Keith Devens .com

You can't even mention the fact, they shot her negotiater can you?

Who shot her negotiator, and why is that relevant?

That $10+ million buys a lot of explosives [edit: and other weapons, and pays a lot of suicide bombers' families, and so on], and will likely lead to the deaths of hundreds of people.

Also, this is interesting.

The americans shot her negotiator and I think it is relevant because the rumor goes that the americans deliberately tried to shoot her.

AFAIK it wasn't her negotiator, it was the Italian secret service agent escorting her (though I guess he could have been the negotiator too, though I hadn't heard that). In any case, if we were trying to shoot her, she'd be dead. And it continues to elude me why yall think this has any relevance related to the horrible fact that Italy gave the terrorists over 10 million dollars.

For some background on this topic, I'd highly recommend checking out the past few days' worth of posts on Little Green Footballs, where Charles has been covering this in depth.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4323209.stm

First hit on a google search for "calipari". He was her negotiator.

Something interesting: The 10 million number you toss around comes from an article quoted on LGF. You seem regard this number as true. However, the very next sentence in this article is "It also claimed the car’s injured driver told Italian investigators the Americans “knew everything about our mission". So what now, the 10 millions are good enough for a scandal and taken for a fact, and the rest of the claims are just... dismissed? Not worth mentioning at all? Selective reading, I guess.

And your statement about the shooting doesn't make sense at all. The soldiers did not only try to shoot, they did shoot. Or how do you explain the fact that hundreds of bullets suddenly hit the car? Warning shots have a different effect, I believe.

Hundreds of bullets?
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?...0_Sgrenas_Car_(The_Real_One)&only=yes

Ok, he was the negotiator. And no, the claims aren't just "dismissed [without reason]" because his claims are contradicted by lots of other things. Sgrena herself is being dishonest about the entire episode. Read LGF for the details, there's no reason for me to reproduce everything here. And talk about selective reading -- you're willing to uncritically believe her propaganda about "hundreds of bullets". Give me a break. Again, I'd recommend reading LGF.

The soldiers did not only try to shoot, they did shoot.

Come on Ben, clearly I meant trying to shoot her specifically (i.e. knowing who she was) with the intent to kill her.

In any case, anything that happened after Italy paid millions to terrorists is of little interest to me. The details of the ensuing incident are irrelevant to that.

Why don't you stop getting your news from right wing websites.
Two google news hits:

No ransom paid for Sgrena
New tape says no ransom paid for release

LOL. Both links you gave cite the same source -- the terrorists who kidnapped her!

That same "voice" on the video claimed that "The insurgency learnt that the CIA wanted to kill Giuliana, the journalist". Sure. More selective reading, I see.

Is it possible no ransom was paid? Sure. I'd prefer it if the story wasn't true! But A. I won't take the terrorist's word for it -- I'll instead trust the Italian press who reported on this earlier. B. If no ransom was paid, why was she released, and why has Sgrena argued that the US "tried to kill her because it opposes negotiations with terrorists to free hostages." (link)? What else would Italy have offered in exchange that she claims would make the US want to kill her in revenge? C. While these terrorists may have a different ethos than past kidnappers/beheaders have had in Iraq, other terrorists have accepted millions for ransom before. That link is about the Philippines, but IIRC other countries such as France have also offered millions for ransom. So, if Italy did pay ransom, it certainly wouldn't be the first instance of this happening.

I think it's telling that you won't trust "right wing websites" quoting Italian newspapers but you'll take the word of the terrorists on faith.

Hmm... I think it's funny that your research on this consisted of taking the very first two links you found on Google news, without even taking enough care to notice that both stories had the same source (and that the source was one of the terrorists).

Here's a more credible source:

Today in Italy
Special service by AGI on behalf of the Italian Prime Minister's office

SGRENA: BIANCO, WAITING FOR ANSWERS ON POSSIBLE RANSOM
(AGI) - Rome, March 8 - The parliamentary committee controlling secret services and security services "has not yet received answers" by the government on the possible payment of a ransom for the liberation of Giuliana Sgrena, stated Enzo Bianco, committee president, at the microphones of "Radio anch'io". "The fact that Italy could have paid a ransom is a very delicate topic, talked and written about by media, but we are not sure that this really happened. Certainly in Italy the choice not to pay ransoms was a winning choice against the phenomenon of kidnapping for the purpose of extortion, particularly serious during the 70ies, but Baghdad is a completely different reality, Italy is united in undertaking any possible step to free possible hostages".

So, the government seems to be stonewalling.

Ok, it doesn't seem as if hundreds of bullets have hit the car. The photos were not known to me when I posted. The point still stands: Soldiers fired at the car, and apparently accepted that this action might lead to the death of the drivers. Exactly what happened.

If you accuse me of believing uncritically just only the claims of Sgrena, you are just wrong. Or I can make the same claim about you, as you apparently accept anything posted on LGF without a doubt. Until now we have two differing accounts of this incident. What makes you believe that the 10 million number you posted is exactly true? An italian reader of LGF commented that he could not find any mentioning of that in the archives of the newspaper where it should have appeared. So what am I to believe now? I don't read italian, so I can't verify his claim myself.

BTW, I do think that a ransom has been paid. But I haven't found yet a credible source telling how much it was. And reading LGF posts with the goal to get unbiased news is a futile exercise.

Regarding the stonewalling: From my point of view, the whole hostage episode put Berlusconi in a dilemma. Either he does everything to free the hostage, and can score points at domestic policy by doing that, but that means to accept to "fund" the terrorists. Or he does not negotiate/pay, and then he risks that public opinion in Italy swings against a) him and b) against Italys involvement in Iraq (think of what happened in Spain last year). So what ever he decideds, to a certain extent it's always wrong. This is only my interpretation of his motives, so don't take it for granted. But it could (read: pure speculation of mine) have been the case that Berlusconi decided that paying the terrorists is the lesser of two evils. That would explain why he got so enraged that his plan got fucked up by the events that happened, because it now means that the whole Iraq issue will get into public debate once again.

Whatever. Hopefully we will be able to read the accounts of the other witnesses (soldiers, italian secret service members) to get a better idea of what really happened. I just hope that the spin doctors on both sides of this incident will calm down and wait, but no... that's not even remotely likely.

Soldiers fired at the car, and apparently accepted that this action might lead to the death of the drivers.

Of course, but are you arguing that we intentionally targeted Sgrena?

And, I don't know why yall're dismissing LGF, as Charles mostly just links to other sources. He does a good job at finding stuff, and is very forthright about updates and corrections in the rare case one needs to be made.

As for that commenter who said he couldn't find the bit about the ransom... the original source Charles linked was in The Australian, which claimed that the Italian paper had that info. I doubt The Australian made it up... it's more likely that "FabioC" just missed it, or maybe the info wasn't in their online edition or something.

And reading LGF posts with the goal to get unbiased news is a futile exercise.

Well, let's look at who Charles has linked to for news on this story. ABC News, AP, some Dutch paper, AP, Washington Times, LA Times, Italy’s Corriere Della Serra, Reuters, Washington Times, CNN, The Australian, BBC, Editor and Publisher and the AP, LA Times, lots of places, The Guardian, Reuters and CNN. Right wing rags, all of them.

Not that LGF is the only source any of us follow anyway. Charles has just done a great job of covering this story, and I've referred to him a bunch through this thread because his site has the most detail you can get on this in one place, and he had straightforward links that contradicted a lot of what yall were saying. For instance, if you'd been reading him you would have seen the pictures of the car earlier, you'd have known that they were driving crazy, and you'd have known that Sgrena writes for a communist newspaper and has been making false and inconsistent claims (all of which wipe out her credibility as far as I'm concerned). She's the worst "spin doctor" of all, and seems to me to be clearly trying to win a propaganda victory against the US.

From my point of view, the whole hostage episode put Berlusconi in a dilemma.

Interesting comments about Berlusconi.

Anyway, like I said I'd prefer it if this story wasn't true, but we seem to be in agreement that Italy likely paid a ransom, which is what I've been interested in from the start. Obviously I don't believe for a second that we intentionally targeted Sgrena, so that story's uninteresting -- sometimes "friendly fire" incidents happen.

Also, while I was at school I e-mailed myself some links I came across with more info. I haven't read them in depth, but I figured I'd paste them here:

http://instapundit.com/archives/021662.php
http://polipundit.com/index.php?p=6730
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/2005_03.php#009798

There's more links I could post, since they all link to a lot of places (sometimes the same places, btw). But you can go to those links and surf around.

One more link: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?..._Note_from_a_Soldiers_Father&only=yes

Obviously I don't believe for a second that we intentionally targeted Sgrena, so that story's uninteresting -- sometimes "friendly fire" incidents happen.

Well, I don't think it also, it was probably just a stupid mistake.
But it needs to be investigated, though.
And yes, Berlusconi has a problem because of this.

Don't picture Sgrena as a "spin doctor" so soon (and so easily). It's really not fun when you're shot at.