Cue Wagner’s “Rienzi Overture,” YouTube here.

My, how cowardly our modern “leaders” are. They’re only good at repressing and robbing the struggling middle-class.

This is from the Daily Beast:

“ROME — Last weekend in Italy, as the threat of ISIS in Libya hit home with a new video addressed to ‘the nation signed with the blood of the cross’ and the warning, “we are south of Rome,” Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi shuttered up the Italian embassy in Tripoli and raised his fist with the threat of impending military action. Never mind that Italy has only 5,000 troops available that are even close to deployable, according to the defense ministry. Or that the military budget was cut by 40 percent two years ago….

“In fact, Renzi didn’t specify exactly who would wield that military might, and, two days later, when no one volunteered to lead the charge, he backtracked. ‘It’s not the time for a military intervention,’ Renzi told an Italian television station Monday night and said the United Nations had to lead the way. ‘Our proposal is to wait for the UN Security Council. The strength of the UN is decidedly superior to that of the radical militias.’”

The ISIS problem, as I wrote in the March Chronicles, is part of what’s called Fourth Generation War – non-state war. I pointed out 4GW must be countered two ways: First, don’t break up states. But in 2011 Italy helped destroy the regime of Col. Gadhafi, who had been tamed. Last December Italy’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Paolo Gentiloni admitted the action was a “mistake.” Too late, stupido.

The second way to counter 4GW is to keep foreign elements from entering your country. But The Star reported on Feb. 12:

“Europe needs to embrace the migrants appearing on its shores and create a meaningful refugee settlement program that will put human smugglers out of business and save countless lives, says the United Nation’s special rapporteur on human rights of migrants.

“European Union attempts to ‘seal’ borders will continue to fail and more migrants will lose their lives at sea if fleeing refugees aren’t given the right to settle where they want, François Crépeau said on Thursday from New York.

“ ‘I don’t see any other solution for Europe,’ he said. ‘They need to open the borders.’”

So Italy appeals for UN help with 4GW terrorists – and the UN demands it take in more terrorist 4GW “refugees”!

As to the refugees dying at sea, they wouldn’t get into boats in the first place if the Europeans kept sending all immigrants back home.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal today published a terrifying analysis (by the news section, not the Neocon warmongers on the editorial page) on what the ISIS group is doing after the U.S.-Italy-France-U.K. ousting of Gadhafi wrecked Libya:

“Two rival governments in Libya have fought an increasingly bloody civil war since last summer, as the world paid little attention. While they battled for control of the country’s oil wealth, a third force—Islamic State—took advantage of the chaos to grow stronger.

“The beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians by Islamic State followers has finally drawn the global spotlight to the group’s rising clout in Libya, which not long ago was touted as a successful example of Western intervention. The killings prompted Egyptian airstrikes on Islamic State strongholds in Libya and spurred calls for more active international involvement in what is fast becoming a failed state on Europe’s doorstep.”

“The Libyan affiliate of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq has, in fact, been spreading its sway for months….

“Islamic State’s slickly produced video of the slaughter of the Egyptian Copts, released on Sunday, concluded with the promise to conquer Rome, the historic center of Christendom. That threat is bound to reinforce existing pressure in countries such as France and Italy for a military intervention to stave off the complete collapse of Libya, which is just across the Mediterranean Sea from Italy.

“ ‘The situation in Libya has been out of control for three years,’ Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi cautioned in a television interview after the video’s release. ‘We shouldn’t go from total indifference to hysteria.’

“Libya has been unstable since Gadhafi’s ouster and killing in 2011, but it descended into all-out civil war last summer.”

Il buffone Renzi again.

The events completely discredit America’s warmongering Neocons, especially the Christians among them who care not a whit about their fellow Christians being beheaded. Why does anybody even listen to the Neocons anymore? Yet the Neocons dominate the new Republican Congress. And all the presidential contenders are Neocons except for Sen. Rand Paul.

My reference in the title is, of course, to Wagner’s opera, “Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen,” whose overture is a staple of orchestras, at least until ISIS destroys them.

My point is that populist Rienzi, although a demagogue, had guts and fought to the death for his “fellow citizens,” according to Naxos’ Opera Libretti. Unlike modern leaders, such as codardo Renzi.