In Hostage's Journey to Freedom, Joy Quickly Turned to Disaster

[TacticalPeek]

In Hostage's Journey to Freedom, Joy Quickly Turned to Disaster

By Frances D'emilio Associated Press Writer
Published: Mar 11, 2005


snip

RAI TV shows photos of the car, saying there's no evidence of bullet holes in the engine block. Sgrena says the fire was coming from "the right-hand side and from behind."

"It's not true that they shot into the engine," she says.

The Italian driver is ordered out of the car and made to kneel about 30 feet away, Fini says. The driver, speaking English, struggles to make the soldiers understand. Two young soldiers approach the driver; they are distraught, repeatedly saying they are sorry, Fini says.

Sgrena tells Corriere that the soldier who opened the car door looks upset and swears. Others walk over to the car and appear "disheartened," she says.

snip

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBEYBRV66E.html

[w4rma]

1. plausable deniability - The troops would not have known the plan

means that Negroponte, or more likely someone for Negroponte acting on what they had determined were his wishes, sent these troops to patrol an area that they knew that the Italians would be traveling on, knowing that they had orders to shoot anything that came near them, and knowing that the Italians would be crossing their patrol path and therefore would come near them. These troops were Negroponte's guards.

Plausable deniability. Folks like Negroponte know how to give orders and keep distance from those orders. Unaccountability is what Negroponte likes. Power without consequenses or responsibility.

[bemildred]

2. The guy(s) that got Calipari knew what they were about.

They just missed and got the wrong guy.
(In fairness, some people think the hit was on Calipari, but
I think it was Sgrena. They are really screwed now, if anything
happens to her at this point they will never hear the end of it.)

I am wondering how they will explain the "from the right and behind"
bit.

[w4rma]

6. Not the folks that pulled the trigger.

Not the young soldiers that looked inside the car and swore and apologized. They were following orders and had acted as they were expected to act by the guy that they were working for.

Don't try to put the fault on some 23 year old guy who is a patriot that is too inexperienced to really understand the treachery that is going on behind the scenes.

[bemildred]

7. If you think - as I do - that it was a hit ...

Then at least one guy had to know who he was supposed to shoot.
But I would expect the rest of the troops are as you say.

[daleo]

3. The set of car photos all showed left hand side and front.

"Sgrena says the fire was coming from "the right-hand side and from behind."

If so, that set of six photos on the Italian website was a set-up. A good example of framing the story in propaganda 101, though.

[bemildred]

4. I don't think it was an accident that we only got the left front view.

Does that look like a Corolla to you?
I don't keep up with cars anymore.

[CHIMO]

5. Not Certain

That the photo is the car. There was a post on DU yesterday from someone in Italy that said the photo in La Republic(Not sure of the spelling) was of the car that she was in at the time of her kidnapping. They also stated that the newspaper is one of Berlusconi's.