Some Italians tonight are asking if America is their friend, who needs enemies?
What are these soldiers at check-points thinking? Shoot first and ask questions later?
If Iraq is indeed tilting the way of democracy, then these kind of incidents are certainly going to disrupt progress. I have a hard time believing that we aren’t in the process of initiating a whole new round of blood feuds, revenge, and blowback of all sorts for these ‘regretted accidents.’
This “Nicola Calipari” seems to have been a true hero, someone who went into real danger to save the lives of kidnapped Italians.
But Bush expressed regret, promised an investigation, etc. The bottom line is that we have troops at check-points who are so fearful for their lives that they are trigger-happy and shoot just about anything that they don’t understand.
The answer is to either smarten up our soldiers or get them out. This death is going to sour much of whatever cosmetic good just came from Bush’s trip to Europe.
It’s very sad, even more so because it was avoidable.
— Steve Clemons
