Nur al-Cubicle

A blog on the current crises in the Middle East and news accounts unpublished by the US press. Daily timeline of events in Iraq as collected from stories and dispatches in the French and Italian media: Le Monde (Paris), Il Corriere della Sera (Milan), La Repubblica (Rome), L'Orient-Le Jour (Beirut) and occasionally from El Mundo (Madrid).

Friday, January 19, 2007

Italy: Nobody Elected You...


...to build a new US base in the country.

Premier Prodi has clearly made a very unpopular decision by permitting US Defense Department to enlarge its base in Vicenza. Reading the press, it seems the US threatened to move the Vicenza airbase to Germany if Italy didn't allow it to expand the base.

Protester's make a good point by saying, "We didn't elect you to build new US bases".

If I were Premier, I might be pretty peeved that naked US airmen were hotdogging their aircraft through the Alps, severing a cable cars loaded with skiers. I might be outraged that CIA agents from the base kidnapped one of my nationals off the street and spirited him to a torture cell. If I were an Italian leftie, I'd be angry that the US was flying bomber squadrons out of my country to drop their payload on Iraq and on possibly on Iran in the future. I might also be concerned about by my fragile coalition.

Prodi seems to have jeopardized his government by refusing to say "No". Indeed, this may be the last straw for his coalition.

2 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Nur
surely you jest about the pilots flying naked (???). you must mean that figuratively and not literally.

For a very good interview of Moqtadr al Sadr in Repubblica
http://www.repubblica.it/2007/01/sezioni/esteri/iraq-108/intervista-sadr/intervista-sadr.html

translated by Pravati Roma see

http://www.strategytalk.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4590

Will

6:11 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

this is what my Systrans did with
"nessuno vi ha eletto per avere nuove basi "

output
nobody has to you elect for having new bases

not bad

Will

3:24 PM  

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