Posted on 02/17/2007 4:28:01 PM PST by familyop
VICENZA, Italy (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Italians under heavy police guard marched through the city of Vicenza on Saturday to protest at the expansion of a U.S. military base that has divided the center-left government.
Leftists who last year voted for Prime Minister Romano Prodi, an Iraq war opponent, turned out in droves to decry his approval for U.S. plans to expand the base in Vicenza, home of the 173rd Airborne Brigade.
Pacifists waved rainbow-striped peace banners while some protesters carried anti-American slogans like "Yankees go Home" as they marched through the city and gathered in a main square.
"There is no reason to have this base here," said Antonio Faitta, a 25-year-old gardener who traveled from Genoa.
The Pentagon wants a larger base so that it can house the entire brigade instead of dividing it between Italy and Germany.
Prodi appealed to demonstrators to refrain from violence, following warnings from the interior minister that the protest could draw people "hostile to the forces of law and order".
The U.S. embassy had warned Americans to steer clear of the small northern Italian city of 115,000, where officials also shut schools normally open on Saturday as a precaution.
But the protests were peaceful. Police estimates pegged the crowd at more than 70,000 people, a turnout that Environment Minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, of the Greens Party, said was a resounding "referendum against doubling the U.S. base".
Prodi stood firm, saying the government's program would not "change direction under the pressure of a protest".
The base expansion is the latest headache for the 67-year-old prime minister, who has faced revolts by his broad leftist coalition partners on everything from gay rights to the budget and the presence of Italian peacekeepers in Afghanistan.
"Today, Prodi has been given a vote of no confidence by his own majority. He should step down," said Isabella Bertolini of the center-right opposition Forza Italia party.
LIGHTNING ROD
The demonstration had served as a lightning rod for anti-U.S. sentiment in a country where judges have ordered CIA agents and a U.S. soldier to stand trial for kidnapping and murder.
A Milan judge charged the CIA agents on Friday with abducting a Muslim cleric in Milan in a covert operation and flying him to Egypt. The U.S. soldier was charged on February 7 with murdering an Italian secret agent in Iraq, although both governments have described the 2005 shooting as an accident.
All will almost certainly be tried in absentia.
"I don't want any more Americans here and I don't want a new base. They should just leave us alone," said Pucci Mori, a resident of Vicenza, who lives near the proposed base expansion.
"Wherever they go in the world, Americans cause trouble."
The new barracks would be on the other side of the city from the existing one. That has raised worries about new roads to handle military traffic linking the two parts, loss of green space and strains on public services.
Residents fear it could even put Vicenza in danger.
"The people of Vicenza are concerned. The base would be in the heart of the city and in the case of a military conflict it could become a target," said Nobel literature laureate Dario Fo.
No, it's not a duplicate post. ...different article.
And for all others, there are photos behind the link.
Since the left desires to appease terrorists, why not appease Euroweenies as well?
I say pull every last one of our troops out, all over Europe and take our filthy American dollars with us!
When the radical Islamofascists show up at their front door, sorry, you deal with them.
WE need the " Aw not this sheeet again!" guy.
Weren't these the people that strung up Mussolini?
And soccer has been BANNED IN ITALY BECAUSE THE ITALIANS ARE SO VISCIOUS!
I say pull out the bases and give them to one of the Eruo's that would appreciate us. And while we are at it, pull the bases in GErmany!
Let's leave Italy and shake the dust off our feet. They will be crying shortly after like the weenies in Puerto Rico after the Navy shut down ops there and packed up.
My brother was stationed in Vincenza as an 11H. The brigade's duty was to protect large artillery that would bombard a certain pass with low-yield tactical nuclear weapons to prevent a Soviet invasion after they had driven through Germany. We offered 50 years of protection asking for nothing in return but support and the Italians are this ungrateful. You people sided with Hitler and this is the deck you were dealt and you came out pretty good considering the circumstances. Oh and as another freeper speculated, they employ LOTS of Italians on base.
So I guess Poland or Czech Republic gets another base. They would love the millions of $$ and thousands of jobs that would come with it.
OMG!
The second photo is of Medea Benjamin of Code Pink. Dam, she gets around.
Of course, rooters labeled her as "a protestor"
LOL!!!
Great humor! Very clever.
(AGI) - Berlin, Aug. 26 - After having a protagonist role for peace in Lebanon Italy asks to take part in the 5+ 1 group that negotiates with Iran on nuclear. Foreign minister, Massimo D'Alema in an interview to "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" asks a place near to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. "We are Iran's most important commercial partners with Germany and we are pledged in Lebanon with Hezbollah. So we have the right to be included in the negotiation with Iran. The goal is not a new conflict but talks aimed at preventing Iran from having an atomic bomb, he said. Italy searched for a greater G8 involvement in the negotiation with Iran but it remained excluded from the 5 plus 1, the group that started a negotiation with Tehran offering incentives in exchange for the suspension of the uranium enrichment program. This exclusion was due to the fact that Rome was not part of the European trio (France, Germany and UK) that had tried the first mediation with Tehran and represented the EU in the 5 plus 1. D'Alema remembered that the United Nations and the EU had not a role in the Iraqi crisis, and warned that the new opportunity in Lebanon could not be missed now. "It is a very difficult mission full of unknown points but it is worth pledging or the only alternative would be a new burst of war" he said. The foreign minister, was sceptical on the possibility of a new UN resolution for the mission in Lebanon asked by the US. "I'm sceptical about it, because in these situations they always open long negotiations. The strategic plan is clear and the resolution was completed defining the rules of engagement. If they will make a new resolution soon I agree with them but the most important thing is getting there as soon as possible (In Lebanon)" he said.
Boy, do I agree with you 100%
Freed Italians eye return to Iraq [Italy paid a ransom!]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1231061/posts
Sgrena's 'truth' doesn't ring true
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1361764/posts
Italy to stop paying ransoms
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1361666/posts
20,000 in farewell to Italian 'martyr'
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1358260/posts
Italy Plans to Charge GI in Iraq Death
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1559896/posts
I warned Bush about Iraq: Italy's PM
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1512263/posts
Berlusconi protests over CIA ‘kidnap'
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1434969/posts
Italy Demands 'Full Respect' From U.S. Over Terror Suspect's Seizure
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1434975/posts
Wasn't there a town in Ireland that sued the US or threatened to because we closed down a base there, and it destroyed their economy?
I agree. Move the 173d Airborne Brigade to Romania.
Why do we insist on pushing ourselves on people who don't want us? I'm sick to death of paying for this. Bring all of our military home from Europe, they don't need us, they don't want us, time to go. Start building bases on our borders. I have never understood why we close bases in this country so that we can afford bases in other countries who don't want them. Did I mention that I am sick of this?
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