MICHAEL LEONARDI
Rome, Italy, March 12, 2005
<snip> Who were Giuliana Sgrena's captors? Why would they say that they did not want witnesses of the blood bath in Fallujah? How is it that these captors would have the same threatening attitude toward journalists as the occupying forces? What were the circumstances of her release? Why was her trip home abruptly halted by American gunfire? If the attack was deliberate, why was her life spared? <snip>
Reporters Without Borders and the Iraqi Journalists Union have condemned the attack on the car carrying Giuliana Sgrena and Nicola Calipari. Reporters Without Borders, having plenty of experience with American deception and arrogance concerning their rules of engagement, has called for the United Nations to conduct an independent investigation into the tragedy. <snip>
Giuliana Sgrena wasn't the first Italian hostage to be liberated by the praised work of Nicola Calipari. As described by my colleague, he had also negotiated the freedom of Simona Torretta and Simona Pari, who, after their return to Italy, denounced the U.S. military as a brutal occupying force, called for the return of the 3,000 Italian troops stationed in Nassariya in southern Iraq, and heaped praise and words of support upon the Iraqi resistance fighters. It seems the last thing the Americans would want is an Italian negotiator working, against their wishes, to release journalists and human rights workers effectively exposing the atrocities of their illegal war. More insidiously, it seems that the Americans might view these actions by a junior partner in the Terror War as a punishable affront, using the murder of Calipari as a lesson to those wishing to play a small role on America's imperial stage. <snip>
http://www.pej.org/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2082&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0