The credibility of the American occupation of Iraq received another serious blow this week. It was revealed that American soldiers at a roadblock outside of Baghdad shot and killed Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari, and seriously injured Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian journalist who Calipari had just freed from captivity as the hostage of Iraqi rebels.

The American government has excused the shooting, claiming that its soldiers only fired at Calipari and Sgrena after firing warning shots, and using hand signals to request that the car Calipari was driving slow down. The American government says that the car was shot because Calipari was driving at about 50 miles per hour, and that the soldiers didn't know who was in the car.

However, from her hospital room in Rome, Giuliana Sgrena has contradicted the American claims. She says that Nicola Calipari was driving the car at a speed typical for the road on which they were traveling. Furthermore, Sgrena claims that Calipari was given no warning. She says that the car was fired upon as soon as the Americans were able to find it in their spotlight. She says that there were no warning shots or hand signals to indicate to Calipari that he ought to slow down.

There are indeed some strange dimensions to the shooting. Many have asked why an experienced intelligence agent like Calipari would not have known how to properly deal with a roadblock - if the roadblock was properly established and operated. Furthermore, it appears that American soldiers were told that an unmarked car on an extremely important diplomatic mission would be travelling down the road that night - so why would American soldiers aim and fire at a car that even the American government admits was making no erratic movements?

In a reaction that has become sadly predictable, the Bush White House and Republican-leaning media outlets have begun a smear campaign against Giuliana Sgrena. They say that Sgrena cannot be trusted because she has written reports critical of the conduct of the American occupation. Also, they say that Sgrena "has no evidence" to support her claims.

On one level it is just plain tacky for the Republicans to launch personal attacks against Sgrena. That the Republicans are so eager to try to smear a journalist while she is still in her hospital bed recovering from wounds given to her by American soldiers is darkly indicative of the true moral values of the Republican elites in the media and in the government. Following up a physical attack with a verbal assault does not give the American government more credibility. It suggests that the Republicans worry that there is something to hide.

On a more important level, the content of Republican personal attacks on Sgrena is appallingly vacuous. Practically every reporter in Iraq has written articles critical of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. To paint Sgrena as some kind of unreliable radical because of her reporting of the many serious flaws in the American adventure in Iraq requires one to assume that honest journalism itself is some kind of dangerous radical enterprise.

Also, the shrill demands that Giuliana Sgrena produce concrete evidence of her claims is hypocritical. She has just been shot in the shoulder after spending a very long time as a hostage. Immediately after being rescued by Nicola Calipari, she went into the car in which she was shot by American soldiers. What exactly do the Republicans expect of her, that she would have had a video camera running at the time that she was shot - just in case?

Of course, unless someone close to the shooting was secretly filming the events, we will never know what really happened at that checkpoint outside of Baghdad. However, if we consider the implications of the event, it hardly matters whether the American government is telling the truth or not. Either way, the whole thing smells filthy.

Option 1: Sgrena is telling the truth and the Bush Administration is lying. Of course, if the American soldiers shot Calipari and Sgrena's car without warning, it substantiates allegations that the American military is a force of lawlessness in Iraq. The idea that American soldiers would be shooting at cars in Iraq without provocation is certainly very disturbing.

Such atrocities would not be completely unexpected, however. After all, huge numbers of the American soldiers in Iraq are mere teenagers. The American government has sent these teenagers off to a foreign country, and sent them there with guns. The American people have decided that teenagers cannot be trusted with a bottle of beer - so what do we expect to happen when we send them off armed with guns? It would be a surprise to find out these soldiers were not shooting civilians in large numbers.

Some blame has to go to the teenage soldiers who do the shootings. However, much more blame must be assigned to the government that put the guns in their hands and trained them how to shoot. Even more blame must be assigned to the American society that gives its support to such a crazy scheme. Special blame can be given to those elements in American society who have promoted the idea that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq is part of a "war on terror" against evil enemies that must be defeated by any means necessary. These pro-war Americans have given their permission to our government to descend into all manner of brutality in the name of vengeance.

Option 2: The Bush Administration is telling the truth and Sgrena is lying. The implications of this option are not any better than the implications of Option 1. If American soldiers were able to shoot and kill an intelligence agent working on their side, and seriously wound a journalist, without violating the American rules of engagement, then there is clearly something very wrong with those rules of engagement.

The implication is that the Bush Administration has created rules of engagement that are so lax that they enable American soldiers to fire upon and kill innocent people. The trick is that no one outside of the American military knows what the rules of engagement for American soldiers at checkpoints in Iraq are. These rules have been classified top secret - so the American people will never find out when American soldiers are being allowed to shoot and kill Iraqis.

The number of Iraqi civilians killed at American checkpoints is also classified. Why does the American government refuse to say how many innocent people it has gunned down at roadblocks in Iraq? What possible military use would this information be to Iraqi rebels? What reason for withholding this information could there be, other than to cover up a pattern of shameful atrocities?

In spite of official government censorship of checkpoint killings, there is plenty of evidence that the slaughter of innocent civilians at American roadblocks is a common event. The 3rd Infantry Division, whose soldiers shot Calipari and Sgrena, have been implicated in the shootings of many other civilians. The Washington Post reports that when criminal investigators asked a sergeant from the division whether 3rd Infantry Division soldiers had been shooting women and children in cars, the sergeant answered that it was true, and explained that "They didn't respond to the signs, the presence of troops or warning shots." The soldier continued, "We fired warning shots at everyone, they would speed up to come at us, and we would shoot them. You couldn't tell who was in the car from where we were, we found that out later. . . . We didn't go through the cars digging around for stuff, we would just look in and see they were dead and could see there were women inside." This soldier's testimony was covered-up by the Bush Administration, and was only made available to the American Civil Liberties Union after the ACLU filed and won a lawsuit demanding the information.

The point here is that the soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division did not seem to intend to kill large numbers of women and children at their roadblocks, but rather that the rules of engagement established by the Bush Administration were so poorly designed that American soldiers were shooting at and killing large numbers of innocent civilians in Iraq. Furthermore, the documents reveal that the Bush Administration knew that the rules of engagement were resulting in large numbers of civilian deaths, yet refused to change those rules. As a result, Nicola Calipari and Giuliana Sgrena were shot.

The number of killings at American checkpoints must be fairly large. After all, the only reason we found out about the American killing of Calipari and shooting of Sgrena is that Calipari was an agent of an American ally, and Sgrena was a journalist. If the two were simply just another Iraqi family gunned down by Americans, the world would never have found out about the incident.

Consider what we know about the incidents, and it becomes clear that the rules of engagement at American checkpoints in Iraq are almost certain to result in large numbers of innocent civilian deaths. Imagine that you're driving your kids in a car in Iraq, where American soldiers and Iraqi rebels alike are commonly engaged in firefights in residential neighborhoods. Suddenly, you hear a gunshot. What's the natural human instinct? It's not to slow down. It's to speed up, to get your family out of danger.

In spite of this clear dynamic, American soldiers appear to have been ordered to first fire warning shots at Iraqi cars, then to shoot to kill the passengers in those cars when the cars speed up to get away from the gunfire. For the Bush Administration to design such rules of engagement shows a lack of foresight. For the Bush Administration to continue with such rules of engagement even after they result in large numbers of civilian deaths is criminal.

No matter how the Republicans try to spin the story of the shooting of Calipari and Sgrena, the outcome is damning. On the one hand, if Sgrena is telling the truth, the Bush Administration has turned Iraq into a zone of lawlessness, where out-of-control American soldiers are wantonly killing civilians. On the other hand, if the American government is telling the truth, then the Bush Administration has created and knowingly perpetuated a system of system of military authority in Iraq that results in the killing of large numbers of civilians at "security" checkpoints.

Either way, the Bush Administration is responsible for the killing of Nicola Calipari and the shooting of Giuliana Sgrena. The Bush Administration is also responsible for the killing of large numbers of Iraqi civilians by American soldiers. Most importantly of all, if the American people refuse to stand up and demand an end to these killings, we are also responsible, every one of us.

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