A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria: Editorial: Governments play war - Angelo Barberi (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Rulers around the world are playing war right now. The real war, fought 
and suffered in the fields and cities of Ukraine, among the rubble of 
Gaza, in the countless corners of the world of the many forgotten 
conflicts, of which we see no images and therefore do not exist, 
produces its victims like a perfect chain of assembly in the factory of 
death, which has its related industries and its warehouses of supplies 
that never run out. Yet the main concern of governments, in the face of 
so much horror unfolding before our eyes, is that of security. Security, 
which until the recent past was mainly expressed in the national space - 
the most seen advertisement on TV even today is that of burglar alarms 
in homes - is now threatened above all from the outside. A threat that 
has grown in intensity over the last two decades, moving from the 
elusive terrorism of Al-Qaeda and its errant mentor Osama bin Laden to 
the more visible and concrete one of the infamous Islamic state of ISIS, 
up to the much more dangerous enemy that evokes the ghosts of a 
twentieth century of remote duels: Russia and its fearsome 
dictator-leader. The war in Ukraine has opened a new phase in the clash 
between imperialisms; Russia in this circumstance is the leader of a 
clash between good and evil, which is associated from time to time with 
Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah, the Ayatollah's Iran, North Korea and, in 
the background, the extreme danger: China, which has now become the 
economic superpower. In this epochal clash naturally the good would be 
represented by the West, for what this may mean, the evil by the group 
of rogue states. Defending itself and guaranteeing the safety of its 
citizens is the West's primary commitment. Winning the war in Ukraine, 
downsizing Iran, warning China - the Gaza deaths are pure accident - 
that's the plan. Therefore the allocation of 95 billion dollars in 
military aid, approved after months of stalemate by the US Congress, 
divided as follows: 61 billion for Ukraine, 26 for Israel, 8 for Taiwan, 
is hailed by most of the media as an act of civilization.

That all this security ultimately amounts to making relations between 
states more unstable, obsessed by a new and endless arms race, to 
creating increasingly dangerous conflicts, is not a problem for 
governments. Ultimately, this is what is asked of them and what they 
feel invested in: showing strength and determination. Furthermore, that 
this security has a price and translates into social insecurity, because 
the resources have to be taken from somewhere and where if not from cuts 
to healthcare, education, pensions and rights, it is, for them, a 
necessity of history.

Europe, the self-described cradle of civilization, finds itself chasing 
events a bit at this juncture, but has adapted well to the climate of 
war, submitting to NATO (i.e. the USA), increasing military spending and 
even declaring itself available to a sending of soldiers to Ukraine. 
Soldiers who are already nearby, for example the Italian contingent in 
Bulgaria, which President Mattarella recently visited. And despite this, 
this Europe is accused of not doing enough, of relying too much on the 
protective wing of the United States, when it should take its destiny 
into its own hands and equip itself to compete on equal terms with the 
other powers, in arms as in every other sector of the economy. This is 
because, according to many Italian commentators, Europe is the only one 
capable of making peace and justice triumph, in the face of American 
impetuosity-decline and Sino-Russian barbarism. Certainly forgetting 
that Europe itself was the heart of the warlike horrors of the twentieth 
century. These commentators are not even touched by the doubt that if 
Europe really wanted to be a bearer of peace it should begin to reduce 
spending on weapons, push for a specific diplomatic action in the 
ongoing clashes and start international relations based on détente, as 
well as he was timidly tempted to do in not so distant years. And yet 
today this word has totally disappeared from political jargon. And yet 
today any Letta, in perfect harmony with Super Mario Draghi, can present 
a report in which, among other things, he highlights Europe's weakness 
in sectors considered strategic, mainly defence-security. And he 
believes it is a "shame" that 78% of European military aid to Ukraine 
comes from weapons purchases outside Europe, while the United States 
financed 80% of its own companies. He actually used the word shame, thus 
cloaking himself in a sort of moral righteousness.

Thus the rulers play war, the most popular media instill fear and teach 
resignation, the multinationals of war and its related industries gloat 
over their profits, professional politicians splutter empty words when 
they disagree, public opinion is subjugated in its passivity , even when 
they are indignant, while small minorities struggle unheard to denounce 
the abyss towards which we are falling.

Will we be able to escape this vice?

Angelo Barberi

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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