One of the most distressing facts of warfare is that innocents die in the crossfire. This has happened since time immemorial and is accepted by all international standards as a reality. The Spanish Government seems unaware of this fact of life, as it as issued arrest warrants for three US soldiers in the deaths of Spanish journalist Jos™ Manuel Couso Permuy and Ukrainian cameraman Taras Protsyuk, who were killed by “friendly fire” during the Battle of Baghdad.
On april 8, 2003, the United States was battling for control of Baghdad. Our service men and woman were fighting a street by street battle to liberate the city from Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard. Permuy and Protsyuk were among hundreds of international journalists who chose to put themselves in danger by being present for the battle. along with about 100 other journalists they were holed up in the Palestine Hotel. The United States was aware of their presence there and took special precautions so as not to make them a target. However, Iraqi terrorists were not so accommodating. The Palestine Hotel turned out to be the perfect location to stage sniper attacks on US forces. The hotel’s hundred or so foreign journalists were the ideal human shields for the type of warriors, who don’t hesitate to hide behind civilians and turn their own mosques and hospitals into war zones.
according to the Pentagon, crewmen aboard a U.S. tank saw what they believed to be an enemy spotter and sniper on an upper-story balcony of the Palestine Hotel. Moments latter, the team "witnessed flashes of light, consistent with enemy fire, coming from the same general location as the building." In short, they were being fired upon by an Iraqi sniper who had decided to use the hotel as the perfect staging ground to murder US troops. It was then, under fierce enemy resistance, that the tank’s heroic commander Sgt. Shawn Gibson, after receiving clearance from his company commander Capt. Philip Wolford, gave the order to open to shoot.
It is likely that Gibson’s actions saved the lives of innumerable allies on the streets below. In the process, however, two journalists who had knowingly put themselves in harms way by volunteering to cover a war zone, were accidentally killed. Their deaths are a tragedy but not one sane person can deny that they did not know the risks when then signed up to cover a war. as a journalist, I grieve for their families but to transfer the blame for their deaths onto U.S. troops is an act of inexcusable ignorance.
Ignorance seems to have becomes Spain’s hallmark as of late. In March 2004, El-Qaeda terrorists killed 190 people in a series of commuter train bombings in the capital of Madrid. The majority of the Spanish people responded with classic cowardice by removing their pro-american government and electing leaders who capitulated to Bin Laden’s wishes and withdrew their forces from Iraq. This action has set a president for other nations to follow and empowered El-Qaeda’s goal of setting up an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East. Spain may have the legal right to behave like a child running from a bully, but no where in the annals of International Law or even under the rules of their own disjointed judiciary system do they have the right to issue arrest warrants against american soldiers carrying out a legal, and heroic, military action in a nation other than Spain.
In a fit of self-importance the Spanish judiciary has declared that it can cross international boundaries to arrest anyone who commits a crime against a Spaniard abroad when the case is not investigated in the country where it was committed. This is where some major problems arise. First, Spain has no right under International Law to arrest anyone outside its own borders. Second, one of the three U.S. Soldiers subject to the Spanish arrest warrant, Lieutenant Colonel Philip de Camp, played no role whatsoever in the decision to fire on the Palestine Hotel. Third, Spanish Law only allows for an International arrest warrant when the case is not investigated in the nation where the incident occurred. There have been two U.S. investigations into the incident, as well as an independent investigation at the Palestine Hotel. all three investigations cleared the U.S. soldiers of wrong doing.
Even in the Mad Hatter world of Spanish justice, which recently sentenced a participant in the 9/11 attacks on the United State to only 27 years rather than the 74,337 years requested by the prosecutor, the investigations into the actions of our brave men preclude Spain from involving themselves in the matter. Nonetheless, Spanish Judge Santiago Pedraz G€mez is going forward with his illegal and politically motivated prosecution.
The Bush administration has already made it clear that they will not hand over our boys to Spain’s kangaroo court, but the time has come for the United States to take even stronger action against Spain. Until they withdraw these insulting and immoral charges, the United States should expel Spain’s ambassador from Washington, ban the sale of Spanish goods in the United States, and withdraw from our NaTO commitment to defend them. a “friend” who capitulates to terrorists and falsely accuses U.S. troops of war crimes is no friend, at all. If Spain chooses to act like a pariah nation then let us treat them as such.
William John Hagan is a weekly columnist for the Houston Home Journal, published in middle Georgia. He is also a fiction writer who has completed his first novel, “Divine Providence”.
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