Is Sgrena a “victim”?

Damian puts it best, but it should be said here too.

Her obsession with kidnapped journalists is quite obvious. She wrote on the subject 3 weeks before she was picked up. Given her view of the war, was she a willing participant in what is now a well patterned ‘kidnap kabuki.’ To boot, her writing reveals a kind of martyr complex, endemic of the left which seems incapable of believing in anything larger than themselves.

Leftist conspiracy erm, “fan” Kurt Nimmo wrote on February 14th that he didn’t think that Sgerna was kidnapped by Iraqis at all, but by the Iraqi government, and later in the article, by American forces, of course. (I guess we NEED all that attendant good publicity THAT would create...)

Giuliana Sgrena, an unembedded Italian journalist, was not kidnapped by the Iraqi resistance. If you read her stories, you will immediately realize the Iraqi resistance had absolutely no reason to abduct her. Giuliana Sgrena wrote about the suffering of the Iraqi people under occupation.

“Suffering daily abuses and violence from occupation forces or their proxies, the Iraqis themselves are subjected to routine hostage-taking by the occupiers,” writes Stefano Chiarini, Il Manifesto correspondent in Baghdad.

“This type of kidnapping distorts and defames the resistance of the Iraqi people against the American occupation,” said Sheik Abdel Salam al Qubaisi of the Association of Islamic Scholars, a Sunni organization. For his effort on Sgrena’s behalf, Sheik Ali al Jabouri, a member of the Association of Islamic Scholars, was arrested by Allawi’s goons.
Sgrena worked for Il Manifesto, an Italian leftist newspaper, and she was “among the founders of the peace movement,” according to her biography on the Il Manifesto web site. “Giuliana was in Iraq to witness the plight of innocent Iraqi people and show to the world that the invasion of Iraq by US forces has brought nothing positive but more pain, sufferings and tragedies for ill-fated civilians. As a freedom-loving Italian journalist she wanted to uncover those aspects of the life of Iraqi children, women and men that are usually ignored by other known Western media,” writes Rawa (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) for Bellaciao.

So none of it worked. Not the “reportage”, not using a fog of accusations and silliness to damage the election, not the “kidnapping” gambit if it was one.

The Doc quite believable suspects that her hostage video was a hoax in that she was a willing participant:

What is interesting about the plea is that Giuliana Sgrena was already trying to end the occupation before she was kidnapped. Further, the Mujahadin Without Borders group is previously unknown and is a different organization than the Islamic Jihad Organization that initially claimed her abduction. Moreover, her claim that the jihadis do not want foreigners in the country is simply empirically false. What the jihadis do not want is non-dhimmi infidels in the country. Foreigners who wish to fight the 'Zionist-Crusader Forces' are always welcome.

She now thinks that she was deliberately targeted. Look at the verbal dysentery we have to put up with now and ask yourself WHY she would be targeted? Does she imagine that the troops manning the checkpoint know her personally? How self-obsessed can you get? If you don’t think that they have a motivation to exaggerate, then read this.

With HER motives, her abuse of the Italian security services who obviously had to buy her release, SHE is the one who should be investigated. Look who was the first to meet her – none other than Romano Prodi, ready to cash in, and more than capable of excessive drama. Her kidnapping looked like his chance at finding a dent in Berlusconi’s political armor.

Nimmo prattles on:

In other words, she was an enemy of the United States, not the Iraqi resistance, in the same way Margaret Hassan was an enemy of the United States, or rather the policies of the United States. Both Hassan and Sgrena were kidnapped by “counterinsurgency” black op groups—now admitted to be working in both Iraq and Iran by the Pentagon—posing as resistance fighters. I have no evidence of this but it is the only explanation that makes sense. I have written about this elsewhere, so will not repeat the details.

“No evidence”, but “admitted.” Oooh-kay…. There are so many holes in all of this one can’t help but suspect a setup – a kind of PR “black ops” of the crazy and predictable European left.

All we know is that their vehicle ran a checkpoint, and that they were shot at. Anyone who has been to the middle east knows what a checkpoint looks like. They are everywhere, and for no particular reason in places where there is no open warfare like Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and the Gulf states. Run it and get shot. How is a senior Italian policeman NOT going to know that. So how is this useful to Ms. Sperna?

Damian wrote about how in a period as short as 2 day, how the details are changing - now she says that they were not speeding, what she initally referred to his "leaning over, probably to prtect me" turned into bold valiance with not a slump, but some last words...

Now she is news. She has her "martyr" and a great deal of sympathy.