Speeding Italians and Stop signs

Being the resident Italian expert here at The Warren, I thought I would weigh in on my take on the whole Italian journalist-cum-hostage-cum-target controversy. I haven't said anything before now since I was busy doing other things over the weekend and wanted the intial reports to calm down before getting all excited over it.

Already some of Blogdom and weighed in with LGF and Wizbang giving there take on the story. (Hat Tip: Wizbang thinks the military is incompetent). They comment on the Al-Guardian report that the military used 300 to 400 rounds to stop the car. Mad Ogre and LGF both have actual photos of the car that they were riding in. Mad Ogre's shows only three holes in the car, so I guess in loony-lefty speak, one hole equals 100 bullets.

Italian TV showed some video that may explain a bit better what happened. The report that I saw showed what the road ("the most dangerous stretch of road in the world") looks like in the daytime and it's pretty busy. They then said that at the time of the shooting (9:00 P.M. -ish), the road was dark and deserted. They also said that the car was travelling at a very fast speed. From what I read on the internet, the US sentries flashed the headlights on a Humvee to alert the driver to slow down, waved their arms, fired warning shots and finally fired at the motor to stop the car.

Now, put yourself in the shoes of the sentries. It's dark outside and the road is deserted. Suddenly, a car starts driving towards you at a very fast speed. You try to warn it to slow down but it keeps coming. What do you think is going thru your head? If you said anything besides a car bomb, you obviously are a liberal idiot.

I believe the military version of the story due to one main reason. I know how Italians drive and for them, a Stop sign is merely a suggestion. I also hate to have to say this, but knowing the political leanings of the reporter (a communist), I can see how they thought to engineer an international incident by getting fired at. Unfortunately, they probably only wanted the car shot at, not get anyone killed, but you never can tell with communists. It has already been suggested by some that the whole hostage-taking episode was staged and with the details of her release is not very clear at this time, you draw your own conclusions.

Although the MSM are wringing their hands over this, I have only heard one Italian say anything about this. Nobody else seems to know or care about the shooting or even the fact that she was released. Maybe they know something that we don't, ya think?