Italy, Germany and Japan: Former World War II Axis Nations Repudiate Bans against "Preparing for War"

Italy, Germany and Japan: Former World War II Axis Nations Repudiate Bans against "Preparing for War"

by Rick Rozoff

Global Research, August 13, 2009
Stop NATO

A press report on August 10 revealed that the government of Italy is planning to modify if not dispense with its post-World War II constitutional limitations on conducting offensive military operations; that is, to reverse a 61-year ban on waging war.

The news story, reminding readers that "Italy's post-World War II constitution places stringent limits on the country's military engagements," stated the Italian government intends to introduce a new military code "specifically for missions abroad," one that - in a demonstration of evasiveness and verbal legerdemain alike - would be "neither of peace nor of war." [1]

On August 10 and 11, respectively, the nation's Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa and Foreign Minister Franco Frattini were interviewed in the daily Corriere della Sera in in tandem they bemoaned what they described as undue restrictions on the Italian armed forces in performing their combat roles in NATO's war in Afghanistan.

Commenting on La Russa's and Frattini's assertions, another news account summarized them as follows:

"Italy's 2,800 soldiers operate under a military peace code, which largely restricts them to shooting back if they are attacked. Changes could give the troops heavier equipment and allow them to go on the offensive."

Frattini is quoted as saying, "We need a code for the missions that aim to bring peace, which cannot be achieved only through actions for civilians but also through real military actions." [2]

The tortuous illogicality of that claim is an attempt to circumvent both the letter and the spirit of Article 11 of the 1948 Italian Constitution which reads in part that "Italy repudiates war as an instrument offending the liberty of the peoples and as a means for settling international disputes."

The rest of the Article includes, and in doing so anticipates the nation's inclusion in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization the following year, "it agrees to limitations of sovereignty...."

Article 11 is emblematic of similar ones in the post-World War II constitutions adopted by, or rather imposed on, those powers responsible for unleashing history's deadliest war in Europe and Asia: The members of the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis or Tripartite Pact.

The 1949 Constitution of the Federal Republic, amended and extended to all of the country after unification in 1990, contains a Ban on preparing a war of aggression, Article 26, which reads: Activities tending and undertaken with the intent to disturb peaceful relations between nations, especially to prepare for aggressive war, are unconstitutional. They shall be made a punishable offense.

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