Goldberg

Goldberg
Originally uploaded by RHarris.

The big news these days is the shooting by American soldiers which killed an Italian Intelligence officer, and wounded an Italian Communist journalist, Giulana Sgrena. It defintely was a tragedy and has resulted in much discussion and finger pointing. The Soldiers involved in the shooting say that the car was speeding towards a check point. Sgrena says there was no obvious check point.

There's more to it than that. It the Italians did not tell us that they had reporters and agents in the area because they had gone to pay a bribe to release a kidnapped reporter. Americans are very reluctant to pay bribes, knowing that paying one only encourages more kidnappings. Nevertheless, if we had know what was going on, the event that tragedy that resulted would have been much less likely

But calling this event a tragic mistake is not enough for Sgrena, who insists that American troops are targeting journalists. No evidence has been offered up as to why this is so, except a guess at secret desires/motives. Also, as Jonah Goldberg points out, there isn' much in the way of reasoning to support that conspiracy theory either.

About this Italian reporter. The best proof, by far, that the US was not targeting her as a matter of policy or by mistake is that she is still alive. If the mens rea was there the Americans would have A) put a lot more holes in that car (though still probably not the "rain of fire" she complained about) and B) they would have finished the job, if for no other reason than the best way to have your policy of executing journalists exposed is let a big-mouthed one whosympathizes with the enemy -- i.e. her kidnappers -- get away wounded.