I am so happy the Italian aid volunteers Simona Pari and Simona Torretta have been released by their captors in Iraq.

This morning I have seen their beautiful joyful faces shown in the various international news media and I became irritated as I heard CNN Italian correspondent Alessio Vinci saying that a ransom must have been paid if they are now here in Italy.[1] Everything is a matter of money for these crony capitalists where journalism, the supposed 4th estate, is becoming an arm of the Bush administration.

The Italian Red Cross has brought back home ‘le due ragazze’ and Red Cross commissioner Maurizio Scelli has stated that the Italian Red Cross hasn’t "100 lire" to pay for any undocumented ransom for anybody.[2]

Le due Simonette have stated that they have been treated with cordiality and respect after their captors learnt of their volunteer work in Iraq. They were even given sweets and candies by their captors upon their release.

Thousands and thousands of Italians have demonstrated on the streets to show their sympathy for the past predicament of le due Simonette and now all Italians rejoice for their safe release, leftists, rightists, anarchists, communists, separatists, fascists, centrists, poor and rich, everybody and even Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi showed up at the airport of Ciampino in Rome to wait for their arrival.

Yet, we have President Bush who doesn’t attend the arrival in America of the dead American soldiers from Iraq, and he even forbids that their caskets be photographed.[3] This American war against terrorism is just an excuse of the loyalist Bushes[4] and of the corporative Halliburtons[5] of this world to dominate the planet and rape other poor countries of their riches.

The so-called Islamic terrorism is not fought by paying bribes, it is not fought with military crusades against Muslim countries, and democracies are not established by winning destructive wars. As journalist Nicholas Kristof explains this morning in The New York Times, poverty, despair and lack of education are the primary fertile grounds for rape, violence and terrorism.[6]

Let us have another look at the beautiful faces of le due Simonette and reinforce the understanding that the emotions of joy and peace come before money and wars. Let us hope.

References

CNN Ransom concern clouds Italy joy (pdf) September 29, 2004 http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/09/29/iraq.italians.return/index.html

De Vito, Andrea "Ci hanno scambiato per delle spie" (pdf) settembre 29, 2004 ROMAONE, http://redazione.romaone.it/4Daction/Web_RubricaNuova?ID=58678&doc=si

THE MEMORY HOLE Military Coffins: The Photos You're Not Supposed to See http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/coffin_photos/

Boehlert, Eric Operation American Repression? An Army officer in Iraq who wrote a highly critical article on the administration's conduct of the war is being investigated for disloyalty -- if charged and convicted, he could get 20 years. September 29, 2004 Salon, http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/salon37.htm

HALLIBURTON WATCH http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/

Kristof, Nicholas D. Sentenced to Be Raped (pdf) September 29, 2004, The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/29/opinion/29kris.html