WHEN THE WAR IN IRAQ began nearly two weeks ago, I should have, ideally, begun boning up on my Sun Tzu and Clausewitz, so as to have something meaningful to say about the conflict. Instead, I found myself sitting in a hotel room in Rome at the beginning of a long-planned and rather ill-timed vacation. I went to Rome and Florence to see beautiful art, beautiful people, and beautiful churches and to eat beautiful food; Italy did not disappoint. Politics and war were easy to forget, though admittedly the sense of detachment necessary for my tourist pursuits was disquieting. I tried to track the war’s progress as best as I could from deciphering headlines in Italian newspapers and watching a few minutes of television in my room late at night. In between snatches of Italian-dubbed broadcasts of “The Simpsons” and “Quincy,” I managed to catch some of the BBC’s putrid war coverage. I heard Senator Daschle’s disgusting comments, and a bit of Michael Moore’s Oscar tirade.
Other than that, the most prominent signs of war opposition I saw during my trip were the ubiquitous rainbow-colored “PACE” flags in Italy and a few demonstrations. The half-dozen times I was asked about my nationality and replied “United States,” people were friendly and pleasant to me. One young man working at a lunch counter did tell me I should do something to oppose “President Bush’s war,” but he said so without rancor. Though young Italians may not like American foreign policy, they still seem to like Americans well enough. And for better or worse, they eagerly consume American culture, whether it’s junk food for the body (McDonald’s) or the mind (Eminem).
