While the United States presses ahead with our commitment to the latest war (at a projected cost of over $1 billion), Italy has been the latest NATO ally to break with NATO in calling for a suspension of hostilities in Libya. Of course, the Administration still insists that there are no hostilities to suspend. (For full disclosure, I am lead counsel representing the members challenging the Libyan war and its underlying policies).
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini noted that the U.S. and NATO attacks were adding to the humanitarian crisis rather than ending it, including the recent killing of civilians in what we have called non-hostilities.
One commentator, Natalino Ronzitti from the Rome-based International Affairs Institute, observed that “The alliance is coming unstuck.” The U.S. reportedly pressured NATO members opposed to the operation, including Turkey.
The White House has used the NATO involvement to try (unsuccessfully) to deflect criticism for entering another war and doing so without congressional approval.
Source: Yahoo
Jonathan Turley
if those damn canadians don’t start reining in their hockey players we may have to sent a few cruise missiles their way. (they do have oil right)?
damn canadians and their…canada socialism. we need to bring democracy to canada.
invade canada now
Oh well, let us all continue to sit in our comfortable living rooms and watch the TV as Assad sends his crack troops and their tanks to kill, torture and rape the Syrian rebels.
Oh sorry I misunderstood, Syria has no oil?
Well then, why should we bother!
We only give our blood for oil 😉
A sad part of all this is that NATO has apparently displayed it’s limitations. If NATO ran out of missles & available ordinance to use it signals weakness. This is a wake up call to me that Europe has depended too much on US dollars for protection. Time to shift the burden a bit more to them. To bad if this interferes with the socialist utopia that is failing anyway.
Bravo Italia!
In the past, Italy has shown an amazing ability to abandon the losing side of a war, and join the winning side of the war. It’s too bad we don’t have that same ability.
Bankrupting our nation by fighting 4 wars = losing 4 wars.
If we “win” the 4 wars, just what is it that we have won? Do we get to pound our chests and proclaim ourselves “The World’s Only Superpower”. I think we did that already.
What we have already won is many thousands of returning veterans, broken in body and mind, who will have to be cared for- some for 60 or 70 years. Aside from the human costs of broken men and women, broken families, many veterans unemployed and many in prison for crimes, the Veterans Administration budget will rise by a shocking amount and stay there for many years (unless we just abandon the veterans like we usually do.) And, of course, the corporations that run our country will insist that we replace all the weapons and munitions destroyed in the wars so that we will be ready for the inevitible next war.
Among the other things we “win” are padlocked schools (or worse, private schools run by the educational equivalents of Halliburton and Blackwater), public school teachers trying to teach classes of 40 or 50 students (or worse, leaving teaching because of impossible conditions and declining pay.) Other effects of our permanent war economy: more crime (fewer police), more destructive fires (fewer firefighters), more unnecessary deaths (fewer EMT’s). Also, the continuing destruction of our roads, bridges, water systems, pipelines, sewers, and other infrastructure due to our bankrupt Federal, State, and Local Governmants.
The tacky magnetic yellow ribbons proclaiming “Support Our Troops” are gone from our pickup trucks, and we are left with the real costs of “winning” a war. Is it worth it ?
All I can say is, VIVA ITALIA!!!
Good for Italy….This non conflict is to now protect the British supply line of petro….
“Italy has been the latest NATO ally to break with NATO in calling for a suspension of hostilities in Libya.” -Jonathan Turley
“Hostilities”, you say? Where?