Posted on 02/17/2007 2:24:57 PM PST by La Enchiladita
By COLLEEN BARRY VICENZA, Italy - Tens of thousands of people marched through the northeastern Italian city of Vicenza under heavy police guard on Saturday to protest a planned U.S. military base expansion.
The demonstrators, estimated by police to number 50,000 to 80,000, marched peacefully along the four-mile route as hundreds of policemen stood guard and helicopters hovered above.
Some protesters wore T-shirts saying "Yankee Go Home" and others waved rainbow peace flags as the demonstration headed out from city's train station. It was not scheduled to pass the site of the planned expansion, where critics of the project keep a permanent picket.
"To build a military base is not the gesture of a peaceful government," said Simone Pasin, a 24-year-old resident of the city. "I think it's time to dismantle military bases and put up structures of peace."
The expansion, which has strained relations within Italy's governing center-left coalition, is part of the U.S. Army's overall transformation into a lighter, more mobile force. Under it, elements of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, a rapid reaction unit now spread between Italy and Germany, would be reunited at the Vicenza base.
In recent years the 173d Airborne Brigade has also been deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2003, the unit made the biggest airdrop since World War II when its soldiers landed in northern Iraq.
Special trains and buses brought in leftist activists and anti-globalization protesters from across Italy to support local residents who are concerned that the expansion could cause traffic, deplete local resources and increase the risk of terror attacks.
Premier Romano Prodi angered his far-left allies last month when he said the government would not oppose the base expansion. Communist and Green parties _ members of the governing coalition _ have backed the protest.
Prodi has said his government had no reason to halt the expansion, which has been approved by Vicenza's city council.
The U.S. Embassy in Rome had advised Americans to avoid Vicenza on Saturday and Interior Minister Giuliano Amato warned that violent protesters could infiltrate the march. Prodi, in a radio address hours before the demonstration, urged protesters to be peaceful.
The Ederle base has about 2,600 active duty military personnel. The expansion at the Dal Molin airport, on the other side of town, would allow the military to move four battalions now based in Germany, adding another 1,600 active duty personnel.
Some in the ruling coalition feared the demonstration might suggest anti-U.S. sentiment in the country. But the protest also drew Americans.
"The U.S. should not build military bases, the U.S. should think of its domestic problems," said John Gilbert, who teaches English at the University of Florence and was in a group of about 20 Americans who had traveled from Rome and Florence.
The Americans were greeted by Italians, who went up to them to shake their hands or snap pictures in a show of solidarity.
I anticipate the same, if I am ever able to visit there. But it looks like these demonstrators are trying to spoil a good thing.
You're half Italian and making those kinds of comments. Shame on you. Sine joco, bos in lingua.
As they are so enthusiastic to have us out of Iraq, I'm sure they would be doubly excited to get us out of Italy. We should at least make them happy on the later point.
LOL. I shudder to imagine what these "structures" would look like.
The truth is we all want peace. We all want to live in peace. However, while jihad is being waged against the free world, we cannot live in peace.
The commie pacifists' kind of peace is surrender.
"Peace in our time."
During my tour, there was a lot of anti-US military stuff going on in Rome. Red Brigades group, if I remember correctly. They enjoyed pulling cobblestones from the streets and throwing them, then after a short clash with the local police, disappearing.
A decade later I was stationed in England, and taking classes through the U of Md. One of my instructors had a very interesting background. He was studying for a Doctorate at one of the Oxford University colleges, and teaching at U of Md to pay the bills. He was a former US Army CPT, a specialist in intel/counter intel, and had been stationed in Rome at the time I was there. He had been undercover pretending to be an ex-pat war protester and was an insider/instigator in the Rome rioting. He claimed to have tossed more than a few cobblestones! All the while, he was reporting intel back to the army.
I went back and read your comments again, and I must say, I think my response to your comments was a bit unfair.
I have to tell you about my experience in Milan back in the mid-nineties. I was walking by the recently renovated opera house, LaScala, and all of the sudden I was in a sea of leftwing loons, with red banners, communist flags, and a lot of noise. Here I was, a Reagan Conservative Republican, rubbing shoulders with a bunch of irrational, leftwing,il-duce wannabees. The media was there to cover the "event," and when the media left, the crowd dispersed. I guess that's what passes for a commie demonstration in the age of McLuhan.
Perhaps the Cypriots would welcome us, or the Romanians?
LOL
Ask your mother
Mommy said to ask the nice camouflaged man with the ski mask and AK-47 if I could borrow his.
Now THAT is an interesting anecdote. Fast-forward to today.... hmmmm.....
I believe we are going to have a base in Romania... heard this last year when they became one of our NATO partners.
A base there would be good for them and us. It would also likely be very inexpensive for our troops to live there.
When you go to one particular town...whether France, Germany or Italy...you will never meet more than five percent of the town that is anti-American. I've been in Europe for 14 consecutive years and can base this on wide-travel.
What you do find...is that when someone calls for a protest...every one of these guys...from a 200-mile circle...will drive out to the protest. You will think that the 30,000 people at the protest are all locals...but that simply is bogus logic. Start looking at car tags...you find a huge number of out-siders.
For this case in Vicenza...I'm willing to bet that only 20 percent of the protestors came from the local region (within 30 miles)...the rest are all from outside of the area. The base has been very open about what the plans have been and the economic plus-up of the town (millions for housing and services to come). Very few of the locals are seriously anti-American or anti-base. The amusing thing with the reporting of yesterday...was that so many of the protestors were concerned about the environmental impact of the barracks and support buildings...yet they are allowing continued construction of apartment buildings, stores, and resturants. This makes the approval authority appear like fools if they say no on the Americans but yes for apartments.
Personally...I'd rather put up a floating platforms in the Med...without permission of anyone...and just avoid this entire game of poltics or protest.
Protests brought to you by Americans Against the War (Florence)and Americans for Peace and Justice (Rome)
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