Slashdot Mirror
Copy-and-Paste Reveals Classified U.S. Documents
cyclop writes "In March, U.S. troops in Iraq shot to death Nicola Calipari, the Italian intelligence agent that rescued the kidnapped journalist Giuliana Sgrena. U.S. commission on the incident produced a report which public version was censored for more than one third. Now Italian press is reporting that all confidential information in the report is available to the public, just by copying "hidden" text from the PDF and pasting it in a word processor (Italian). The uncensored report can now be directly downloaded (evil .DOC format, sorry)"
Mirrored here in html format: http://213.160.111.174/unclassified.htm
This happened before with an astroturfed Microsoft "Switch" campaign, among others, IIRC.
That gives the term "security by obscurity" a whole new meaning... Hidden text?! What were they thinking!
I trust you will do the right thing.
Interesting the the people that posted this don't point out any smoking guns. It's mildly interesting that they were able to thwart the ridiculously inane classified protections, but it's telling that they didn't find anything that further incriminated the U.S. service personnel.
It's unfortunate but if you choose to negotiate with kidnappers (and thereby encourage more kidnapping) and further don't tell someone who's subject to daily suicide car bombs that you're going to be speeding down a road that is infamous for daily suicide car bombs, is it any surprise this happened?
Should I expect less if I make jerky motions into my pockets when a police officer pulls me over for a routine traffic accident?
This is now a known known.
Facebook is a woodpecker tapping on the skull of Humanity, Forever.
Way to go Yossarian!
Does that mean the government is guilty of entrapment for releasing a PDF with the classified text included?
I'd like to see them try to prosecute this.
But it was distributed. Just not shown. It you pass around a pack of papers and put one you hope nobody will look for at the bottom, can you really be upset when someone grabs exactly that sheet?
My guess is that it's going to be the staffer that released the document that's in hot water.
I know nothing! I just click all the links on a slashdot page and hope for the best!
There might actually have been respectable and perhaps important reasons for redacting some of that information. Not that it matters now, but it seems a bit imprudent to fervishly publicize information about troops that could have serious ramifications for them.
I know it never pays to underestimate human stupidity.
But non the less - I wonder if people can really be this stupid. Perhaps making people think they accessed confidential information is just a trick so the report seems more believeale.
In March, U.S. troops in Iraq shot to death Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari, who was travelling in a car that - according to US troops - refused to slow down for a coalition checkpoint.
So would I, considering that the people distributing it are in Italy and therefore not subject to US law. Considering how annoyed the Italian government was about the incident and subsequent cover-up, I doubt that they'll agree to an extradition.
It's illegal to knowingly download classified docs, I trust you will do the right thing.
I, for one, will do my duty as a citizen and read the document. Living in a state in europe, I will look if there is any information in it that might be vital to my countries existance and then do the right thing - which might even include distributing the document to others.
Obligitory opening post to start the major flame/anti-flame thread. So the topic is:
Why the hell would slashdot post something that seems pretty darn illegal on the front of their site?
If it's not illegal, it's just plain irresponsible. I recognize that the folks who run Slashdot are often characterized as kids with no journalistic integrity, but come on...
The government did the initial distribution. It just did it unintentionally. Showing how the government did, in-fact, distribute the material itself is certainly not completely free of legal implications, but it is not the same as leaking the classified information. The main questions are: 1) Is it legal to show how to decipher a public transmission of the government to gain more data than intended (no matter how stupid the cypher is). I believe the answer to that question is an emphatic, "no it is illegal", despite what most of us, as technologically literate human beings see as a ton of fun. 2) Should this specific instance of hidden text be considered an encrypted message. Is a message written in Pig Latin considered encrypted? On the other hand, where do we draw the line on how hard an encryption scheme must be to crack before it's considered breaking governmental encryption. (Fellow geeks, please hold off on the comments saying "This is not truly an encrypted message" as for all intents and purposes, this message was unable to be viewed in its intended distribution format.) Tell me what you think! I'm not sure myself.
Calipari, jumps the omissis of the Americans
On Internet the relationship in its interezza can be read. The Power of attorney of Rome will acquire the new document like open source
INSTRUMENTS
VERSION STAMPABILE
The READ PIU'
IT SENDES THIS ARTICLE
The USA relationship with omissis (AP)
ROME - They are omissis "only virtual", than they can be gone around with simple clic, those lies in wait for to the USA relationship on the dead women of Nicholas Calipari, published friday, and that they would have had to hide names, procedures and others you leave classified. Pecette black that filled up the 45 the pages of the document answered to obvious reasons of inner emergency, a way in order protect the anonymity of the marines been involved in the "tragic incident" of 4 March, when Calipari found the dead women for "fire friend" on the road for the airport of Bagdad.
Sin but that the USA commando had not made the accounts with the "copy and glue", that concurs to read the relationship in its interezza, without censorships. How? E' sufficient to open the document it originates them with the version reader of Acrobat, to select all the text and to make a copy and glue on Word or whichever editor. Or, easier anchor, to open rows "pdf" originates them, to cliccare on "Saves come..." and to choose a whichever various format from the "pdf" (always Word, as an example). A simplest technical operation that is in a position to executing anyone has a connected computer to Internet.
Between the parts of the relationship covered the military secret USA there is as an example the paragraph with the names of the members of the patrol who has talked nonsense against the car of Calipari, or the identity of the third man (an Italian agent) to the guide of the car with Giuliana Sgrena and Calipari, and still the understood one it with the procedures of I engage of the check point. Emergency "around to John Negroponte emerges also the operation" and the difficulties of that evening in the particular chain of commando americana.Tutti, with to many others, that they are hour becomes you of public dominion and that the power of attorney of Rome that it inquires on the Calipari homicide will acquire. It is how much is learned in atmospheres investigated you of Clodio Large square. The acquisition procedure is that one that the enquirers define of the so-called opened sources, that is news of interest for the judicial authority that but does not have some trial-like valence.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
Classified?
Have you read it?
The original document says "UNCLASSIFIED" just on top of every page.
...are scary. This, and numerous other pdf-related security breaches which happened (remember the blacked-out pdf that was modified to reveal its contents?) are all the more reason for MS pushing its software everywhere by declaring competing software are not as secure as theirs. Doesn't matter if the security breach originated from the user's lack of understanding of the most basic security concepts.
My fear is that knee-jerk reactions to incident like this someday could be as extreme as invoking the DMCA against copy and paste. That, and further control from MS for information in the government due to the inherent "security" of MS stuff. It's unimaginable that a corporation can be more powerful than the government, but more incidents like this and this will happen.
From scanning through the report I can only conclude that it was an accident. The US soldiers where poorly trained for the mission, and the driver of the car wasn't paying enough attention to his surroundings.
Tragic yes, but nothing more (assuming the italians agree with the description of the events of course, people can always lie)
What? It was a PDF? You mean people can do stupid things with software that isn't made by Microsoft?
Download the pdf and run pdftotext on it, it works.
Marx was right: Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
The US Military uses VOIP? And it failed during this incident? Why would they use technology that is hardly the most reliable to confer on the battlefield. Isn't that a little dangerous? I wouldn't trust my life to VOIP, no matter how secure/reliable a military network was.
It appears that this all boils down to a blame game - the US wants to defend its soldiers and assign blame to the Italians for not sharing information, whereas the Italians want the American soldiers held responsible for what is, essentially, a tragic circumstance in a war zone.
The Italians in the car weren't expecting a roadblock at that location, and the Americans didn't know about the rescue operation that was in progress...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Area 51
Greys
JFK Assassination
Hilary Clinton
No instances found. Damn.
Needless to say, no Italian newspaper ever cares to cite that the news was pointed out by an Italian blogger, Gianluca Neri of Macchianera.
Since when is breaking the law morally wrong? The reason the US has guns is so that its citizents can break unjust laws and defent themselves from an unreasonable government. There is nothing "wrong" with breaking the law, and I wish peopld would start realizing that.
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
Secret data must be stored only on computers cleared for secret processing. Secret documents can only be downgraded to unclassified by deletion of the text followed by exporting it to plain ASCII text only.
Word documents, Powerpoint presentations, PDFs, etc cannot ever be transfered from a secret computer to an unclassified computer even if the original file is unclassified. The only allowable format is human readable text. Basically, if you can't read it in notepad, you cannot copy it from a classified computer to an unclassified computer.
These are the rules, unfortunately not everyone follows them (convenience) or is properly trained.
The report is unclassified because they BLACKED OUT all the classified parts, which they figured out how to get around.
"If it was me, I would have shot the car. It was clearly speeding towards their position."
It was? That's what not surprisingly those who shot claim, however I have seen no prove of that claim yet, and the other side is telling a different story.
"The driver was not paying attention."
He wasn't? Proof? And of course, see comment above.
"He had a spotlight and a laser pointer shined on them."
He did? Proof? And of course, see comment above.
"They supposedly had the windows down in the car to hear for threats."
They did? Proof? And of course, see comment above.
"They were going in excess of 50mph, and the driver admits he was not in the habit of checking his speed."
They were? Proof? And of course, see comment above.
Seriously, and some Americans wonder why others might not like the US? I don't say it was the soldiers fault and the Italians didn't do what you claim, I simply don't know, what I do know however is that the US' urge to deny any wrongdoing whatsoever, no matter what, acting as if the facts in this case were totally clear, though they clearly aren't, is deeply disgusting and doesn't endear the US to the Europeans and others.
So, if you are wondering once again why some people don't like you, just look at the parents comments, at similar comments already made here, that also were modded up and you might just get a hint about why there is a lot of Anti-Americanism in the world.
Does anyone who speaks Army jargon know what this is all saying, or can someone at least point out the salient points?
Like... what about those allegations that the Italians had paid several million Euros as ransom to the kidnappers?
Kids, I know you want your people back--I'm sorry, but your hostages are already dead. Mourn for them, but don't pay off their kidnappers. That's stupid. That's Reagan-stupid. Ten million bucks buys a lot more kidnappings and suicide bombs.
You'd think we'd have learned this lesson by now.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The communist reporter was not rescued she was bought with money that will go to buy arms that will be used to kill 80% Iraqi civilians and 20% foreign soldiers.
Woah! Slow down and don't drink all the kool-aid at once! The incident was likely an accident, but you do nothing to help your argument by calling people 'communists'. On Limbaugh, you may win brownie points for what you said, but in a reasonable (or even Slashdot) argument, you unlikely to convince anyone with stupid retoric.
As an american living in Italy, we've seen a lot of coverage of this over here.
The Italians involved said they weren't speeding. The Americans said the vehicle was travelling too quickly.
I think anyone, italian or american, can figure out the reason for this disagreement by watching a cowering family of american tourists trying to cross the street in Rome or any other large italian city. Some people obviously have different ideas about what 'fast' or 'dangerous' driving is.
I like Italy in many ways, but sometimes I really have to agree with Bill Bryson's "never should have let the Italians in on the invention of the automobile" sometimes!
Well, now we'll see, won't we?
The US government has for a long time, and this adiminstration in particular, classified things reflexively, whether secrecy was actually required or not.
In many ways it'll be scarier if the redactions show nothing of interest at all: not protecting anybody's privacy or any actual secrets. (A quick scan suggests exactly that.) It leaves open the question, "Why is the government keeping that information secret? Why is the government keeping so much information secret?"
There are many things that people would like to know to keep an eye on their government. Not all of that information should be released, for national security reasons, but it's always been the government who makes that decision. This lack of a check on the power of government makes people increasingly nervous as crimes (e.g. Abu Ghraib) are discovered anyway.
Most people in government over-classify things in order to protect their jobs. It's not a crime to overclassify; it's a big crime to release national security info, even accidentally. That's understandable, but a failure to release information that people are allowed to know makes it extremely difficult to check up on what the government does and whether it is still acting in our interest.
So yeah, maybe this is a bad thing. Maybe this is a release of national security information and lives may be lost. Or maybe it's laziness, somebody redacting because it's easier than checking on whether or not it was OK to release. Now we'll find out, and perhaps gain some broader insight.
Was that footage taken by the same satellite that showed chemical weapons factories in Iraq?
There were at least two publicized incidents Memory Hole Un-Redacts Redacted DOJ Memo and Iranian Coup Plotters Exposed By PDF File were the PDF was discovered to be layered with the graphic blacking out the text over the original.
You would think by now that the government would either distributed a tool for correctly redacting PDFs or prohibit them.
But they're confirmed by satelite photo:
- timesi-editors-edit-reuters-story-to-remove-critic al-facts-supporting-us-position/
http://patterico.com/2005/04/30/2934/ilos-angeles
The witnesses are lying or mistaken (and, I suspect, it's the former).
Oh, I dunno. Maybe the fact that the U.S. released satellite images showing the position of the car which where taken with a known time differential combined with basic algebra means the approximate speed of the car can easily be determined. Maybe it was about 10 seconds from impacting the soldiers and was speeding means the car was a reasonable threat. You'd trust the "opinion" of a rabid anti-American communist about the speed of the car and behavior fo the driver wrt the roadblock?
Facts are stubborn things but they don't matter if you start with a conclusion, huh?
Furthermore, the aliens obtained in Roswell have been transported to R24 along with Specialist Peck for observation.
I knew it!!!
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
She's a communist, she's written extensively for Il Manifesto and has made a lot of statements underlining her political affiliation & beliefs.
That said, there's nothing wrong with being a leftist, and it's irrelevant to this case (except that, of course, she's using her platform & beliefs to put a pretty massive spin on things.) Saying "the communist reporter" is similar to stating "the black assailant."
In this case it's just a horrible, possibly avoidable tragedy and I'm sure everyone involved really really sorry it happened, not that that helps.
As for the idiots saying things like "if soldiers don't want to get blown up, they should stay the f*** out of Iraq", that's about as base, nonsensical, ill-informed and sad an attitude as I can think of, and simply not deserving of a response.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Oh, get real. It's difficult to know what really happened, and whether the soldiers made a mistake or whether it was simply a terrible tragedy, but if the soldiers had wanted that woman dead, there would be nothing left of her, the car, or any of the other occupants besides a smoking crater.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence".
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
Here and here.
Look at how "badly" her car was "shot up" and decide for yourself if this "journalist" is a lying sack of shit for saying that the car was shot at 300 or 400 times.
Now, use the information you have just learned to judge her credibility as a whole.
Does anybody have a clue what software they used to generate those PDFs? I am curious how various software treats such stuff in PDFs... I mean f.e. it is obvious that simple printout to PDF converter will erease any such hidden data, but what with f.e. OpenOffice.org export function or various other utilities?
At the risk of sounding like a karma-whore to all those people that accuse people as such, I have made a PDF of the .DOC
It can be found here: http://www.lehigh.edu/~mlt3/Unclassified.pdf
Effectively not. You will notice that paragraphs in the document are preceded either by (U) or by (S//NF)
(U) simply means Unclassified.
(S//NF) means "Secret/No Foreign Nationals".
Any US citizen has not violated fundamental clearance issues by reading it (however, OpSec provides that this information should only be available on a need to know basis). Non-US Citizens outside the US aren't covered by US law in the same way.
The position of Non-US nationals in the US is probably different.
I am neither a Lawyer nor a US Citizen and I possess no US Security Clearance.
Exercise your right not to vote. thinkoutside.org
When you do a word search for some of the redacted material on the original PDF it highlights the blacked out portion where the redacted word resides.
This is just silly.
Remember... ZG9uJ3QgZm9yZ2V0IHRvIGRyaW5rIHlvdXIgb3ZhbHRpbmU=
I suppose it would't be too hard to twist the DMCA into "protecting" hidden text as a security/DRM mechanism and calling this action "circumvention". The main problem is that our technology has outgrown 90% of the human race. Another example of this kind of thinking is on the moblog site, yafro.com. There are tons of women who post nude photos of themselves in their accounts. Much like Slashdot, there is a friends/foes type system. If you and another person are mutually in a friend relation, then you can see their "locked" pictures. So... when a few jackasses decided to mutually friend some of the Yafro women, take their locked photos and post them in a public forum on Yafro (a club), these women flipped out. They griped about how they were entitled to their privacy and it had been violated. They're right as far as ethics and respect go. But, this is the internet. Anything you place on it can't be expected to be private or protected in any fashion. If someone wants the info bad enough, they are going to get it.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
keep hoping
Yes! Evil rules! Good can suck it! Suck it, good!
bush is even having things classified even after they have been testified to before congress, or been discussed on 60 minutes.
Of course he hasn't gone as far as Reagan who wanted to prosecute them for their testimony before congress even though the info was not classified at the time of the testimony.
The bush administration has leaked classified info when it serves their purposes. Remember Valerie Plame? She was setting up a sting to bust nuclear weapon smugglers.
Sometimes it is in the national interest to leak. Remember when Reagan classified the reports of fraud and waste? Those leaks were in our national interest whereas keeping it classified was not. He made a public show of fighting waste and fraud, but behind the scenes he was not, but at least the issue was before the public eye.
Edmunds is now fighting to have her info heard before congress. Her info points to complacency before and after 9-11. they have classified her info so much she can't even tell congress.
I was an Army spook, I know the arguments. Not everything should be declassified, but waste, fraud, treason should be declassified. The Valerie Plame leak was treason in my opinion.
This is not the first time they have made this type of mistake. Embarrassing them in this way can only make them be more security conscious. Security is about the small things.
photosMy Photostream
Since the majority of you /.'ers didn't read the link the reason it's classified is because it points out the following things:
a) It shows Enemy Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTP's)
b) It shows Coalition TTP's responsive combat dialogue with Enemy TTP's
c) It gives away the primary routes for incoming/outgoing US embassy personnel with technical, personnel and operational details.
Being a soldier who just got back from Iraq I'm actually pretty pissed at this because of the fucking dangers behind it. But I'll leave it at that.
So would I, considering that the people distributing it are in Italy and therefore not subject to US law.
Sadam Hussien thought he wasn't subject to US law either. Guess where he's at right now?
So, what's a good new name for pizza that includes a word like "freedom?".
--- Liberty in our Lifetime
I think you mean Sgrena, not Calipari. I mean, you're absolutely correct in stating that Calipari is not a reliable witness, but that would be because he's, y'know, dead.
Why don't you check your facts. Calipari was the killed agent. The person you are talking about is Giuliana Sgrena.
And some references to some unreleased "satellite photos" aren't really credible source of information especially after US has been caught in blatant lying about WMD evidence and about torture in Guantanamo, Afganistan and in Iraq.
I think this incidence shows how trigger happy and uncompetent the US troops are. There is no question that if the Italians had know they were in danger of US troops they would have stopped. But evidently the troops aren't able to warn in a clear and understandable way the car's that are aproaching their checkpoints -- and so innocent people get killed all the time in Iraq. This is just one case that has gotten much attention as the passangers were Italians instead Iraqis.
They should arrange their roadblocks with clear warnings - and preferrable also with physical blocks, using tire puncturing blocks etc. Adn they could maintain large enough distance to their roadblocks that they wouldn't feel so threatened thaty they have to shoot first and ask later.
It's dark, you're travelling on a dangerous road known for ambushes. You can't see the huddled shapes lurking in the darkness behind their vehicles. Suddenly a floodlight paints your vehicle. You can't see anything but the floodlight and shots are fired. American checkpoint or insurgent ambush? Decide quickly, because you'll be killed if you stop and it's insurgents, and you be killed if you don't stop immediately and it's the Americans.
American checkpoints in Iraq are not well-lit traffic-coned "approach the gate and the waving officer slowly" affairs. They block the road at the best place to kill oncomers and hide behind their barriers. It's often the worst place for approaching vehicles to see the roadblock until you're on top of it. By then, they start firing "warning shots" in the general direction of (if not into) your vehicle. It doesn't always play out like that, but dozens of dead Iraqi families can't be wrong...
Here come da fudge!
Freedom pie?
The enemies of Democracy are
C'mon think 1 second of another alternative.
.DOC format, I'd tend to think that seeing how US military failed in terms of preparation and casulties in Irak, but this would be also too big (someone would get charged for something really huge, and normally someone having access to this type of document as source to encode them, isn't a total idiot and has been checked up. Plus, there's surely a procedure on how to make documents and etc. there).
:) )
It's really sad to see this much "nerds" falling into the easiest route from point a to b without even considering any other possibilities.
How about this: They don't have a clue on how to get to the heads of the insurgency, thus they can't send them bad information, in which case they "do an error that looks legit" and broadcast it abroad knowing every news agency and curious person on the planet will pick it up.
Disinformation is a powerful thing. and even if the troops movements and all kind of information is included in the text, maybe there's one point there that they know that could be set up as a trap or whatever.
I mean, it's easy to jump to conclusions that humanity is stupid because someone revealed information, and the military knows nothing about the evil
So the point is, I could be wrong, the gun-jumpers could be wrong, but one thing is right; there are ALWAYS other possible alternatives to something obvious, especially when it's military or political. A forum like this is not to say "ahh bad bad bad" and see 500 messages of bitching on bad bad bad, but rather to promote a certain level of dicussion and intelligible arguments.
My $0.02CDN (which isn't worth much
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
- The world hates George Bush and the Republicans because
- The Republicans and George Bush hate and have no respect for the rest of the world. The Republicans have such friendly ideas as to disband the U.N.; have the U.S. completely withdraw from the U.N.; move the U.N. headquarters out of NYC;
make the U.N. a U.S.A. puppet (John Bolton is for the latter).
As the sayin goes, with friends like these who needs enemies?You just have to look at how George Bush treats fellow Americans called Democrats to understand the level of contempt and hate that exists for the outside world as well. As an American, if you want to go to a George Bush Town Hall meeting you have to sign a paper of loyalty. You have to ask yourself why that is?
In my opinion the bigger story here was how the U.S. handled diplomacy. Obviously the answer is poorly, arrogantly and with a strong middle finger salute to the Italians. This is no different then the diplomacy of Fox News, AM Hate Radio, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, Laura Ingram and all the rest of the right wing giving their fellow Americans called Democrats the finger 24 hours/day, 7 days/week. Ultimately all the hatred and contempt the right heaps on the left will end in violence.
Whoever Bush appoints to the U.N. will be expected to behave similarly; waive arrogantly a strong John Bolton middle finger salute to the rest of the world as well.
The government is secretive about everything so that the public comes to expect secrecy as the norm, and will thus be more complacent and undemanding of transparency in cases where there really might be a cover-up.
If the government had a general policy of keeping things in the open whenever possible, then at those times when they really want to cover something up, they'd have a much harder time of it, because (a) the public would expect and demand more transparency, as the 'norm' and (b) the public would realise there "must actually be a cover-up this time" in cases where secrecy is applied, because the secrecy would be far more unusual.
So it's better for the government to just generally say to everyone all the time, "hey, we're the government, everything we do is secret and the public should have no expectation of knowing any of it". This way they can do anything they like.
So much for the govt. using PDF...looks like they'll have to switch back to ASCII text documents.
...whether they did that on purpose. I mean, it doesn't seem to occur to any commenter to doubt the authenticity of the hidden text. But maybe, that totally insignificant hidden text was put there on purpose. Are you folks all naive or am I getting slightly paranoid?
I really hate the way that Americans often seem to lose their sanity the minute the word "communist" is mentioned, since it seems like such a knee jerk reflex, especially since the cold war ended around 15 years ago. However, I think that Sgrena's attitude toward the US was probably not the most favourable, as I can't imagine a European communist paper employing a giddy yay america type person. While communist papers and parties in Europe are dinosaurs, as not many are interested in them, I think that the general view of the US in Europe has nothing to do with being communist or not.
Living here myself, I simply see European attitudes as being one's of suspicion and disbelief at the rhetoric and actions of the current US government.
However, a lot of Europeans are just as supicious of their own governments as these are just as opaque in the way they do things.
I feel a great disturbance in the Net, as if millions of geeks stampeded to yafro.com, and then were silent but for gentle fapping.
Do you love freedom??? Do you love freedom!!! DO YOU LOVE FREEDOM!!!!!!!!
Ooooh, seeeeecret!
Page 19:
"2 (S//NF) 2 VOIP is a technology that allows telephone calls to be made using a broadband internet connection instead of a regular (analog) phone line."
Guru Meditation #6d416769.21610a21
If not then all the comments regarding right and wrong of the insidence and its exposure is genuinely without a just foundation.
When shit hits the fan.... its splatters everywhere.
Better to identify the party who thru the shit at the fan in the first place. Rather than argueing over who got hit or not.
satellite tracking covered in the news . My guess is because that kind of info is higher than S/NF, and therefore may not have made this report at all.
Well, they were rogue US employees. So a case could be made that the US law applied to them too.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
> Many Italians believe that her car was
> deliberately fired upon because of her politics.
If that were the case, why is she still alive?
> Note that the US has refused to the Italians
> see the car.
Really? Since the Italians have had the car in their possession (now in Rome), how is it the U.S. is able to refuse the Italians to see it?
Try reading a newspaper once in a while.
>...my quickie conclusion: because of the obvious
> discrepencies, the refusal to show the car,
See above
> the unexplained motivation to keep this material
> secret,
So in addition to not being able to read a newspaper, you are also completely lacking of common sense?
Military tactics are very often classified (why tell the enemy how you operate).
So if the United States government conducted a massacre of thousands of US citizen's, then made the documents leading up to the decision classified, and you came across those documents. It would be 'wrong' for you to download and read them?
This is my last post.
[6th Estate]
No, in fact it is rented from Cuba (even though they refuse the payment) and the U.S. government's position is that it is therefore foreign soil and not subject to U.S. laws or Constitution.
"They were captured in disguise and according to the laws of warfare could be summarily executed as spies."
While it's nice to refer to what the actual laws and interpretations allow, you miss the most important point: they have no due process rights. As you state, they have no Geneva Convention protection, even though they were captured as "the enemy" in a war. They are also not protected by the U.S. Constitution (see above link) because they are considered on foreign soil, even though they were captured by Americans, are being held by Americans, and are on an American base. In short, they have no protected rights for due process that civilized nations provide to everyone including war criminals, enemy soldiers, and civilian criminals.
Some people may not care. After all, these are terrorists, right? Well, how do we know? Is the military infallable? Is every accused person guilty? That's what due process is for. Is this not the "absolute power" behaviour that pissed off American's enough to create the U.S. in the first place, and provide such basic protections to all people?
This is a sad and unfortunate incident.
I don't care about any political bearings of any of the players. Only of those involved and their saftey.
All of this happened in the blink of an eye. That can be agreed on. It is also a shame and that can be agreed on too.
Honestly you do NOT mess around in a situation like this. As a soldier you can't just say "Oh look at that speeding car lets see what they want". You have to take action and it sounds to me like procedure was followed to the best of ability.
Communication could have been better.
The driver could have been smarter.
The vehicles shouldn't have been moved. Though I'm glad they were as more could have died.
That can be agreed on. Well no cause it doesn't matter because Americans are at fault automatically.
Just think about this. She was released. Why the need for any urgency?
The one thing I think everyone missed is this:
Sgrena claimed that her kidnappers, just before releasing her, had warned her that the American forces would be a danger to her.
Perhaps she had some form of Stockholm Syndrome and caused the driver to react differently when the warning shots happened?
Why on earth would the Americans want to intentionally harm her? Oh that's right the kidnappers said so so it must be true.
If that is true why then was medical treatment given to her and those involved as a priority over all else?
Anyway...
You know people are nitpicking when you read things like:
Giuliana Sgrena was hit, in the shoulder according to the U.S. version, but in an upper limb, according to Italian journalists.
So they already have an axe to grind. Eventually the truth will come out though no one will want to hear it. Both sides were at fault.
You're just a repressed coincidence theorist. Let's see: a group of high government officials go out of power with the change in party control. They publish a detailed plan for invading Iraq for unilateral strategic reasons, noting that without other justification, they'll need a "Pearl Harbor" scale event to invade. A decade later, they return to their old offices when their party retakes the White House. A few months later, a Pearl Harbor scale event occurs. The officials claim falsely that the event is connected to Iraq, and invade.
That's not very complicated. Every part is public knowledge all along. It is deluded people like you, who won't accept the truth, who enable the outrageous acts of these evil officials. Your kind of zombie is easy to identify: you can't dispute the facts, or the simple logic, so you attack the messenger with rhetoric and extreme exaggeration. I hope you're enjoying Bush's America, composed of lies, hatred, war, poverty, and rapid decline. Maybe you'll get a date with one of the Bush twins!
--
make install -not war
Not in this case, however, as the US Government can not hold copyrights.
-Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
Slashdot isn't in the business of covering the war in Iraq. I will note that the same article points out that terrorist bombs killed more than the US troops.
Also, as a former US serviceman, we are not out to murder anybody. You're a jackass if you think that's what the servicemen are out to do.
This guy is way out there
Secret / Noforn means only US Citizens with a current Secret clearance and a certified need to know can read it. If you have no security clearance and no legitimate need to know, you're not supposed to have access to even FOUO (for official use only) or confidential documents, which are lower classifications of documents. Even if you have a secret clearance and are a US citizen, if you have no need to know, you also can not have access to the documents.
When I dealt with Secret Noforn documents, they were locked in a safe that was locked inside a room. They had to be shredded into little tiny squares or burned.
Certainly a crime has been committed by the government officials who released this in PDF form. Whoever decided that a PDF was secure enough to release S/NF needs to be prosecuted. This is unacceptable.
Well, some people may remember that in 1998, a US pilot flew a jet into a ski gondola in the italian alps and killed 20 people. He was brought back to the US very fast (IIRC before notifying italian police). He was later acquited in an US court.
Not difficult to see why italians have difficulties to trust US army "judicial" system.
---
Laws are only formal statements of the current morals of a society. What's morally acceptable today is atrocious tomorrow, and vice versa. Look at the rise and fall of slavery in the US, or gladiatorial entertainment in ancient Rome. A law is usually "unjust" only because it's fallen out of style with the people, for better or for worse.
And since when do you need guns to break a law? Were all laws obeyed before the invention of guns?
#1. IED & VBIED analysis. The attackers already know that. The only people who don't know it are the US citizens who only watch Fox news. That is how the attackers can improve their attacks. So no military reason to hide that info.
#2. Analysis of specific checkpoints. Again, the attackers already have that information.
#3. Combat readiness analysis - this might be useful to the attackers, but most likely won't be. The attackers aren't going to attempt to match military units.
#4. Description of the layout - not useful to the attackers. They can already see it. About 50 cars had already seen it. That is one of the items they consider when improving their attacks.
#5. Grid locations - again, the attackers already know that.
#6. Details on searches - again, the attackers already know that and have used that information to improve their attacks.
#7. Details of threat assesment methods - possibly not fully be known by the attackers. But, given the number of recorded shootings of civilians, this information wouldn't be very useful. Which is why the suicide attacks have increased.
#8. Analysis of "normal" traffic - again, that information is available to the attackers already and it is part of what they've used to improve their attacks.
etc, etc, etc.
About the only information that should have been completely removed are the names of the soldiers/officers involved and their units. They can be impacted by various journalists and such seeking stories.
None of the other information wouldn't already be known by the attackers.
And operating as if the attackers did NOT know that information just leaves you vulnerable to more attacks.
As can be seen in the report. The soldiers secured the points they were most vulnerable from. Including overpasses where grenades could be dropped.
You have to assume the enemy has all the information you do before you start operations. Otherwise, when the enemy DOES know something that you are relying upon him to NOT know, you're fucked.
Wouldn't "accidently" selectively releasing classified information be an effective propaganda technique? That way people would think that since it was classified it must be true?
Perhaps I'm just too paranoid about the modern media-goverment incest going on for the past few decades.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
35 UNCLASSIFIED UNCLASSIFIED
(U) Specialist Lozano spotlighted the car before it reached the Alert Line, fired warning shots as it reached the Warning Line, and fired on the vehicle in an attempt to disable it immediately after it crossed the Warning Line. (Annexes 79C, 87C, 129C, 134C).
(U) Specialist Lozano was the only one to fire his weapon. (Annexes 77C, 79C, 81C, 83C, 85C, 87C, 89C).
(U) The car was traveling at approximately 50 mph as it crossed the Warning Line. (Annex 83C).
(U) Mr. Carpani did not apply his brakes until after the rounds began striking the car. (Annexes 104C, 105C).
(U) Given the cyclic rate of fire of the M240B, Specialist Lozano's expertise with the weapon, and that only 11 rounds struck the vehicle with only five of those impacting the front of the car, it is highly unlikely that any shots were fired after the car came to a stop. (Annexes 79C, 6G, 1I, 3M).
(U) Both the blocking and overwatch vehicles were moved after the incident as directed by Captain Drew to transport Ms. Sgrena to the Combat Support Hospital. Both vehicles were needed to provide security for the move to the hospital. (Annexes 74C, 77C).
(U) The gunner complied with the Rules of Engagement. After operating the spotlight, and perceiving the on-coming vehicle as a threat, he fired to disable it and did not intend to harm anyone in the vehicle. (Annexes 79C, 83C).
-------------------
The report says 50mph. Yeah, I drive faster than that going to work, so the Italians probably don't see that as very fast, but I could see how that *would* be considered fast if you're approaching an army checkpoint already nervous about suicide bombers.
What I don't get is this: I find it hard to believe that the Italian agents neglected to tell other troops around that area what they were planning to do. It's common sense because your allies are armed forces too. Something about this just doesn't seem to fit yet (for me).
He flew into the cable, not the gondola.
The lift was not marked on military aviation maps, Italian or US.
I can find no evidence that says they were brought back to the states "very fast". They supposedly did not know of the cable car falling until hours later back at Aviano.
An Italian judge ruled that the US military had sole jurisdiction over the proceedings.
The low altitude warning alarm was set to 800 feet. The alarm did not sound.
The pilot was found not guilty of involuntary homicide and manslaughter. Yes, he was flying too low through the mountains. Probably hotdogging a little. But it was an accident.
The only acceptable verdict to the Italians would have been guilty. Guilty of what? Manslaughter? At most it could have been the flying equivalent of 'reckless driving'.
Where is your proof for this? Isn't it just as possible that it might be true but they don't want people to believe it so they release it in some questionable way?
This is not the greatest sig in the world, this is just a tribute.
Don't explain with ill will what can be explained with stupidity.
Day 0.
Grunt 1: Hey, wake up! Some car just passed by!
Grunt 2: dadadadadadadada! *shooting*
Grunt 1: Hey, stop! I didn't say shoot, just wake up and check them!
Grunt 2: They got away already, screw them.
Day 1:
Drone 1: Shit, grunts screwed up. Write up something to cover it up.
Drone 2: Any info about what happened?
Drone 1: All classified. Will take years to get through the administration, and we need something NOW. Make something up.
Drone 2: Okay.
Day 2:
Drone 1: Okay, but they won't buy... this VIP road part, she already said they were on that road already... and that front shooting part. The car has been shot from behind. The rest looks believable enough.
Drone 2: Ok, erasing these. (Crtl+X, save.)
Drone 1: Looks fine, send to the press.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
And do you consider the result "ok"?
With all due respect, USA had nothing to do in Iraq, it wasn't threatened by it and it knew that it poses no danger. Also, at the current stage there are open admissions that intelligence data was twisted for political needs not to represent actual situations.
How often do you shoot your neighbors just because they might be holding a gun and planning to shoot you? And claim that this was just a self-defense out of necessity? Try it out! It works! It's the american way, after all!
The fact that USA tries to enforce its laws across the world is NOT acceptable, regardless of what your comment shows you think. This just isn't how the law is supposed to work.
There are cultures where murder is a very encouraged and normal (if not mandatory) response to a case if someone rapes your daughter (in example).
There are cultures where there are no needs for cops, because the justice is enforced by everyone and any criminal risk loosing not only his position in society, but home and friends too.
You just might have heard that there are cultures where the LAW is defined and exact and don't depends on 15 tomes of decisions of similar cases or your capabilities to appear as a victim of society to the jurors.
I'm not saying that Sadam Hussein wasn't a criminal. Yes, he was, he was involved in war crimes, genocide, just plain power stretching around and enforced really harsh means to silence the opposition, but this wasn't the USA's business. For heaven's sake, Iraq even isn't a border country for the USA, what would add some credibility to the "World Cop" role it postulates.
In short: US law is law that is (and should be) enforced only in USA. One step across the border - and you have a different set of laws. And that's how it should stay - each culture deciding itself on the laws it needs and the enforcement methods it should use.
There is a really, really big difference between McJunkie Girl (violently raped at each of last three parties she attended and happy for that) and the wife of some Taliban Man (violently beaten up each evening, and happy for that). And laws are made to reflect that.
And anyway, while the military might have managed to convince the world that it was all made up, they would have figured out how it was done quickly enough anyway.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
Everyone asserts that the US constitution doesn't apply overseas, but I don't see anything that would imply that in the constitution itself - it's all along the lines of, "Congress shall not do X."
Not "Congress shall not do X, except to brown-skinned furriners with funny outfits and long beards," or "Congress shall not do X in any place where reporters might see it done," or "Congress shall not do X unless they first convince a majority of voting Americans that it's OK."
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
While the US government is likely to blame this entire mess on the Italians, I can't help but wonder, is it their fault? Up until now perhaps, the Iraqi insurgents and other anti-American forces probably didn't have the capability or wherewithall to employ this innovative "cut and paste technology" to discover classified bits of information.
Are the Americans so jaded and naive that they think this hidden information would have only been discovered had it not been for some Italians publicizing it?
If you ask me, probably the only way to get important groups to better-secure their information, is through exposes of this nature which embarass them into changing their methods, otherwise it may very well have been just the Iraqi insurgency and a few others that, for several more years would have employed this super-secret cut-and-paste technology.
No, in fact it is rented from Cuba (even though they refuse the payment) and the U.S. government's position is that it is therefore foreign soil and not subject to U.S. laws or Constitution.
That was the position of the Bush administration, but the Supreme Court disagrees. Six out of nine justices rejected that argument, holding that alien prisoners at Guantanamo do have the right to challenge their imprisonment by filing a habeas petition in federal court.
Citing an opinion piece from 2003 hardly concludes the argument in your favor when the Supreme Court has subsequently ruled on the matter. In fact, the Court has ruled that Guantanamo Bay does fall within the jurisdiction of the United States Court and that the prisoners held there have the same rights as they would if their were held in one of the states or territories of the US. Because of their status as enemy combatants, those rights are limited to little more than the Writ of Habeas Corpus until such time as an Article III court rules that they are being improperly held by the Executive, but it is incorrect to claim (as the Bush administration tried to) that the Gitmo prisoners are totally outside of the jurisdiction of the United States Court and without constitutional guarantees of their due process rights.
The 1-76 TOC had two means of communicating with 4th Brigade, its higher headquarters: Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP)2 and FM. The 1-76 FA Battle Captain was using only VOIP to communicate with 1-69 IN, but experienced problems with VOIP, therefore losing its only communication link with 1-69 IN, other than going through 4th Brigade. (Annex 97C). As a result, the Battle Captain was unable to pass updated information about the blocking mission either directly to 1-69 IN, or to 4th Brigade. He did not attempt to contact 4th Brigade via FM communications. (Annex 63C).
and
(U) Mr. Carpani told Sergeant First Class Feliciano who Ms. Sgrena was and that he was trying to get to the airport. He told Sergeant First Class Feliciano that he heard shots from somewhere, and that he panicked and started speeding, trying to get to the airport as quickly as possible. Mr. Carpani further told Sergeant First Class Feliciano that he continued to speed down the ramp, and that he was in a hurry to get to the airport. (Annexes 91C, 136C).
So it all came down to two issues.
(1) Failure to communicate. The car wasn't where it should be, wasn't informed of what was waiting ahead of them, gave its position but that information was not forwarded to the roadblock, so they were not expecting them.
(2) The driver then risked the lives of everyone in the vehicle by reacting with very bad judgement when he arrived at the roadblock. (accelerating the vehicle after he was spotlighted, laserpointered, and heard the warning shots)
Bad decisions by the driver of the vehicle, amplified by failure to communicate.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
They'll never believe you actualy RTFA.
You are more than the sum of what you consume. Desire is not an occupation.
By the argument that Guantanamo is in Cuba and therefore the US constitution doesn't apply there, surely the whole base should be subject to Cuban law?
You cannot shoot out the rear window from the front without it showing damage to the front. Thus the U.S. story does not hold up to the facts.
read the censored stuff, it is highly dangerous - for the guys who want this war, not for the guys who execute it. PAT
SEO Test: TIGI und SEBASTIAN - Online Shop - V
After all, these are terrorists, right? Well, how do we know? Is the military infallable? Is every accused person guilty?
In fact we know with as much certainty as we know anything that some of the 500 people incarcerated in Guantanomo Bay are not terrorists. Simple statistics is all that is required to prove this. We know that the cops sometimes arrest the wrong person, and that for that reason we have courts. And we know that sometimes courts convict the wrong people, and for that reason we don't have the death penalty (oops, sorry, you guys in the U.S. do, don't you?)
We also know that the Guantanomo detainees were captured in an environment very much subject to "the fog of war", which gets used as an excuse every time the U.S. military fucks up and kills a few Canadians.
Given all this, it is extremely doubtful that the error rate in accusations of terrorism is less than 1%. If it is 1%, then on average we would expect 5 innocent people to be incarcerated in Gauntanomo Bay with no rights. A Poisson distribution with a mean of 5 has P(0) = 0.0067, so there is a 99.3% chance that there is at least one innocent in Gauntanomo Bay, even under these extremely conservative assumptions.
Given that the U.S. military tribunals that are passing judgment on the detainees believe that wearing a Casio watch constitutes evidence of terrorism it is pretty clear that the rate of incarceration of innocents is much higher than this. It is also worth noting that the tribunal does not even get the model of the watch correct--the F91 does not have a compass. It makes one wonder what other mistakes they have made in the evidence that still remains classified.
--Tom
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
You post claims and for substantiation, you link to other stories with those claims.
The "satelite photo" story does not contain any satelite photos.
The reference to "handfuls of bullets" does not have her saying that. Only her boyfriend telling someone that she said that to him.
The reference to the "4 inch tank round" again does not have her saying that but has someone who claims to have heard her say that.
The REAL question is whether or not they had passed through other checkpoints.
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/index.php?id=P1957
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/2 5/1516242&mode=thread&tid=25
Why won't the US let the Italians inspect the car? The Italians purchased the car from the rental company so they can do forensics. The US won't let them have the car. Why not? Hello? Bueller? Bueller?
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GD28Ak01.html
In case nobody has noticed, they have a Cuban terrorist sitting in Miami right now asking for asylum who bombed an airliner killing 73 people including an Italian citizen - and the Bush government is saying nothing about it.
Why?
Because he was against Castro, that's why.
If you're on "our" side, you're not a terrorist, apparently, no matter how many civilians you kill.
Not to mention the neocon support of that anti-Iranian group in northern Iraq who have engaged in terrorism against Iran.
The fact of the matter is the US government has supported terrorism nearly as much, if not more so, than the Russian government used to do. It's just that the US seems to support state terrorism more than resistance terrorism.
The hypocrisy doesn't get any deeper.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
What? FDR went to war against Japan, a country that Attacked America. He also went to war against Germany, a country that declared war on America first and allied with Japan.
Bush, on the other hand, went to war against Afghanistan, a country that harbored Al Qaeda. He also went to war against Iraq, a country that did not declare war on America and had nothing at all to do with Al Qaeda.
I fail to see how you can connect the two. We're not safer, go ask anyone living in the Middle East if they love America more now because of the Iraq war. Check the blogs if you're lazy.
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/index.php?id=P1957
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/2 5/1516242&mode=thread&tid=25
Why won't the US let the Italians inspect the car? The Italians purchased the car from the rental company so they can do forensics. The US won't let them have the car. Why not? Hello? Bueller? Bueller?
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GD28Ak01.html
Kind of sounds... Arabic to me. Probably al Quaeda's chief county-intelligence chief if he's single-handedly breaking the United States' best encryption methods.
Shouldn't we be bringing him and everyone at Slashdot who has obviously associated with him numerous times in to Gitmo for "questioning"?
You may be underestimating the horror of imprisoning the people there. Watch The Power of Nightmares by BBC. It looks weird, but it really seems that most of the terrorist threat was made up. It's very likely that 90-95% of all people in Guantanamo Bay are innocent. Do you know how flimsy the evidence was in those few cases of suspected terrorists caught on the US soil?
The whole thing is unjustified. If we ignore the US government propaganda for a second, the whole campaign was simply an act of unprovoked irrational aggression in violation of international laws. As Viggo Mortensen said about America commenting on parallels between war in Iraq and LOTR, "We are the evil guys".
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
c) The physical evidence that not only refutes Sgrena, but displays the exceptional skill of the American military
from the report:
he fired another burst, walking the rounds from the ground on the passenger's side of the vehicle and towards the car's engine block in an attempt to disable it. The rounds hit the right and front sides of the vehicle, deflated the left front tire, and blew out the side windows
He shot at the engine block, and managed to put a round through the windshield and blow out the side windows. Yessir, that's exceptional skill all right.
d) satellites recorded the entire incident... and further exonerate the US military of any wrongdoing.
The US government claims it has this data. It's a good thing we all know the government would never ever lie about anything, isn't it? Where can we review this data ourselves, so we don't have to take the word of a party who has a lot riding on the outcome?
f) The fact that no one in the media or public forum seems concerned that Italy is engaged in the deceptive and dangerous practice of rewarding terrorists
First, how is that relevant to the question of whether they should have machinegunned that car? Unless your position is, the Italians deserved to die, and the soldiers did it on purpose? Second, I'd agree that rewarding terrorists (or criminals, as the case may be, we all know that the occupying forces have failed to provide an adequate level of security for the population, and kidnapping for profit is rampant) is a bad idea. Third, terrorists? They're all folking terrorists. The guys who kidnap people for profit, the guys on all sides who kidnap people for political reasons (that would include those where the kidnapees end up being tortured in Egypt or transported to Gitmo, no less than the cases where they get their head cut off on-camera), and the guys who machinegun civilian cars.
I don't think big conspiracy here. I just think the Army always tries to protect its own, all the way up the chain of command. You may remember that after the murder of 504 civilians at My Lai, none of the murderers ever did jail time. They're saying none of the responsible officers had any clue what went on at Abu Ghraib (or elsewhere, apparently). That's just not credible. (If it were, the criminals who committed those acts should do long stints appropriate to sex crimes. Sex crimes? That's what they'd call it if I forced your sister to masturbate in public at gunpoint, right? Should it be different if the victim is an Iraqi male?)
It seems like they had more reason than just a watch:
"One of the detainee's known aliases was on a list of captured hard drives associated with a senior al Qaida member".
That's quite a bit stronger evidence than a mere watch. And that is from a list containing only unclassified evidence; who knows what the classified evidence might be.
Send/track messages to 100K people: www.xPressAlert.com
How did this suddenly become a massacre? I suggest checking
the dictionary (below). "Just for the fun of it". Let's get real.
This was no fun for anyone involved and a serious blunder
(particularly by the driver and others in Italian command) in a war zone.
The innattentive driver failed to heed warnings and
continued driving ~ 50 mph (faster than the 11 cars
preceding it that stopped successfully) despite a bright warning
light, a green lazer and warning shots. It's another case
to show just how innatentive drivers are when chatting on cell phones. Also, no warning was given by the Italians to any U.S. authorities which could have made this a sucessful escape.
massacre P Pronunciation Key (ms-kr)
n.
The act or an instance of killing a large number of humans indiscriminately and cruelly.
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
If it takes 1 million dead iraqies in order to make it safe for my kids, then thats fine.
How will murdering a million Iraqis make things safe for your children? Al Quaeda exists because of previous US military and economic aggression. And your cure for this is more agression? If you want your children to be safe perhaps you should stop the US from creating enemies out of an entire people and deal with them as equals. This might send the price of oil up for your children, but by the time they're middle-aged it'll be running out anyway and think of all the billions they'll have saved on "defence." to offset this with better education and new technologies.
If it takes obliterating the entire middle east, fine, lets do it.
And when there were no more Middle East and you'd nuked all the other countries too that weren't comfortable sharing a planet with a genocidal state and there was only Americans left, then you could watch the same attitude you profess turn on yourselves as removed of outside cultures your own fragmented.
What none of the US people seem to be considering is that maybe with their aggression, they are creating an enemy that ultimately, might beat them.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Well, to be perfectly honest, she _did_ get shot. Which is not supposed to happen, but alas, it did. I don't believe there was a conspiracy; I'm pretty convinced by those docs that the whole thing was a sad, avoidable cockup caused by insufficient training, poor communication, and a whole lot of other elements of Murphy's Law in action.
My point about "American troops shouldn't be there" being a pretty useless statement holds, though. By that logic, Italian journalists with an axe to grind shouldn't be there either. Granted, the troops have, in an indirect way, a choice about this--as in "don't join the army if you don't want to go to war." However, Italian journalists with an axe to grind have a pretty direct choice in the matter. War zones are dangerous places.
I agree with one of this discussion's fanatics' statement that the US troops have more choice than the Iraqi civilians, but in this case, although civilians do sadly seem to be catching a lot of casualties, the woman who was shot (not to mention Callipari, the poor bastard) had a choice.
She does have an anti-American viewpoint, but frankly, there is nothing wrong with that, and it's her fundamental right to harbor and express such a viewpoint (even though I think she's a plank based on her previous writings.) I live in Europe (not Italy, admittedly) and I haven't heard a lot of credibility given to her rantings about a conspiracy to shoot her (she's a pretty irrelevant figure on the whole); rather people are upset that the thing happened at all.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
While I'm sure that you have your own sources of information and that you're an intelligent human being with your own opinion of the matter I think you're incorrect and in this case misinformed, thought I'm happy to keep an open mind.
My bias (you've got yours which I'd be curious to hear about and I've got mine) is that of an MP in Baghdad during the time in question. I was not in this unit's chain of command but I am familiar with operations in the city.
The entire story to date - just this morning, in fact - is that the Italians were in contact with the US command up to 25 minutes after the release of Sgrena.
That is their story, ours is that this communication did not occur.
I repeat, they were on a SECURE road - meaning, obviously, that the road was lined with US checkpoints more so than the well-known "airport" road which is the most dangerous road in Iraq. The Italians pointed out that they had already passed several US checkpoints (not Iraqi checkpoints) and were a few minutes from the airport when the incident occurred.
I understand that you're repeating this assertion, that doesn't make it so. Route Force (now Vernon I believe) is no more secure than route Irish (the airport road), I wish that it were but it's not. They were in fact a few minutes from the airport, but again that doesn't make them any more secure. I drove route Irish at least 25 times, it's not a secure road, it's not somewhere where you would want particularly to be, route Force (Vernon) was probably worse than that. In any case this was not a checkpoint but a roadblock, traffic is not intended to pass a roadblock.
Secondly, if I had Italian agents wandering around the area trying to free a prominent hostage, I'd be keeping tabs on them as well as possible - which would mean constant contact via cell phone and ELINT monitoring and possibly US escorts (the latter I suspect the Italians refused for obvious reasons). If not, the US military and the CIA are less intelligent even than I think.
If I were an Italian agent I would make sure I coordinated with the forces in the area, not depended on a capability which simply does not exist. Hollywood notwithstanding there is not some whiz-bang display at Battalion level that displays cell phone users etc. This coordination did not occur our story is that the Italians didn't do it, presumably they assert otherwise. Hope is no substitute for a plan, if they didn't plan (and rehearse) coordination in advance than they were dangerously unprepared.
While it is not clear that the US actually intended to assassinate Sgrena and the Italian agents, it IS clear from the literally hundreds or thousands of US killings at checkpoints - often when the vehicle involved is at least a hundred meters from the checkpoint and no identification of the occupants is even possible - that the US troops are trigger-happy morons with no regard for the local population in an urban combat situation.
While I'm curious as to the source of your information I can tell you that the troops I served with were not "trigger-happy morons". The unfortunate fact of life is that you either comply with instructions at checkpoints or you are liable to be shot. In a better world this wouldn't be the case, but Baghdad 2005 is not a better world.
Nobody wants to harm civilians, it's not in our interest and it's not the right thing to do. I was there and I didn't develop a sociopathic desire to kill random civilians, but if I feel that you're a threat to me or my soldiers I'm going to do my best to kill you. That's not pretty, it's not nice, it's uncomfortable to hear (and say), but it's reality. If it's a choice between them and you, it's not really a choice.
While it is fashionable to babble about how they are scared of the resistance car bombs, it would behoove them a) not to join the military if they can't handle it; b) design their operations to minimize the threat without having to wholesale murder the populati