A Victim Of Circumstances

Accusations continue to fly back and forth over the accidental shooting of a freed Italian journalist and her rescuers. The United States says that the vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed and refused to stop; the Italians insist the car was NOT speeding and no warnings were given.

But most outrageous of all was Giuliana Sgrena's allegation that she was deliberately targeted by the Americans. According to her theory, the US was upset that the Italians had negotiated with the insurgents and wanted to make an example of her.

Oh, puh-leeze!!!!!

That's absurd. First of all, if we had really wanted her dead, she would not be around today to whine about what happened. The soldiers at the checkpoint would simply have finished her off, as well as every one else in the vehicle. Then we would have blamed the attack on insurgents, end of story.

Secondly, does she actually believe that she's so damn important that a foreign conspiracy would be launched against her? Sounds rather conceited, if you ask me.

The unfortunate fact is they were traveling at night in a warzone, and communications sometimes break down. Bad things tend to happen under circumstances like that.

Were the soldiers trigger happy? Probably not. But I'm not inclined to pass judgement on them one way or another. If I were in the middle of a foreign country with 30 million people trying to kill me, I might tend to be a bit overly cautious. And keep in mind that car bombings happen almost daily in Iraq. In fact, almost 130 people were killed in one blast just a day or two before Sgrena's shooting. Under those circumstances anyone would be inclined to be overly cautious.