The Italians are upset with us....

Based upon the following article, it seems that the Italians are getting just about as anti-American as are the French! I understand that if we are going to police the world - for its own good, of course.... then we have to have bases located at various strategic locations whether most of the world likes it or not.

After all, as the Republicans keep on saying, "If we don't fight ‘em over there, then they'll fight us here at home!" Actually, in a guerilla war I don't see the logic since it can be fought anywhere at any time.

I do wonder why ‘they' (you pick the group) don't like us. I can't believe that it is simple jealousy because we Americans are so much smarter and wealthier than they are - unless they think perhaps that we stole their wealth through the invention of Capitalism rather than simply taking advantage of it before they could.

I can certainly understand the people of Vicenza who don't want an American megabase in their town! Hell, I wouldn't want one here in Kingman, either! The military all belong way out in the middle of some God-awful desert away from people (like the old movie depictions of the French Foreign Legion), you know, places like Texas or Nevada or maybe Colorado Springs, the west wing of the Pentagon.

When stationed in Burlington, VT, I recall that when the locals objected to our military presence, we were paid in cash - two dollar bills! Of course, the town was flooded with the bills so the greed of the local merchants overcame their rantings about GI's roaming their streets. As usual, of course, the parents of the town's virgins didn't have much of a voice at city hall - so we stayed. --- Real good lookin' girls, too! I married one of 'em.

In the case of the Italians, they should ask their government "Puo cambiarmi questa...?" It really ain't our problem - unless we would like to have a better international image...?

Italians protest over U.S. base expansion
By Lisa Jucca

VICENZA, Italy (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Italians under heavy police guard marched on Saturday through the city of Vicenza to protest against 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 military base in Vicenza, home to 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.

Prodi appealed to demonstrators to refrain from violence, following warnings from the interior minister that the protest march which began shortly after 2 p.m. (1300 GMT) could attract 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 50,000 people. The leftist Communist Refoundation Party (Prc), part of the ruling coalition, boasted the number could top 100,000 and said Prodi should "listen up."

The base expansion is the latest headache for Prodi, 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 has 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, since Washington is not expected to hand them over.

"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 Pentagon wants to double the size of the base to unite its 173rd Airborne Brigade and expand its 2,750 military personnel to 4,500.

At present, the rapid reaction unit is divided among the base at Vicenza, about 400 km (250 miles) north of Rome, and bases at Bamburg and Schweinfurt in Germany.

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.