Screw Spain!
A Spanish judge has issued international arrest warrants for 3 US Army tank crew members who fired on a hotel in Bahgdad in 2003 while advancing on the city. The shot killed a pair of Spanish journalists.
The US Army has conducted two investigations, an internation group that monitors journalists in war zones conducted their own investigation and all three came up with the same answer. The crew didn't know that the hotel they fired on (due to sniper fire from the roof) was housing the journalists.
Spanish law allows for the trial if (according to AP) the country of origin failed to investigate the incident. I'm trying to figure out how THREE investigations didn't fit the bill.
My take is this, I feel sorry for the reporters, and their families. However, they were in a war zone, things blow up in war zones. They were also in one which a group of combatants had been making it plainly clear for months that they would hide behind civilians to prevent themselves from being shot.
Evidently they (reporters) had missed that propoganda, and the groups of celebs urging folks to go act as human shields.
So, while I feel sorry for them, the Spanish shouldn't have been totally surprised by the outcome. I also believe the judges actions are not based on law, but politics and grandstanding. Personally, I think the US should freeze all arms sales to Spain until they drop the warrants. (this wouldn't be good for me, I work for a company that sells them arms, and trains them, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year).
A little economic pressure might be required to get the new Spanish leaders to start looking at things from a different perspective.
The US Army has conducted two investigations, an internation group that monitors journalists in war zones conducted their own investigation and all three came up with the same answer. The crew didn't know that the hotel they fired on (due to sniper fire from the roof) was housing the journalists.
Spanish law allows for the trial if (according to AP) the country of origin failed to investigate the incident. I'm trying to figure out how THREE investigations didn't fit the bill.
My take is this, I feel sorry for the reporters, and their families. However, they were in a war zone, things blow up in war zones. They were also in one which a group of combatants had been making it plainly clear for months that they would hide behind civilians to prevent themselves from being shot.
Evidently they (reporters) had missed that propoganda, and the groups of celebs urging folks to go act as human shields.
So, while I feel sorry for them, the Spanish shouldn't have been totally surprised by the outcome. I also believe the judges actions are not based on law, but politics and grandstanding. Personally, I think the US should freeze all arms sales to Spain until they drop the warrants. (this wouldn't be good for me, I work for a company that sells them arms, and trains them, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year).
A little economic pressure might be required to get the new Spanish leaders to start looking at things from a different perspective.
posted by Crazy Politico at 7:04 PM
1Comments:
nice post... after seeing the title, i couldnt resist reading it!
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