When "oops" just doesn't cut it.

[Jazzman]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

And laws of physics aside, Jazzman, I find it physically suspicious that the Italian agent who, by all eyewitness reports, threw his body over the journalist was "accidentally" shot while the soldiers aimed for the engine block. It certainly is a possibility that their aim was off and coincidentally went straight for the person purportedly targeted for assassination. If that's the case, it's a tough break for the U.S. I don't think most Italians are taking it as a coincidence, and I don't see any reason to consider it that way either.

I’ll cede that point to you. If someone sees a suspicious coincidence there, I won’t argue with anyone asking that question. However, I don’t see anyone asking any question; I see accusations and judgments. It’s cool to say, “Hmmm, is this possible?” and explore that. But this habit of immediately saying, “Well, this must be what happened because it shows that the U.S. is evil!” is just discriminatory and a bit rash. Not to mention how unfair it is to the service men and women over there.

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

And I appreciate that you'd like to characterize these marines as just some goofball good guys who made a tragic error in the heat of combat duty, but I just don't buy it. History as recent as Abu-Graib puts the lie to the simple assumption that all U.S. soliders are good guys who do no purposeful evil. That's crap. No one is immune from purposeful evil in war. I'd agree that most soldiers don't succumb to that. But lots of them on every side of every conflict surely do. So, no, I cannot simply assume that these marines weren't thwarted only by a human shield from hitting their intended and ordered target.

Citing one isolated example of a handful of soldiers who went too far and broke civil and military laws (And were caught and dealt with by the military instead of being covered up, as they could have.) hardly puts any lie to anything. A dozen or so misfits hardly characterize the tens of thousands of military men and women in our armed forces. The great majority of service personnel are everyday men and women who are good people, and who are doing their jobs and trying to make a difference. Dismissing them and their intentions simply because a very small rogue group committed a crime is the same false logic that leads to things like racism and prejudice. It’s a generalization, and a bad one at that.

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

As far-fetched as the U.S. motive may seem, it's there. Where's the Italian motive for risking all by barreling through a military checkpoint?

To you perhaps, but I fail to see any motive here. Despite GD’s “See what ya get!” assertion, I don’t see any possible positive outcome for the U.S. in this at all. With all of the negative press floating around the world regarding Iraq it would have been in our best interest to make sure that nothing at all happened to them on their way out, lest the international community have something more to scream about; as they now do. I really see this all as one big, tragic chain of events that started out with an ill-conceived rescue plan that didn’t involve informing the military of what was going to happen. Had that one simple step been taken I doubt that anyone would have died.

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

As for which assumption to make in this case ... do you really think a hostage rescue mission would attempt to barrel through a U.S. military checkpoint? Doesn't that claim stretch credulity a little much?


Where's the motive?

Simple.......Panic. People tend to do very stupid and dare I say "incredulous" things when under its influence.

[Name]

And I fail to see why we would risk assasinating a dumb biatch left wing italian reporter. She has little weight that would turn the tide of the "war". Especially when failure would have the repricussions that we are seeing now. Seems it would be more convienient and easier to make sure that her plane had "engine trouble" or was targeted by an "insurgent with a modified RPG" on the way out of the country. Or better yet, why not hit the car with an RPG before it made it close to the checkpoint, something more we could blame on insurgents. No it seems to me more like some overzealous marines(not hard to come by) that mistook the actions(whatever they were) of the car as hostile.

[Ghoulish Delight]

The motive would be to say, "See, you shouldn't go behind our backs and negotiate. By not working with us, you run the risk of confusing us and getting shot in the confusion."

[BarTopDancer]

More random thoughts..

I find it very hard to believe that a gaggle of Marines assigned to a check-point would be put incharge of an assination. Trigger happy? Perhaps. Mistake? Perhaps. Plot? Perhaps. Will we ever know the 'real story'? Doubtful.

Ya. They were traveling the most dangerous road in Iraq. So do other vehicles who stop at the checkpoint. I'm going out on a limb here that it's common knowledge if you don't stop at a checkpoint or slow down by a certain point your vehicle will be shot at.

Is it possible the bullet bounced off something and hit the guy? Is it possible that the car hit a bump at the same moment the shot was fired and it hit the guy? It's so easy to blame either side when we don't know the full story. And it's doubtful we ever will. All reports on this will either be biased towards the woman or biased towards us.

Originally Posted by Name

Seems it would be more convienient and easier to make sure that her plane had "engine trouble" or was targeted by an "insurgent with a modified RPG" on the way out of the country. Or better yet, why not hit the car with an RPG before it made it close to the checkpoint, something more we could blame on insurgents.

If this was some sort of 'black-ops' I think they would be a tad more creative then to do an assination attempt this way. And by this way I mean the shooting at the checkpoint.

[Nephythys]

I'm just in awe of this woman's trumped up notions of self importance to think that we would want her dead. It's ego and arrogance to the extreme. She is not important enough for someone to send these guys in to kill her.

Plots aside- that's just stupid.

[SacTown Chronic]

Originally Posted by Nephythys

I'm just in awe of this woman's trumped up notions of self importance to think that we would want her dead. It's ego and arrogance to the extreme. She is not important enough for someone to send these guys in to kill her.

You may be right. But if someone dove across my lap and took a bullet for me, I'd be spooked to the point of paranoia. A situation like that would cause just about anybody to question the offical version of events, no matter their perceived level of importance.


For the record, btw, I have no clue as to which way this situation falls regarding assasination/accident. Like everything else, I'm willing to look at it from all sides. Those of you, having no more information than the rest of us, who flatly declare it an accident scare me. Faithfully believing everything someone tells you because you agree with their ideology is never a good idea.

[scaeagles]

We live in a bit of a different media era than 50 years ago. We have instant news everywhere, and this can make a difference in one of two ways for each incident, and it is unfortunate that we can never know which effect it is having.

The first possibility is that something has come to light that would not have ever come to light and this means that the event has been exposed because of the instant media.

The second possibility is that this instant information leads to incredible amounts of theorizing and pontificating when the evidence is not as of yet all known. This can also have positive and negative effects - the positive being that a real investigation will most likely take place, but it also allows for the instant politicization of the news itself, and allows for incredible theories to be thrown about that are not substantiated, and because of the average short attention span and the tendency to move on to the next instant news bit, when the evidence is known most people don't really care about it anymore.

It provides an atmosphere of unproven hypotheses being the prevailing factors in making a judgement on the event.

[mousepod]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

We live in a bit of a different media era than 50 years ago. We have instant news everywhere, and this can make a difference in one of two ways for each incident, and it is unfortunate that we can never know which effect it is having.

The first possibility is that something has come to light that would not have ever come to light and this means that the event has been exposed because of the instant media.

The second possibility is that this instant information leads to incredible amounts of theorizing and pontificating when the evidence is not as of yet all known. This can also have positive and negative effects - the positive being that a real investigation will most likely take place, but it also allows for the instant politicization of the news itself, and allows for incredible theories to be thrown about that are not substantiated, and because of the average short attention span and the tendency to move on to the next instant news bit, when the evidence is known most people don't really care about it anymore.

It provides an atmosphere of unproven hypotheses being the prevailing factors in making a judgement on the event.

Hear, hear!
Plus, if you throw the highly competetive 24-hour news channels and blogs into the mix, you have the distinct possibility of many people receiving their news in the form of an editorial.
I'm not posting my opinion on the story here, because frankly, I have no idea what the truth is. I've heard the escalating allegations. I've heard the spin. I'm not sure I've heard the truth. From either side.

[Name]

I think I will just rest my argument with my previous statements.....I would LOVE to hear what the reasoning for assasination of a dumb biatch extreme left wing italian reporter would be, but in my mind, make absolutely no logical sense to risk that type of operation on such a low value target. Nuff said, give me a bonifide reason to risk such an operation, and I may move off the accident idea, until then, well, I guess I am just going to have to be a scary guy.