NYC Letter: Soaping Up Calamity

UPDATES 03.08.05: We admire again LGF's dog-with-a-bone tenaciousness as evidenced in several posts covering the Signora's highly colored story: Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Pity Sr. Calipari, to have put his life at the service of the grandstanding propagandist Signora. [The original post follows. Also see Valerie's post below.]

After the shoot-up of the Italian rescue, the threads swell with huff and outrage from America's gleeful critics.

Are the critics of the U.S. Army prepared to weep and fume at the parlous consequences to American troops if the rules of engagement in Baghdad are changed to suit their delicate ideas about the conduct of war?

Well, no. No, our critics are looking for occasions to be outraged. We read little in their complaints of their sympathy for Signora Sgrena, we read nothing for Sr. Calipari. Why? Because Signora Sgrena and Sr. Calipari are but convenient clubs to beat on America.

Memories are not so short that it is forgotten what happens when soldiers at war are under orders to maintain the proprieties of a tea-party.

Just before 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 23, 1983, a Mercedes truck passed a Lebanese checkpoint on the airport road without halting. The truck turned into the airport parking lot, circled twice and picked up speed for a deadly run at the headquarters building. Orders prohibited Marines from being locked and loaded, but small arms fire probably would not have made much difference, according to reports. A sentry did get some shots off with a pistol, however. The driver of the speeding van was determined to put a huge dent in the American presence in Lebanon. After breaking through several barriers, it sped between two sentry boxes and crashed through more obstacles, penetrating the building's first floor before detonating tons of explosives, taking the lives of 241 Marines, Sailors and soldiers, a majority of which were stationed at Camp Lejeune. Most died in their sleep or were crushed as the building collapsed, while a handful have died in the years that followed due to injuries sustained from the bombing.

But Signora Sgrena is a headline and dead American soldiers are page six.

Feckless political opportunists have moved quickly to begin making the most of this media bonanza. Without a mention of Sr. Calipari. Without a tear.

Italy’s centre-left, which hopes it can unseat Berlusconi next year in elections and weaken his standing at local government polls next month, is campaigning on a platform of withdrawing.

“I don’t believe a word of the American version,” said Oliviero Diliberto, head of the Italian Communist party, part of the main left-wing block led by former premier Romano Prodi.

“The Americans deliberately fired on Italians. This is huge. All of the centre-left must vote in parliament for the withdrawal of our troops.”

And where did Sr. Diliberto, head of the Italian Communist party, get this fabulous notion? Why from Signora Sgrena, who coincidentally works for the communist daily Il Manifesto:

Speaking from her hospital bed where she is being treated, Sgrena told Sky Italia TV it was possible the soldiers had targeted her because Washington opposes Italy's dealings with kidnappers that may include ransom payments.

"The United States doesn't approve of this (ransom) policy and so they try to stop it in any way possible."

She offered no evidence for her claim...

Hhmmm, what was it that clued the Signora, in the absence of facts, to this disturbing conclusion? Why her gentlemen captors!:

In her article, Sgrena wrote that her captors warned her as she was about to be released not to signal her presence to anyone, because "the Americans might intervene."

It was the happiest and also the most dangerous moment," Sgrena wrote. "If we had run into someone, meaning American troops, there would have been an exchange of fire, and my captors were ready and they would have responded."

Then immediately following the rescue shoot-up, with Sr. Calipari dead in her lap, the Signora has a terrible epiphany:

Suddenly, she said, she remembered her captors' warning her "to be careful because the Americans don't want you to return."

But her gentlemen captors' solicitude was not much in evidence here. And at that time the Signora was of a decidedly different opinion about who didn't want Italian journalists in Iraq:

ITALIAN HOSTAGE IN IRAQ PLEADS FOR HER LIFE

A sad and frightening video of an Italian journalist who was kidnapped in Baghdad aired on national television here Wednesday, the day the upper house of Parliament debated and passed a measure to renew funding for a military force in Iraq.

"I beg you, put an end to the occupation. I beg the Italian government and the Italian people to put pressure on the government to withdraw," she said in Italian, pressing her hands together as if in prayer.

"I beg you to help me. I beg my family to help me, and all those who stood with me to oppose the war and the occupation," said Sgrena, who then began to cry.

In the video, she advised, "No one should come to Iraq any longer because all foreigners, all Italians, are considered enemies.

"Please do something for me."

One of the above articles appears under the rubric:

ITALY REJECTS U.S. VERSION OF IRAQ SHOOTING

But other than the Signora , her boyfriend, Sr. Dilberto, and Carlo Giovanardi, most of Italy, though angry and distraught, appears to be waiting for the facts.

It remains a mystery what cunning America thought it would gain by an attempt on Signora Sgrena's life. She maintains it was to dissuade the Italian government from future dealings with terrorists. But how does killing the Signora at the conclusion of negotiations after a ransom has been paid accomplish this? And if the intent was to kill the Signora why after having stopped her car and rendering the passengers harmless did the American troops fail to complete their purported mission? Why pack off the Signora in an ambulance if the mission was to pack her off on ice?

For her part the Signora gushes tears for Sr. Calipari to further her agenda. Here she is in her initial recounting of events:

"I was talking to Nicola ... when he leaned over me, probably to defend me, and then he slumped over. That was a truly terrible thing."

Here she is newly informed by certitudes:

"Nicola Calipari dove on top of me to protect me and immediately, and I mean immediately, I felt his last breath as he died on me."

We do not slight Sr. Calipari's death by questioning the Signora's soaping it up to promote her political conspiracy theory.

Perhaps it seems weak for us to say we deeply regret Sr. Calipari's needless death. But we do. And we have taken a moment to learn a little about him. We believe Sr. Calipari was a brave man doing hazardous work and he knew the risks and accepted them. Alas, we cannot say the same for the opportuning Signora.

Posted by Damian at March 6, 2005 05:15 PM