Explaining how confusing and risky checkpoints can be — from both sides

The split-second decisions by marines like Sergeant [Jim] Beere are often made in the fog of war

writes the Christian Science Monitor's Dan Murphy, while Annia Ciezadlo explains how confusing and risky checkpoints can be — from both sides (in my opinion, besides being printed in the Stars and Stripes, her article should be translated into Arabic and published in all Iraqi periodicals).

Here is more on Iraq's terror cells, on how they are praised in the Arab press, and on how America's intervention can only lead (and didn't independent newspapers like Il Manifesto tell you so all along?) to condemnation and hatred in the Muslim world.

Meanwhile, one of Dan and Annia's colleagues had the following to say, five months before Giuliana Sgrena's car came under fire (emphasis added):

How to safeguard yourself, unless you want to trust your fate to weapons? You have to live by certain rules: always on the move and not to be detected, almost like a conspirator; always change your daily programme; change the route you drive; change meetings; if possible avoid to get stuck in a traffic jam. Foremost, never tell anybody, where you go. ... Try to avoid military convoys. A wrong move, and the machine gun shooter, sitting on a tank, shoots indiscriminantly...

Just for the record, please click here to see the name of the reporter who offered this bit of wisdom…

(Danke schön to RF Hoffmann and David Kaspar)