Commentary
America’s nuclear storage bin
Italy is home to 70 nuclear warheads from the United States. On Friday, Rome joined other American allies to reject a nuclear ban.
Bravo to Matteo Renzi and Paolo Gentiloni. Friday night, the vote on the U.N. General Assembly agenda was very important, a resolution to start in 2017 negotiations for an international treaty banning nuclear weapons.
The resolution was approved by 123 countries. Sixteen states abstained, but 37 countries voted against it, including Italy along with almost all nuclear nations of the world and many allies of the United States, which, like Italy, has nuclear warheads in its territory.
Mind you, these aren’t the vintage atomic weapons of the “historical” Cold War, but renewed weapons systems on which the Nobel Peace Laureate Obama has spent several billion dollars. They are called B61 Mod 12 nuclear bombs and can be loaded on the F-35 fighter jet, which — in terms of “cost of politics” — costs Italy more than €15 billion.
The first two F-35 jet fighters will arrive to the Amendola base on Nov. 8, the day of the U.S. presidential elections. However, the know-how to activate them will not be transferred: They are controlled from the U.S.
Here, in the charming beautiful country, there are 70 nuclear bombs, 20 in Ghedi and 50 in Aviano.
Long gone are the days when the European Parliament expressly asked the United States to remove from Europe its strewn arsenal of around 300 nuclear weapons. Now, if nations like Austria, Brazil, Ireland, Mexico, South Africa and Nigeria (the first signatories of the resolution adopted at the U.N.) want to initiate a binding treaty to ban nuclear weapons, Italy feels compelled to vote against it.
Originally published at http://ilmanifesto.info/atomiche-italia-allucinante/ on 2016-10-29