Main Entry: sa·ga
Pronunciation: ’sä-g& also ’sa-
Function: noun
Etymology: Old Norse -more at SAW
Date: 1709
1 : a prose narrative recorded in Iceland in the 12th and 13th centuries of historic or legendary figures and events of the heroic age of Norway and Iceland
2 : a modern heroic narrative resembling the Icelandic saga
3 : a long detailed account

Not even the heralds who sang the songs of the great Scandanavian sagas could have dreamed up the long and torturous account of the tragedy in Iraq that Italian Communist journalist Guiliana Sgrena has tried to foist upon an unsuspecting world.

Her slanderous story has now come full circle. Her effort to slime the American military with charges that she was the target of an assassination attempt has backfired to the point that the Italian police are now questioning her.

Meanwhile, Italian prosecutors conducting their own investigation on Thursday questioned former Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena again in the Rome military hospital where she is recovering from a shoulder wound sustained in the March 4 shooting.

And her ever evolving, ever changing chronicle of events that led to the accidental shooting of the Italian Secret Service agent Nicola Calipari has gone from denying that the incident was a deliberate attempt to kill her, to her speculation that she was a target because of the Italian practice of paying ransom to kidnappers, to the ludicrous assertion that they wanted to kill her because she was anit-war, till finally coming full circle in her story to where she now says that she never said the American military targeted her!

Only someone hugely self-absorbed could believe that the rest of us would somehow forget her blood-libels of the United States military and accept her explanation that what she really said was that “the mechanics of what happened were those of an attack.”

Lest we forget what Ms. Sgrena has been saying over the last fortnight about the intentions of the US military, here are some quotes from the numerous interviews this publicity hungry propagandist gave to further her political agenda and damge both Prime Minister Berlusconi politically and weaken the alliance between Italy and the US:

I can’t say it was deliberate because we can’t say if there was a lack of information. But also a lack of information in this case is [their] responsibility because you are in a war field and you have the responsibility to pass immediately any information.

“They told me to beware because ‘there are Americans who don’t want you to return’,”‘ Sgrena wrote in the article. When she was shot, her captors’ advice `”risked acquiring the taste of the most bitter of truths,” she wrote.

“The fact that the Americans don’t want negotiations to free the hostages is known,” the 56-year-old journalist told Sky TG24 television by telephone, her voice hoarse and shaky. “The fact that they do everything to prevent the adoption of this practice to save the lives of people held hostage, everybody knows that. So I don’t see why I should rule out that I could have been the target.”

Pier Scolari, Sgrena’s partner who flew to Baghdad to collect her, put an even more sinister construction on the events, suggesting in a television interview that Sgrena was the victim of a deliberate ambush. ‘Giuliana may have received information which led to the soldiers not wanting her to leave Iraq alive,’ he claimed.

And now, Sgrena would have us believe that she never meant to slime the military. This via Captains Quarters (who has been on top of this story since it broke):

The Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, who was wounded by American fire last Friday soon after being released by kidnappers in Baghdad, has said that she does not think that the Americans were trying to kill her. “I never said that they wanted to kill me,” she said on a television talk show, “but the mechanics of what happened were those of an attack.”

In an interview with The Independent, her partner, Pier Scolari, said: “None of us is so stupid as to think the Americans did it on purpose. But the dynamic was that of an ambush and we want a convincing explanation of what happened, because the first American explanation was totally false.” …

Ms Sgrena was widely quoted as saying that the Americans may have wanted to kill her “because they dislike the Italian policy of negotiating with the hostage-takers”. But this week she rejected the idea.

And then we have this curious quote:

After the shooting, she said: “A soldier opened the door on the right-hand side. When he saw us, I had the impression that he was upset. I seem to remember him saying, ‘Oh shit!’ And when more turned up in an armoured car, I had the sensation that they were unhappy about what had happened.”

Riddle me this: If Sgrena had “the sensation” that the soldiers were unhappy (to put it mildly) about the accidental shooting, what other possible conclusion can you draw from her scandalous charges but that she was attempting to use her new-found public platform to stir up trouble for the Italian goverment and advance her anti war agenda?

Do you think that here attitude towards America expressed here had anything to do with her desire to damage this country, its military and by extension, the President?

It doesn’t sound very nice to be critical of a fellow reporter. But Sgrena’s attitude is a disgrace for journalism. Or didn’t she tell me back in the plane that ‘common journalists such as yourself’ simply do not support the Iraqi people? ‘The Americans are the biggest enemies of mankind,’ the three women behind me had told me, for Sgrena travelled to Iraq with two Italian colleagues who hated the Americans as well.

The fact that Italian police are questioning her again may or may not be significant. But what’s undeniable is that Guiliana Sgrena has used her notoriety as both a hostage and victim of a horrible tragedy to propagandize against the war, the United States, the US Military and by extension, the American people.

Cross Posted at The Wide Awakes and Blogger News Network

UPDATE:

Sgrena may be backtracking faster than a defensive back trying to cover Randy Moss from her charges of being targeted, but that hasn’t stopped her from casting aspersions on the Italian and American investigations into the tragedy:

Ms Sgrena has repeatedly suggested US soldiers shot her on purpose and said today she had little faith in a joint investigation by Italy and the United States into the “friendly fire” incident.

“She has created enormous problems for the Government and also caused grief that perhaps was better avoided,” Justice Minister Roberto Castelli told reporters in Bologna.

In the words of Rusty Shakleford “Bolagna? Yeah, that about sums it up.”