The rational explanation

The Chicago Sun-Times examines the poisonous anti-Americanism that deludes people throughout the world through the prism of the Sgrena case:

. . . ignore the obvious, rational explanation: In this case, American soldiers, in an area where suicide car-bombing attacks are a regular event, shot at a car that did not stop. Replace it with pure fantasy based only on loathing of the United States. The more absurd the better, and this is a pip: Why would the U.S. dream of alienating a good ally such as Italy in this fashion, and over what? An obscure reporter from a fringe publication?

Sgrena's charge is not the first time journalists caught up in the war have lashed out at Americans and claimed deliberate attack. When U.S. fire hit a Baghdad hotel where reporters were staying, it was again all too easy for them to suggest -- and others take seriously -- the notion that reporters were deliberately attacked. This in the face of no evidence, nor history of the United States murdering journalists for political ends.

This incident should remind us that there is a corrosive anti-American hate in the world, and that it will serve up a steady stream of the wildest claims imaginable. . .