Libya
Today I'm being serious. I will translate an article I read this morning on an Italian site, www.repubblica.it. It is about the Libyan war that begun some days ago. The article was written by Piergiorgio Odifreddi.
Since I do not have much time to translate it all (why am I always busy? -.-), I have used Google translate, so forgive the mistakes.
"Is meaningful and appropriate that, for the celebrations of the Unification of Italy, the Italians, or at least the institutional representatives, blow out the candles on the cake confirming one of our most characteristic qualities: the ability to do the worst U-turn to peaceful heart, giving the false motivations.
The most outrageous of these face-off is perhaps the one against Gaddafi and Libya. A year ago we signed a treaty of friendship between the peoples of Libya and Italy. And now we are ready to assist not only silent invasion of the country, but to participate actively, providing bases and troops.
Maybe that Gaddafi is different today than it was a year ago? Of course not. The turnabout has of very down to earth, though Defense Minister has boldly assured that our operations do not set foot on the former friendly country. Those reasons are that the United States and France have decided to intervene, there is a risk that will replace us in the commercial exploitation of the country. Of course, the reasons for Obama and Sarkozy are not much higher. These are countries that have always had interests in North Africa in general, and in particular in Libya, for example, the first military intervention that the United States performed outside the American continent was just a bombing raid on Tripoli in 1804 ... !
Another turnaround is following the nuclear accident caused by an earthquake in Japan. While the whole world was meditating on atomic energy, the Italian government continued to declare that he would keep the program of building nuclear power stations. Unless notice that it could damage the electoral point of view, so, back off, no problem.
Of course, we can not forget that thanks to this natural endowment we are the real winners of the WW2. The only ones which have always been on the winning side, throughout the conflict, first with the Axis, and then by the Allies. [...]
We Italians are like that. And this gives us hope, because sooner or later we will make a new turnaround, and we will turn away from Berlusconi. You will not find one that will admit that he had voted him, as well as it once was for the Christian Democrats, who was the majority party on. To celebrate the Italy of the turnaround, I will wait till that time, although it will be too late to rejoice.
It is sad, but, true. The original link (in Italian) is here.