Tuesday 26th of November 2024
Home » Blogs » Gus Leonisky's blog

a sad story about a bridge...

funny bad taste...
Bridges collapsed and bridges bombed 


by  Manlio Dinucci

Of course, we were all horrified by the collapse of the Morandi bridge in Genoa. Manlio Dinucci reminds us here that the company which managed this work of engineering had been privatised… in order to pay for the destruction of bridges in Serbia by the Italian army. This was in 1999, under the orders of NATO.


« The image is truly apocalyptic. It looks as though a bomb has fallen on this stretch of road, which is a major artery » - that is how a journalist described the Morandi bridge in Genoa just after it had collapsed, destroying the lives of dozens of people [1].


These words bring to mind other images, those of about 40 Serbian bridges destroyed by NATO bombing in 1999 - among these the bridge over the Morava in Southern Serbia, where two missiles hit a train and massacred the passengers. For 78 days, taking off mostly from Italian bases supplied by the D’Alema government, 1,100 planes made 38,000 sorties, launching 23,000 bombs and missiles. They systematically destroyed Serbian structures and infrastructures, causing thousands of civilian victims. 54 Italian planes participated in the attacks, making 1,378 sorties and attacking objectives indicated by the US command. « Taking into account the number of planes involved, we were second only to the United States. Italy is a major country, and there should be no surprise at the engagement we are showing in this war », declared D’Alema.


In the same year that it took part in the final demolition of the Yugoslavian State, the D’Alema government dismantled the public property of the Società Autostrade (also manager of the Morandi bridge), by handing over a part of it to a group of share-holders, and listing the rest on the Stock Exchange. The Morandi bridge collapsed fundamentally under the responsibility of a system centred on profit, the same system which is at the heart of the powerful interests represented by NATO.


The comparison between the images of the collapsed Morandi bridge and the bombed Serbian bridges, which may at first seem forced, is on the contrary well-founded.


First of all, the terrible scene of victims buried under the rubble by the collapse should make us reflect on the horrible reality of war, which the major medias present to us as a sort of ’war game’, with the pilot taking aim at the bridge and the remote-controlled bomb blowing it to pieces.


Secondly, we should remember that on 28 March, the European Commission presented a plan of action which anticipates the repair and maintenance of EU structures, including the bridges, but not in order to make them safer for civilian mobility, but more efficient for military mobility [2].


In reality, this plan was decided by the Pentagon and by NATO, who demanded that the EU « improve civilian infrastructures so that they will be better adapted to military requirements » - in other words, to be able to displace tanks, self-propelled cannons and other heavy military vehicles as quickly as possible from one European country to another, in order to move against « Russian aggression ». For example – if a bridge is not able to support the weight of a column of tanks, it will have to be reinforced or rebuilt.


We might believe that in this case, if the bridge is strengthened, it will therefore also become safer for civilian vehicles. But the question is not so simple.


These modifications will only be made for military mobility on the most important land arteries, and the enormous expenditure will be assumed by each country, which will be obliged to subtract the cost from its resources for the general improvement of its infrastructures.


A financial contribution by the EU is planned for a sum of 6,5 billion Euros, but - as specified by Federica Mogherini, responsible for the « security policy » of the EU – only in order to « ensure that infrastructures of strategic importance are adapted to military requirements ».


But time flies – by September, the European Council will have to specify (on orders from NATO) the list of the infrastructures which must be potentialised for military mobility. Will the Morandi bridge be listed and rebuilt so that US and NATO tanks can safely transit over the heads of the people of Genoa?


Manlio Dinucci

 

Translation 


Pete Kimberley

Source 
Il Manifesto (Italy)

 

Read more:

http://www.voltairenet.org/article202643.html

EU signed off on improving motorways around genoa...

The European Commission has hit back at Italy’s populist government after it suggested that EU spending limits could be responsible for the Genoa motorway bridge collapse that killed dozens of people.

The row came as Italy's ministry of transport launched an investigation into the company responsible for maintaining the motorway, ordering the firm to commit to rebuilding the bridge at its own expense.

A spokesperson for Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker told reporters in Brussels the EU had in fact formally told Italy to improve its infrastructure, given it billions in development funds, and even signed off on a plan to specifically improve the motorways around Genoa.

Matteo Salvini, the leader of the far-right League party and now the country’s interior minister, had suggested that the EU’s fiscal rules could have hampered investment.

 

Sputnik spoke to Philip Gomm, Head of External Communications at the RAC Foundation about if something that happened in Genoa happen elsewhere after a report last year claimed thousands of council-maintained road bridges in Britain are substandard and not fit to bear the weight of the heaviest Lorries.

Sputnik: How likely is it that an event like the one in Italy could happen here?

Philip Gomm: The authorities are keen to reassure what happened in Italy won’t happen here in UK. We don’t have bridges that are same design or same standard or substandard as that one that collapsed.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201808181067289215-eu-commission-genoa-...

Read report above... The "truth" might be there...

 

Condolences to the families of those who died there.

libya — the old playground for europe's new colonialism...

The politico-media tornado lifted by the confrontation between the « Europeists » and the « Sovereignists » hides what the reality actually is – a Europeism without Europe and a sovereignism without sovereignty.

The politician who is brandishing the banner of Europeism at the moment is President Emmanuel Macron, in an attempt to advance French power not only in Europe, but also in Africa. France, co-promoter with the USA of NATO’s war which in 2011 demolished the Libyan State (a war in which Italy played a major role), is trying by any means possible to control Libya and her rich resources - enormous reserves of oil, natural gas and fossil water – not to mention its territory, which is of great geostrategic importance.

For this purpose, Macron is supporting the militias who are fighting the « government » of Fayez al Serraj, also supported by Italy, which, with ENI (National Hydrocarbon Company) holds major interests in the country.

This is only one example of the way in which the European Union, founded on the interests of the economic and financial oligarchies of the great powers, is beginning to crumble under the assaults of its economic and political oppositions, of which the migrant question is only the tip of the iceberg.

Faced with the predominance of France and Germany, the Italian 5 Stars-League government has made a specific choice – to increase the weight of Italy by linking itself even more strongly to the United States. Thus the meeting between Prime Minister Guiseppe Conte and President Donald Trump, to which the media paid little attention. And yet in this meeting, a number of decisions were taken which have a notable influence on the international position of Italy.

Above all, it was decided to create a « permanent Italy-USA chamber of operations in the Greater Mediterranean », in other words in the area which, in US / NATO strategy, stretches from the Atlantic to the Black Sea and, to the South, to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.

In reality, this chamber of operations is in the hands of the USA, or more specifically, the Pentagon, while Italy is only awarded a secondary role as assistant, and generally, the role of extra.

According to Conte, on the contrary, « this is a strategic cooperation, almost a twin position, by which Italy becomes a pont of reference in Europe, and the privileged interlocutor of the United States for the main challenges we will have to face ». This announces a later reinforcement of the « strategic cooperation » with the United States, in other words, a « privileged role » for Italy as the launching point for US forces, including nuclear forces, to the East as well as the South.

« The American administration recognises that Italy has a leadership role as a nation which promotes the stabilisation of Libya », declared Conte, implicitly announcing that Italy, and not France (less trustworthy in the eyes of Washington), had received from the White House the mission of « stabilising » Libya.

All we need now is to work out how to do that.

The International Conference on Libya will not be enough – this was supposed to be held in Italy in the autumn, before the Libyan « elections » sponsored by France, which should be held in December. It will also need a military engagement directly on the ground, and a cost in human lives and material as well as unexpected outcomes.

The « sovereignist » choice by the Conte government will therefore reduce national sovereignty, by making Italy even more dependent to what is decided in Washington, not only the White House, but the Pentagon and the Intelligence Community, composed of the 17 federal agencies which specialise inspying and secret operations.

The true sovereignist choice would be the genuine application of the constitutional principle according to which Italy repudiates war as an instrument of offense to the liberty of other peoples and as a means for the resolution of international conflicts.

Manlio Dinucci

Translation 
Pete Kimberley

Source 
Il Manifesto (Italy)

 

Read more:

http://www.voltairenet.org/article202763.html

 

Read from top and read also:

http://yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/32554

a better piano bridge...

Genoa bridge 'like a white vessel crossing the valley'

It is almost two years since Genoa’s Morandi Bridge, named after the engineer Riccardo Morandi who designed it, collapsed, killing 43 people. 

The Italian city is preparing to inaugurate its replacement, created by the international architect Renzo Piano, a native of Genoa. He’s been speaking to The BBC's Italy correspondent Mark Lowen.

 

Read more:

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-53628901/genoa-bridge-like-a-white-vessel-crossing-the-valley

 

Read from top.