New Math In Orbit; Spiked in LA

Remember Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena's misadventure at an American-manned checkpoint in Iraq, ending in the death of an Italian intelligence agent? Denying Italy had shared information about the mission, the troops said they fired at a speeding car that "refused to stop at a checkpoint." The Communist journalist disputed driving fast and claimed the shooting was both excessive and intentional--though Sgrena said she worried they might "wind up in a bad car accident," and recounted that the driver:

[K]ept on the road, going under an underpass full of puddles and almost losing control to avoid them. We all incredibly laughed. It was liberating. Losing control of the car in a street full of water in Baghdad.

This made speed the central issue:

Giuliana Sgrena has said the car was traveling at a normal speed of about 30 miles an hour when the soldiers opened fired, wounding her and killing Nicola Calipari, the Italian agent who had just secured her release from a month's captivity.

US soldiers said at the time of the March 4 incident that the car approached at a high rate of speed and that they fired only after it failed to respond to hand signals, flashing bright lights and warning shots.

The U.S.-Italian investigation finished up last week. Yet only the U.S. verdict's been published--because the Italians disputi i risultati:

A U.S. Army official, briefing reporters in Washington on the preliminary results of the investigation, said on Monday that the soldiers had followed their rules of engagement and should therefore face no charges of dereliction of duty. . .

The probe was conducted jointly with the Italians but the Army official said Italy, a close ally in Iraq, had balked at endorsing the report. Rome disagreed with its findings on the car's speed and whether the Italians kept U.S. troops informed.

Ordinarily, such "he said, she said" stalemates resolve nothing and satisfy no one. So U.S. investigators trumped with technology--in particular, a spy satellite:

CBS, citing Pentagon officials, said the satellite recording enabled investigators to reconstruct the event without having to rely on the eyewitness accounts.

It said the soldiers manning the checkpoint first spotted the Italian car when it was 137 yards (meters) away. By the time they opened fire and brought the car to a halt, it was 46 yards (meters) away. CBS said that happened in less than three seconds, which meant the car had to be going over 60 miles an hour.

Here's the formal proof:

Assumptions: a) data in English, not metric, units; b) giving the Italians the benefit of the doubt, time interval of three seconds (not "under" three seconds).

1. Formula: Velocity = Speed = Distance traveled between start and end points divided by Time required between same points; so S(mph) = D(m)/T(hr)


2. D(m) = 137(yards) - 49(yards) = 91 yards; 1760 yards = 1 mile; so D(m) = 91(y)/1760 = 0.051705 miles


3. T(hr) = 3(seconds); 3600 seconds = 1 hour; so T(m) = 3(s)/3600 = 0.000833 hours


4. S(mph) = D(m)/T(hr) [from 1] = 0.051705 miles [from 2]/0.000833 hours [from 3] = 62.045(mph)

Conclusion: S(mph) = about 62 miles per hour.

As Powerline notes, if the math's right:

[T]he car would have reached the checkpoint in around a second and a half. So it seems hard to criticize the soldiers for concluding they couldn't wait any longer for the car to start slowing down.

Apparently math impaired, Sgrena's unsatisfied with the outcome:

This is an unacceptable slap in the face for Italy. It is worse than I imagined.

At the beginning, the Americans spoke of an accident, and even apologised. But now they are ruling out any responsibility, saying the soldiers were following the rules of engagement.

Yes, a communist denying facts isn't shocking--it's strictly "dog bits man." But resolving a shooting dispute with spy satellite data is news--and seriously cool to recovering geeks like me. So perhaps techies have abandoned California because, as Patterico reports, the LA Times ignores the cool to promulgate bias:

The LA Times story is actually an edited version of a Reuters story that appeared on the news service yesterday afternoon. The Reuters story reported that investigators using satellite footage of the incident have conclusively determined that the car was speeding, just as the U.S. has always maintained. On page two of the story, the Reuters news service reported:

CBS news has reported that a U.S. satellite had filmed the shooting and that it had been established the car carrying Calipari was traveling at more than 60 mph per hour [sic] as it approached the U.S. checkpoint in Baghdad.

Thus, the Reuters story reported that there is definitive proof that the car was speeding towards the checkpoint – critical information that tends to justify U.S. soldiers’ decision to fire on the car. But in the version appearing in the L.A. Times, editors cut out the passage reporting that proof.

This wasn't an accident--Sunday's follow-up article also reprinted Reuters, minus the satellite story. (Oddly, the U.S. Military also mistakenly released the report's classified version, thus unfortunately spreading information that could help terrorists fine-tune their attacks.)

The LA Times' malicious and multi-day distortion ought to be "man bites dog"--but unfortunately is more common than the reverse. Michelle Malkin isn't shocked, "We've seen this selective editing and MSM whitewashing of key details in the Sgrena case before." I admire such resolve where the provocation's so outrageous. Her approach sounds easier on the stomach--but I'm probably too old to learn that trick.

(via LGF)