EU defense ministers met informally on 30 and 31 January in Brussels todiscuss the hot topics of the moment: the war in Ukraine and the Red Seacrisis. Dwelling on the summit's concluding statements is quiteinstructive. The High Representative for Foreign Affairs and SecurityPolicy of the EU, Josep Borrell, who took part in the meeting, firstcomplained about the delay with which the EU is sending the ammunitionpromised to Kiev, confirmed the commitment to train another 20 thousandUkrainian soldiers and then said: "Europe must increase its defensecapacity, today to defend Ukraine, tomorrow to defend itself". For hispart, the Italian defense minister was pleased with the fact that Europeis finally less bureaucratic and on the ministry's website we read: "Ihave finally seen a Europe that moves faster than what we are used to.": today, in fact, we discussed the launch of a European operationfollowing the crisis in the Red Sea. For the Aspides operation, Italyconfirmed its willingness to participate by providing a ship for theentire duration of the mission. Specifically, there will be more shipstaking turns and as it is a new mission there will be a parliamentarypassage first." In the days preceding the summit, Minister Crosetto hadbeen interviewed by the newspaper La Stampa, to plead the cause of thenew militarism: "We have built - he said in response to a question -rules with the idea of an always peaceful world, of nations that do notinvade the others, with wars that do not affect the well-being of ourcitizens. And instead we find ourselves in a different world, whoseactors who are destabilizing it, Iran, Russia and North Korea, have amilitary production capacity superior to that of NATO." And again: "Yes,we transformed the armed forces with the idea that there was no longer aneed to defend our territory and that peace was a de facto irreversibleachievement. The armed forces, in this context, at most participate inpeacekeeping missions, without leading to actual clashes. Now the fenceshave been torn down, there are no more rules." Therefore the minister -at this point in the war - concludes that in order to protect itsterritory and "intervene in distant countries to defend Italianinterests", Italy must equip itself militarily, and in this specificcase it would be necessary to establish a military reserve. This isbasically the same concept expressed several times, after the outbreakof the war in Ukraine, in a more elegant manner by Lucio Caracciolo, whobelieves that there is not a sufficient military culture in Italy.The wishes of the interior ministers were accepted on 1 February by theEuropean Council which allocated a further 50 billion euros for afinancial assistance plan for Ukraine. Zelensky naturally thanked himand everything is seen as another step towards Ukraine's integrationinto the European Union. It should be noted how a good part of theItalian media presented the matter: a double success, "saving Kiev" andbringing Orban, the Hungarian prime minister who has always beencritical of aid to Ukraine, back into the "democratic" orbit, who hasnow instead had to give his consent. In this way the attention wascatalysed, not on the useless continuation of a war which after twoyears is still stuck at the same point, bringing back into vogue thedirty twentieth century wars fought meter by meter and whose only resultis the devastation of entire territories and the count of tens and tensof thousands of deaths, including civilians and soldiers, but on thesuccess of democratic Europe over the retrograde Europe represented byOrban, which corresponds, according to a crude but effective parallel,to the clash between democratic Ukraine and authoritarian Russia.Meanwhile, the other hot front in international relations, the Iranianone, is splitting. To the situation in the Red Sea, where the Houthiattacks on "Western" merchant ships have met with a prompt response fromthe USA and Great Britain who bomb positions and shoot down rebel drones(to this initiative should be added, as we have seen, the operationAspides, also supported by Italy, always dutiful in waging war where theAmerican master calls), overlapped with the attack conducted by theIslamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on an American military base inJordan. Also in this case the United States responded with various airstrikes on the bases of these groups, whose instigators reside in ShiiteIran, Iraq and Syria. Biden declares that he does not want to wage waron Iran, but in the meantime the situation is becoming more and moreuncertain and the ongoing tragedy in Gaza makes everything moreunpredictable.Of course Gaza and what is happening in Palestine becomes moreunsustainable and unspeakable every day, more than 25 thousand deaths sofar, many children; defenseless people subjected to extreme livingconditions, all in the most total indifference of governments,institutions, organizations that flaunt democracy and solidarity atevery summit, but in this situation show compliance rather thanimpotence. The public debate in Italy is also unbelievable, perhaps itshould be better said that it is imbued with a revolting moralizingcynicism. A lot of the press, a lot of television, a lot of politicians,the foreign minister standing out among all, show the good face ofunderstanding for the plight of the Palestinians but in the meantimethey support and support the Israeli government, in their opinionanother democratic bastion in the dark forest of illiberal Islamism . Inthe mainstream narrative on the ongoing war in Gaza there is a veryspecific pattern: the fate of the Israeli hostages, the perfidiousaction of the Hamas militiamen - the pinnacle of which is represented bythe infamous tunnels (the image of evil emerging from underground) orfrom mixing with the sick in hospitals -, the positions of the variousactors in the field and finally the miserable conditions of theinhabitants of the Strip, whose responsibility it would seem to beattributed to an adverse fate if not to a sin to be paid for. To thisnarrative has been added the sterile controversy on the occasion ofRemembrance Day; many have been led to believe that accusing the actionof the Israeli government and army of genocide is equivalent to denyingthe Shoah, or in any case demonstrating anti-Semitic attitudes. In themuseum of memory everything crystallizes, guilty and innocent, victimsand executioners are projected into a space outside of time, where whathappened is fixed forever and forever away from us, a warning andapotropaic ritual to be fulfilled to keep us safe and feel guiltless,indeed custodians of the truth.I don't think there could be clearer evidence of how state policies nowmove in a climate of war and militarism. That pacifist sentiment, alegacy of the rejection of the tragedies of the world wars, whichperhaps persisted until the war in Iraq in 2003, is now completelyerased. But if we do not want to succumb to wars (without forgetting theongoing climate crisis), it should be a priority to rebuild a strongopposition to war which cannot ignore the rejection of weapons andarmies, the rejection of rising nationalism and the revival of a newinternationalism, proletarian if we want.Angelo Barberihttps://www.sicilialibertaria.it/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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