tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post4104781613327760931..comments2023-12-09T12:13:00.212-08:00Comments on AOL Journals 1st Old Hickory's Weblog: Iraq War: The Sgrena incidentBruce Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05022449143502020665noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-23772498685300759262005-03-11T09:50:00.000-08:002005-03-11T09:50:00.000-08:00Ms Sgrena has been through a lot. The press shoul...Ms Sgrena has been through a lot. The press should leave her alone for a while. I think the real question is how many people have been shot at checkpoints? <br><br>It seems to happen a lot, from anecdotal evidence I have seen -- do we have a problem? Is this something we need to fix? <br><br>Is the military learning anything about occupation, security, counter-insurgency, training local police and security forces, nation building, etc? Or are we only learning that we basically suck at all of the above?<br><br>What are the implications for Mr Bush's grand strategy of bringing democracy to every corner of the world?<br><br>Neil<br>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-86407424854030989882005-03-12T01:36:00.000-08:002005-03-12T01:36:00.000-08:00Bruce,Do you have any idea if the real picture of ...Bruce,<br><br>Do you have any idea if the real picture of Sgrena's car have surfaced? A number of conservative blogs have claimed to have the pictures but a number of them have proven to be false. And the latest one only shows about eight bullet holes. The only thing I could find was that when the AP in Baghdad asked about the car the Army told them they didn't know where it was. Do you know anything? Have you seen the pictures? <br><br>daveAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5147000415127454560.post-64998077179780531672005-03-12T10:49:00.000-08:002005-03-12T10:49:00.000-08:00I haven't kept up on the story with the photog...I haven't kept up on the story with the photograph, no. What you're describing with the rightie blogs is now typical of conservative comma-dancing. They'll nit-pick this or that about the story to create a fog and reinforce their ideological notion that liberals are terminal liars.<br><br>In this particular case, what we need is a real forensic examination of the car. It's a news story where one side in particular has a stake in not revealing the full story. It's a very telling thing that the Army first put out their standard press release on the incident: it was a checkpoint, the car was approaching fast, we gave hand signals, we fired warning shots and the car kept coming, so we then fired at the car. It's starting to sound like the stories from apartheid South Africa, when prisoners were gunned down or fell from windows several stories up: the prisoner was killed while trying to escape.<br><br>Some stories have "legs" more than others. The ugly fact is that in the case of Iraqi civilians carelessly shot at checkpoints, they have no advocates to dig out the truth. The "soveriegn" Iraqi government keeps its mouth shut, and the Army officials whose job it is to make sure that discipline is adequately enforced seem to be trying to cover up as much as possible in the case of such misconduct. Those cases are unlikely to be investigated as thoroughly.<br><br>In the Sgrena case, though, we have an ally whose government has taken real political heat at home to support the Bush administration in a foolish and unpopular war. And they object to having their nationals gunned down carelessly (at best) by American soldiers. They're insisting on a real accounting. And they really don't care about the comma-dancing nit-picking nonsense from our home-grown jingos of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders. - BruceAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com