AEROPLANE TO AEROPLANO

One hundred years ago, the Italo-Turkish War created the modern territorial entity of Libya, when the expansionist colonial aims of the Kingdom of Italy clashed with the Ottoman Empire on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. One hundred years later, an alliance of Western nations, backed by a few Arab countries, each with their own motivation, overthrew the regime of Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi who had ruled Libya (or the Jamahiriya, as he had named her) since 1969. The alliance included Italy, notwithstanding the fact that she was bound to Libya by an alliance and co-operation treaty and that she was one of Libya's most important trading partners. The power passed to the hands of the National Transitional Council, which most of the world rushed to recognize as the legitimate governing body of Libya; but today, two years after the revolution (which was even backed by a U.N. Resolution) it is not clear what kind of transition, and to what, the Council had in mind. Fr...

L. Panetta Leon Panetta, californiano, progressista e ministro della Difesa uscente degli Stati Uniti d'America ha dichiarato che la recente decisione, presa dall'amministrazione Obama, di permettere alle donne nelle forze armate di partecipare direttamente alle operazioni di combattimento renderà gli Stati Uniti più forti. A giudicare dagli studi dei risultati delle prove di idoneità fisica delle forze armate statunitensi, che il Professor Walter E. Williams cita nel seguente articolo, non si direbbe proprio. L'articolo è apparso il 5 febbraio sul blog di Lew Rockwell ; ed è anche stato ripreso sulla rivista italiana di difesa on-line Analisi Difesa , grazie alla cortesia del direttore G. Gaiani , che ringrazio molto. Buona lettura.  Leonardo Pavese Le donne in guerra. di Walter E. Williams  (Traduzione di Leonardo Pavese) Un funzionario di lunga data del Ministero della Difesa (degli Stati Uniti) ha dichiarato che la ...

     Researching Fulvio Setti, the author of the text I translated and published on this post, I discovered that during the 1930's he had been the Italian national champion in the 110 meter hurdling race. At that time little he knew about the deadly hurdles he would have to face in a few years, as a transport pilot in the Italian Royal Air Force.     Italy entered the war in June of 1940. Benito Mussolini was convinced the conflict was going to be over very soon, once France had fallen, and, in his own ruthless words, he just wanted "one thousand casualties to bring, as a victor, to the negotiating table."  B ut the war went on, and for the Italian forces, thrown into the cauldron ill-equipped and without the backing of a strong industrial capability, the conflict turned into a slow but inexorable process of consumption which consumed men and machines, until the inevitable defeat, foreign invasion, and the catastrophe of the 1943 to 1945 period.   ...