The US warning.
Today the front pages of Italy's newspapers were dominated by reports about yesterday's alert to US citizens to avoid Italian election rallies. Opposition leader Romano Prodi pointed out that this State Department warning was highly unusual, responded to Italian government reports, and seemed designed to help Berlusconi's re-election campaign. Berlusconi denied, then denied some more, and said it wasn't Prodi's place to do anything as extraordinary as calling the US ambassador to ask about it.
The US warning came as a big surprise to me, as I noted in an earlier post. Although a poll reported in today's Repubblica notes a high level of criticism of the US among the center left, still this criticism is directed at the US government and not at individual citizens, and I've seen no evidence of hostility toward US citizens per se on the streets, in the press, spray-painted on walls, or printed in leaflets. Who says US citizens need to avoid rallies? Berlusconi. It's as simple as that.
The State Department is wildly inconsistent with this warning. It doesn't warn US citizens to avoid, for example, France, where hostility is more evident and passions are inflamed ahead of a national strike. And it didn't issues warnings during recent elections in Germany and Poland. The "terrorism alert" stratagem has been one of the Bush administration's favorites, though, and Berlusconi tries very hard to emulate the pres-o-dent.
If the State Department is, well, insincere, Berlusconi is much much worse. On the one hand he defends the State Department warning, arguing that political rallies are indeed a cause for anxiety. On the other, he argues that governments in cities like Padova and Verona should not bar the neofascists from rallying. Why is it reasonable to fear violence from the left, which is really quite placid, but unreasonable to fear violence from the right, which is pretty violent by any standard?
Today the front pages of Italy's newspapers were dominated by reports about yesterday's alert to US citizens to avoid Italian election rallies. Opposition leader Romano Prodi pointed out that this State Department warning was highly unusual, responded to Italian government reports, and seemed designed to help Berlusconi's re-election campaign. Berlusconi denied, then denied some more, and said it wasn't Prodi's place to do anything as extraordinary as calling the US ambassador to ask about it.
The US warning came as a big surprise to me, as I noted in an earlier post. Although a poll reported in today's Repubblica notes a high level of criticism of the US among the center left, still this criticism is directed at the US government and not at individual citizens, and I've seen no evidence of hostility toward US citizens per se on the streets, in the press, spray-painted on walls, or printed in leaflets. Who says US citizens need to avoid rallies? Berlusconi. It's as simple as that.
The State Department is wildly inconsistent with this warning. It doesn't warn US citizens to avoid, for example, France, where hostility is more evident and passions are inflamed ahead of a national strike. And it didn't issues warnings during recent elections in Germany and Poland. The "terrorism alert" stratagem has been one of the Bush administration's favorites, though, and Berlusconi tries very hard to emulate the pres-o-dent.
If the State Department is, well, insincere, Berlusconi is much much worse. On the one hand he defends the State Department warning, arguing that political rallies are indeed a cause for anxiety. On the other, he argues that governments in cities like Padova and Verona should not bar the neofascists from rallying. Why is it reasonable to fear violence from the left, which is really quite placid, but unreasonable to fear violence from the right, which is pretty violent by any standard?
posted by jnerone at 2:21 PM
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