By David Swanson, 2/22/07
Prime Minister Richard Cheney may be glancing around with more
nervousness and menace than usual after recent news reports, not just
from the Libby trial, but also from Italy, where the peace movement has
just thrown out a prime minister.
In 1987-88 and various times since, I lived in northern Italy near a
town called Vicenza. This is not Venezia, otherwise known as Venice.
This is Vicenza. It’s inland from Venice. It’s a medium-sized and
absolutely beautiful town at the edge of the flat plain of the Po
River, surrounded by hills and loaded with the Palladian architecture
of” Andrea Palladio.
Back then, identifying yourself as an American was enough to make
you a rock star – at least in high school. Nowadays, it’s often
tempting to pretend not to be an American. But Vicenza has a heavy
presence of Americans and did in the 80s as well, because of the
military base there. The Italians never found the presence of that base
entirely to their liking, and now their opinion of America, and its
military, and its president has sunk dramatically.
So, wouldn’t you know it, America has proposed to build an
additional gargantuan military base in Vicenza, effectively turning the
place into a military town. And Italians have taken to the streets in
massive protests. A remarkable account of a recent march through
Vicenza by American peace activist Medea Benjamin, together with
photos, can be found HERE.
Now comes the news that Prime Minister Romano Prodi has resigned.
The New York Times describes the vote that led to the resignation thus:
“Two far-left members of his coalition abstained amid tensions over
whether Italy should continue to provide troops to Afghanistan and Mr.
Prodi’s support of an expansion of an American military base in
Vicenza, in northern Italy”.The government’s far-left members, however,
have strongly resisted the presence of nearly 2,000 Italian troops in
Afghanistan. And last weekend, tens of thousands of people rallied
against the expansion of the American-staffed NATO base in Vicenza,
which Mr. Prodi’s government reluctantly supported.”
The Guardian tells it a little differently, of course:
“The dispute this week concerned two issues: Operation Enduring
Freedom – the satirical self-description of the NATO/UN occupation of
Afghanistan – and the expansion of the US military base in Vicenza in
Northern Italy. Two leftwing senators voted against the government in
the Italian senate after Prodi and his foreign minister D’Alema had
made the vote an issue of confidence, arguing that Afghanistan was a
legal war because it was supported by the United Nations. He meant, of
course, the Security Council with its iron-fisted monopoly of power
still firmly under the control of five countries who were victorious in
the second world war. His arguments failed to sway two dissenting
senators from the left. As a result, a weakened Romano Prodi, the
prudent spokesman of an immoderate bourgeoisie, has resigned. His
popularity was on the wane (36% as against 44% who backed the
coalition)”.Only a week earlier, Prodi had explicitly forbidden any
member of the cabinet from participation in the mass demonstration
(100,000 people according to La Repubblica) protesting the extension of
the base. Now the crisis within the left is out in the open: 62% of
Italians and 73% of the government’s supporters want to withdraw all
Italian troops from Afghanistan.”
Now, Prodi may end up right back in power, or he may be replaced by
someone worse. And that government may collapse within a year, as most
Italian governments do. But Italy will never be right back in its same
place in the American empire, not after this week, not after the people
marched against the U.S. military.
The trick is for us in the United States to transform our own
government into one that similarly pays attention to and can be
influenced by public pressure. The only way I can conceive of doing
that begins with impeaching Dick Cheney and removing him from office.