A Fact-based Perspective on the Sgrena Incident

Austin Bay -- someone who actually knows what he's talking about -- introduces some sanity into the ideologically driven charge/counter charge dialogue ensuing from the shooting of an Italian intelligence agent. He writes:

Roadblocks have rules. Coalition and Iraqi troops operate roadblocks with Rules of Engagement (ROE). The ROE can change, based on current intelligence and command judgment. But one rule never changes at a roadblock: Even escorted military convoys slow down as they approach a roadblock. As for a single civilian auto approaching at high speed? If a driver doesn't hit the brakes, the troops will shoot.

U.S. soldiers fired on Sgrena's speeding car as it approached their roadblock. The fire killed Italian security agent Nicola Calipari. His death is a tragic mistake. President
Bush says we'll investigate the incident. I suspect Italian officers serving with multinational forces will help conduct that investigation. We need the facts.

But we also need a fact-based perspective. Though the Iraqi election and the democratic surge in Lebanon demonstrate that this most intricate war we're fighting has the potential for huge payoffs in hope, justice and peace, on Baghdad's streets a Fiat might still be a kamikaze. Or is it a family sedan? As the car rushes forward the soldier -- whose life is on the line -- has a split-second to decide.

This, ultimately, is the context in which the death of Agent Calipari should be seen. I have stood guard posts myself, although never in such trying circumstances as prevails in Iraq these days. I fully understand why the troops involved responded to a fast-approaching vehicle as they did.

Read Austin Bay's post here.

The WaPo reports that:

ROME, March 8 -- Italy's foreign minister said Tuesday that the killing of an Italian intelligence agent and wounding of an Italian journalist by U.S. troops in Iraq was an accident, but he demanded that the United States conduct a thorough investigation and punish those at fault.

Fini said there were no grounds to believe the shooting was deliberate, and he dismissed calls by opposition parties for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government to withdraw the 2,700 Italian troops serving in the U.S.-led force in Iraq.

But he said the government's conclusion that the shooting was an accident resulting from a series of "fatal coincidences" did not mean it should drop the matter. "This does not prevent us -- in fact, it obliges us -- to demand clarification, to ask that light be shed on points that are still murky, to identify who is responsible . . . and to obtain the punishment of the guilty," Fini said.

Read the whole thing here.

David Frum comments on the ideological nature of much of the controversy that has arisen in the wake of the killing. He writes:

The old Italian communist party may have expired. But as Giulana Sgrena reminds us, communism has left its terrible 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 these old evils to re-emerge in the Italian media and Italian politics. It is no fitting way to honor the sacrifice of a brave and good man.

Frum is right, of course, anti-Americanism, the legacy of the Cold War, distorts the responses of the international left and ultimately destroys its credibility.

Read his column here. Then follow his links to other commentators.