THE U.S. MILITARY IS TARGETING JOURNALISTS

Words very similar to that caused such a storm of controversy recently that it made the man who uttered them, former CNN chief Eason Jordan, backpedal on his accusation and then finally resign his post with the cable news service. Thing is, it's looking to be increasingly likely that he was right. Have you heard about the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena who was kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents and then freed only to be fired at by American troops as she returned? She got some shrapnel in her arm, but the Italian security agent who was escorting her was killed. Murdered is a better word, I think. Here's the story in her own words.

Of course, the Pentagon says it was a terrible accident, they were coming in too fast toward a checkpoint, suicide bombers, blah, blah, blah. But as Seattle journalist David Neiwert over at Orcinus observes, Sgrena flat out contradicts the Pentagon's story:

While US military spokespeople allege that Calipari's car was speeding, unidentified, towards an Army checkpoint, Sgrena's life-partner, Pier Scolari, told Italian media that Calipari's car was a few hundred meters from the airport and already past all US checkpoints when the attack began.

Sermonti, who spoke with Scolari, says, further, that "Calipari was speaking in English with someone in the airport telling them to get ready [for Sgrena's arrival] when, just as they reached the airport, without any warning, the [US forces] opened fire."

And Sgrena says that her captors seemed to fear that this might happen:

Suddenly, she said, she remembered her captors' words, when they warned her "to be careful because the Americans don’t want you to return.

"Sgrena wrote that her captors warned her as she was about to be released not to signal her presence to anyone, because "the Americans might intervene."

Click here for the rest.

Okay, maybe she's lying. She is, after all, a biased, left-winger like myself. But I don't know much about her: I do know that the Pentagon has an awful record for telling the truth; the White House has an even worse record. Furthermore, reports about the targeting of journalists in both Iraq and Afghanistan have been flying around for months now. This stinks to high heavens, and I wonder if we'll ever really know the truth. Because if our military is truly making an effort to eradicate the press, we're in big fucking trouble.

Of course, we're already in big fucking trouble for numerous other reasons. Just scroll down a couple of posts.

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