“Another attack in Nassiriya has refocussed the attention of the media, of politicians, and thus of public opinion on our military missions abroad. In these sad and difficult occasions there are set patterns of communication and reaction that have become rituals: bombastic, emotional and participatory, but in the end self-serving. Arid and sterile, from which is born no real awareness and above all no professional or moral scruples […]”
[Fabio Mini – Ex Commander of the KFOR military mission, in Kosovo]
Mini wrote the above in response to attacks in Nassirya in late April of this year that killed four soldiers (three in the immediate attack, with the fourth soldier dying days later from his injuries). On Monday yet another Italian soldier, Alessandro Pibiri (24 years of age) was killed in Iraq. Sadly, as has become commonplace, the talking heads of Italian public life have gone into overdrive.
The perfect example? Pier Ferdinando Casini, leader of the centre-right UDC party, currently in opposition, but at the time of Italy’s engagement in Iraq one of Berlusconi’s coalition partners.
Casini took the opportunity of Pibiri’s death to pronounce the following on Porta a Porta (the inner sanctum of senseless rhetoric): “We have to tell the families of our soldiers that their boys haven’t died in vain”.
Well and good. It’s about time then that Casini, Berlusconi, and Fini who arranged for this particular ‘peace’ mission, explained to those very same families what their sons have died for. With facts, and not broad rhetoric about ‘democracy’.
A good starting point would be explaining the choice behind the Italian troops deployment to Nassiriya specifically. As Rai News 24 documented over a year ago, a dossier drawn up by the Ministry of Production – currently the Ministry for Economic Development – a full six months before the invasion of Iraq recommended Italian deployment of troops to the Nassiriya region to protect the position of Italian oil giant ENI which had negotiated huge contracts in the area with Saddam Hussein’s government. ENI was subsequently one of the first foreign oil companies to win contracts to buy Iraqi oil.
While Casini and his ilk spew sanctimonious rhetoric (a particular forte of Christian Democrats it seems), precious little information makes its way back to the Italian public as to what Italian ‘peace keapers’ are doing in Iraq.
How many, for example know that, according to research undertaken by L’Espresso, for every million euros spent on humanitarian aid, a hundred million is spent on the military and secret services?[1]
How many know that when Italian troops distribute humanitarian aid it has to be like a hit and run operation, for fear of attack?
How many know that the local authority in Nassiriya, with police trained presumably by the Italian contingent stand accused of gunning down trade unionists protesting against corruption in the local power station?
If the ‘peace-keeping’ mission in Iraq is worth dying for, let’s have some facts as to why. And if Mr Casini and the like aren’t prepared to offer up hard facts, let them keep their oily rhetoric to themselves.
[1]L’Espresso 11 May