Stop the War Machine, no weapons to Israel
October 13, 2012, National Demonstration at Alenia Aermacchi Headquarters, Varese, Italy
On Saturday, October 13, 2012, a national demonstration will be held in Varese, Italy, where most of the country’s military aircraft production is located, to denounce the weapons industry, in particular the sale of 30 M-346 trainer jets to Israel. The protest will take place at the Alenia Aermacchi headquarters, manufacturers of the M-346 and part of Finmeccanica Group, one of the world’s top weapons producers.
The M-346, defined as a “technologically advanced trainer jet,” is in fact designed to be armed with missiles or bombs. These weapons will undoubtedly be “tested” first and foremost on Palestinians. As a trainer jet, the M-346 is designed to prepare fighter pilots in the use of the most “technologically sophisticated” attack aircraft, such as the “netcentric” and “invisible” F-35 from US weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin. Israel has signed on to purchase 19 F-35 fighter jets, with an option for 56, and Italy is also unfortunately in line to purchase the combat aircraft for future wars.
Recently, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman stopped off at Alenia Aermacchi headquarters near Varese during his semi-secret tour of Italy, which was soon followed by the signing of the M-346 contract.
Local and national politicians, from center-left to center-right, have promoted the deal, conveniently “overlooking” the December 2008 – January 2009 “Operation Cast Lead”, which saw Israel’s “air power” rain down on the unarmed civilian Palestinian population, killing 1400, of which 400 children. A brutal military action, in which Israel used new unknown weapons as well as those already prohibited by international conventions (white phosphorus, DIME bombs, depleted uranium) and committed war crimes and crimes against humanity as documented in the UN “Goldstone Report”.
In addition to halting the sale of M-346 jets to Israel, the demands of the demonstration include suspension of the military cooperation agreement between Italy and Israel signed in 2005.
In recent years, local groups in Varese have denounced the chronic dependence of their territory on war production, organizing assemblies and protests against Agusta Westland (helicopters) and Alenia Aermacchi (aircraft) and, more recently, the F-35.
The demonstration also calls on workers at Alenia Aermacchi and all weapons producers to rejects employment based threats and to work to convert factories from producing instruments of death to socially beneficial and environmentally friendly products.
Moreover, local groups have called this national demonstration in opposition to the practice of war, which has intensified over the last 20 years, where military action is called “peace”, justified as an instrument of “preventive security” and to “export democracy”, and even defined as “humanitarian.”
“Humanitarian war” is instead an oxymoron: war causes nothing but death, injuries, destruction, generating hatred, resentment and revenge, it is the most inhumane act imaginable.
There will never be peace as long as the most profitable industry is that of producing weapons and instruments of death.
Participants include Father Alex Zanotelli, Prof. Massimo De Santi, Prof. Mauro Cristaldi, dr Mario Agostinelli and former Vice President of European Parliament Luisa Morgantini.
Endorsements and statements of support can be sent to: nessunm346xisraele@gmail.com
Varese organizing committee:
http://nessunm346xisraele.blogspot.it/
Nessun M346 per Israele
Italy may also launch drone attacks on Pak-Afghan border area
By Akhtar Jamal | Pakistan Observer | June 3, 2012
Islamabad—According to Airforce-technology.com the United States is now planning to arm Italy’s fleet of MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) with missiles and bombs, in a bid to “protect Italian armed forces from enemy threats” in Afghanistan.
Until now the United States and Britain had been using drones against “enemy elements” but almost all drone attacks carried out along Pak-Afghan borders areas had been carried out by American CIA.
The website claimed that the Obama administration was likely to announce the deal within two weeks, following which the US-built drones, operated by Italian air forces, will be equipped with weapons such as laser-guided bombs and Hellfire missiles.
The publication quoted Pentagon spokesman, George Little, as saying: “Italy is one of our strongest partners and Nato allies, and it’s important for us, for a variety of reasons, to share technologies and capabilities with them for purposes of burden sharing and to enable them to better protect themselves and, by extension, to protect the United States and our other allies.”
The American CIA carries out drone attacks citing “threats from unidentified enemies” and there are fears that if armed with missiles the Italian drones may also hit “possible enemies” considered a “threat to NATO forces”.
The report added that “Italy currently operates surveillance drones to protect its troops deployed to Afghanistan and it is likely that around six of them will be armed.”
The proposed sale may also assist the US in reallocating the global military operations burden, especially at a time when the Pentagon’s budget is facing deficit-reduction by requirements, report added.
According to the report the MQ-9 Reaper is a medium-to-high altitude UAV primarily designed for reconnaissance and surveillance and uses several kinds of sensors, including a thermal camera, and has six stores pylons that can carry a maximum of 4,600lb of weapons and external fuel tanks.
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Italy’s army may interfere against violent protests over economic woes
Press TV – May 14, 2012
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti has pointed to the possibility of calling in the army to deal with the violent protests in the country over the government’s economic policies.
Monti raised alert levels on Sunday at some sensitive sites across Italy to handle the recent violence that has hit the country.
Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri also said on Sunday that she was considering bringing in the army to defend certain locations.
“There have been several attacks on the offices of Equitalia (the agency handling tax collections) in recent weeks. I want to remind people that attacking Equitalia is the equivalent of attacking the State,” she said.
“The army could be used to guard buildings which could be the target of violent protest. The danger of an escalation exists. It’s a situation which demands drastic action,” she added.
On Saturday, two Molotov cocktails were thrown at the offices of Equitalia in Livorno, Tuscany, and severely damaged the front of the building after they blew off. Moreover, a letter bomb, which did not blast, was sent to the organization’s offices in Rome on Friday.
Earlier this month, a senior executive of state-controlled nuclear engineering group Ansaldo Nucleare was shot in the leg, with an Italian rebel group claiming responsibility for the attack.
Italy has faced a fresh wave of attacks in the last six months since Monti took office as prime minister and introduced a harsh austerity package to save the country from bankruptcy. The three-year austerity and growth package includes budget cuts, pension reforms as well as tax hikes worth 30 billion euros.
Italy, one of the biggest eurozone economies, fell into recession after its economy contracted by 0.2 percent in the third quarter and by 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011.
The Italian government has been urged to implement economic reforms and budget cuts to reassure investors concerned about the country’s debt.
Italy’s debt ratio in the eurozone is second only to Greece.
NATO: Killing with impunity
M. D. Nalapat | Pakistan Observer | April 29, 2012
Justice K John Mathew of the Lok Adalat (Peoples Court) of Kochi in Kerala has computed the value of a human life at Rs 1 crore. That is the money paid by Italian authorities to the next of kin of each of the two fishermen who had been shot dead months ago by Italian marines. Although the victims were in waters where there had been no pirate trouble, and in a small fishing boat rather than in a much larger pirate ship, and all but one of them had been visibly asleep on deck when the attack took place, the other having died when he awoke to the sound of shots and raised his head, the Italians have claimed that the shootings were justified as “the suspicion was that these were pirates about to attack” the Enrico Lexie, an Italian tanker. Why pirates about to attack a huge ship would be fast asleep on deck, besides being visibly unarmed, has not been explained by the Italian navy, which was angry that two of its men were arrested just for shooting two innocents from India. After all, if NATO personnel were to be arrested for killing innocent civilians, tens of thousands would now be in jail for the murder of hundreds of thousands in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere. To join NATO is to get an invisible 007 badge which confers the right to kill without any fear of punishment.
Admirers of Italy in India (and there is at least one prominent political family in India, one very close to the Bhuttos, that speaks only Italian when they are with each other) ensured that the lawyer for the central government sought to excuse the two Italian marines from being prosecuted by saying that the shooting took place “outside the territorial waters of India”, an untruth. If such an argument is to be accepted, should any person wish to conduct an assassination, all that needs to be done is to lure the victim beyond Indian waters and kill him or her there. According to the government lawyer, Harish Rawal, this would mean that Indian courts would automatically have zero jurisdiction over the case. The intense effort to free the two Italians may ensure that they be allowed to return to their country by next month, if the Kerala High Court accepts Rawal’s arguments. Such an outcome would mean that India would de facto have joined Afghanistan, Iraq and other locations where NATO personnel cannot be held to account by local courts, but must be sent back, usually to be freed even after committing rape and murder. Incidentally, the two Italians who killed the fishermen were first placed in a luxurious guest house accommodation and later moved to a special cell in a Trivandrum jail, where they are allowed to dress and move about as they please, and get specially-prepared meals served to them. Part of the benefits of working in NATO.
Justice Mathew ought to have decreed that at the least, the Italian government should pay Rs 5 crores for each of the dead fishermen. These days, even a middle-sized apartment in a big city costs Rs 1 crore to buy. Bringing up a family on that capital would be very difficult. Hence the fact that at the least, Justice Mathew ought to have awarded Rs 5 crores to each of the two “NATO widows”. That sum would still be much less than what was demanded of the Libyan government (and got) by European governments after the Lockerbie air disaster. It is unfortunate that authorities in India seem comfortable with a situation where the price of a human life in India is placed at a level far below that of a life in any of the NATO member-states, barring perhaps Turkey, which the EU does not accept as European enough to join the grouping. Justice Mathew is following in the path of then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, R S Pathak, who decreed that the tens of thousands killed and disabled by the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster were collectively worth only around $400 million, when in fact a much more reasonable value would have been $4 billion, at the least. The only way to teach NATO that India is still an independent country would be to set a figure for compensation that is similar to what citizens of the alliance themselves claim when a loved one is killed.
India is a democracy where the top priority of the government is the protection of the reputation and assets of the ruling branch of the Nehru family, which interestingly has much more contact with the Italian side of the family than with the Indian. While relatives from Italy come at frequent intervals to enjoy the gracious hospitality of Sonia Gandhi at her government-provided fortress, such a privilege is almost never extended to the Indian relatives,most of whom meet her – if at all – only during special occasions such as weddings,that too in public locations. Officials who know that if their identities get revealed will face severe punishment claim that Sonia Gandhi’s Italian relatives have interceded “several times” in the matter of the arrested Italian marines,and that they themselves and their illustrious sister have been “regularly contacted” by Italian authorities to ensure an early release of the two NATO personnel.We do not know if such claims are correct. However,what is clear is that the Government of India has gone the extra ten thousand miles in accommodating the wishes of the Italian side.There have also been reports that the Vatican in Rome has interceded with prominent Indian politicians to secure an early release of the two marines. Again,such a report is difficult to accept.Why would the Vatican get involved in a muder case,just because the alleged perpetrators are Italian?
The world is a much less secure place because of the James Bond-style 007 privileges given to NATO personnel in action. A human being is a human being, and just because she or he is Afghan, Indian or Iraqi does not mean that a murder should be ignored by the international human rights brigade, the way such killings are at present. In Libya, to take just this example, several thousand civilian lives were lost in NATO military action, besides much more as a result of the ongoing rampage of those armed, funded and trained by NATO to kill their fellow citizens. There is no longer any security for life or property for Libya, and yet neither BBC nor CNN nor Al Jazeera refer to the country at all in their broadcasts, having moved on to the next target, Syria. Here too, armed gangs have sprouted up so that it is no longer safe to go about in some parts of the country. Countries across the world that have lost lives as a consequence of NATO action need to come together and shame the UN into conducting an investigation into the matter, rather than ignoring it because the headquarters of that venerable institution is dominated by members of NATO,whose license to kill with impunity needs to be taken away before more tens of thousands of innocents perish in bombs, bullets and missiles.
As for the two Italian marines who killed innocent fishermen off the Kerala coast, the chances are that the power of NATO will ensure their escape from justice. They will not be the first NATO personnel to get away with murder. Interestingly, those such as Bradley Manning who sought to expose such crimes are now in prison rather than celebrated for their ethics and courage. But why blame NATO? When governments crawl before the alliance, who can blame them for continuing to regard themselves as above international law and morality?
—The writer is Vice-Chair, Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair & Professor of Geopolitics, Manipal University, Haryana State, India.
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‘Israel, Azerbaijan set to sign 1.6-billion-dollar arms deal’
Press TV – February 26, 2012
Israeli military officials say the Tel Aviv regime plans to sign a major arms deal worth USD 1.6 billion with Azerbaijan.
The officials said on Sunday Israel Aerospace Industries will sell “drones, anti-aircraft and missile defense systems worth USD 1.6 billion” to Azerbaijan.
Meanwhile, Israeli media said Angolan Finance Minister Carlos Alberto Lopes has traveled to Israel to sign a military agreement.
Reports say the Israeli-Angolan deal is worth about USD one billion.
The latest report on the Israeli military agreements comes a couple of days after Israeli officials said on February 16 the Tel Aviv regime had reached a “USD one billion preliminary” agreement with Italy to buy 30 Italian military training jets.
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- Azerbaijan Hub for Mossad’s Assassination & Espionage Operations against Iran (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Azerbaijan Claims More Iranian Terror Plots Without Providing Details or Evidence (alethonews.wordpress.com)
An Ecological Bomb in the Mediterranean
The Ships of Poison Cover-Up
By MICHAEL LEONARDI | January 21, 2011
While the global and Italian national media focuses on allegations of Berlusconi’s latest sexual exploits including reports of hedonistic orgies with teenage prostitutes at his luxurious villas, the much more devastating story of the intentional sinking of ships laden with radioactive and toxic materials into the Mediterranean Sea has quietly developed some new twists and turns in another of Italy’s notorious and grand cover-ups. Surely Berlusconi’s sexcapades make Bill Clinton’s impeachable blow job pale in comparison, but the the tabloid headlines could be replaced by the indignation of the Italian Media at least, with the intentional contamination of the beloved blue waters of the Mediterranean and the dismantling of the Italy’s social democracy rather than dedicating the entirety of their attention to prostitutes being paid to entertain one of our most sick and twisted world leaders.
We pick up this story in June of 2010 with the revelations that there is indeed what Italian state prosecutor Bruno Giordano called an “ecological bomb” in the valley of the Oliva river that flows down the mountains and past the towns of Aiello Calabro and Amantea on its way to the Tyrrhenian Sea. This is where it is believed that the cargo of the Jolly Rosso was intentionally dumped and buried. State agencies found the valley to be contaminated with thousands of cubic meters of industrial mud laced with very high levels of cobalt, nickel, mercury, lead, and other heavy metals. They found the presence of cesium 137, and they found more contaminated locations than previously anticipated, leading investigators to believe that not only was the cargo of the Jolly Rosso dumped here but that the area was then used as an illegal dumping grounds for years. There are no industries in this area that produce these materials so it is clear that they were produced and shipped in from other places. A formal request has been made to the minister of the environment Stefania Prestigiacomo to declare this zone an environmental disaster area and to begin cleaning it up. More than six months later there has been NO response.
State secrets still cloak the investigation into the case of what the Italian’s call the Navi dei Veleni Ships of Poison. State secrets still mask the murders of key investigators into the network of international business men, the Italian military, SISMI (the Italian secret service), NATO and state governments as they worked together to create and hide a network of waste and arms trafficking traversing the high Seas from the major Italian port of La Spezia to Alessandria, Egypt, Beruit, Lebanon and onward to Africa and Mogadishu in Somalia. Key investigators into the story of the Ships of Poison, Naval Captain Natale de Grazia, journalist Ilaria Alpi and cameraman Miran Hrovatin lost their lives for what many believe was their discovering of key truths that could expose an international network involving the Italian government that traded military weapons for the disposal of hazardous industrial wastes. Alpi and Hrovatin were gunned down in Mogadishu on the 20th of March 1994 by a Somali commando unit. Captain Natale de Grazia died of sudden cardiac arrest on the 13th of December 1995 only days before he was to deliver his report on his investigation into the Ships of Poison.
Now fast forward to 2011 and several recent developments that should be grabbing headlines. Two Italian journalists, Andrea Palladino, journalist for the communist daily il Manifesto and Vincenzo Mulè, journalist for Terra (Earth) News, have reported on a secret document that has come to the surface in the Parliamentary Commission on the Cycle of Garbage in Italy. This document dated December 11th 1995 describes financing by the Italian government under Lamberto Dini to the Italian Secret Service for the management of trafficking in arms and nuclear waste. While parts of this document have been acknowledged by the parliamentary commission, it still remains state secret. This document became state secret in 1995 and state secrets in Italy are supposed to be bound by a statute of 15 years that should have been up in 2010, however, this document still remains a secret.
Just this week, in an unexpected move from the Parliamentary Commission on the Cycle of Garbage in Italy, the investigation into the murder of journalist Ilaria Alpi and her cameraman Miran Hrovatin was reopened after being closed since 2006. It is believed that Italians paid the Somalis with weapons in exchange for using their sea and land as dumping grounds for toxic and radioactive wastes and that Alpi and Hrovatin had discovered too much. They were gunned down just days after Alpi had interviewed the Sultan of Bosaso, her notes from this interview were never found. Many believe that Alpi was killed because of what she had discovered about the ties between the Italian military and corrupt elements of the Somali leadership. This was all taking place during the time of Blackhawk down and the U.S. led occupation. According to the mafia turncoat Francesco Fonti, they had seen an exchange involving the Italian military and were assassinated for this reason. Their case was reopened because of a note about their deaths that was found among the belongings of Italian businessman Giorgio Comerio by Captain Natale de Grazia’s investigation.
This shady Italian businessman named Giorgio Comerio plays heavily into the reopening of this investigation. Comerio had come up with an idea for disposing of hazardous and radioactive wastes by torpedoing these wastes into the Sea floors. He was notorious for the trafficking of waste and part of a network intent on collecting insurance for old ships that were in need of disposal. His name has been associated with the purchase of the Jolly Rosso, the ship that beached on the shores of Amantea from the Messina shipping company. Old ships it seems are difficult and expensive to dispose of so Comerio and some mafia bosses came up with the bright idea of sinking them and collecting on their insurance policies while at the same time disposing of industrial wastes. Comerio has testified that “disposal at Sea was the only viable option for disposing of radioactive wastes at that time, as sending them off in the space shuttle was too dangerous because of the possibility of an explosion in the Earth’s atmosphere.”
In Captain Natale de Grazia’s investigation he found a report about the killing of Alpi and Hrovatin in Comerio’s files. It has been stated that De Grazia also found a copy of Ilaria Alpi’s death certificate at Comerio’s house on Lago di Como, but that this document disappeared from case files that were in the offices of state prosecutor Francesco Neri in Reggio Calabria. Neri says he remembers this document in the files and that De Grazia’s investigation had discovered it a Comerio’s house but that it has mysteriously disappeared.
Natale de Grazia’s investigation was also focused on another Italian businessman linked to the waste trade from La Spezia. De Grazia was focusing on the major port of La Spezia where NATO operates its undersea research center NURC and where arms and waste shipments are a big business. Orazio Duvia was identified by De Grazia as a key figure in the trafficking of both arms and toxic and radioactive wastes. He was the owner and operator of a mega and quite possibly largest industrial hazardous waste dump in Italy, the landfill of Pittelli on one of the hills overlooking the gulf of La Spezia. According to the research of Andrea Palladino, the CIA looked to the corrupt and criminally operated Pittelli landfill as a model for industrial waste disposal. In May of 1995 De Grazia reported to a group of forest rangers that Duvia’s landfill was one of the logistical platforms for the shipping and sinking of wastes. In this presentation that he made under the code name “pinnochio” in order to protect his identity, he described the sinking of a ship called the Rigel said to be full of nuclear waste and sunk in the waters of the Ionian Sea off the coast of Calabria.
Captain Natale de Grazia was said to be in perfect health by his friends and family. He had however voiced concern about his investigation to his brother in law and had indicated that he may have been treading in dangerous waters as his discoveries led him to conclusions that would be highly uncomfortable for the entire Italian and possibly international power structure. His sudden cardiac arrest happened just days before he was to give his report.
All indicators point to a collusion of forces in this horrific saga of the Ships of Poison, a collusion between SISMI (the Italian secret service), the Italian government, big business, NATO and organized crime families from the Calabrian based crime syndicate l’ndrangheta. Many are now hoping that the reopening of the Ilaria Alpi/Miran Hrovatin case will finally bring the truth to light, but this is doubtful. The Parliamentary Commission on Italy’s Garbage Cycle is being led by a good friend and lawyer of Silvio Belusconi, Gaetano Pecorella. Pecorella began his political career as a radical communist but has moved sharply to the right over the years culminating in what is considered to be the legal mind of the Berlusconi phenomenon. Unless he’s being riddled by some kind of catholic guilt for a life of vile hypocrisy, things don’t bode well for a truly transparent investigation. Pecorella has also defended elements of the Neapolitan based mafia the Camorra noted for its traffic of garbage and creation of the continuing garbage crisis in Naples and surrounding areas.
Italy is at a very critical juncture and whether Berlusconi survives yet again or not is only part of the problem. The Italian economy is in turmoil, the public eduction system is being dismantled and the health care system is under attack while being wrought with corruption. Civil unrest over the past several months has led nowhere but to heightened tensions with an increasingly militarized police state. The country is divided and while a growing majority is crying out for change a large minority still supports the despicable leadership of the neo-fascists running the country. Only time will tell if the mass movement of the past months will bear the fruits of change toward a sustainable economy that are sorely needed. America’s military presence in Italy must be challenged and dismantled for any real change to happen and the center-left has traditionally rubber stamped America’s imperial presence on the peninsula.
Michael Leonardi is currently living in Toledo, Ohio and can be reached at mikeleonardi@hotmail.com
Previous coverage of the Ships of Poison saga.
http://www.counterpunch.org/leonardi09182009.html,
http://www.counterpunch.org/leonardi10092009.html,
http://www.counterpunch.org/leonardi11042009.html .

