thedrifter
03-20-05, 06:56 AM
03-15-2005
Spreading Ripples from a Checkpoint Shooting
By Michael S. Woodson
The worst-case scenario on the battlefield for anyone is the loss of life on their own side. So when our troops on March 4 shot Nicola Calipari, an Italian intelligence operative working to save the life of one of his own countrymen, we should expect most Italians to feel the same as we would if the facts were reversed.
Who was responsible? If the evidence proves a knowing or intentional hit on a specific person, that would be a pristine case for military prosecutors. Yet, how will any intra-U.S. investigation be trusted abroad?
Both sides have described the shooting as an accident, turning the inquiry into a probe for negligence or recklessness in the name of duty. No dark plot has emerged so far.
If this was a “friendly fire” tragedy, it joins a long list of such incidents in which Americans were killed by mistake. So we can dispense with accusations that foreign troops are singled out for arrogant disregard or negligence by U.S. forces, with all sorrow for the loss to Italy. However, if this was “friendly fire,” it was not the sort done in the confusion of open battle. It was a judgment call by a military security detail reportedly protecting outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte. By tragic irony, a future allied spy chief’s protection played a role in the loss of an allied spy captain.
Finding responsibility for the lethal error cannot be isolated to the event alone, or even dismissed as a communications breakdown. The larger question is why the two allied forces were there in the first place, and who is responsible for their respective presence during this incident?
The kidnappers brought the Italians to the scene. Americans were there to fight Iraqi insurgents. The journalist came for the story and her ideology (she writes for an openly Marxist newspaper, Il Manifesto). Why was Nicola Calipari there? Because he had been successful at previous hostage release negotiations.
Nationalism has a way of making us proclaim rightness simply because we support our own side. Then, we begin to think suspiciously. Was it really an accident by the other side killing our own? If the Italians similarly doubt us, who can blame them?
When American Marine pilots flying an EA-6B Prowler in February 1998 snapped a cable suspending a gondola full of skiers some 350 feet above Italy, the Italians cooperated with U.S. Marine and NCIS investigators. However, in the trial in the United States, the pilot and navigator were acquitted of negligent homicide and manslaughter. Some post-verdict interviews by Jim Lehrer gave us some insight into Italian reactions at the time, after Italian courts barred Italian prosecution of the Marines, citing the NATO treaty.
Now imagine if an Italian pilot on joint training in the United States flew too low and too fast off course and cut a cable holding up an amusement park sky car somewhere, killing twenty Americans? If the NATO treaty barred U.S. jurisdiction and the pilot returned to Italy to be tried and acquitted, how would Americans react? Add a hypothetical a CIA agent rescuing an American aid worker shot dead by an Italian sniper mistaking him for a kidnapper, and the Calipari shooting comes into focus.
However, there is more context to the Nicola Calipari story. The Italian government reportedly passed an estimated $6-8 million ransom to the insurgent terrorists who will use it to buy arms, munitions, bombs, fake papers, plastic surgeries, plane tickets, detonators, shoulder-fired rockets, and perhaps worse.
What is the worst-case scenario for Italy? If it were found that Sgrena acted as a false victim of kidnapping to finance the insurgents with the president’s money, not planning to get Calipari killed in the process, but willing to endanger him, coalition troops and Iraqi civilians in her ideological cause against the U.S. occupation.
It is well known that kidnapping is a growth industry in the Third World, and few victims come home alive without a ransom payment. Nicola Calipari, a hero focused on the best way to win his objective, may have paid blood money for the death of thousands of innocent Iraqis and coalition troops to rescue one person. As Spain silently mourns the victims of its train bombing one year ago, kidnapping for ransom deals take on a tainted light.
The kidnappers did not have to take Ms. Sgrena hostage. But it profited them and drove a wedge between their allied enemies. Dividing and conquering is a small force’s best hope against a larger coalition, particularly when Europe is a needed escape route. The last time America and Italy differed over counter-terror methods, Italy let Abu Abbas escape after arresting him at America’s behest. The terrorists won that round. It is a tactic they will attempt again.
And we should not forget our old Cold War friends, the former Soviet Union, China and former Warsaw Pact officials now running thriving black arms markets for cash. As long as they sell them the lethal weapons, insurgents will kidnap Italians or anyone else they can find for the cash to buy them. It takes a critical mass of collective evil to erupt into mass armed death. The killing of Nicola Calipari goes far before and beyond the troops at the 3rd Infantry Division checkpoint.
The competitive pride and malice of the Cold War and the historical enmities that it locked down for nearly a century are revisiting us in the form of those finding themselves suddenly employed and unemployed by its end. Success in the war on terror will undermine these forces with a wiser political economy for the region until the mercenaries die off.
Michael Woodson is a Contributing Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at singingmountains@yahoo.com. Please send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.
Ellie
Spreading Ripples from a Checkpoint Shooting
By Michael S. Woodson
The worst-case scenario on the battlefield for anyone is the loss of life on their own side. So when our troops on March 4 shot Nicola Calipari, an Italian intelligence operative working to save the life of one of his own countrymen, we should expect most Italians to feel the same as we would if the facts were reversed.
Who was responsible? If the evidence proves a knowing or intentional hit on a specific person, that would be a pristine case for military prosecutors. Yet, how will any intra-U.S. investigation be trusted abroad?
Both sides have described the shooting as an accident, turning the inquiry into a probe for negligence or recklessness in the name of duty. No dark plot has emerged so far.
If this was a “friendly fire” tragedy, it joins a long list of such incidents in which Americans were killed by mistake. So we can dispense with accusations that foreign troops are singled out for arrogant disregard or negligence by U.S. forces, with all sorrow for the loss to Italy. However, if this was “friendly fire,” it was not the sort done in the confusion of open battle. It was a judgment call by a military security detail reportedly protecting outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte. By tragic irony, a future allied spy chief’s protection played a role in the loss of an allied spy captain.
Finding responsibility for the lethal error cannot be isolated to the event alone, or even dismissed as a communications breakdown. The larger question is why the two allied forces were there in the first place, and who is responsible for their respective presence during this incident?
The kidnappers brought the Italians to the scene. Americans were there to fight Iraqi insurgents. The journalist came for the story and her ideology (she writes for an openly Marxist newspaper, Il Manifesto). Why was Nicola Calipari there? Because he had been successful at previous hostage release negotiations.
Nationalism has a way of making us proclaim rightness simply because we support our own side. Then, we begin to think suspiciously. Was it really an accident by the other side killing our own? If the Italians similarly doubt us, who can blame them?
When American Marine pilots flying an EA-6B Prowler in February 1998 snapped a cable suspending a gondola full of skiers some 350 feet above Italy, the Italians cooperated with U.S. Marine and NCIS investigators. However, in the trial in the United States, the pilot and navigator were acquitted of negligent homicide and manslaughter. Some post-verdict interviews by Jim Lehrer gave us some insight into Italian reactions at the time, after Italian courts barred Italian prosecution of the Marines, citing the NATO treaty.
Now imagine if an Italian pilot on joint training in the United States flew too low and too fast off course and cut a cable holding up an amusement park sky car somewhere, killing twenty Americans? If the NATO treaty barred U.S. jurisdiction and the pilot returned to Italy to be tried and acquitted, how would Americans react? Add a hypothetical a CIA agent rescuing an American aid worker shot dead by an Italian sniper mistaking him for a kidnapper, and the Calipari shooting comes into focus.
However, there is more context to the Nicola Calipari story. The Italian government reportedly passed an estimated $6-8 million ransom to the insurgent terrorists who will use it to buy arms, munitions, bombs, fake papers, plastic surgeries, plane tickets, detonators, shoulder-fired rockets, and perhaps worse.
What is the worst-case scenario for Italy? If it were found that Sgrena acted as a false victim of kidnapping to finance the insurgents with the president’s money, not planning to get Calipari killed in the process, but willing to endanger him, coalition troops and Iraqi civilians in her ideological cause against the U.S. occupation.
It is well known that kidnapping is a growth industry in the Third World, and few victims come home alive without a ransom payment. Nicola Calipari, a hero focused on the best way to win his objective, may have paid blood money for the death of thousands of innocent Iraqis and coalition troops to rescue one person. As Spain silently mourns the victims of its train bombing one year ago, kidnapping for ransom deals take on a tainted light.
The kidnappers did not have to take Ms. Sgrena hostage. But it profited them and drove a wedge between their allied enemies. Dividing and conquering is a small force’s best hope against a larger coalition, particularly when Europe is a needed escape route. The last time America and Italy differed over counter-terror methods, Italy let Abu Abbas escape after arresting him at America’s behest. The terrorists won that round. It is a tactic they will attempt again.
And we should not forget our old Cold War friends, the former Soviet Union, China and former Warsaw Pact officials now running thriving black arms markets for cash. As long as they sell them the lethal weapons, insurgents will kidnap Italians or anyone else they can find for the cash to buy them. It takes a critical mass of collective evil to erupt into mass armed death. The killing of Nicola Calipari goes far before and beyond the troops at the 3rd Infantry Division checkpoint.
The competitive pride and malice of the Cold War and the historical enmities that it locked down for nearly a century are revisiting us in the form of those finding themselves suddenly employed and unemployed by its end. Success in the war on terror will undermine these forces with a wiser political economy for the region until the mercenaries die off.
Michael Woodson is a Contributing Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at singingmountains@yahoo.com. Please send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.
Ellie