Giuliana Sgrena Is Free
Terry Traub
OK, let's get this straight. Journalist Giuliana Sgrena, operating in one of the most dangerous countries in the world, gets kidnapped like so many others, and after a rumored $1 million ransom, her captors let her go.
It is reasonable to assume that Ms. Sgrena, as a reliably anti-American reporter for a Communist periodical, also went out of her way to ingratiate herself with her captors by badmouthing the United States. After all, it worked for the two French journalists, George Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, who sweet talked their captors and distanced themselves from America's "failed policy".
Anyway, the big news is not that Sgrena's captors got their paycheck, but that American soldiers fired at her vehicle as it approached their checkpoint at what they claim was a high rate of speed. An Italian agent was shot to death and Sgrena was slightly injured. The Italians are furious.
I don't wish to see journalists killed, nor anyone else for that matter, but one has to consider: this is a war zone and these journalists put themselves in harm's way. The soldiers may have fired rashly, or they may have behaved exactly as they should have. In either case, it's highly doubtful that Sgrena's nutcase conspiracy theory is correct, that the Americans didn't want her to get free. I'm much more willing to believe the simple, obvious explanation that it was a mistake. Accidents happen. Friendly fire happens. The soldiers are understandably nervous about a speeding vehicle that could very well be a suicide bomber coming to take them to some Moslem version of hell.
One hopes that the democracy struggling to be born in Iraq some day gets on its feet and stands as a beacon to oppressed Moslems everywhere, that democracy and Islam are not culturally incompatible. Come that day, it will be interesting to hear how the Europeans struggle to explain away their cowardly surrender to kidnappers and murderers.
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