44 AM
Well let's see------add the 'Italian military' to any situation that has Anything to do with 'military' and you have an obsolute joke/farse/tragedy in the making.
As we all know the smallest book in the world is the book of Italian war heros.
One question------How many people, given a choice, would choose the Italian secret service over any secret service on earth to be responsible for their safety. Right!
jwaldin, while you are taking pleasure ridiculing the death of the Italian agent could you explain GW/Rice/Hadley allowing the forged document from Niger to become actionable intelligence when the Italian Intelligence Agency said it was bunk, Joe Wilson said it was bunk,the CIA said it as bunk, and the IAEA said it was bunk.
Given a choice,,if GW said Iran is an imminent threat and the draft had to be reinstated so the US can be prepared for the next War On Terror would you feel confident he got the intelligence right this time?
George.
03-07-2005, 12:10 PM
Originally posted by Donn:
"Grunt" is not an insult to a Marine. Try again.It wasn't meant to be.
George.
03-07-2005, 12:22 PM
Excerpts from Lee's link. What the hell is the point of these checkpoints anyway? Are they serving some valid purpose, or are they just a way for the US to look like it is in control of the country?
As an American journalist here, I have been through many checkpoints and have come close to being shot at several times myself... Here's what it's like.
You're driving along and you see a couple of soldiers standing by the side of the road - but that's a pretty ubiquitous sight in Baghdad, so you don't think anything of it. Next thing you know, soldiers are screaming at you, pointing their rifles and swiveling tank guns in your direction, and you didn't even know it was a checkpoint.
In situations like this, I've often had Iraqi drivers who step on the gas. It's a natural reaction: Angry soldiers are screaming at you in a language you don't understand, and you think they're saying "get out of here," and you're terrified to boot, so you try to drive your way out.
Another problem is that the US troops tend to have two-stage checkpoints. First there's a knot of Iraqi security forces standing by a sign that says, in Arabic and English, "Stop or you will be shot." Most of the time, the Iraqis will casually wave you through.
Your driver, who slowed down for the checkpoint, will accelerate to resume his normal speed. What he doesn't realize is that there's another, American checkpoint several hundred yards past the Iraqi checkpoint, and he's speeding toward it...
Fear of insurgents and kidnappers are another reason for accelerating ... This fear comes into play at checkpoints because US troops are often accompanied by a cordon of Iraqi security forces - and a lot of the assassinations and kidnappings have been carried out by Iraqi security forces or people dressed in their uniforms. Often the Iraqi security forces are the first troops visible at checkpoints. If they are angry-looking and you hear shots being fired, it becomes easier to misread the situation and put the pedal to the metal...
I always wished that the American commanders who set up these checkpoints could drive through themselves, in a civilian car, so they could see what the experience was like for civilians.
George, there has to be checkpoints to control who uses the roads. You don't want anyone driving onto a runway, a military installation,,or a governement facility who doesn't belong there. In the case of airport road it starts off having a steady supply of targets. There has to be a means to ensure the road isn't re-mined with IEDs or car bombs allowed to enter facilities.
There are checkpoints all through some cities. In Sadr City there are probably checkpoints set up by militias, checkpoints set up by Iraqi police, in rich neighborhoods there are probably checkpoints set up by private contract. In Los Angeles there are probably checkpoints set up by gangs.
In peaceful cities traffic lights work to control traffic. In war zones checkpoints are the next level of controlling traffic since traffic lights don't apply to bombs and guns.
George.
03-07-2005, 02:46 PM
Lee, checkpoints are a hallmark of f'd-up 3rd world countries. I have been through a few. ;)
Control? That is a joke. The US cannot even control the road between the Green Zone and the airport. And I assure you that any insurgent or terrorist needing to get past a checkpoint knows of several good ways - it's their country and their town...
The checkpoints just seem to provide targets for suicide car bombs - which make the troops so understandably edgy that they lead to civilian casualties. Just what the insurgents want.
James R
03-07-2005, 03:10 PM
Originally posted by Steve Paskey:
There were at least two witnesses who aren't getting a paycheck from Uncle Sam. Both of them say that the car was traveling at a normal speed, and that the US soldiers opened fire without a warning of any kind.CNN translated and reprinted an article written by Giuliana Sgrena (http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/03/06/il.manifesto/). She states: "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."
So, earlier she said that the car wasn't going fast but now she says they were going fast enough that the driver almost lost control of the car trying to avoid puddles on the road. In fact they were going fast enough that she was afraid that if they were in an accident she would not survive. Her words. Pick the ones that you want to believe.
[ 03-07-2005, 04:11 PM: Message edited by: James R ]
George.
03-07-2005, 03:19 PM
James, those would not be the sort of puddles you get in Toronto. Have you ever seen a seriously potholed 3rd world road? Now imagine it with NO MAINTENANCE since the US invasion, and maybe with a few water-filled craters (i.e., "puddles") from shells and IEDs... 30mph might be too fast to swerve around them, and 25mph might get you shot by snipers.
alteran
03-07-2005, 03:25 PM
Originally posted by George.:
Now imagine it with NO MAINTENANCE since the US invasion.How would you know this George? Do you thing our engineers might have to maintain roads a little so our forces can get around?
James R
03-07-2005, 03:26 PM
You've obviously never driven in Toronto after a cold winter.
George, so Iraqi is a f-up third world country under occupation, little security and a lot of different armed groups staking out territory.
PeterSibley
03-07-2005, 06:27 PM
Yes ...that sounds about right. :(
imported_GregW
03-07-2005, 07:29 PM
The only thing that we know for sure was that the car was fired upon, everything else is speculation.
I doubt that the soldiers maning the check point decided to open fire just for the hell of it, something must of have caused them to open fire.
It's going to be interesting to see just what did cause the soldiers to open fire, maybe is was something trivial, maybe one of the soldiers noticed an exposed weapon in the passing car,etc, can't wait to find out.
Steve Paskey
03-09-2005, 07:41 PM
But how are we going to find out?
We can't count on Pentagon investigators or the US soldiers involved to tell the truth. Given their track record, I wouldn't ask the Pentagon for the time of day without getting independent verification of their answer.
Think I'm too cynical? A few years back, a Marine pilot flying recklessly in the Italian Alps clipped the cable of a gondola 370 feet about the ground, killing 20 people. Our military's "official" conclusion? A regrettable accident. The Italians haven't forgotten that one, nor should they.
Lucky Luke
03-09-2005, 10:12 PM
Originally posted by LeeG:
[QUOTE] Then again the Vietnam war wasn't about the Vietnamese either.No, they just were in the way: "collateral damage" only. Like this Italian man, like the tens of thousand "liberated" (from being alive?) in Irak. Thousands are still "collaterally damaged" by agent orange to day....
What an hypocrisy all over!
carioca1232001
03-10-2005, 03:17 AM
The interesting development on this incident is that according to last night´s RAI (Italian) TV newsbroadcast, Silvio Berlusconi is very unhappy not only about what happened, but especially the explanation afforded by the US authorities.
He plans to leave no stone unturned until the truth is let out.
here's a cranky Iraqis thoughts:
I don’t understand why Americans are so shocked with this incident. Where is the shock? That Sgrena’s car was under fire? That Americans killed an Italian security agent? After everything that occurred in Iraq- Abu Ghraib, beatings, torture, people detained for months and months, the stealing, the rape… is this latest so very shocking? Or is it shocking because the victims weren’t Iraqi?
I’m really glad she’s home safe but at the same time, the whole situation is somewhat painful. It hurts because thousands of Iraqis have died at American checkpoints or face to face with a tank or Apache and beyond the occasional subtitle on some obscure news channel, no one knows about it and no one cares. It just hurts a little bit.
The event of the week occurred last Wednesday and I was surprised it wasn’t covered by Western press. It’s not that big a deal, but it enraged people in Baghdad and it can also give a better picture of what has been going on with our *heroic* National Guard. There was an explosion on Wednesday in Baghdad and the wounded were all taken to Yarmuk Hospital, one of the larger hospitals in Baghdad. The number of wounded were around 30- most of them National Guard. In the hospital, it was chaos- patients wounded in this latest explosion, patients from other explosions and various patients from gunshot wounds, etc. The doctors were running around everywhere, trying to be in four different places at once.
Apparently, there weren’t enough beds. Many of the wounded were in the hallways and outside of the rooms. The stories vary. One doctor told me that some of the National Guard began screaming at the doctors, telling them to ignore the civilians and tend to the wounds of the Guard. A nurse said that the National Guard who weren’t wounded began pulling civilians out of the beds and replacing them with wounded National Guard. The gist of it is generally the same; the doctors refused the idea of not treating civilians and preferring the National Guard over them and suddenly a fight broke out. The doctors threatened a strike if the National Guard began pulling the civilians out of beds.
The National Guard decided the solution to the crisis would be the following- they’d gather up some of the doctors and nurses and beat them in front of the patients. So several doctors were rounded up and attacked by several National Guard (someone said there was liberal use of electric batons and the butts of some Klashnikovs).
The doctors decided to go on strike.
It’s difficult to consider National Guardsmen as heroes with the image of them beating doctors in white gowns in ones head. It’s difficult to see them as anything other than expendable Iraqis with their main mission being securing areas and cities for Americans.
It seems that Da’awa Party’s Jaffari is going to be the Prime Minister and Talbani is going to get the decorative position of president. It has been looking like this since the elections. There is talk of giving our token Sunni Ghazi Al Yawir some high-profile position like National Assembly spokesperson. The gesture is meant to appease the Sunni masses but it isn’t going to do that because it’s not about Sunnis and Shia. It’s about occupation and Vichy governments. They all look the same to us.
What it seems policy makers in America don’t get, and what I suspect many Americans themselves *do* get, is that millions of Iraqis feel completely detached from the current people in power. If you don’t have an alliance with one of the political parties (ie under their protection or on their payroll) then it’s difficult to feel any affinity with people like Jaffari, Allawi, Talbani, etc. We watch them on television, tight-lipped and shifty-eyed after a meeting where they quarreled about Kirkuk or Sharia in the constitution and it feels like what I imagine an out-of-body experience should feel like.
In spite of elections, they still feel like puppets. But now, they are high-tech puppets. They were upgraded from your ordinary string puppets to those life-like, battery-powered, talking puppets. It’s almost like we’re doing that whole rotating president thing Bremer did in 2003 all over again. The same faces are getting tedious. The old Iraqi saying sums it up nicely, “Tireed erneb- ukhuth erneb. Tireed ghazal- ukhuth erneb.” The translation for this is, “You want a rabbit? Take a rabbit. You want a deer? Take a rabbit.”
Except we didn’t get any rabbits- we just got an assortment of snakes, weasels and hyenas
Con LanAdo
03-10-2005, 05:51 AM
given the choice of doin hard time for a preceived wrong or being blown to hell in a hand basket i wouldn't even have wasted a round on the engine block & have taken out the intire cab.
stopping the engine is a good place to start, there's no gurantee an injured driver won't press their foot to the gas regardless of their threat. You do point out the obvious. The risk to the soldiers is great, with many unknowns. It's better to go with the known.
The risk to the civilians is great. But they really don't make the news because our news isn't Iraqi news.
George.
03-11-2005, 05:09 AM
Originally posted by TonyH:
Sounds like neither the Italians (nor just about anyone else) may have known it was there.As Karen would say,
Maybe they should have told somebody.
And as she and others in her thread so eloquently argued, the fact that they didn't communicate to their allies and liason officer that they were setting up this extra checkpoint, ot to the checkpoint that a US-approved rescue mission would come through, is proof of incompetence.
It still doesn't make sense,,British and American staff to the Green zone have been getting transported to and from the airport by helicopter..if this was an extra special security detail for Negroponte to prevent entry into the airport even though Negroponte isn't likely to be using that road it is an indicator of the lack of security. From the description of the road where it takes a right hand turn,,requiring decelleration,,then barriers to negotiate before being illuminated with a bright light then shot it appears to be a place where the driver would have a limited response time to understand the scene that had a new checkpoint. If you've ever driven through a construction zone at night where high intensity lights are at use it can be confusing. Now imagine a searchlight turned on right in your vision,,and being expected to discern information in the shadows.
Karen, are you willing to consider it was an accident?
"
U.S. embassy spokesman Bob Callahan said Ambassador John Negroponte was traveling on the airport road to meet General George Casey, commander of multinational forces in Iraq, at a U.S. base next to Baghdad airport.
"The mobile checkpoint was set up for the security of the ambassador who was on his way to dinner at Camp Victory with General Casey," Callahan said. "This was a mobile checkpoint that was set up on a temporary basis."
U.S. soldiers killed intelligence agent Nicola Calipari on the road to Baghdad airport on Friday night as he threw his body over freed Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena to protect her from a hail of bullets. She was wounded.
Callahan said Negroponte usually traveled to the airport by helicopter but a hailstorm forced him to go by motorcade.
"The ambassador traveled past the checkpoint at about 7:30 that night and I believe the shooting took place later," he said."
Norman Bernstein
03-11-2005, 09:34 AM
I've refrained from comment on this story because I am NOT a conspiracy theorist, and have no taste for inventing notions for which there is no real evidence. I have no idea what really happened, so until I see or hear some genuine evidence (other than the subjective, and possibly biased accounts), I can't give any credence to the theory that the car was intentionally fired on.
HOWEVER... if some evidence SHOULD come to light... I could be persuaded. Prior to the expose on Abu Ghraib some months ago, who would have thought that a group of US soldiers (not an individual) would be engaged in egregiously vicious and humiliating torture of prisoners? Sensational stories do, on occasion, end up getting proved... unfortunately.
George.
03-11-2005, 11:36 AM
Well, now that we have a bona fide conservative posting that it was indeed a temporary checkpoint, which obviously wasn't warned that the Italians would be coming through that night...
...I guess we can assume that all those who initially brushed this off as a screw-up by bungling wops, and assured us, with plenty of C&P "evidence" that the Italians were to blame, for neglecting to communicate their plans to the Americans and/or driving like idiots...
...are red-faced redface.gif with shame at this exposure of their biases and prejudice.
We can expect Karen et al. to not comment on this. ;) :D
defending the initial paradigm that we have the power to control other people makes fairly insignificant f--ups like this appear a lot more significant than they really are in the big picture.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Iraq War Compels Pentagon to Rethink Big-Picture Strategy
By Mark Mazzetti
Times Staff Writer
March 11, 2005
WASHINGTON — The war in Iraq is forcing top Pentagon planners to rethink several key assumptions about the use of military power and has called into question the vision set out nearly four years ago that the armed forces can win wars and keep the peace with small numbers of fast-moving, lightly armed troops.
As the Pentagon begins a comprehensive review that will map the future of America's armed forces, many Defense Department officials are acknowledging that an intractable Iraqi insurgency they didn't foresee has undermined the military strategy.
In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon unveiled a new agenda that promised to prepare the military to fight smaller wars against terrorist networks and to swiftly defeat rogue states.
With Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld pushing for a "lighter, more lethal and highly mobile fighting force," the Pentagon scrapped as outdated the requirement that the U.S. military be large enough to simultaneously fight two large-scale wars against massed enemy armies. And it spent little time worrying about how to keep the peace after the shooting stopped.
Something happened on the way to the wars of the future: The Pentagon became bogged down in an old-fashioned, costly and drawn-out war of occupation. Though the rapid assault on Baghdad in March 2003 went smoothly, it is the bloody two years since that have diverged from the Pentagon's blueprint.
"When people were thinking about regime change, they really weren't thinking about the long-term stabilization and peacekeeping operations. There was a view that in terms of gross numbers, [regime change operations] wouldn't last as long as Iraq has," said Rand Corp. fellow Andrew Hoehn, who led the Pentagon's last major review in 2001.
As the Pentagon begins its assessment, it has 145,000 troops stationed in a country they were supposed to have left months ago. And with tensions rising between Washington and the two other countries labeled by President Bush as part of an "axis of evil" — Iran and North Korea — there is a growing belief within the military's ranks that the White House's rhetoric about preemptive war is out of sync with the U.S. military's strained resources.
Some inside the Pentagon criticized senior Bush administration officials for assuming that the war in Iraq would end when U.S. troops toppled Saddam Hussein's regime — and for assuming the U.S. could reduce its troop presence to 30,000 soldiers within six months of Baghdad's fall.
"The administration was flat wrong on Iraq because they had blinders on," said a senior Army official who worked on strategic planning at the Pentagon. "There's now a much greater perception that we need to know what we're signing up for before we get into it."
As a consequence, the importance of peacekeeping operations and help from allied militaries — ideas that some discounted three years ago as remnants of the President Clinton era — are back in vogue at the Pentagon.
Although born out of a blizzard of complex diagrams and flow charts, the Pentagon assessment, known as the Quadrennial Defense Review, or QDR, is not an academic exercise.
First undertaken after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the QDR is the playbook the Pentagon uses to guide decisions such as how big the military should be and which big-ticket weapons the Defense Department ought to purchase.
The Pentagon's decision in 2001 to scrap the two-war doctrine freed war planners from requiring enough heavy armor divisions to simultaneously fight two major wars, and allowed the Pentagon to invest in more futuristic weaponry like a missile defense system.
"We're always going to have a limited budget. So when we're making decisions about where to spend the next dollar, you want everyone clear about which sheet of music we're all singing off of," said Michele Flournoy of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Flournoy was one of the lead Pentagon officials on the 1997 review, which embraced the two-war doctrine.
The new review, which is just beginning, will not be completed until early next year. Last fall, a Pentagon advisory board predicted that the protracted stability operations underway in Iraq and Afghanistan were a model for the U.S. military's future. The Pentagon has focused too little on preparing for what happens after major combat operations end, said the Defense Science Board, which advises Rumsfeld.
"Some have believed, or hoped, that the technological and conceptual advances … can reduce the time and personnel needed for stabilization and reconstruction," the board said. "Unfortunately, we do not find that is the case."
The Defense Science Board report was commissioned to guide the upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review studies, and it is part of a growing body of Pentagon analysis signaling a shift in Defense Department thinking.
Another possible shift has to do with the perception of U.S. allies. With the Army and Marine Corps straining to meet the Pentagon's troop requirements for Iraq and Afghanistan, the participation of allies has taken on greater importance. Foreign troops would be necessary for any large-scale operation the U.S. military might undertake, planners said, if only to share the post-conflict burdens such as those confronting the U.S. military in Iraq.
"There are smarter, more efficient ways to do regime change and occupation," said one senior civilian official at the Pentagon. "One of those ways is to rely much more on our friends and allies to do the back-end work."
In recent weeks, Bush administration officials have taken a far more conciliatory tone with some of America's oldest European allies. Whereas Rumsfeld once slighted NATO's western European members — referring to them as "old Europe" — he poked fun at those comments to win over European ministers during a trip to the continent last month.
"That was old Rumsfeld," he said.
On Thursday, Rumsfeld welcomed French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie to the Pentagon, praising the cooperation between the nations' militaries over the years.
The Iraq war has also shown the weakness in a strategy created by the Pentagon in 2003 to help plan major operations.
The 10-30-30 construct said that the U.S. military should plan military actions to seize the initiative within 10 days of the start of an offensive, achieve limited military objectives within 30 days, and be prepared within another 30 days to shift military resources to another area of the world.
Many Pentagon officials fear that the success Iraqi insurgents have had in preventing a U.S. troop reduction in Iraq could be the new rule, rather than the exception.
As few enemies choose to fight the U.S. military head-on, they might opt instead to fight protracted rear-guard insurgencies.
"I think that the Pentagon realizes by now that 10-30-30 is largely outdated," said Frank Hoffman of the Marine Corps' Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities, a contributor to the Defense Science Board study. "It presumes a model of warfare that we ourselves have made obsolete."
Hoffman said no adversary was likely to present U.S. forces with a conventional threat that can be defeated in 30 days.
"Our enemy's metric is protracting conflicts to 3,000 days or more," he said. "Prolonged insurgency, death by a thousand cuts, is their answer to 'shock and awe
George.
03-11-2005, 03:29 PM
Lee, I disagree. I think Rumsfeld was successful.
What he wanted to prove is that all the US needs to do is topple a regime, take over its assets, and set up a puppet government, because the US public doesn't give a sh!t about turning a country into a mess.
They can be manipulated into thinking the place is better off anyway, and then have their attention redirected elswhere. And when some of the crap actually hits the news, as in the case of the shooting of Calipari, they can be made to believe that the victims are to blame.
That means the US can be ruthless, like ancient Rome, and not worry about the political consequences of spreading chaos and suffering as it strives to dominate.
No surprise, really. We are all human, and all countries are countries. Any country that can get away with domination, will.
I've been in the U.K. for a week. I saw this incident reported on the news over there. I wondered how it would be dealt with in the "bilge". I did not expect to be surprised by the xenophobia and chest beating, but I am. It seems clear that the rest of the world thinks that the U.S. military made a huge and awful mistake. It seems that the experts in the bilge think; it serves them right because (choose your prejudice).
The represented a left wing view
They were Italian
Americans have the right to kill anyone
No one but Americans know anything about war
The head in the sand mentality amazes me, a hero was killed in what, I hope, was a tragic error of judgement and there seems to be no remorse here or in the U.S. government.
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