DEATH IN BAGHDAD….Riverbend writes that the only surprising thing about American troops firing on the car of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena is that anyone is paying attention:
I don?t understand why Americans are so shocked with this incident. Where is the shock? That Sgrena?s car was under fire? That Americans killed an Italian security agent? After everything that occurred in Iraq ? Abu Ghraib, beatings, torture, people detained for months and months, the stealing, the rape…is this latest so very shocking? Or is it shocking because the victims weren?t Iraqi?
I?m really glad she?s home safe but at the same time, the whole situation is somewhat painful. It hurts because thousands of Iraqis have died at American checkpoints or face to face with a tank or Apache and beyond the occasional subtitle on some obscure news channel, no one knows about it and no one cares. It just hurts a little bit.
She’s also got an account of Iraqi National Guard troops beating up doctors at a Baghdad hospital after an explosion last Wednesday. It’s not pretty stuff.
