Every now and then you see it: The silent majority that makes this county the best in the world.
- Gary Blied – Pilot, American Airlines – Major, USAF (RET)

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Click here to view embeded video.

It’s not alright to show innocents like Nick Berg being beheaded or to show those poor people jumping from the twin-towers from 9/11/2001 and it shouldn’t be alright to show assassinations of soldiers (US or not) protecting the citizens of Iraq. No one needs to see it, and no one should see it that isn’t involved with tracking those guys down and bringing them to justice. Yes, report on it, but the footage is nothing more than propaganda. There is enough of that crap already on YouTube that we don’t need CNN or any other network showing it.

October 23 edition of MSNBC’s Scarborough Country:

Pat Buchanan:

“I find this really—I mean, this is appalling! Look, I’m not for this war. This is a snuff film, is what it is!”

Joe Scarborough:

While it‘s OK for us to show—possibly show these insurgents killing our troops, there are a lot of news networks, a lot of news executives, including the last one that worked at MSNBC, who was our former president, who wouldn‘t let us show images of 9/11 because he thought it was too disturbing for American viewers, and yet it‘s OK for CNN to show these terrorists…

…

I want to read what the CNN executive who worked on Anderson Cooper‘s show had to say. And I‘m not judging Anderson Cooper or CNN yet. I want to finish this debate. He said, “Our goal, as always, is to present the unvarnished truth as best as we can.”I—I—you know what, thought? I don‘t want to judge him, but I think that‘s a load of crap

Pat Buchanan:

I will. Look—look, “the New York Times” has a saying, “All the news that‘s fit to print.” I don‘t to want to see those guys falling out of that tower. I don‘t think American people should see it. We know it happened. What‘s wrong with this is this is not news. This is a little propaganda piece. It‘s titillating. It‘s exciting. And it‘s appalling and disgusting because it shows people have no concern or care! All they‘re going for—they‘re going for titillation. They‘re going for audience. And to show this type of thing—and frankly, I object to the government of the United States—these are our soldiers, whether you like the war or not… (interrupted) … and you shouldn‘t show this sort of thing!

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According to the Uncensored US report, more news on that here, no one knew of the Italian operation until after the US-Italian shooting incident. Two non-verbal warnings were given to the Italians before a warning shot, and finally an attempted shot through the engine block were fired.

However the Italians contest:

“Soldiers of that unit thought that (warning) signs were useless and counterproductive, because usually in the past, cars seeing them ahead of time changed direction,” the Italians said.

Yet, straight from the US report:

At approximately 2050 hours, Specialist Lozano saw a car approaching the on-ramp, approximately 140 meters from his position. Specialist Lozano, holding the spotlight in his left hand, shined his spotlight onto the car before it arrived at the Alert Line. At this time, Sergeant Domangue acquired the vehicle’s headlights and saw the spotlight shining on it. He then focused his green laser pointer onto the windshield of the car as it reached the Alert Line. Both Specialist Lozano and Sergeant Domangue perceived the car to be traveling in excess of 50 mph (and faster than any other vehicles that evening).

The car crossed the Alert Line still heading towards the Soldiers’ position without slowing down. Specialist Lozano continued to shine the spotlight, and shouted at the vehicle to stop, a fruitless effort, but an instantaneous reaction based on his training.

Without slowing down, the car continued toward the Warning Line with the spotlight and laser still on it.

The car continued to approach at a high rate of speed, coming closer to the Soldiers than any other vehicle that evening. When the car got to the Warning Line, Specialist Lozano, while still holding the spotlight in his left hand, used his right hand to quickly fire a two to four round burst into a grassy area to the on-coming vehicle’s right (the pre-set aiming point) as a warning shot.

The vehicle maintained its speed as it went beyond the Warning Line. Staff Sergeant Brown, a New York City Police Officer trained in vehicle speed estimation, estimated the car was traveling at 50 mph and believed that it would not be able to stay on the road around the curve at that speed.

Specialist Lozano dropped the spotlight and immediately traversed his weapon from his left to his right, without having to move the turret, to orient on the front of the car. With both hands on the weapon, he fired another burst, walking the rounds from the ground on the passenger’s side of the vehicle and towards the car’s engine block in an attempt to disable it. The rounds hit the right and front sides of the vehicle, deflated the left front tire, and blew out the side windows.

Which makes the Itallian’s statement inaccurate. You could debate on what would constitute an acceptable non-verbal warning however I think the methods used that night would serve as a warning to most any driver. The spotlight and green laser pointer had proven effective in stopping and turning around vehicles before the car with the Italians arrived at the on-ramp. It is possible that the Italian driver, Andrea Carpani, was distracted as he was driving and talking on his cell phone.

However, had the Italians made clear communication to the US/IRAQI government of their mission who knows what may have happened. Italy states “U.S. authorities were “indisputably” aware of the presence of Calipari and a second Italian agent in Baghdad even if “it is likely that they were not aware of the details of their mission.” I fail to see how being aware of someone’s presence in a city would have prevented this incident.

I haven’t located the Italian report yet, but I’ll post a link to it as well when I do.

Update 21:39:
PunditGuy has similar feelings on this issue, glad I’m not the only one.

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But the idiocy doesn’t stop there – it culminates with this pearl from Whitney:

“We have to recognize that the disparate elements of Iraqi resistance, belittled in the media as the ‘insurgency’, are the legitimate expression of Iraqi self-determination.”

Yep, a few thousand murderous thugs with AK-47s are a more legitimate expression of self-determination that the eight million who voted in the democratic election. Silly, George W.; instead of stealing the Florida vote in 2000, he should have simply set off a few roadside bombs and the Axis of Logic Left would have found him a legitimate president.

Axis of Logic, or Absence of Logic?

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Well, unless you’re his attorney:
Defense attorney Maj. David Coombs told jurors that a sentence of life without parole would allow Akbar to be treated for mental illness and possibly rehabilitated.

He’s right, there is a good treatment program available for him which is surprisingly cost effective and has a 100% success rate, it’s called death by lethal injection. Let’s stop wasting time and let the healing begin!

From Fox News:

FORT BRAGG, N.C. — A military jury sentenced a soldier to death Thursday for a grenade and rifle attack on his own comrades during the opening days of the Iraq invasion, a barrage that killed two officers and that prosecutors said was driven by religious extremism.

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