I know this may be a difficult concept, but in the middle of a war zone, shit happens.
If you’re staying in a hotel in downtown Baghdad, you may find your building targeted. Especially if there is fighting in the area. Especially if there are visible lenses atop the building, which may or may not (to approaching forces) look like spotters for enemy fire.
If the tank commander who fired on the Palestine Hotel was really the sort of war-crime-committing, gun-happy, blood-thirsty sort that he’s being accused of by some folks, it would have been more than one shell.
Of course, the same could be said for the US military in general. If our goal was, as ANSWER puts it, to destroy Baghdad and kill tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, we would have done it by now. If the US military wanted to kill the unembedded journalists, the Palestine Hotel would be a pile of rubble under air and ground assault.
The loss of life is to be regretted. But let’s not make more of this than it is. At worst, this was a tragic error. As currently described, though, it seems to have just been one of those things that happens in war, without malice or even negligence. That the news media in the Palestine Hotel have been magically thinking that their status would create a force field around the building says something about their own sense of importance; that they assumed that it was Iraqi fire at first should say something about what the record shows about the US military actions to date.
(via Command Post)
If you weren’t married, and if I weren’t a lesbian, I’d want to bear your children. I’d put the same comment on every post above this one, too, but I fear I might frighten you… 🙂
When, oh, when will you run for office????
Now that would be really terrifying.
But I appreciate the thought.
Dave! Dave for — um…. (tries to think of office she would find desirable)
Dave for king!
Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m not in politics. If you think the Democrats/Republicans screwed things up…
Well, we are 2 for 2 on Al Jazeera.
I trust myself enough to know that I would be a horrible king. Though if drafted, I’ll run, so long as I get to pick my advisors.
Ooh! Can I be in charge of revoking driver’s licenses? There are so many people out there who really don’t deserve to have one…
Also, I’d like to maintain the Royal Comic Book Collection.
Follow-up article in Slate on this (the journalist deaths, not my being named king).