funny how in the news here they keep mentioning that she worked for a communist newspaper(2 or 3 times in an an article)... what has that got to do with anything ... just cause of her statements... i guess to down play it they threw that in... i don't inderstand both stories from both sides... they both seem out of wack... i guess the truth is in the middle somewhere. still its amazing that the agent gave his life for the hostage. a truly admirable act.
One life was lost by this mistake. But how many lives will be lost because of their decision to pay terrorists/insurgents millions of dollars in ransom money. Millions of dollars can buy the insurgents a lot of weapons. There is nothing heroic about negotiating with terrorists scum by giving them millions of dollars to help there cause in killing the men and women of america and coalition forces in Iraq.
So this lady who works for a communist newspaper goes over to Iraq to certainly not make America look good in any way and gets captured and her employers pay something close to a ten million dollar ransom? oh, how heroic. That money is going to go into killing a lot of young men and women of our country. That commie b**** better be a damn fine writer.
Damn you Franchiseblade I see you posted the exact news I did before me. Yet more reminders I shouldn't post in haste.
That's easy to say as an American supporter of the war but I imagine a lot harder if she's a loved one and a coworker and your country overwhelming opposes the war including their own government's involvement. I suppose you felt it was cowardly for the Reagan Admin. to trade arms to a sworn enemy of America for hostages too.
This is the extent that trust of the US has dropped to. After guarenteeing that Saddam had massive stockpiles of WMD, an active WMD program including a nuclear one and ties to Al Qaeda when none of that has panned out and we find out that even in before the invasion there were doubts in the US government about the veracity of that intel many around the World are unwilling to trust the US on anything. I have a hard time believing that this was deliberate but again I'm an American who knows people who've served and are about to serve in Iraq. If I was an Italian I might think differently.
Hundereds if not thousands of loved ones could lose their lives because of this. The heroic thing to do in this situation and what her loved ones call 'an absurd war' would be to not donate 10 millions dollars to the insurgents and maybe lose one life but by doing that save hundreds if not thousands of lives. And we're not talking about just coalition forces lives but innocent Iraqi civilians who always take the brunt of these insurgents bombings. Didn't her employers and loved ones have an independent contractor negotiate her release? The fact is her employers and loved ones gave millions of dollars to the enemy to save one life and that money can go a long way and last a long time, and many more lives will be lost because of it. who knows, if there's a draft down the road, that money could go into buying a weapon that blows my head off. That just does not sit well with me.
Well it's fine to say it is bad to negotiate with terrorists, but perhaps they were only following the lead of Ronald Reagan who gave not money but arms to Iran! I don't know that it is a good idea to negotiate with them either. I do know that a President of the U.S. has done no less.
Italians ain't gonna like this. A few years ago, a US surveillance aircraft cut a ski cable in Italy and caused the death of 20 skiers in a gondola cable car running from Cavalese to the Alpe Cermis. Those families were paid $2 million each. If my memory was right, the plane was flying upside down.
The funny thing is that when I saw your post, I thought for a second that I must have missed part of the story. I was thinking to myself, I thought I posted that, but I must have just read it and not posted. Granted that was for a split second. But hey you didn't get the headline drastically wrong like I did in the initial thread starter. lol
An unfortunate occurrence within the fog a war that the spinmeisters will exploit for their particular agenda. S.O.P.
The driver wasn't killed. It was the guy sitting next to the reporter using his body to shield her who was killed.
That is true, but there are two sides to each story, which is why I don't know if the real story will ever be known.
I don't see a problem with investigating that possibility. The main thing I want to hear would be some testimony from other eyewitnesses. When the U.S. military killed the Al Jazeera reporter on the roof of the Hotel in Iraq, they claimed they were receiving fire and saw shots from the hotel. Then multiple eyewitnesses including reporters from ABC news all spoke out saying there were no shots at all fired from the vincinity of the hotel. All of them were at the hotel at the time and were eyewitnesses to the shooting. Why Al Jazeera didn't pursue murder charges I don't know, but at least in that case there were parties who weren't inolved that gave eyewitness testimony. I can't judge either way until I hear from eyewitnesses.
Al-Jazeera is the enemy; the Italians are not. This is a damn shame, but look at the price that the US is paying for our efforts in Iraq. This is divisive.
Al-Jazeera is far from the enemy. Please research Al-Jazeera before saying such a thing. Al-Jazeera is an independent news agency. Their coverage is geared towards the Arab/middle eastern audience. They are not supporters of a particular govt. organization etc. They regularly have cabinate officials from the U.S. appear on their programs, and members of the cabinate regularly seek out Al-Jazeera in order to speak to them to address their audience. Unless you believe all Arab and Middle Eastern people are the enemy then Al-Jazeera is not the enemy. Are you trying to say that it is ok to target reporters of independant media outlets? As for the incident involving the Italian agent that was killed, Bush himself promised a full investigation. Hopefully a full investigation will finally give us a clearer picture of what actually happened. I don't see anything wrong with seeking out the truth.
