Non so se sapete che su un importante giornale americano, di fede democratica (quindi teoricamente vicino all'attuale governo), e' comparso un lungo articolo che critica senza mezzi termini i nostri soldati inviati in Libano, considerati buoni solo a mangiare e vestirsi da Armani (riferendosi alla divisa dei carabinieri) ma assolutamente incapaci di farsi valere sul campo.
Io sto dalla parte del quotidiano Europa (giornale di partito della Margherita) che ha risposto dicendo che magari i nostri soldati potranno rimediare ad uno dei tanti casini combinati dagli americani nel mondo. :mad2)
E non commento, solo per mancanza di tempo, sulla faccia di :culo) di chi accusa gli italiani di aver "fallito" in Iraq... sentite da che pulpito viene la predica: da parte di chi si e' inventato le fasulle armi di distruzioni di massa per una guerra per il controllo del petrolio, per chi fa guerra di occupazione in Iraq e altrove... e poi vanno a dire a noi italiani che siamo incapaci. Proprio bravi loro a "governare" il mondo... ma vaff... :mad2)
Mitico il finale dove dicono che i francesi sarebbero stati molto meglio... certo, se han tutti il carattere di Zidane i libanesi sono a posto :boid)
Ecco qua l'articolo completo, naturalmente in inglese
Io sto dalla parte del quotidiano Europa (giornale di partito della Margherita) che ha risposto dicendo che magari i nostri soldati potranno rimediare ad uno dei tanti casini combinati dagli americani nel mondo. :mad2)
E non commento, solo per mancanza di tempo, sulla faccia di :culo) di chi accusa gli italiani di aver "fallito" in Iraq... sentite da che pulpito viene la predica: da parte di chi si e' inventato le fasulle armi di distruzioni di massa per una guerra per il controllo del petrolio, per chi fa guerra di occupazione in Iraq e altrove... e poi vanno a dire a noi italiani che siamo incapaci. Proprio bravi loro a "governare" il mondo... ma vaff... :mad2)
Mitico il finale dove dicono che i francesi sarebbero stati molto meglio... certo, se han tutti il carattere di Zidane i libanesi sono a posto :boid)
Ecco qua l'articolo completo, naturalmente in inglese
Codice:
There's an old joke that goes something like this: In heaven, the policemen are British, the mechanics are German, the lovers are French, the cooks are Italian, and everything is organized by the Swiss. In hell, the policemen are German, the cooks are British, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss and everything is organized by the Italians.
Well, in southern Lebanon, already not unlike hell--and where everything is organized by Hezbollah--it looks like the policemen may soon be Italian. Last Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called his Italian counterpart, Romano Prodi, to request that Italy lead the peacekeeping mission that the United Nations is sending to enforce the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. "It [is] important that Italy lead the international force, as well as send troops to oversee the border crossings between Syria and Lebanon," Olmert told Prodi, according to a statement posted on the Israeli prime minister's website. And Prodi has now volunteered his country's services to Kofi Annan. So the Italians will most likely lead the force, which the United Nations hopes will ultimately number some 15,000 troops.
But that wasn't the original plan: Olmert called on Prodi after the French--who had been instrumental in crafting the Security Council ceasefire resolution and who had initially pledged to lead the force--balked at a major troop commitment. They first offered just a few hundred soldiers, whereas the Italians are reportedly planning to send 2,500-3,000 soldiers. The French have now upped their contribution and are vying for leadership of the mission, but the Italians still seem to have the inside track on heading the force. There's just one hitch. If the United Nations wants a chance to keep the peace, it had better find someone other than Italy to lead it: Italians are awful peacekeepers, and you only have to look at the French to see why.
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There are plenty of reasons to think that the U.N. peacekeeping mission is doomed no matter who leads it. The history of U.N. peacekeeping around the world is spotty, and, in the case of Lebanon, it is particularly dismal. Unifil, the existing U.N. force in Lebanon (which is currently commanded by a French general), proved completely incapable of stopping Hezbollah's periodic attacks against Israel, and it remains unclear if the new U.N. force will have a strong mandate to disarm the Shia guerrillas. Nor does the Lebanese army, which the United Nations is meant to support, seem to have any intention of taking weapons from Hezbollah. Plus, it is far from clear that either Israel or Hezbollah really want peace at this point. Hezbollah has shown no signs of backing away from its opposition to Israel and may very well attack it again, and Israel--disappointed that it failed to deal a knockout blow to Hezbollah during the fighting--remains committed to killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and has already launched a major commando raid into Lebanon to prevent Hezbollah from rearming. Under these circumstances, it is doubtful that any international force could keep the peace for long.
But the recent record of the Italian military is hardly reassuring. Sure, the Italians are professionally trained and nato-equipped. Yes, the Carabinieri--paramilitary police that Italy often deploys on peacekeeping missions--look cool in their dark Armani-designed uniforms. And, as anyone who has ever dined with the Italian soldiers knows, the Italian army travels on its stomach better than perhaps any other. But, when it comes to the hard work of keeping the peace, well, let's just say they eat better than they fight. During ethnic unrest that swept Kosovo in March 2004, Italian peacekeepers were frequently intimidated by ethnic Albanian mobs into abandoning their positions--and, on some occasions, the ethnic Serb civilians they were charged with protecting. For instance, on March 17, a large mob tried to march on an ethnic Serb enclave near the western town of Pec. Here's how a Human Rights Watch report describes what happened next:
Even though the main Italian kfor base was only a kilometer away, fewer than one hundred Italian kfor soldiers responded to the crisis in Belo Polje. The Italian kfor troops refused to approach the Church where the Serbs were sheltering, forcing the residents to walk some one hundred and fifty meters through the hostile crowd before they were evacuated. A group of ten or fifteen unmik police, most of them American, had to form a cordon to try and protect the fleeing Serbs as they passed through the hostile crowd....
When the Serbs were ordered to evacuate, the lack of adequate security personnel and the refusal of Italian kfor to approach the church where the Serbs were sheltering almost resulted in tragedy. The fleeing Serbs were attacked by the ethnic Albanian crowd, and several were stabbed and injured. Only the fatal shooting of one of the Albanian attackers by an American unmik policewoman stopped the attack.
And here's the same report describing an incident the next day in the capital, Pristina:
On the evening of March 18, a crowd of ethnic Albanians, most of them young people, attacked the St. Nicolas Orthodox Church in the old part of town. KPS [the Kosovo police] and Italian unmik troops mounted an ineffective and uncoordinated defense of the Church, with Italian unmik accidentally firing tear gas at the KPS officers and also shooting a KPS officer three times. At about 8 p.m., the Italian unmik was able to disperse the two hundred or so ethnic Albanians surrounding the church by firing in the air, but then immediately began to evacuate the priest of the church as well the five Serb homes on the street nearby. Almost immediately after the Italian unmik departed, the ethnic Albanian rioters returned and burned the church.
And remember, this is Kosovo--where the attacking mobs were mostly untrained civilians armed with little more than knives. If the Italians couldn't muster an effective defense in these circumstances, how will they fare in confrontations with Hezbollah's battle-hardened and well-equipped guerrillas?
To get a sense of the answer, look at Iraq. Italy joined the infamous coalition of the willing and deployed more than 2,000 troops to Iraq immediately after the U.S. invasion. The Italians were assigned to police the area around the southern city of Nasiriyah. Early on, they suffered a serious blow when a suicide truck bomb plowed into a Carabinieri headquarters in November 2003, killing 18 Italian troops and wounding about 20 more. To their credit, the Italians didn't immediately pull out--and they later upped their troop contribution to near 3,000. But when Moqtada Al Sadr's Mahdi Army--a Shia militia that is, in many ways, modeled on Hezbollah--launched a major attack on the Italian Nasiriyah base in May 2004, the Italians abandoned the city. They later retook the base (after the Mahdi Army left it) but have since made almost no effort to rein in Shia militias in the area. Sadr and his Mahdi Army remain a major political force in Nasiriyah, and Mahdi militiamen and as well as those loyal to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq have fully infiltrated the city's police force. Having done so well, the Italians are pulling their troops out of Iraq by year's end. In fact, one reason the Italians can commit such a major force for Lebanon is their decision to withdraw from Iraq.
In addition to the worries about whether the Italians will be aggressive enough peacekeepers, there are also concerns about whether they have the wherewithal to lead a multinational force. As a recent report from the private intelligence firm Stratfor notes--with the exception of a peacekeeping mission to Albania--the Italians have almost always played a supporting role, not a leading one, in post-conflict operations. As the Stratfor report notes, "Nato and U.N. force administrators used to put Italian forces in areas where eagerness and numbers were more important than discipline and organization." The Italians have also suffered breakdowns in discipline on a number of occasions. Italian soldiers serving as peacekeepers in Somalia in 1993 and 1994 (another U.N. mission that didn't work out so well) were later found to have tortured and raped civilians. The Italians also suffered similar lapses in discipline during peacekeeping in Eritrea. Stratfor speculates that Israel may be encouraging an Italian-led peacekeeping force precisely because it knows the Italians are likely to fail--thus providing Israel with a good rationale for the resumption of its war against Hezbollah.
But, if the Italians shouldn't be leading the peacekeeping effort, who should? As in the old joke, the British would be an ideal choice if they weren't already overcommitted in Iraq and Afghanistan. The second best option would be ... the French. Contrary to their reputation for being, in the immortal words of The Simpsons, "cheese-eating surrender monkeys," the French have proved themselves to be capable and courageous peacekeepers in recent years. After an initially reprehensible performance in Rwanda--where they failed to stop the genocide--the French acted decisively, sending in a large force to establish and protect safe zones that ultimately saved lives. (The French are rightly criticized for having allowed Hutu génocidaires to shelter in these protected areas and for actively helping many Hutu officials escape into Zaire. But it should also be remembered that the French saved the lives of many ordinary Hutus as well--and that they acted when the United States was unwilling to get involved.).
And the French aren't afraid to confront force with force, as they have shown repeatedly in their peacekeeping efforts in Côte d'Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. If the U.N. mission to Lebanon will work, it will need to be prepared to act forcefully, the way the French have in their operations in Africa. So, even though Olmert wants the Italians, the United States should press Kofi Annan to appoint the French to lead the operation (yesterday, French President Jacques Chirac vowed to send 2,000 troops and repeated the earlier French offer to command the U.N. force). Barring that, perhaps the Norwegians could be convinced to lead the operation. Their troops did a decent job in the Balkans in the mid-'90s, and the Norwegian government has been committed to Middle East peace for some time. Or maybe the Swiss. After all, they pride themselves on neutrality. And, unlike the Italians, at least we know they're very good at organizing things.
Jeremy Kahn is a writer in Washington, DC and former managing editor of The New Republic.
