Italians Victims of US Friendly Fire Incident

GhostFox said:
Maybe they were invisible bullets that leave invisible holes?
Click to expand...
And where are the other bullets? The only one I see is a direct shot through the windshield, there are no bullet holes in the engine block.
 
I assume they are in the front grill of the car. That's where I'd be shooting if I was trying to disable it.
 
GhostFox said:
I assume they are in the front grill of the car. That's where I'd be shooting if I was trying to disable it.
Click to expand...
So they didn't miss and hit the headlights or the hood but somehow got 1 shot directly at the driver?

Look, I am not advocating a conspiracy here but you are already making judgements before an investigation is made. If anything you should be making up your own objective questions in this; the picture and the position of the bullet is certainly odd. Yet, you completely trying to dismiss any chance of anything being wrong with this.
 
Actually look at the grill again, there seems to be absolutely no damage to it.
 
Yet, you completely trying to dismiss any chance of anything being wrong with this
Click to expand...

No. The only thing I dismiss is that she was shot at 400 times.
 
GhostFox said:
No. The only thing I dismiss is that she was shot at 400 times.
Click to expand...
Ok, if you agree there is something fishy here than my mistake; for some reason I though you were on board with Bodacious who says the military never does anything wrong.
 
There was a very interesting article posted in the National Post yesterday. It is called "The Wrong way to honor a hero" by David Frum. I've scanned it in and will try to format the text and post it in 3 parts.


Part 1

Italian intelligence officer Nicola Calipari was a true hero: a
valiant officer of the law who devoted his life first to the fight against organized crime and then to international counterterrorist operations. He had negotiated the release of two Italian aid workers held hostage in Iraq last year.He died bringing yet another hostage to safety, Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena. A hero's death sho1ild inspire those who live on. Let us hope that in time this will be true in Calipari's case as well. For the present, however,the accidental shooting of Nicola Calipari
seems to have revealed something of the worst in both Italy and the United States. Caliparl was killed at an American checkpomt near Baghdad airport Many " Iraq-based reporters suggest that these
checkpoints may have done more than anything to alienate ordinary Iraqis. "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." So reports Annia Ciezadlo of the Christian Science Monitor. It's understandable that soldiers on the receiving end of car bombs and improvised explosive devices would take every conceivable precaution to protect themselves. But the checkpoints are designed
to protect soldiers and only soldiers: Iraqi safety is very much a secondary concern. Calipari's death will no doubt spark self-examination and change by the US military. One has to wonder, however, why the uncounted number of Iraqi civilian casualties did not do the same.
But it is not only Americans who should search their consciences. It seems that the reason Calipari's car was fired upon was that the Italian authorities had not kept U.S. authorities informed aboutCalipari's mission. And the reason for that strange omission was that Calipari's mission involved the negotiation of a ransom for the kidnapped
journalist. The Italians know that the US authorities fiercely oppose ransom payments, and so they thought it best just to keep things quiet until Sgrena and Calipari were safely out of Iraq.
 
GhostFox said:
But it is not only Americans who should search their consciences. It seems that the reason Calipari's car was fired upon was that the Italian authorities had not kept U.S. authorities informed aboutCalipari's mission. And the reason for that strange omission was that Calipari's mission involved the negotiation of a ransom for the kidnapped
journalist. The Italians know that the US authorities fiercely oppose ransom payments, and so they thought it best just to keep things quiet until Sgrena and Calipari were safely out of Iraq.
Click to expand...
But look, from the pictures this does not seem to be the case. Why is there only 1 bullet hole that seems to be aimed directly at the driver? I believe the person that got shot in the back of the head was in the back seat, how did this bullet get there? Anybody have a source of where everyone was sitting? This is still not clear to me.
 
Part 2

These Italian actions put Sgrena's and Calipari'slives at risk.They also endangered the lives of many thousands of other Western civiliansin Iraq. Ransom payment encourages more kidnappings - and Italy is allowing ransom payment to become a bad habit. As if guiltily aware of how wrong the practice is, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi provided the funds himself out of his own enormous fortune to free
the two kidnapped aid workers in 2004. This time, the money seems to have come from the public treasury. As with the American checkpoints,
Italy's motives are understandable: The Iraq war is not popular in Italy, which has about 3,000 troops in the country. And prolonged hostage dramas weaken support for the war even more. The Berlusconi government is naturally tempted to do whatever it can to bring these dramas to a rapid close. But to understand is not to excuse. The Berlusconi government's attempt to shore up support for the war by furtively paying for Sgrena's return got a brave and wideiy admired man unnecessarily killed - and has created an effective platform for the extremist views of an anti-Americanjournalist. Since her liberation, Sgrena has accused the United States of deliberately targeting her vehicle. "Everyone knows that the Americans don't want hostages
to be freed by negotiations, and for that reason, I don't see why I should rule out that I was their target," she implausibly claimed in a television interview on Sunday. Beforeher kidnapping, in articles for
her left-wing Italian paper llManifesto and for the German Die Zeit, Sgrena had "made clear her opposition to the coalition mission in Iraq. But in captivity, Sgrena seemsto have progressedto outright sympathy for the insurgents and endorsement of their cause. In her articles and interviews since the kidnapping, Sgrenahas done her utmost to humanize the kidnappers, de-scribing one as a fan of an Italian soccer
team and praising the cheerfulness of another. She reveals nothing about them that would in any way damage their image among her Italian listeners. She repeats their slogans about "ending
the occupation"- without acknowledging in any way that for them, "ending the occupation" is a euphemism for the
restoration of a murderous tyranny over the unwilling people of lraq.
 
Part 3

Are these the same insurgents who detonated bombs at Shiite religious ceremonies, killing hundreds? Who killed children as they received candy from U.S. soldiers? Who attack hospitals, water treatment plants, electrical generating stations? Who cut off the heads of other captives? These questions" do not interest her. Nor does she seem to have noticed that while she was held captive, Iraq held an election in which millions of Iraqis voted freely for the first time in their nation's history - and that those voters massively repudiated the terror and vio-
lence of her "cheerful" kidnappers. The old Italian Communist party may
have expired But as Giulana Sgrena reminds us, communism has left its mark on the political culture of the Italian left. The readiness to support any anti-American group, no matter how vile; the credulity in the face of Third World brutality; the willingness to bend the truth in the service of "the revolution": The aftermath of the killing of Nicola Calipari has opened an opportunity for all this to come out in the Italian media and Italian politics. It is no way to honour the sacrifice of a brave and good man.
 
It is a good read. Everyone should check it out. Sorry for any formatting problems.
 
"The readiness to support any anti-American group, no matter how vile; the credulity in the face of Third World brutality; the willingness to bend the truth in the service of "the revolution": The aftermath of the killing of Nicola Calipari has opened an opportunity for all this to come out in the Italian media and Italian politics. It is no way to honour the sacrifice of a brave and good man"


what a conservative fluff piece, anything remotely critical of america's role in iraq is labeled as "anti-american" ..it's really grating on the nerves ...as if the US is beyond reproach, give me a break
 
But look all that article does is try to down play the creibility of this women and anyone that wants to question US policy. The bottom line question here is why was this person killed; not what the motives of the women in the car are.
 
anything remotely critical of america's role in iraq is labeled as "anti-american"
Click to expand...

Supporting terrorists now falls under the category of being "remotely critical of america's role in Iraq" ?
 
GhostFox said:
I assume they are in the front grill of the car. That's where I'd be shooting if I was trying to disable it.
Click to expand...

I think if 5.56mm FMJ was hitting the front grill, they'd end up in the engine block.
 
bliink said:
I think if 5.56mm FMJ was hitting the front grill, they'd end up in the engine block.
Click to expand...
And the grill would be damaged, which it isn't.
 
And the grill would be damaged, which it isn't.
Click to expand...

Unless you have different pictures then the ones I'm looking at, there is no way you can tell if it is or isn't.
 
GhostFox said:
Unless you have different pictures then the ones I'm looking at, there is no way you can tell if it is or isn't.
Click to expand...

I see lots of bullet holes in the glass, you know, the thing between the bullets and the bodies of innocent allies.
 
GhostFox said:
Unless you have different pictures then the ones I'm looking at, there is no way you can tell if it is or isn't.
Click to expand...
It is pretty clear there is no damage. If a single clip went in to that grill (which would seem logical) there would be at least some visable damage, there is none. And again, there is no way in hell anyone can hit a moving target directly (the grill) with automatic rifles; there would be shot out headlights or bullet holes on the hood.
 
It is pretty clear there is no damage.
Click to expand...

Aren't you the one calling on everyone to wait for an investigation to finish first? And now you are declaring conclusively that there are no bullet holes in the front of a car which pictures show only obliquly from the side?

I don't think it is clear at all if the front was shot. You talk about them not hitting the headlights, well you can only see one. The passenger side could be shot to bits. As to the bullet in the windshield, notice how low it is. A couple inches lower and it would have struck the engine block. Yet you claim this as a deliberate shot at the drivers head?
 
EDIT: Actually I see one bullet hole on the windshield, nothing else.
Click to expand...

Because the pictures does not go at different angles that might show additional damage. One shot through the drivers-side windshield, means the driver must've been hit the first shot.

Quite the marksman, whoever dropped him.
 
K e r b e r o s said:
Because the pictures does not go at different angles that might show additional damage. One shot through the drivers-side windshield, means the driver must've been hit the first shot.

Quite the marksman, whoever dropped him.
Click to expand...

All 3 were wounded, the man who died was in the backseat. Quite the marksman to take out an innocent in the back seat who has no control over the vehicle whatsover.
 
who says that's even the right car? the one shown the other day was a completely different make and model ..colour too
 
who says that's even the right car? the one shown the other day was a completely different make and model ..colour too
Click to expand...
That was the car she was kidnapped from I believe.
 
seinfeldrules said:
That was the car she was kidnapped from I believe.
Click to expand...


no, this video clearly says :

"...coalition forces fired on a vehicle as it.."

and then shows this vehicle

screenshot_099a.jpg



it's not the same car as this one:

sgrena-car-ap-1.jpg
 
yes but I cant seem to find that last photo anywhere else but on websites with name like:

Random Nuclear Strikes: Knee-Jerk Anti-Americanism Archives

or rightwingnuthouse.com


or sites with headlines like:

Images of Sgrena's Car (Updated-now fortified with essential Sgrena lies!)


or webistes that have ads with titles like:

The Largest Selection of Liberal-Baiting merchandise on the Net.


god, I'll even take fox"news" over that crap
all the other links are dead ...anyone have a semi-credible link?
 
yes but little green footballs has this to say about sgrena

"Zacht Ei translates an article from a Dutch paper about Giuliana Sgrena, by a Dutch reporter who describes Sgrena and her companions as the very epitome of the modern clueless far left, simultaneously naïve and filled with hatred, childish and treacherous."


wtf? how am i supposed to know if that site is credible with crap like that? ...a search on the italian site turned up nothing

edit: ok now wtf is going on, the associated press is now running with that completely different car? did they make a correction?
 
CptStern said:
yes but little green footballs has........





edit: ok now wtf is going on, the associated press is now running with that completely different car? did they make a correction?
Click to expand...


^^^^^^
 
Hey, you overlooked my words twice, at least afford me to overlook your words once.
 
it's not like you asked me to overlook your words cuz you overlooked mine! :naughty:
 
Oh good, I'll write in big text too (cos its cool and all)

On Topic, please. :thumbs:
 
The italian guy failed to stop his vehicle at the checkpoint... Americans get killed by suicide carbombs over in Iraq.. namely at the checkpoints.. so calling americans idiots for shooting a car that was coming at them is just plain ignorant on your part.

I'm sorry it happened.. but the italian guy needed to stop his car.
 
Bodacious said:
So what would have the soldiers do?

Example: In the midst of multiple car bombings over many months you and the rest of your squad are at your checkpoint watching for anything suspcious. Next thing you see is a car speeding towards your location. You and your squadmates wave your arms furiously hoping they will slow down. The car keeps speeding. What do you do?
Click to expand...

You put in a request to the UN Security council for sanctions against the automobile.
 
mabufo said:
The italian guy failed to stop his vehicle at the checkpoint... Americans get killed by suicide carbombs over in Iraq.. namely at the checkpoints.. so calling americans idiots for shooting a car that was coming at them is just plain ignorant on your part.

I'm sorry it happened.. but the italian guy needed to stop his car.
Click to expand...

Ignorant huh? Alright then, since you know what happend here, please enlighten all of us. This more complicated than just 'the italian guy needed to stop his car.' Don't you think a highly trained government agent would know what to do if he came up to a checkpoint. I think the most likely scenerio was that the car came under fire for what ever reason, and the driver's training kicked in... he sped up in order to escape what he percieved to be a threat, straight into the checkpoint he probably didn't know was there. That's just my theory though. So before you ironically call someone ignorant again, realize this: if the military wants to save face, and the Italians are outraged and emotional, whose story is the truth?
 
All 3 were wounded, the man who died was in the backseat. Quite the marksman to take out an innocent in the back seat who has no control over the vehicle whatsover.
Click to expand...

Ooo, ooo! But OMFG LIEK LOOK AT TEH DISSENT ITS TEH WRONG CAR!!1

Not.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

MFL
Fascinating look at the ongoing psychological evolution of flat hieirarchies.
Replies
2
Views
2K
Tollbooth Willie
Tollbooth Willie
B
Marc Laidlaw releases Half-Life 2: Episode Three's plot
Replies
32
Views
39K
BabyHeadCrab
BabyHeadCrab
B
The leaked maps of the Half-Life 2 episodes - Part 2
Replies
0
Views
9K
Barnz
B
B
Community Interviews: Final Exchange development team
Replies
0
Views
5K
Barnz
B
B
Community Interviews: Tony Newton, co-creator of Redemption
Replies
0
Views
5K
Barnz
B
Back
Top