by James Glaser
March 8, 2005

My Way News reports, "The White House on Monday said it was absurd for a former hostage in Iraq to charge that US military forces may have deliberately targeted her car as she was being rushed to freedom."

The hostage was an Italian journalist by the name of Giuliana Sgrena. She had been held hostage for a month and on her way to the Baghdad airport, American troops shot at the car she was in, wounding her and killing Italian intelligence officer, Nicola Calipari.

Segrena said it was possible that she was targeted by the US, because Italy negotiated with those who kidnapped her and the United States wants no negotiations.

I have no idea if our intelligence is good enough to know what car this former hostage was in, but I have no doubt at all that American troops are killing civilians who drive around Iraq.

With over 1,500 American troops dead and over 11,000 wounded, our Soldiers and Marines are pretty flinchy. Any car that even looks suspicious is going to get shot at.

Also there are Soldiers and Marines, not a lot of them, but enough, that will shoot people just so they can say they shot someone. I am not saying that this is what happened. I think it is just as likely that the Italian Intelligence Officer was killed and the journalist was wounded, because our troops were scared.

Because American troops have killed so many civilians, innocent civilians in Iraq, it is easy to understand why Giulana Sgrena might think she was a target. American troops are ruthless and they will kill anything that moves.

I think if we didn't have all of these civilian deaths and if our torture and killing of prisoners was not on every European television and magazine, then people would not think that the US would target someone for a sick type of revenge over tactics. Right now, people are willing to believe almost anything about what we will stoop to.

Not only George Bush, but our whole government, and all of our American troops are held in pretty low regard by much of this world. People are not going to give us the benefit of the doubt, because of all the horror we have inflicted on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. We don't see it because our media is controlled. Maybe it isn't government control or maybe it is, but we are not allowed to see the damage our troops inflict on innocent civilians. Especially damage to children and their mothers, but the rest of the world gets to see what mistakes we make almost every night on their news.

So, for an Italian Journalist to think that she was a target of American troops is not surprising, nor is it absurd. There will be many American troops from George Bush's Wars, in Veterans Administration Hospital Psychiatric Wards. Don't let this surprise you as that happens as a result of every war we have.

American troops are trained to kill and when they get into a combat zone that is what they do and as in all wars, many many innocent civilians are killed or maimed and our troops suffer from this killing and maiming they have done.

Just like in most past American wars, our troops in Iraq will someday realize that they were "had" and they were over in Iraq to make money for those in power. Most of our troops will someday understand that they were not defending our country from attack and their actions while thinking they were, will eat at them and they will have a lot of psychological problems from what they did in our name.

Right now, there are thousands and thousands of American Veterans dealing with these same issues from our past wars. War is hard on the troops.