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March 08, 2005
Conspiracies and the Italian Left
Arthur Chrenkoff on the Giuliana Sgrena affair:
I wrote two days ago that "the critics think America Machiavellian enough to want to kill the Italians, and at the same time stupid enough to do it a way that created one of the more serious diplomatic incidents since the start of the war. Can't have it both ways, I'm afraid." My sentiment has been echoed by an unnamed Italian intelligence source quoted in "Corriere della Serra": "It would have been the simplest thing for the Americans to send their agents to suppress the incident and therefore blame the Iraqis, or to send Iraqis to perform the dirty job, rather than commit the act with friendly fire without even succeeding in the attempt." [...]
But you have to wonder why the Americans could possibly want to create one of the biggest propaganda coups for the opponents of war and damage the relationship with one of their staunchest allies in order to silence one woman. Sadly, in a world where "The Da Vinci Code" is the best selling book of recent times, too many people will think that just about anything is possible.
More evidence, as if any was needed, of the irrationality of the left. Friendly fire accidents have been occurring since warfare began, and they are always tragic. The "outrage" of the left over the incident is just another facet of the usual utopian bait-and-switch tactic: All actions by the U.S. (and indeed anyone or any idea that is opposed to the aims of the left) are measured against a standard of perfection--a standard of course defined by the left. And of course when perfection is not achieved, the left is already zeroed in.
But this doesn't pass even the most rudimentary test of logic. I heard a military commentator on Fox (Scales? Can't find the transcript yet) speculate that the U.S. roadblock probably constituted an armored platoon, which would mean that there were two Abrams tanks and at least two Bradleys. Let's see, that's two tank main guns (that can track and destroy a moving enemy tank at a mile or more), a couple of 25mm chain guns on the Bradleys (they have explosive rounds that tear a car to shreds), and several .50 cal machine guns (more serious firepower). If the U.S. had wanted her dead, not only would everyone in the car been killed, their remains along with the remains of the car would have been scattered over a radius of 20 yards.
But as Charles Krauthammer said, again on Fox yesterday, the political damage should be limited--because the successful Iraqi election has fundamentally altered the political landscape both in Iraq, and Europe. There is now much less of the supportive background noise that feed the overhyped reaction to tragic stories like this.
UPDATE: I fixed the link to Chrenkoff's piece.
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