When the reasons of non-violence seem to be defeated by the reasons of weapons, it is well to keep the denouncement and the proposal, the uncompromising defense of the principles and the constant quest for means of dialogue and agreement in close contact. In itself, denouncement would be something deprived of of any political morality, would become an accomplice of violence, were it not followed by a capacity to direct events, even by one single millimeter, in the direction of the law.

In the Iraqi affair, it would not have been possible for a non-violent, for a radical, to simply denounce the mistakes made, as usual, by the western democracies and by Italy especially. It would have been easier, of course. It would have been enough to mention the political battles fought during these last years against the export of weapons toward Iraq; the denouncement against the involvement of Italian and European industries in the construction of Iraq's atomic bomb; the campaign against the use of chemical weapons; the judicial action conducted at first before the ordinary magistrate and during two legislatures before the investigating magistracy) which I personally conducted on the sale of an entire fleet with relative bribe for the Iraqi dictator...

In short, it would have been sufficient to go through the archives and to simply remember that we had foreseen the development of today's events - not because we are prophets, but simply because we know that war is a physiological need for a totalitarian nation. Democracy, in fact, is not a luxury item which only developed countries can afford, but the one basic principle, even if insufficient, to ensure security and peace. Even in political democracy we can see some symptoms of militarist and expansionist pathologies, but in this case at least there are the antibodies capable of curbing them (this is the reason why I found it unacceptable to try to compare the Iraq affair with the Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Palestine affairs...).

We could also remember that as from 1980, with the campaign against extermination due to famine, we asserted that the true front of strife is the one dividing North and South of the world, and that the mere existence of a majority of people deprived of any life expectancy represents a real time-bomb of anger and resentment, which risks exploding at any moment. But we did not limit ourselves to the reasons of our NO to the policies of the Western governments. We attempted to show, partly successfully, the difficult road that can prevent the prevailing of the opposition between "unjust" and "just" violence, the statement of war as the sole instrument for a "legitimate defense" of international law.

Instead, the pacifists of the NO, like Raniero La Valle, Pietro Ingrao and Ambrogio Viviani did not go beyond these denouncements, albeit adding other worthy arguments concerning the responsibilities of the Western countries (photocopies of the stenographic relation of their intervention are available from Agora').

But which are the concrete proposals to stop Saddam Hussein?

Some made explicit proposals for Italy's neutrality. Others were content with a wishful hope that Saddam Hussein's tanks could be stopped simply with UNO's condemnation.

We have to recognize, instead, that during these last years we have been defeated, that our accusations have not yielded results, that our proposals of policies for the "life of law and the right to life" have been disregarded, and as a consequence recognize, therefore, that, today, U.S. military intervention alone has prevented a real and true action of international outlawry from being successful. Unfortunately, it is only thanks to the "credibility" of the U.S. military response that today we have not been the witnesses of a new Munich, but for the first time, in the UN building, we have seen the constitution of a majority front capable of counteracting Saddam's arbitrary will with the law of which the UN are the origin (and why should we not rejoice if in this occasion, and not in others, this has been possible?)...

In the Italian Parliament, we did not content ourselves with recalling the reasons for our extremely deep dissent with the foreign politics of our government and with the choices it has always made. We urged the government to commit itself and take steps, even if small ones, to make up for the time lost. Our power of persuasion did not spring from numbers, but from our credibility, based on the fact that we are the sole representatives of a non-violent, anti-militarist position, which has nothing to do with the anti-American and pro-neutrality "pacifism" which has always been associated with the failures of the Left.

The millimeter we have gained consists in the Parliament's approval, with 333 favourable votes, 65 contrary votes and 9 abstained, of point 3) and 4) of letter a) and letters b) and c) of our resolution (text n. 1336 of ARCHIVE RADICAL PARTY). The aim of our proposals, taken up by the Parliament and the government, is to strengthen the role of political Europe, preventing the United States from being the only country, in good and in evil, in charge of the responsibility and of every decision when it comes to the accomplishment of the UN resolutions; that of making up for the time lost, finally starting a European supervision on the production and sale of armaments; of expressing, through and extraordinary convocation, a democratic intuition, the European Parliament, in order to delay, and if possible prevent, weapons to speak out, and to protract the possibilities of a dialogue.

For these reasons, but also to acknowledge the government's attention toward the reasons of the opposition, the majority of the deputies elected from radical tickets voted in favour of a majority motion.