Every war needs a noble word to precede it. This time, the chosen word is "liberation." The attack by the United States and Israel against Iran is being packaged as a moral, almost therapeutic act: strike to save, bomb to emancipate. It's a tried-and-tested formula, and every time the result is the same: instability, radicalization, new fractures compounding old ones. Peace does not arise from military escalation, just as democracy is not imposed with drones, nor can freedom be dropped from above along with bombs or sowing death. Changing the name of a war doesn't make it less of a war, and rubble doesn't establish republics.
Those who speak of "liberation" today should measure the weight of their words by what is happening in Gaza. The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has requested an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. A case is pending before the International Court of Justice concerning the State of Israel's responsibility under the Genocide Convention. This isn't a legal detail: it's the political context within which the word "liberation" resonates.
Even in the United States, the moral compass appears fragile. Donald Trump has been at the center of legal proceedings, institutional disputes, and deep tensions with the opposition and the press. His immigration policies and use of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been denounced by broad sectors of civil society as tools of intimidation and repression of dissent. And in the background, reports and legal cases that have touched off US power circles (and its international economic and political entanglement) remain a reminder of the riskiness of wielding moral superiority as a geopolitical weapon.
But the issue isn't just moral: it's material.
Attacking Iran means setting fire to a region that represents a strategic hub for trade between East and West, for energy, and for global balances. To think that an escalation of this magnitude can remain confined to a single country or be limited to the Middle East is a dangerous illusion. Nothing can stop the economic and political shockwaves at the borders.
And while rights and freedoms are evoked, military infrastructure and assets are mobilized. Even from our own territory.
In Sicily, the MUOS (Inter-National Security Operations Unit) in Niscemi and the Naval Air Station Sigonella are central nodes of the US military communications and projection network in the Mediterranean and beyond. If these facilities are used to support operations against Iran, Italy is not a neutral observer: it is part of the operational chain.
The government led by Giorgia Meloni, with Matteo Salvini and Antonio Tajani, continues to talk about national sovereignty while allowing the territory to become a logistical platform for strategies decided elsewhere. The sovereignty evoked in rallies dissolves when radars are turned on, jet and drone engines roar, and bases are activated to facilitate bombing.
As the No MUOS movement, we affirm that war is not a tool for emancipation, that Gaza cannot be removed from public discourse while freedom is discussed elsewhere, and that Italian territory cannot be transformed into a permanent backwater for conflicts that risk spreading far beyond the region.
We reject the vision that the Mediterranean is a launching pad for war.
Sicily is not a military platform.
And peace is not a word to be used before pressing a button that mobilizes armies and kills civilians.
No MUOS Movement
https://umanitanova.org/geopolitica-delle-macerie/
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Link: (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova: Geopolitics of Rubble (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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