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The men in the funny white suits, ho ho, he he, ha ha.
(I've always liked that song)
That was the most delusional article I read in a long time.
I'm sure Calipari's widow is angry, disillusioned and distraught, but come on. She was married to a spy, and all of a sudden she's up in arms over covert activity? Get a grip.
Much of what she writes of is probably accurate, at least with regards to the U.S. - Soviet confrontation of capitalism vs. communism. But the stuff about Iraq is nonsense. Is she really arguing that Iraqi's are not slaughtering each other? If so, I think she ought to go there and see for herself. She seems to reject the very notion of religious based hostility. In her mind, I suppose the problems in Ireland are all the fault of the CIA too. Oh, and Bosnia, Kosovo, Pakistan, India, Somalia, Algeria... etc, etc. Come on, people love to hate and will kill each other at the drop of a hat.
I really enjoyed the part about Italians "resisting the Germans" and "not turning the cross hairs on your brothers and sisters." I guess they don't spend a lot of time on history in Italian schools... much the same way it is in Japan.
Her argument is wholly without merit. First, the fascists were very popular in Italy for a long time, until things went bad in WW2. There was no resistance to the Germans until Italy was invaded. There was some defiance, but not armed resistance. Once the Allies landed, the populace turned on the fascists with vigor. The notion that they targeted Germans is absurd; they targeted other Italians, and quite successfully.
The stuff about U.S. interference in Italian internal affairs is true, but must be taken in the context of the times. In the 70's, Italy was ground zero in the political struggle for control of Europe. Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union did their best to undermine popular support for the other side. Both sides used dirty tricks and resorted to blatant violence as political tools. I'm not saying it was right, but it was a low grade war that we could not afford to lose. The struggle in Iraq pales in comparison. It is well documented that the USSR was working an active strategy to convert western Europe into communists satellite nations with a special emphasis on Italy, Greece and France. And quite frankly, most Americans don't know how close they came to succeeding. No responsible person could argue that these nations would have benefited from such a situation. Communism is seen as beneficial in third world countries because it lifts the majority of the population out of poverty. But in first world countries, it wreaks the economy, destroys the intellectual community and ushers in repression and stagnation.
As for her husbands death... she's tracking the wrong scent. I seriously doubt that the Italian government or secret services had anything to do with it. It was all on the orders of US military command. Calipari's death was a huge blow to Burusconi and he is not so stupid as to think it would not be. They really wanted that woman freed, and payed a lot of money to make it happen. The US, on the other hand wanted to discourage moonlighting by our 'coalition partners.' We did not want other governments paying Islamic kidnappers ransome... that's our territory. This was a message sent to the Italian government by the US military. If it were otherwise, than there would have been uniformity in the conclusions of the two countries "investigations."
And now, for some levity:
European Heaven
The police are British (might need updating here)
The mechanics are German
The chefs are Italian
The lovers are French
And the whole thing is run by the Swiss
European Hell
The police are German
The mechanics are French
The chefs are British
The lovers are Swiss
And the whole thing is run by the Italians
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