The Italian journalist Guiliana Sgrena is a regular contributor to the German weekly "Die Zeit". Her "Iraq Diary" carries a pessimistic, anti-American tone. She manages to practically exclusively talk to like-minded Iraqis, who are full of criticism of the invasion, of the Americans, of everything that goes wrong in contemporary Iraq. Not much reporting on mass slaughterings under Saddam, though.
In this "Die Zeit" piece from October 10, 2004 she stressed that travelling in Baghdad better be a secret affair:
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... (emphasis added)
Given her preference for secrecy about travel plans it is a fair guess that Sgrena didn't want the US military to be informed ahead of her cross city trip to Baghdad airport.
And Sgrena was well aware of the dangers of approaching military installations in Baghdad. In her article she describes the death of a taxi driver who was killed by machine gun shots coming from a tank.
Raheem passed the US-Basis Island. ... He probably made a wrong move.
Given her familiarity with the dangers of the situation it is beyond me why she didn't caution the driver of her car to stop or slow down to crawling speed at the military checkpoint. Most likely no shooting would have occured, and nobody would have been killed.
But then again, no conspiracy theories could have been floated...
Update 1: Sgrena's German colleagues at the newsweekly "Die Zeit" have just decided to get ridiculous.
Update 2:
![]()
Source: daybyday, cartoon March 8, 2005
---"How to safeguard yourself, unless you want to trust your fate to weapons"---
Well considering that she was both, kidnapped by terrorists and shoot at by Americans, it looks like she has a good fingerspitzengefeuhl on the situation.
Posted by: Charles | March 07, 2005 at 08:05 PM
Hey! We owned a Volare stationwagon when I was a kid. And there weren't any Communists in the back seat...
Posted by: Foobarista | March 08, 2005 at 09:03 AM
I asked some questions in the discussion board of the "Zeit" (Zeit-Forum)
http://debatte.zeit.de/WebX?13@[email protected]/1725
http://debatte.zeit.de/WebX?13@[email protected]/1729
http://debatte.zeit.de/WebX?13@[email protected]/1728
http://debatte.zeit.de/WebX?13@[email protected]/1729
and was told, that if I would´nt stop, I would "get the chop" in the "Zeit-Forum".
http://debatte.zeit.de/WebX?13@[email protected]/1732
So, I´m not a very sheepish person, I asked further questions
http://debatte.zeit.de/WebX?13@[email protected]/6185
and surprise ! surprise! got no answer.
David: great blog (but you know already ;-))
PS: David, wie kann ich hier funktionsfähige Links einstellen?
Posted by: Guggi | March 09, 2005 at 11:24 PM
Thanks, merci, danke schön, grazie, grazias, dank, obrigado ;-))))
Posted by: Guggi | March 10, 2005 at 09:42 PM
Just seen (at www.achgut.de)
How a Dutch reporter experienced Giuliana Sgrena in Iraq.
:-)
http://www.zachtei.nl/2005/03/08/000670.html
Posted by: fmj | March 11, 2005 at 09:08 AM