It really is obvious

[Gonz]

Stop the friggin car!!!! when a young soldier tells you to HALT!!! She's now calling our guys criminals, suggesting we are the same as the mafia & thinks ransoms are a good way to deal with criminals.

Mar 6, 12:14 PM (ET)

ROME (Reuters) - Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena, shot and wounded after being freed in Iraq, said Sunday U.S. forces may have deliberately targeted her because Washington opposed Italy's policy of dealing with kidnappers.

She offered no evidence for the claim that reflected growing anger in Italy over the conduct of the war, which has claimed more than 20 Italian lives, including secret agent Nicola Calipari who rescued her moments before being killed.

The shooting Friday evening has sparked tension with Italy's U.S. allies and put pressure on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to take a hard line with President Bush.

Speaking from the Rome hospital where she is being treated, Sgrena said the troops may have targeted her because Washington opposes Italy's reported readiness to pay ransoms to kidnappers.

"The United States doesn't approve of this (ransom) policy and so they try to stop it in any way possible," the veteran war reporter, 57, told Sky Italia TV.

In later comments to Reuters, Sgrena was less strident:

"You could characterise as an ambush what happens when you are showered with gunfire. If this happened because of a lack of information or deliberately, I don't know, but even if it was due to a lack of information it is unacceptable."

Source

 

[HomeLAN]

She works for a communist daily publication. Could it be that she has a hidden anti-US agenda?

Naaaaahhhh....

 

[Gonz]

That explains so much

 

[Winky]

 

[A.B.Normal]

Well it wouldn't be the first time

In a 2003 friendly-fire incident involving Italians, American soldiers in northern Iraq shot at a car carrying the Italian official heading up U.S. efforts to recover Iraq's looted antiquities. Pietro Cordone (search), the top Italian diplomat in Iraq, was unhurt, but his Iraqi translator was killed.

Cordone, also the senior adviser for cultural affairs of the U.S. provisional authority, was traveling on the road between Mosul and Tikrit when his car was fired on at a U.S. roadblock, according to an Italian Foreign Ministry official.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,149470,00.html

The US forces said they were shining lights and giving hand signals ,how is someone supposed to see hand signals with lights being shone in they're eyes.THey fired shots into the engine block ,but still managed to hit three people in the car (at least two in the back seat) .I don't for a minute believe they targeted her as she is saying ,but the USs version is far from free of inconsistancies.

 

[Gonz]

I hope the rules of engagement at checkpoints reads like this:
If the vehicle doesn't slow & stop on your commands, blow them to smithereens.

 

[The Other One]

The commies found a way to fund the Jihad and create problems for our troops:

Italians kept U.S. forces in dark

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20050307-120131-5769r.htm
By John Phillips
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


ROME -- Italian agents likely withheld information from U.S. counterparts about a cash-for-freedom deal with gunmen holding an Italian hostage for fear that Americans might block the trade, Italian news reports said yesterday.

The decision by operatives of Italy's SISMI military intelligence service to keep the CIA in the dark about the deal for the release of reporter Giuliana Sgrena, might have "short-circuited" communications with U.S. forces controlling the road from Baghdad to the city's airport, the newspaper La Stampa said.

Miss Sgrena, a reporter for the Communist daily Il Manifesto, charged yesterday that U.S. forces might have deliberately targeted her because Washington opposes Italy's policy of dealing with kidnappers.

Miss Sgrena, whose newspaper ardently opposes Italy's deployment of 3,000 troops in Iraq as part of the U.S.-led coalition, offered no direct evidence to support the charge and toned down the suggestion in a later interview with Reuters.

There were conflicting reports on the extent to which Italian authorities had informed their American counterparts about the operation, in which a reported $6 million was paid for the journalist's release.