by
Burden of Dreams
B05233 / Sat, 2 Apr 2005 22:51:24 / Miscellaneous
There’s a reason anarchists are sometimes associated with violence, and it has little or nothing to do with the black bloc.
Throwing a trash can through a Starbucks window may be illegal, but it is not violent. Property damage may be viewed by the public with more horror and outrage than acts of violence (at least those of the state) but we should not conflate the destruction of inanimate objects with the destruction of living flesh. Even if we disagree on tactics.
That’s what the press is for.
No, the “bomb-thrower” caricature has its roots elsewhere, specifically in the decades before WWI.
Following the death of Bakunin and sparked by the writings of Erico Malatesta, the anarchist movement took to a strategy called “propaganda of the deed”. The idea, as demonstrated by Malatesta, was direct action: “the Italian federation believes that the insurrectional act, destined to affirm socialist principles by deed, is the most efficacious means of propaganda”.
Malatesta
“The following year [1877] Malatesta and other anarchists put their theory into practice. As part of an armed militia they entered two villages in Campania, Italy. Declaring an end to the reign of King Emmanuel, they burned the parish records and distributed the funds in the tax collectors’ safe to the poor. Troops soon arrived and the insurgents were captured. Although the exercise failed, the example was not missed by other anarchist revolutionaries.”
Malatesta was an eloquent writer and hero to literally millions of people during his lifetime, but the sort of “direct action” he was advocating had nothing on common with what followed. Malatesta wrote:
“We do not believe in the right to punish; we reject the idea of revenge as a barbarous sentiment. We have no intention of being either executioners or avengers. It seems to us that the role of liberators and peacemakers is more noble and positive”.
But other anarchists were also taking up the pen, or more accurately—the sword.
Johann Most wrote in his brilliant but savage polemic “The Beast of Property” that the only road to salvation was an “unrelenting, pitiless, thorough, war of extermination” against the ruling class.
“The injustice-yea the idiocy-of this state of affairs is evident. The money-bags of course merely shrug their shoulders. This they will continue to do until a rope well tied over their shoulders will end all further shrugging.”
Most
He followed up with the subtly titled pamphlet: “The Science of Revolutionary Warfare: a manual of instruction in the use and preparation of Nitro-Glycerine, Dynamite, Gun Cotton, Fulminating Mercury, Bombs, Fuses, Poisons, etc, etc.” in which he explains “In giving dynamite to the downtrodden millions of the globe, science has done its best workÉA pound of this stuff beats a bushel of ballots all hollow.”
If Most were alive today and posting on Flag.blackened.net, his IP would surely be handed over to the authorities;)
There’s a certain charming naivety in the writings of Most and other anarchists of the period: they literally believed that revolution was just around the corner – all that was needed was a spark – and indeed, they may well have been right (the labor movement was extremely well organized and militant at the time), had it not been for a little something called the “Great War”, also called “the war to end all wars”.
By that time, unfortunately, the damage had already been done.
“In 1884, August Reinsdorf attempted to blow up the Kaiser Wilhelm and his Princes as they opened the national monument at Rudesheim. In Paris, in 1892, August Vaillant threw a bomb into the chamber of deputies. Despite killing no one, he was himself executed. To avenge his death Santo Caserio killed the French president Carnot. 1897 and 1898 saw the deaths of the Spanish prime minister Del Castillo and Austrian empress Elizabeth at the hands of anarchists.”
In 1886, Charles Gallo tossed a bottle of hydrocyanic acid into the Paris Stock exchange.
In Japan, the cry of “Museifu Shugi Banzai!” (Long Live Anarchy!) was heard in a Japanese court as 26 anarchists were tried for “high treason” (“Taigyaku Jiken”) – in this case, for attempting to assassinate the God emperor.
So maybe we agree with Most: the bastards had it coming. It’s wrong to condemn violent anarchists for “doing in a small way, what the rich do daily with impunity on a grand scale…”; it’s hypocritical for us to “heap burning coals of “moral indignation” upon [their] heads, and, with an austere visage, hand [them] over relentlessly in charge of the state, that in its prisons [they] may be fleeced the more effectively, i.e., cheaper.”
And maybe we agree with George Bernard Shaw, who responded to the turning down of an appeal for the Haymarket anarchists ( later hanged) that: “If the world must lose eight of its people, it can better afford to lose the eight members of the Illinois Supreme Court.”
Or maybe we don’t.
Either way, terrorism doesn’t work. It achieves precisely the opposite of what (by anarchists) is intended: it strengthens the state. It does not inspire “revolutionary action”; it inspires revulsion.
The “Propaganda of the Deed” campaign culminated, at the turn of the century, in the assassination of U.S. President William McKinley by an anarchist named of Leon Czolgosz. He claimed to have been inspired by a speech by Emma Goldman.
Czolgosz
She responded “Am I accountable because some crack-brained person put a wrong construction on my words? …I think Czolgosz was one of those down trodden men who see all the misery which the rich inflict upon the poor, who think of it, who brood over it and then, in despair, resolve to strike a great blow for the good of their fellow man!”
“Goldman was labeled “the most dangerous woman in the world,” occupying the same place in the American consciousness as Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden do today. People cursed her on the street. Parents invoked her name when disciplining their children-behave, or Emma Goldman will get you. Even after she was cleared, no one in New York City would rent her an apartment.”
Eventually came the sedition laws, the more honestly named forebears of today’s “Patriot Acts”. Many anarchists were deported, others imprisoned, others killed, and the movement basically fizzled out (in the US, anyway).
Until today.
So what’s the lesson of all this?
Well, obviously we already know quite well what the lesson is, as did the anarchists of the period, who “by the turn of the century…had turned their efforts towards building revolutionary unions. Mass workers unions were built in France, Germany, Italy, Argentina, Chile, and many other countries. A minority had gone down a cul-de-sac but were now out of it, and a lot wiser too.”
Thing is, anarchists weren’t the only ones discovering that terrorism, far from being a successful tactic condusive to popular upheaval, is actually a boon to the state. The state itself, and its minions, were also picking up a few tricks.
The following is an excerpt from a much longer post I made on GNN1, which Darios reproduced in full over at Upwingers, about the so-called “Strategy of Tension”.
It deals with Operation Gladio. Unlike the majority of suspected false flag operations, it is extremely well documented and can therefore serve as a crash-course in the study of state-sponsored terrorism.
As I will outline in the follow-up, there are extraordinary similarities between Gladio and the “War on Terra”, not the least of which is that many neocons – top policy makers who are now at the helm of battleship Amerika (Kissinger, for instance) – were actually involved in the conspiracy.
One more note on anarchists and terrorism: about a year ago I happened to catch a blurb on the evening news about an alleged letter bomb sent to the head of the EU. According to the report, “anarchists” were the suspected culprits. There was no information made available as to why people with anarchist beliefs were believed to be responsible.
Presumably, a note of some sort.
If we pretend, as the majority of prominent “leftist” intellectuals and journalists do, that false flag operations don’t exist, we are only setting ourselves up for another catastrophe. We cannot afford to go on burying our heads in the sand.
So when anarchist Bin Laden decides to blow something up and place the rest of us in the crosshairs, remember the word “Gladio”. First they came for the Muslims…
PART I: EUROPE
“Staying Behind”
NATO’s TERROR NETWORK
“As the 50th anniversary of the end of the war is celebrated,
some unpleasant truths will become further buried beneath the
myth of the “triumph of freedom and democracy” over fascism. For
if fascism itself was the great evil that had to be stopped at
any cost, how are we to explain the total failure of the British,
French and American governments to do anything about the war in
Spain from 1936 to 1939, when Franco’s fascist forces, openly
supported with arms and troops by Hitler and Mussolini, destroyed
the “democratically elected” republican government? The answer is
not hard to find. For Western capitalism the real enemy was not
fascism but the popular revolution inaugurated by the Spanish
working class.”
“…In fact the Greek based “Operation Sheepskin” mentioned in
relation to the 1967 coup was but one part of a European wide
“Stay Behind” network, established by the British and Americans.
Ostensibly this network existed to provide the nucleus of a
guerilla army to fight on after any Soviet invasion, using arms
and explosives which had already been planted. However, the
evidence leaves little doubt that this network also had the
intention of resisting “internal subversion”.
“The Stay Behind network was conceived by the US Joint Chiefs
of Staff and put into operation in 1948 by the National Security
Council which set up the Office of Policy Co-ordination to run
it, staffed and funded by the CIA. Ultimately, coordination of
the network took place under the auspices of NATO. It involved
personnel from the “official” security services in each country
and received covert funding from industry and the state. Indeed
funding and support of such groups was one of the main tasks of
the newly-formed CIA. However, members of the network were mainly
recruited from the civilian population, notably “ex-fascists” and
others whose “anti-communist” credentials were unimpeachable.”
“The existence of the Stay Behind network was not a matter
for public knowledge. However, the activities of the Italian
branch – codenamed Operation Gladio – was exposed in a series of
judicial investigations, particularly between 1990 and 1992.”
“Operation Gladio was set up in 1958 with help from British
Intelligence and the CIA, with funding from the latter. This
assistance continued, with Gladio units being trained in Britain
in the early 1970s and by US instructors at a military base in
the Canary Islands from 1966 to the mid-70s. Gladio was
controlled by the Italian secret services from “Office R”. It had
strong links with P2, a fascist Masonic Lodge composed of most of
the top military officers, political leaders, industrialists,
bankers and diplomats in Italy. P2 has been described as
effectively constituting a right wing parallel government in
Italy. In addition, Gladio became a focal point for fascist
members of “Marine Star” a veteran’s group set up after the
Second World War, and was to make use of other fascist groups in
the 70s and 80s.”
“In fact Gladio was deeply involved in the so-called
“strategy of tension” in the late 60s and 70s. The aim of the
strategy, of which the principle tactic was “terrorist outrages”
carried out by fascists, was to spread panic and unrest and to
directly attack the Left and provoke them into an armed response,
which would both justify increased state power under the pretext
of a “national emergency” and isolate the Left from popular
support. General Gerardo Serravalle, head of “Office R” from
1971-1974, revealed that at a Gladio meeting in 1972 at least
half of the upper echelons “had the idea of attacking the
communists before an invasion. They were preparing for civil
war”.
http://www.etext.org/Politics/Autonome.Forum/Antifa/gladio
A Strategy of Tension
“Gelli’s P2 and elements within the Vatican (such as Father Krujoslav Dragonovic, a Croatian Catholic priest — one of many who had helped the CIA export Nazi war criminals out of Germany through its Rat Lines), working in conjunction with the CIA, aligned itself with criminals, corrupt police, and high government officials to discredit the emerging Left and stage a fascist coup. “The Vatican’s fear was clear: Communism posed a threat to its religious, political, and economic strength.”
“God’s Bankers”
“On behalf of democracy, the Mafia enlisted as their agent Salvatore Giuliano. He and his cousin Gaspere Pisciotta led their men into Portella della Ginestra. Without prejudice, they shot and killed a dozen people and wounded more than fifty others. New elections were held, and the Christian Democratic party won a resounding victory. Later, at the orders of the Mafia, Pisciotta murdered Salvatore Giuliano. At his trial, Gaspere Pisciotta said of the massacre, “We were a single body: bandits, police, and Mafia, like the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
“The covert objectives of Gladio were to spread panic and unrest through the implementation of “terrorist outrages,” and also to directly attack the Left in an attempt to provoke them into an armed response. The purpose of this strategy was to demonize the Left and isolate them from popular support, while providing an excuse to curtain civil liberties. As a 1969 memo from Aginter Press, a fascist front group, explained:
“Our belief is that the first phase of political activity ought to be to create the conditions favouring the installation of chaos in all of the regime’s structures. This should necessarily begin with the undermining of the state economy so as to arrive at confusion throughout the whole legal apparatus. This leads on to a situation of strong political tension, fear in the world of industry and hostility towards the government and the political parties.… In our view the first move we should make is to destroy the structure of the democratic state, under the cover of communist and pro-Chinese activities.”
“Moreover, we have people who have infiltrated these groups and obviously we will have to tailor our actions to the ethos of the milieu — propaganda and action of a sort which will seem to have emanated from our communist adversaries and pressure brought to bear on people in whom power is invested at every level. That will create a feeling of hostility towards those who threaten the people of each and every nation, and at the same time we must raise up a defender of the citizenry against the disintegration brought about by terrorism and subversion.…”
As the 1969 dispatch added:
“The introduction of provocateur elements into the circles of the revolutionary left is merely a reflection of the wish to push this unstable situation to breaking point and create a climate of chaos…”
from Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist
“One early Gladio-precipitated incident was the December, 12, 1969 bombing of the Banca Nazionale del’ Agricultura in Milan’s Piazza Fontana. The attack killed 16 people and wounded 88. Police immediatly arrested and blamed anarchists. One anarchist leader, Giuseppe Pinelli, took the fall for the bombing, literally, when police tossed him out the window of the local precinct headquarters.”
Giuseppe Pinelli
“In addition to this, the Procurator General of the Republic, De Peppo, ordered the one unexploded bomb found in the wreckage to be detonated immediately. As in Oklahoma, the destruction of this evidence destroyed the single best chance at uncovering the true perpetrators of the deadly attack.”
“Nevertheless, police eventually discovered the real perpetrators — two fascists: Franco Freda and Giovanni Ventura. Ventura, it seems, was in close contact with Colonel Guido Giannettinni of the SID (part of the secret services), who was a fervent supporter of MSI. The trial of Ventura and Freda was delayed for 12 years, when they were finally given life sentences, only to be cleared on appeal.”
Franco Freda
Giovanni Ventura
Guido Giannettinni
“Former Gladio agents also attributed the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing and the 1974 [and subsequent 1980] Bologna bombings, which resulted in over 113 deaths and 185 injured, to P2. These attacks include the Mafia’s involvement in the Red Brigade’s kidnap and murder of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978. The P2 organization was also suspected of the 1976 assassination of Italian magistrate Vittoria Occorsio. Occorsio was investigating P2 links to neo-Nazi organizations at the time. His death conveniently terminated any further investigation.
Aldo Moro
“This “strategy of tension,” organized around a brutal campaign of terror and murder, resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people during the decades of the 1970s and ‘80s. The wave of terror led to the severe restriction of civil rights, with the 1975 law restricting popular campaigning and radical political discussion. Many people were locked up under “anti-terrorist” legislation (sound familiar?) or expelled from the country.”
“As the Left (the Red Brigades) resorted to armed struggle to defend themselves, it only strengthened Gladio/P2’s position. The Red Brigades, which had been systematically infiltrated by the secret services, were repeatedly blamed for the attacks, all the while unknowingly serving the agenda of the fascist P2 establishment.”
“One unforgetable example of this wave of terror was the Bologna railway bombing in 1980, that killed 80 people and injured over 160. While reportedly masterminded by P2 members Stefano Delle Chiaie and Licio Gelli, the attack was blamed on the Red Brigades to discredit the Italian Communist party. According to author Steve Mizrach:
Delle Chiaie
“Some Italian political analysts believe that P2 and “Ordine Nuova” (New Order) may have cooperated with the CIA [to bomb the railway station].… There are clearly overlapping circles of membership between P2, the CIA, and the Knights of Malta, a “sovereign military order descended from the Knights of St. John-Hospitallers,” and whose membership in the U.S. has included Bill Casey, Alexander Haig, and Prescott Bush [and reportedly George Bush].”
http://www.constitution.org/ocbpt/ocbpt_14.htm
“As the fascists embarked on a wave of bombings and
shootings, civil rights in Italy began to be severely curtailed,
with a 1975 law restricting popular campaigning and radical
political discussion. Many people were locked up under “anti-
terrorist” legislation or expelled from the country. As expected,
the Left, in the shape of the Red Brigades, resorted to armed
struggle to defend themselves against this assault. This simply
strengthened Gladio / P2’s hand – the Red Brigades were blamed
for fascist outrages, systematically infiltrated by the secret
services and used to carry out actions which supported the hidden
agenda.”
“Gladio was “officially disbanded” by the Italian government
in December 1990 after the story broke. On January 29th, 1992 it
was officially declared to have been a clandestine and illegal
“armed band” involved in subversion, by an Italian parliamentary
commission on terrorism.”
“The 1990 revelations in Italy had a wider impact. After all,
Gladio was simply the Italian branch of a European wide network.
The Belgian, French, Dutch, Greek and German governments all
officially acknowledged that they took part in the covert NATO
network, with the Belgian prime minister revealing that a Europe
wide meeting of the network had been held as recently as October
1990. Of course the respective governments were at pains to deny
that the network had been intended for anything other than to
enable post-invasion guerilla warfare. Intervention in domestic
politics could only be the work of “uncontrollables” following
their own agenda.”
http://www.etext.org/Politics/Autonome.Forum/Antifa/gladio
“This covertly-orchestrated “strategy of tension” would repeat itself in Belgium in the mid-80s, in a bizarre series of killings called the “Supermarket Massacres,” in which hooded gunmen walked into crowded supermarkets and began firing away. The massacres, orchestrated by a group calling itself the “Killers of Brabant,” were later discovered to be linked to Belgium’s Gladio unit.”
“The Supermarket massacres occurred during the period when the U.S. was pushing a plan to base the Euro-Missiles (nuclear-tipped Cruise missiles) in different European countries. The plan led to huge demonstrations in Europe, with certain countries threatening to break ranks with NATO. Belgium was one of those countries. The Belgian Parliament, which investigated the incidents, felt that they were another attempt to sow confusion and fear among the populace, thereby generating public outcries for a law-and-order government which would be amenable to the Euro-Missles.”
“Proof surfaced when a former gendarme, Madani Bouhouche, who worked for state security and was a member of a neo-Nazi paramilitary group Westland New Post (WNP), was arrested with one of the murder weapons. The next day, Bouhouche’s friend and fellow Right-wing militant Jean Bultot fled to Paraguay (a popular respite for Nazis). While in Paraguay, Bultot admitted to Belgian journalist René Haquin that the killings were a state security destabilization operation with government participation “at every level.”
http://www.constitution.org/ocbpt/ocbpt_14.htm
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cut-outs, moles, patsies and provocateurs
B07306 / Fri, 8 Jul 2005 20:25:17 / Intelligence
In some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and far
less susceptible to Party propaganda. Once when he happened
in some connection to mention the war against Eurasia, she
startled him by saying casually that in her opinion the war was
not happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on London
were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, “just
to keep the people frightened.” Orwell, 1984, 127.
Commonly referred to as “blowback”, the bombings in London may be a case of “authentic” terrorism sparked by Anglo-American aggression in the Middle East.
They may also be case of “government sponsored terrorism”, a false flag operation designed to shore up support for the war on terror abroad and the war on civil liberties at home.
In lieu of reports that a group calling itself “Secret al-Qaeda Jihad Organization in Europe” has apparently taken responsibility for the attacks, a refresher course on cut-outs, moles, patsies and provocateurs is in order.
I have tried, without success, to find a single bombing attributed to “Al-Qaeda” that hasn’t been “masterminded” (according to terrorism “experts” and their mouthpieces in the press) by an informant connected to some or other intelligence agency.
This may suggest a modus operandi on the part of either Al-Qaeda, the intelligence agencies with which her members so frequently interface, or both. In the case of the CIA and Al-Qaeda, it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate the goals, strategies and even membership of these two groups, despite their alleged, bitter and mutual enmity. The convergence of personnel and the remarkable proclivity of Al-Qaeda to promote Anglo-American/Israeli business interests by blowing things up or issuing communiqués just at the right time and just at the right place has led to the now popular term “Al-CIA-Duh”.
According the TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta in an article of19 Sep 2002, the mastermind of the Bali bomings, Omar Al-Faruq, was a CIA informant:
“Former State Intelligence Coordinating Board (BAKIN) chief A.C. Manulang has said that Kuwaitd citizen Omar Al-Faruq, a terrorist suspect who was arrested in Bogor, West Java, on June 5, 2002 and handed over to the US three days later, is a CIA-recruited agent.
Al Faruq was assigned to infiltrate Islamic radical groups and recruit local agents within these groups.
Manulang claimed that “to achieve this, the CIA used one of its operatives, Omar Al-Faruq, an Arab living in the U.S. who speaks Arabic and knows a little about Islam and who was sent to Indonesia to infiltrate the so called terrorist groups.”
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-04/21/article06.shtml
A reporter living in Indonesia at the time concurred:
“Al-Faruq was an enigma for us, being picked up in Bogor (where my wife and I live) and spirited away, openly by the CIA. This technically was a violation of Indonesian law (at the time). We attempted to track his movements during 2001, and came up zip – unusual for the indiviuals working on it. In addition, the team noticed heightened sensitivity to our inquiries. This carries a lot of weight for journalists in Indonesia. After interviewing family members, who were terrified and refused to talk initially, and reviewing the general lack of information about this individual, we came to the conclusion he was “brought in” by his CIA handlers in preperation for the escalation of “the war on terror” sponsored by the United States. His known travels were through Afghanistan and Malaysia. His “capture” was obviously staged, and in broad daylight in front of witnesses.”
“I believe that the information supposedly divulged during his subsequent “interrogation” was used to provide smoke/excuses for a variety of covert ops. They drained this guy for all he was worth. We were never able to establish his real identity. His wife has disappeared. He undoubtedly possessed information that was too critical to compromise. His whereabouts are unknown. The CIA rejected a FOIA request for information on his location. The Jakarta Post is in possession of all FOIA’s that I generated from Indonesia.”
http://www.libertyforum.org/show…&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=21©=6
According to Michel Chussudovsky in his article of 20 June 2004, the bombings in Madrid were also connected to state intelligence agencies:
“The Spanish investigation has revealed that two individuals involved in allegedly supplying explosives to the alleged 3/11 Madrid terrorists were police informers. More specifically Rafa Zouhier, was a police informer to an elite unit of the Guardia Civil known as Unidad Central de Operaciones, UCO). The second individual, Jose Emilio Suarez Trashorras, was an inforrmer to the National Police Corps, more specifically the narcotics brigade of Aviles (Cuerpo Nacional de Policia del jefe de la Brigada de Estupefacientes de Aviles).”
Ali Mohammed
Kenya? An article in the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday, November 4, 2001, entitled “AL QAEDA TERRORIST WORKED WITH FBI”, claims that the mastermind of the U.S. embassy attacks in Kenya, Ali Mohammed, was a U.S. government informant:
“A former U.S. Army sergeant who trained Osama bin Laden’s bodyguards and helped plan the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya was a U.S. government informant during much of his terrorist career, according to sources familiar with his case.
Ali Mohamed, an Egyptian-born U.S. citizen and longtime Silicon Valley resident who pleaded guilty last year to terrorism charges, approached the Central Intelligence Agency more than 15 years ago and offered to inform on Middle Eastern terrorist groups, a U.S. government official said.”
The article goes on to claim that Mohammed was a sort of super-duper double agent working both sides of the fence on behalf of Bin Laden, and that “The affair was ‘a study in incompetence, in how not to run an agent’. Yet despite having his name put on a terrorist watch list, and despite Mohammed’s alleged links to Bin Laden, this super-duper double agent was given a visa one year later, ultimately joining the U.S. army and making a home for himself in Silicon Valley.
The ease with which he procured his Visa gels nicely with Mike Springman’s reports from the US embassy in Jedah, where he claimed the CIA tried to browbeat him into granting visas to a long line of dubious characters with links to organized crime and terrorism.
“There he [Mohammed] worked as a supply sergeant for a Green Beret unit, then as an instructor on Middle Eastern affairs in the John F. Kennedy special warfare school. Mohamed’s behavior and his background were so unusual that his commanding officer, Lt. Col. Robert Anderson
“I think you or I would have a better chance of winning Powerball (a lottery), than an Egyptian major in the unit that assassinated Sadat would have getting a visa, getting to California . . . getting into the Army and getting assigned to a Special Forces unit,” he said. “That just doesn’t happen. ”
It was equally unthinkable that an ordinary American GI would go unpunished after fighting in a foreign war, he said. Anderson said all this convinced him that Mohamed was “sponsored” by a U.S. intelligence service. “I assumed the CIA,” he said.”
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing is an especially instructive case:
Time Magazine reported: “If Salameh is guilty, it still must be determined how to account for what looked like his extraordinary stupidity in renting a van under his own name, presenting a valid New York driver’s license with a real and traceable phone number and, instead of disappearing after the bombing, calling attention to himself by repeatedly trying to recover the deposit.”
The events are described succinctly by Andreas von Bulow, former State Secretary of the Ministry of Defense in Germany from 1976-1980:
“In the middle was the bombmaker, a former Egyptian officer. He had pulled together some Muslims for the attack. They were snuck into the country by the CIA, despite a State Department ban on their entry. At the same time, the leader of the band was an FBI informant. And he made a deal with the authorities: At the last minute, the dangerous explosive material would be replaced by a harmless powder. The FBI did not stick to the deal. The bomb exploded, so to speak, with the knowledge of the FBI. The Official story of the crime was quickly found: The criminals were evil Muslims.”
The New York Times later acknowledged that “such enigmas caused local investigators to “dismiss Mr. Salameh as perhaps a patsy for others, someone who may have been duped into carrying out the attack and taking the blame.”
One possible explanation for this weirdness is that the bombings attributed to “Al-Qaeda” have occurred in much the same manner as the original, WTC ’93: the informant recruits the willing dupes for the ostensible purpose of striking a blow against the great Satan (or from the informant’s angle, for the purpose of a sting operation), the spooks supply the technical know-how, raw materials (ie the bombs) and if necessary, the ruthless operatives willing to carry out the terrorist act itself, and after the action is complete the informant is either whisked away to safety or hung out to dry.
This would correspond with Rumsfeld’s P2OG network, described in this article by Chris Floyd in Counterpunch:
According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld by his Defense Science Board, the new organization-<>the “Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)”-will carry out secret missions designed to “stimulate reactions” among terrorist groups, provoking them into committing violent acts which would then expose them to “counterattack” by U.S. forces.
“Rumsfeld’s plan to create “a super-Intelligence Support Activity” that will “bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence, and cover and deception.”
“In other words-<>and let’s say this plainly, clearly and soberly, so that no one can mistake the intention of Rumsfeld’s plan<>the United States government is planning to use “cover and deception” and secret military operations to provoke murderous terrorist attacks on innocent people. Let’s say it again: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and the other members of the unelected regime in Washington plan to deliberately foment the murder of innocent people<>your family, your friends, your lovers, you-in order to further their geopolitical ambitions.
“For P2OG is not designed solely to flush out terrorists and bring them to justice-<>a laudable goal in itself, although the Rumsfeld way of combating terrorism by causing it is pure moral lunacy. (Or should we use the Regime’s own preferred terminology and just call it “evil”?) No, it seems the Pee-Twos have bigger fish to fry. Once they have sparked terrorists into action-by killing their family members? luring them with loot? fueling them with drugs? plying them with jihad propaganda? messing with their mamas? or with agents provocateurs, perhaps, who infiltrate groups then plan and direct the attacks themselves?
http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd1101.html
If so, it wouldn’t be the first time:
As Chomsky explains in his essay “Domestic Terrorism: Notes on the State System of Oppression”, the 60’s and 70’s were replete with violent provocateur actions masterminded by the FBI.
“During these years, FBI provocateurs repeatedly urged and initiated violent acts, including forceful disruption of meetings and demonstrations on and off university campuses, attacks on police, bombings, and so on. Meanwhile, government agencies financed, helped organize, and supplied arms to right-wing terrorist groups that carried out fire-bombings, burglaries, and shootings, all with the knowledge of the government agencies responsible 12—in most cases the FBI, although one right-wing terrorist in Chicago claims that his group was financed and directed in part by the CIA. 13
One FBI provocateur resigned when he was asked to arrange the bombing of a bridge in such a way that the person who placed the booby-trapped bomb would be killed. This was in Seattle, where it was revealed that FBI infiltrators had been engaged in a campaign of arson, terrorism, and bombings of university and civic buildings, and where the FBI arranged a robbery, entrapping a young black man who was paid $75 for the job and killed in a police ambush. 14 In another case, an undercover operative who had formed and headed a pro-Communist Chinese organization “at the direction of the bureau” reports that at the Miami Republican convention he incited “people to turn over one of the buses and then told them that if they really wanted to blow the bus up, to stick a rag in the gas tank and light it” (they were unable to overturn the vehicle).
The same ex-operative contends that Cointelpro-type operations, allegedly suspended in April 1971, were in fact continuing as late as mid-1974, when he left the Bureau’s employ. 15 Many details are now available concerning the extensive campaign of terror and disruption waged by the government during these years, in part through right-wing paramilitary groups organized and financed by the national government but primarily through the much more effective means of infiltration and provocation. In particular, much of the violence on campus can be attributed to government provocateurs.
To cite a few examples, the Alabama branch of the ACLU argued in court that in May 1970 an FBI agent “committed arson and other violence that police used as a reason for declaring that university students were unlawfully assembled” 16—150 students were arrested. The court ruled that the agent’s role was irrelevant unless the defense could establish that he was instructed to commit the violent acts, but this was impossible, according to defense counsel, since the FBI and police thwarted his efforts to locate the agent who had admitted the acts to him.”
With events of a more spectacular nature, the agents are given an elaborate history complete with doubles, handlers, means of support and false identities.
The most elaborate set-up for any patsy ever was of course Lee Harvey Oswald, who though he hung out with fascists, spooks and gangsters liked to give out Communist literature is his spare time, even appearing on a public radio show to promote “Marxist-Leninism” and defecting to the Soviet Union.
Similarly, the “good soldier” and patriot Timothy McVeigh, who often expressed so-called “liberal” views on matters such as national health care, suddenly began running around handing out copies of the Turner Diaries and associating himself with right-wing fanatics.
Was VcVeigh, like Oswald, a sheep-dipped soldier “infiltrating” the enemy’s camp?
“Timothy McVeigh’s sister said that he thought he was going into a Special Forces covert tactical unit to fight against evil-doers. Author David Hoffman confirms this sentiment in his book The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror:
“McVeigh wrote his sister Jennifer while he was still in the Army telling her that he had been picked for a highly specialized Special Forces Covert Tactical Unit (CTU) that was involved in illegal activities. The letter was introduced to the Federal Grand Jury.
http://69.28.73.17/elohim.html
The fantasies of a lone nut?
McVeigh isn’t the only lone nut accused of a major terrorist act to have bragged about working for “elite” units and/or the CIA. Another was Washington D.C. sniper John Allen Muhammed, who changed his name shortly before he began his rampage:
“The WSWS reported that “various sources indicate that Muhammad liked to boast about his service in the army and claimed to be working for the CIA and FBI.”
While applying at a government office on Antigua, he “claimed to have attended ‘Special Forces/ Sniper School’ in the US military and to have ‘taught urban warfare.’” In the summer of 2002, Muhammad told a nephew in Baton Rouge “a dubious story about working for the Central Intelligence Agency.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/oct2002/snip-o28.shtml
Michael Miering, who blew off his legs in a bomb (making) mishap in a Philippine hotel room on May 16, 2001, and was thence whisked away by members of the FBI in defiance in Filipino law, “referred to himself as CIA although he would qualify that to mean “Christ In Action.”
Others close to him doubted his claims to religiosity, but agreed that “Meiring may have been an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency.”
http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2003/08/51985.php
Meiring appears to have been caught in flagrante delicto. Two cases of a similar nature are the Lavon affair (Israel, blamed on the Moslem Brotherhood, Israeli agent caught in the act) and the recent apartment block bombings in Russia, blamed on Chechnya but carried out the FSB (former KGB):
“The panel brought attention to already known facts about a foiled explosion in Ryazan on 22 September 1999. The FSB was forced to admit that it had planted the device, when phonecalls amongst its agents were intercepted. Yet, simultaneously, head of the FSB Patrushev claimed that the explosives were actually sugar and that this was part of a so-called security exercise.
This sharply contradicts the version of the local police force which had determined that the substance was hexogen and that the detonator equipment was real and set for 5.30am – “the clock was ticking”. Four explosives experts from Britain and France recently examined the available evidence from the Ryazan incident and concluded that the bomb was authentic.”
The Reverend Jim Jones of Jonestown fame bragged about working for the Office of Naval Intelligence. As we will see, there is indeed some evidence to support the good preacher’s claim.
Back to McVeigh. What made him tick?
“The report concluded with the observation that Timothy McVeigh “is a military man… his heart and soul belongs to the military of the U.S. Government. In a non-military environment, McVeigh will not undertake any form of overt hostility that will be harmful to others or dangerous to himself…. It is not logical that he would undertake any action against our government in which others would be hurt or killed. To do so would violate everything he stands for.”[171]
“According to former CIA agent Victor Marchetti, the CIA currently does its most “fruitful” recruiting in the armed forces.[231] Intelligence agencies regularly recruit from the military, and military files are routinely reviewed for potential candidates — those who have proven their willingness and ability to kill on command and without hesitation — those whose combat training and proficiency with weapons make them excellent candidates for field operations. McVeigh had already taken the Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) Course while he was at Fort Riley. Whether he knew it or not, McVeigh was well on his was way to a career in covert intelligence. An intelligence agency wouldn’t have to search hard for a man like McVeigh. His above-average military record, and the fact that he was a candidate for the Special Forces, would have made him a natural choice. Especially his try-out for Special Forces. The Special Forces were created as the covert military arm of the Central Intelligence Agency. According to Lt. Colonel Daniel Marvin (Ret.), “almost all of the independent operations within the Green Berets were run by the CIA”[232]
“following testimony given by Colonel Daniel Marvin, a highly decorated Special Forces Vietnam veteran. While going through Special Forces training at Fort Bragg in 1964,”The stronger a patriot you are, the more important it is to you that you do whatever is necessary for your flag, for your country,” he adds. “It makes you the most susceptible type of person for this kind of training. You are the ultimate warrior. You’re out there to do for your country what nobody else is willing to do. I had no qualms about it at all.”
“If McVeigh was recruited, his “opting out” of the military was most likely a cover story for that recruitment. Former Pentagon counter-intelligence officer Robert Gambert told Kennedy assassination researcher Dick Russell of the mysterious activities of his cousin Richard Case Nagell, “Dick played the role of a disgruntled ex-Army officer…. he was really still operational, in an undercover capacity, for the Army Intelligence…. They’re not gonna’ trust anybody who’s active military or a friendly retiree. They’re gonna trust somebody who’s going around griping against the military, against the intelligence operations, against the government….”[241]
Like Lee Harvey Oswald, who appeared to be an avid Communist, distributing leaflets on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, McVeigh would play the part of an avowed Right-winger, distributing literature about taxes, the Second Amendment, Waco and Ruby Ridge. Like Oswald, who left behind a diary widely believed to be a CIA forgery, McVeigh was purported to have similarly documented his own extremist position.
“Like Oswald, McVeigh’s departure from the military was under somewhat mysterious circumstances. And like Oswald, an ex-Marine with a top-secret security clearance who appeared to “defect” to the Soviet Union, McVeigh would appear to be a “disgruntled” ex-Army sergeant who happened to “drift” into the fringes of the far-Right.[275]
“Yet, like Oswald, who lived and worked amongst the bastions of the far-Right in Dallas while purporting to be a Marxist, McVeigh would not seem to be the extreme Right-wing fanatic he’s been made out to be. In a letter to his hometown newspaper in February, 1992, he wrote:
“At a point when the world has seen Communism falter as an imperfect system to manage people; democracy seems to be headed down the same road…. Maybe we have to combine ideologies to achieve the perfect utopian government. Remember, government-sponsored health care was a Communist idea….
“Obviously, such views are anathema to the far-Right, who see any attempt to socialize society as a major step towards the great one-world Communist conspiracy. It is possible that McVeigh was more progressive than his Right-wing associates. It is also possible that McVeigh was being sheep-dipped as a militant Right-winger.”
The aforementioned Jim Jones appears to have had a similar case of “split-personality” or “Jeckyll and Hyde” syndrome, though his function was obviously much different than the mere stool pigeons outlined so far.
At the same time Jones was proclaiming himself a socialist and the reincarnation of Jesus and Vladimir Lenin, he was raising money for Richard Nixon.
John Judge:
“Dan Mitrione, Jones’ friend, moved on to the CIA-financed International Police Academy, where police were trained in counter-insurgency and torture techniques from around the world.[88] Jones, a poor, itinerant preacher, suddenly had money in 1961 for a trip to “minister” in Brazil, and he took his family with him.[89] By this time, he had “adopted” Beikman, and eight children, both Black and white.[90] His neighbors in Brazil distrusted him. He told them he worked with U.S. Navy Intelligence. His transportation and groceries were being provided by the U.S. Embassy as was the large house he lived in.[91] His son, Stephan, commented that he made regular trips to Belo Horizonte, site of the CIA headquarters in Brazil.[92]
An American police advisor, working closely with the CIA at that point, Dan Mitrione was there as well.[93] Mitrione had risen in the ranks quickly, and was busy training foreign police in torture and assassination methods. He was later kidnapped by Tupermaro guerillas in Uruguay, interrogated and murdered.[94] Costa Gravas made a film about his death titled State of Siege.[95] Jones returned to the United States in 1963, with $10,000 in his pocket.[96] Recent articles indicate that Catholic clergy are complaining about CIA funding of other denominations for “ministry” in Brazil; perhaps Jones was an early example.[97]
“With his new wealth, Jones was able to travel to California and establish the first People’s Temple in Ukiah, California, in 1965. Guarded by dogs, electric fences and guard towers, he set up Happy Havens Rest Home.[98] Despite a lack of trained personnel, or proper licensing, Jones drew in many people at the camp. He had elderly, prisoners, people from psychiatric institutions, and 150 foster children, often transferred to care at Happy Havens by court orders.[99] He was contacted there by Christian missionaries from World Vision, an international evangelical order that had done espionage work for the CIA in Southeast Asia.[100] He met “influential” members of the community and was befriended by Walter Heady, the head of the local chapter of the John Birch Society.[101] He used the members of his “church” to organize local voting drives for Richard Nixon’s election, and worked closely with the republican party.[102] He was even appointed chairman of the county grand jury.[103]
Constant clash flow despite no visible means of support comes up often in the literature. For instance, the Washington Sniper:
“A number of witnesses have commented on the incongruity of an allegedly homeless man who always had money to spend. The L.A. Times reported that a former girlfriend told her family that Muhammad’s “story didn’t make any sense … He was a hard-luck drifter with money, a man who could pick up and fly to the Caribbean whenever he got the inclination.” The same Times report added that “She wasn’t the only one asking questions … The director of the shelter has said [of Muhammad] ... ‘He was rather secretive about his past and present … He was closed-mouthed. He didn’t have a visible source of income, but he was able to travel at a moment’s notice.’”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nati…world/la-na-killers27oct27.story
And Donald Defreeze, leader of the SLA and kidnapper of Patty Hearst, who was a known LAPD informant and who was supplied with a constant stream of cash after his “escape” from MKULTRA hotbed and later Manson residence, Vacaville prison.
Jones is also alleged to have had doubles, another common theme. In Jim Hougan’s excellent article “The Secret Life of Jim Jones: A Parapolitical Fugue” he writes:
“The only disturbance in the empty field of Jones’s whereabouts from 10/61 until 4/62 is the information that Passport #0111788 was issued in his name at Indianapolis on January 30, 1962.
“This is a considerable anomaly. As we have seen, Jones already had a passport—-#22898751, issued to him in Chicago on June 28, 1960. This earlier passport, which he had planned to use on a trip to the Soviet Union, was still valid.
Why, then, did someone make an application for a new passport, and who picked it up? Moreover, how is it possible that Jones’s second passport had a lower number than the one that he’d received more than a year before?
“An American family, making “a Cuban stopover,” seven to eleven months after the Bay of Pigs? Physically, transportation would not have been difficult to arrange; both Mexico City and Georgetown were transit-points for Havana. But Cuban visas were by no means issued automatically—-especially to Americans making well-publicized, anti-communist speeches in Guyana. How much harder it must have been for Jones to arrange to have a photo taken of himself with Castro (who was at that time the target of CIA assassination attempts planned by yet another Indianapolis native, William Harvey).
“It’s a peculiar, even eerie, business. I’m reminded of the man who impersonated Lee Harvey Oswald while applying for a visa at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City during 1963.
“Whatever his reason for visiting Cuba during the Winter of 1961-62, and whatever the reasons he was permitted to enter the country, Jones had no trouble entering Brazil that April. Given a visa that was valid for eleven months, he and his family traveled to Belo Horizonte where, as we have seen, Dan Mitrione had settled in as an OPS adviser at the U.S. Consulate.
“Nevertheless, while there is every reason to be skeptical of Jones’s memoir, it is interesting that he characterizes his relationship to the Mitriones as that of an informant, or spy. Given Jones’s sociopathic personality (not to mention his rightwing sermons in Guyana and the implications of his CIA file), it is very likely that Jones was working for Mitrione rather than against him.
“While Jones is said to have gone to the U.S. Consulate often, the only person whom he is known to have seen there was Jon Lodeesen.
“On October 18, 1962, Vice Consul Lodeesen wrote a peculiar letter to Jones on Foreign Service stationary. The letter reads:
“Dear Mr. Jones:
“We received a communication and we believe
its your interest to come at the Consulate
at your earliest convenience.” (Sic.)
“Signed by Lodeesen, there is a redundant post-script to the letter, requesting that Jones “Please see me.”
“While the letter itself is entirely opaque, an attachment to it is not. This a passport-type photograph of a man who, despite his mustache and receding hairline, looks remarkably like Jim Jones—<>or, more accurately perhaps, like Jim Jones in disguise. While one cannot be certain, it may well be that the photo is related to the peculiar circumstances under which a second passport was issued to Jones—while the first passport was still valid.
“That it was Jon Lodeesen who contacted Jones is significant in its own right. This is so because Lodeesen has been a spy for much of his life. According to Soviet intelligence officers, he is a CIA agent who taught at the US intelligence school in Garmisch Partenkirchen, West Germany—-a sort of West Point for spooks.
“Subsequently, he worked at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow—-until he was declared persona non grata for suspected espionage activities. Kicked out of the Soviet Union, he went to work for Radio Liberty, a CIA-created and -financed propaganda network based in Munich. There, he was Deputy Director of the Soviet Analysis and Broadcasting Section. More recently, Lodeesen was recommended for work with a CIA cover in Hawaii. In a letter to the proprietor of the cover, Lodeesen was described as “fluent in the principal Russian tongues” and an expert on “Soviet double agents, dissidents and escapees.”
Did McVeigh have doubles?
“The most damming evidence linking McVeigh to the crime would be the witness sightings placing him at the Murrah Building just before the bombing, following the Ryder truck, then speeding away in his yellow Mercury several minutes before the blast.
“Yet the most curious evidence implicating McVeigh in the bombing came from witnesses who say he cased the building on December 16, when he and Michael Fortier drove through Oklahoma City en route to Kansas, then again approximately one and a half weeks before the bombing.
“Danielle Wise Hunt, who operated the Stars and Stripes Child Development Center in the Murrah Building, told the FBI that on December 16, a clean-cut man wearing camouflage fatigues approached her, seeking to place his two children in the day care center. Hunt told agents that the man didn’t ask typical parent-type questions, but instead wanted to know about the day-care center’s security. Hunt thought he might be a potential kidnapper. Later, after seeing his face on TV, she recognized the man as Timothy McVeigh.[301]
“If the man was indeed Timothy McVeigh, it is curious why he would later claim he was unaware of the day-care center in the building.
Dr. Heath, “You remember this… My name is McVeigh.”
“Former Federal Grand Juror Hoppy Heidelberg concurs. “Why would McVeigh walk around the building before the blast telling people his name?”[304]
“Like the “Lee Harvey Oswald” who was seen filing out numerous job applications in New Orleans, “McVeigh” was seen going floor-to-floor in the Federal Building in Oklahoma. Except that the “Oswald” who filled out job applications listed his height as 5’ 9”, while the real Oswald’s height was 5’ 11.”
“According to employees at Elliott’s Body Shop in Junction City, the “McVeigh” (alias “Kling”) who rented the truck on April 17 was of medium build, 5’ 10” to 5’ 11” and weighed 180-185 pounds. Elliott’s employee Tom Kessinger stated on his FBI FD-383 report that the man had a “rough” complexion with “acne.”[320] (See Appendix)
“The only problem is, Timothy McVeigh is 6’ 2,” weighs 160 pounds, and has a totally clear complexion. Another shop employee, Vicki Beemer, said the man had a deformed chin, unlike the real McVeigh.[321]
“A “Lee Harvey Oswald” subsequently phoned, then showed up at the Soviet embassy in Mexico City, speaking with a trade consultant who was allegedly a member of the KGB’s “liquid affairs” bureau (hit squad). The CIA later turned over to the Warren Commission a surveillance snapshot of a man they claimed was Oswald at the Soviet embassy. The man looked nothing like Oswald.
“On April 17, 1995, a “Bob Kling” showed up at Elliott’s Body Shop in Junction City, Kansas and rented a Ryder truck. Yet according to surveillance footage taken from a nearby McDonalds, McVeigh was sitting in the restaurant eating a hamburger at the time. He was wearing completely different clothes than those ascribed to “Kling.”
Yet the FBI contends that McVeigh left the restaurant 20 minutes before the truck was rented, walked the 1.3 miles to Elliott’s — a fifteen-minute walk — in a light rain, then showed up at Elliott’s nice and dry, wearing completely different clothes.
In November of 1963, a “Lee Oswald” walked into the downtown Lincoln Mercury dealership in Dallas announcing his intention to buy a Mercury Comet. According to the salesman, Albert Bogard, “Mr. Oswald” took him on a wild test drive, speeding along at 60 to 70 miles an hour. After he was told the amount of the down payment, another salesman, Eugene Wilson, heard “Oswald” say, “Maybe I’m going to have to go back to Russia to buy a car.”
“During the Warren Commission hearings, salesman Frank Pizzo described the customer as 5’ 8” tall. When the Warren Commission showed Pizzo a photo of Oswald taken after his arrest, he said, “I have to say that he is not the one…”[325]
After the bombing in Oklahoma City, ATF informant Carol Howe told the FBI that she recognized the two men on the FBI’s original wanted posters as Peter Ward and Michael Brescia — two Elohim City residents. She said that neither man was Tim McVeigh.[326]
“In early November of 1963, Mrs. Lovell Penn of Dallas found three men firing a rifle on her property. After they left, she found a spent cartridge bearing the name “Mannlicher-Carcanno,” the rifle that the Warren Commission claimed Oswald used to perform his historic feat of marksmanship in Dealy Plaza.
“As District Attorney Jim Garrison later noted, “These scenes were about as subtle as roaches trying to sneak across a white rug.”
Now would perhaps be a good time to bring up strip clubs. We’re all familiar with Mohammad Atta’s penchant for booze, coke, babes and gambling. If we’re not, here’s a reminder:
“Atta didn’t care. Atta was flush. Atta flashed a Big Roll. Ask the girls who dance at the Cheetah club in Sarasota. Cash was no problemo.
Atta liked very Un-Islamic lap dances at the Pink Pony Strip Club. Atta liked stuffing $20 bills into the panties of topless dancers in nightclubs at the seedy end of Las Vegas’ Strip.
Atta liked ogling infidel flesh. And he had a taste for the finer things in life too. Atta liked hanging out at Harry’s Bar in New York, where he preferred a table near the piano.”
To which I may add:
Atta liked the Beastie Boys. Atta wore a crucifix. Atta went gambling on a Republican lobbyists yacht one week before 9/11. Atta was a drug smuggler.
Is that why Atta was learning to fly? To be a bag-man for CIA drug-running out of Florida?
Atta left a Koran at the Pink Pony.
This business of leaving a trail of breadcrumbs is often so obvious and so hammy and so farcical one can only wonder how anyone, anywhere can accept the official stories. The apocrypha helps, I suppose; “official” reports of Atta meeting with Saddam or Khalid Sheik Muhammed (like the Man called Intrepid once said: “Nothing deceives like a document”); celebrity and stature help: Richard Clarke on Jon Stewart or Nightline warning of impending attacks and the necessity for martial law; still, it’s pretty goofy stuff. But back to strip clubs:
McVeigh, or someone who looked a lot like him, also attended a strip club before his rendezvous with infamy. He told a stripper: ‘Yes, and you’re going to remember me on April 19, 1995. You’re going to remember me for the rest of your life.’
James Earl Ray? Apparently he had identical cars:
“James Early Ray, MLK’s alleged assassin had owned a white Ford Mustang, which was seen speeding away after the assassination. Yet another white Mustang was seen parked in front of Jim’s Grill in Memphis, near where Ray had his car parked.
The two cars were almost identical, except for two things: While Ray was wearing a suit on April 4, 1968, the driver of the other Mustang was wearing a dark blue windbreaker; while Ray’s car had Alabama plates, the other car had Arkansas plates.”
Immediately after the killing, the gentleman who bore no resemblance to the alleged assassin was seen tearing from the boarding house where Ray resided, dropping a rifle on the sidewalk as he fled the scene.
And one of the Mossad’s many false flags:
“On April 6, 1979, the same Mossad terror unit now suspected of the Copernicus carnage blew up the heavily guarded plant of CNIM industries at La Seyne-sur-Mer, near Toulon, in southeast France, where a consortium of French firms was building a nuclear reactor for Iraq.… The Mossad salted the site of the CNIM bomb blast with ‘clues’ followed up with anonymous phone calls to police — suggesting that the sabotage was the work of a conservative environmentalist group….”
http://www.constitution.org/ocbpt/ocbpt_02.htm
“Was McVeigh an informant? Was he working for two different agencies? Numerous Kennedy researchers have uncovered evidence that Oswald was an FBI informant at the same time he was being sheep-dipped by the CIA for his role in the JFK assassination. According to former District Attorney (later federal judge) Jim Garrison:
“Oswald appears to have been extensively manipulated by the CIA for a long time prior to the assassination and may well have believed he was working for the government. Oswald was also a confidential informant, a job that provided additional control over him and may have given him a reason to believe he was actually penetrating a plot to assassinate the president.[288]
“Like Mohammed Salemeh, a World Trade Center bombing suspect arrested when he attempted to retrieve his truck rental deposit, McVeigh would be linked to the bombing by the first in a chain of damning evidence — his thumbprint on a fertilizer receipt found in Terry Nichols’ home; inquires about bomb-making materials made on his calling-card; and the paperwork used to rent the Ryder truck itself.
“Like Salemeh’s rental receipt which had traces of ANFO on it, McVeigh’s clothes would allegedly contain traces of a detonator cord known as PDTN.[300] Like the World Trade Center bombers who stockpiled bomb-making equipment in rented storage lockers in New Jersey, McVeigh and Nichols would store their ammonium nitrate in rented lockers in Kansas and Arizona. And like the World Trade Center bombers who called commercial chemical companies requesting bomb-making materials, McVeigh would implicate himself by using a traceable phone card to make his purchases.
The most wild example of “doubles” and aliases comes from James Earl Ray:
From Philip Melanson’s book The Murkin Conspiracy:
“But the best and spookiest evidence of a conspiracy consists of Ray’s use of sophisticated aliases during the months leading up to the assassination and directly thereafter.
“Melanson tracked down the Canadians, and the scenario he details in his 1989 book, The Murkin Conspiracy, is downright chilling. Months before the assassination, Ray was using the alias, ‘Eric Starvo Galt.’ Melanson discovered that, during the same period, the Toronto man named Eric Galt was signing his middle name, St. Vincent, as ‘St. V.,’ scribbling lopsided circles for the periods, so that the full name looked to the uninitiated like ‘Eric Starvo Galt.’ In an impressive bit of detection, Melanson found that at some point, the real Eric St. Vincent Galt changed his signature, and began signing documents and personal checks as Eric S. Galt. At about the same time, the recidivist American crook James Earl Ray changed his alias to ‘Eric S. Galt.’ And this was months before Ray’s first and only visit to Toronto!
To sum up:
Tarpley:
“The patsies ultimately have three vital functions. The first is that they have to be noticed. They must attract lots and lots of attention. They may issue raving statements on videotape, or doubles can be used to issue these statements for them if they are not up to it. They need to get in to fights with passersby, as Mohammed Atta is said to have done concerning a parking space at the airport in Maine early in the morning on September 11.
Even if they are presumed dead they must remain prominent, as in the case of Atta’s passport, which is alleged by the FBI to have survived the fiery collapse of the World Trade Center towers to be found undamaged and unsinged on a nearby street. Even when presumed dead they must be eloquent about themselves and their activities, as they accused 9/11 hijackers when they left behind a copy of the Koran, airline schedules, terrorist literature and videotapes, and Atta’s crudely forged last will and testament in a car and in luggage.
Finally, if all else goes well, it is the destiny of the patsies to take the blame for the terror action once it has happened. At this point the moles in the government apparatus, who had earlier been the patsies’ greatest friends and protectors, become their most implacable enemies. The patsies must be hunted down and, preferably, liquidated on the spot, as the British Special Air Services anti-terrorist force always prefers to do, with a maximum of firepower. Their faces and stories will be demonized as the latest manifestation of absolute evil. The nationality, philosophy, or religion which the media portray them as representing will become the target of raving vilification, arrest, economic sanctions, cruise missile retaliation, and armed invasion, as the case may be.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gladio: The Sequel
B07389 / Tue, 12 Jul 2005 19:25:23 / Intelligence
Speaking of provocateurs, another CIA-informant caught up in a radical Islamic proxy has emerged. This time, he has not orchestrated a bombing in the name of “Al-Qaeda” – he’s been kidnapped.
“Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, who was reportedly abducted in Milan on February 17, 2003, was a CIA informant, according to Albanian intelligence officials.”
According to Wayne Madsen, Nasr was abducted by “a covert team of U.S. Defense Department Special Forces, mercenaries, and intelligence agents who are now the subject of international arrest warrants.”
Chicago Tribune:
“Why would the U.S. government go to elaborate lengths to seize a 39-year-old Egyptian who, according to former Albanian intelligence officials, was once the CIA’s most productive source of information within the tightly knit group of Islamic fundamentalists living in exile in Albania?”
For the indefatigable blowback hacks who may not be aware of the answer, see my aforementioned posts.
What’s interesting about this case, more so than those of Al-Faruq, Ali Mohammed, Rafa Zouhier and Jose Emilio Suarez Trashorras, is that specific names have emerged threatening to expose rather high-ranking members of the cryptocracy, including top Neocons and other fascists directly involved in the “war on terror”.
The usual figures are implicated:
“Negroponte. Ledeen. Boykin. North. Kerek. If these figures make you uneasy, they should. An Italian investigation has uncovered an underground, parallel police network with possible links to the CIA which may be involved in the slaying of Niccola Calipari and Il Diario reporter Enzo Baldoni, the extraordiary rendition of Abu Omar and Nigergate.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/1/134912/3377
More interesting still, there is a Gladio connection.
“It now appears members of this Pentagon-based (not the CIA) covert team were in cahoots with Gaetano Saya and Riccardo Sindoca, two neofascists “who reportedly have close ties to both the P-2 (Propaganda Due) Masonic lodge and a secret Cold War network known as Gladio,” according to Madsen. Saya and Sindoca set up something dubbed “the Department of Strategic Anti-Terrorism Studies, which reportedly had links to both the Bush administration and Ariel Sharon’s Likud government in Israel.”
The Italian government has tried to distance itself from the scandal, yet:
“Former CIA Osama Bin Laden unit chief Michael Scheuer told Italy’s La Repubblica that the kidnaping of Abu Omar was authorized by SISMI chief Nicolo Pollari. A number of SISMI agents and assets have been tied to the group, including Francesco Pazienza, a SISMI agent, and Rocco Martino, who said he was the source of the faked Niger yellowcake uranium documents that were laundered through Rome and used as proof by the Bush White House that Saddam Hussein was shopping for uranium in Niger. That charge prompted the CIA to send Ambasssador Joseph Wilson to Niger resulting in a retaliatory exposure by the White House of the CIA’s covert weapons of mass destruction counter-proliferation network.” (Madsen)
“Checking out the easily researched background of SISMI we learn the spook organization “has long been notorious for far right, even neo-fascist, leanings. According to Italian judicial investigators, SISMI was deeply involved in numerous plots against Italy’s democratic government, including the 1980 Bologna train station terrorist bombing that left 85 dead and 200 injured,” Canadian journalist Eric S. Margolis reported last summer. “Senior SISMI officers were in cahoots with celebrated swindler Roberto Calvi, the neo-fascist P2 Masonic Lodge, other extreme rightist groups trying to destabilize Italy, the Washington neocon operative, Michael Ledeen, and the Iran-Contra conspirators.” In short, SISMI is neck-deep in Gladio operations. As Margolis reports, the American liaison is none other than Michael Ledeen, an “influential” neocon with direct input into the Bush administration. “
http://kurtnimmo.com/blog/?p=798
More on Ledeen in a moment.
“In an unexpected and possibly related move, the U.S. Defense Department announced that it was withdrawing a specal forces unit, mostly comprising Navy SEAL personnel, from the Rota Naval Station near Cadiz in southern Spain. The move came after the Pentagon announced it would move much of its Special Operations to southern Europe, particularly Spain, Italy, and Portugal and establish a new Special Operations command at Rota. Some experts on Gladio and the “stay behind networks” have cited the similarity of the March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings and a Gladio/P-2-connected train bombing in Bologna in August 1974 and the 1978 assassination of Prime Minister Aldo Moro (after he announced he would bring Communists into the government) and the recent assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri after his negotiations with the pro-Syria and pro-Iran Hezbollah. Hariri was reportedly threatened beforehand by White House National Security Council officials in the same way Henry Kissinger threatened Moro in 1974 while the Christian Democratic leader was Foreign Minister.”
“It is interesting the Italians are in the process of linking two fascist Gladio warriors to the Pentagon abduction of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, a Muslim apparently working under cover for the CIA, according to sources quoted by the Chicago Tribune. Of course, all of this will blow over in a few days as the news cycle revolves around more important stories—for instance, women desperate for Jessica Simpson’s hair, or singer and reality show attendee Pink’s marriage to motocross racer Carey Hart.” (Madsen)
Or perhaps Karl Rove.
Never fear liberal press, there’s even a Karl Rove connection in this sordid affair to wet the appetites of the parapolitically disinclined, or should I say chicken-shit.
“When The Washington Post published a list of the people whom Karl Rove, President George W Bush’s closest advisor, regularly consults for advice outside the administration, foreign policy veterans were shocked when Michael Ledeen popped up as the only full-time international affairs analyst.” Asia Times -Veteran neo-con adviser moves on Iran
http://www.sw-asia.com/People/Bio916.htm
AlterNet on Michael Ledeen, dated May, 2003:
Most Americans have never heard of Michael Ledeen, but if the United States ends up in an extended shooting war throughout the Middle East, it will be largely due to his inspiration.
He basically believes that violence in the service of the spread of democracy is America’s manifest destiny.
Now Michael Ledeen is calling for regime change beyond Iraq. In an address entitled “Time to Focus on Iran—The Mother of Modern Terrorism,” for the policy forum of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) on April 30, he declared, “the time for diplomacy is at an end; it is time for a free Iran, free Syria and free Lebanon.”
With a group of other conservatives, Ledeen recently set up the Center for Democracy in Iran (CDI), an action group focusing on producing regime change in Iran.”
DEVELOPING STORY July 4, 2005 —More on Rovegate. According to Washington insiders, Karl Rove is not the only “person of interest” being investigated by a Federal special prosecutor and the FBI for leaking the name of covert CIA agent to the media. In addition to the leak, itself a crime, prosecutors are looking at criminal conspiracy involving a non-White House “pass through” that leaked the classified information on Valerie Plame and Brewster Jennings Associates to Robert Novak. Although Novak’s now infamous column appeared on July 14, 2003, the focus is on a phone call or calls made by Rove and a non-White House player on July 6, 2003, the same day Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s OP-ED on the bogus Niger intelligence appeared in The New York Times. The Rove investigation is also dovetailing with two other investigations—AIPAC espionage on behalf of Israel and the forgery of Niger government documents used to justify the invasion of Iraq.
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
Who is Michael Ledeen?
Excerpt, taken from Edward Herman / Gerry O’Sullivan, The “Terrorism”
Industry (Pantheon, 1989), p. 161 ff.
Michael Ledeen has long been associated with CSIS [Center for
Strategic and International Studies] and was one of the founding
organizers of JINSA [The Jewish Institute for National Security
Affairs]. During the Reagan years, Ledeen moved into the higher
circles of power, serving as Secretary of State Haig’s advisor and
agent in Italy, as a consultant on terrorism, and playing a role in
both the Bulgarian connection case and the Iran-contra affair. With
these connections, Ledeen had exceptional media exposure, appearing on
ABC’s “Nightline” and “This Week with David Brinkley,” PBS’s
“MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour,” and CNN’s “Crossfire.” He has also written
op-ed columns and articles for numerous magazines and newspapers, and
edited the Washington Quarterly (published by CSIS) prior to going to
work for Haig.
Ledeen’s academic career came to an end when he was denied tenure at
Washington University in St. Louis in 1972 for, among other reasons,
plagiarism [1]. During the 1970s, he worked as a journalist in Italy
with Il Giornale Nuovo, a right-wing newspaper reputedly controlled by
the CIA [2]. During this Italian stint he collaborated regularly with
Claire Sterling in anticommunist propaganda closely tied to ongoing
U.S. interventionist strategies [3]. In 1980 he entered into a
collaboration with Francesco Pazienza, an agent of the Italian secret
service (SISMI) and a member of Rome’s extreme right-wing Masonic
Lodge, P2 (Propaganda Due), headed by the fascist Licio Gelli. In an
Italian criminal court in 1985, Pazienza was judged guilty of
political manipulation, forgery, and the protection of criminals and
terrorists, among other offenses. Indeed, according to the findings of
the court, Pazienza falsified information about the Bologna bombing in
order to divert attention away from the real (right-wing) terrorists
who had staged the attack. Ledeen is identified in the court documents
as an agent of SISMI, possibly placed on their payroll by Pazienza
himself. Ledeen collected money for his services to SISMI, which
included “risk assessment,” the training of Italian intelligence
agents, and providing reports on terrorism to the Italian government
[4].
Pazienza and Ledeen worked together in the so-called Billygate affair
during the 1980 presidential campaign, luring Jimmy Carter’s brother
into a compromising relationship with Qaddafi (this according to
prosecuting Judge Domenico Sica). During the Reagan transition, to
quote Italian police official Umberto d’Amato, “there was an
interregnum during which relations between Italy and the United States
were carried on in the persons of the duo Pazienza-Ledeen” [5].
Later, the pair were important participants in the creation of the
Bulgarian plot to kill the pope, a story that succeeded in gulling
most of the major media in the West.
Ledeen has moved within the power structure and between Western
governments according to opportunity, for personal advantage and
perhaps also in pursuit of political ends that are not entirely clear.
Although serving as a loyal agent of the U.S. state in Italy in the
1970s, his service in the Billygate affair was to the Republican
Party. He was on the payroll of the Italian secret service agency
SISMI in the early 1980s, but his manipulations in Italy caused the
new head of SISMI to declare before Parliament in 1984 that Ledeen was
an “intriguer” and unwelcome in Italy [6]. His attachment to Israel,
reflected in his JINSA connection, may have influenced his pursuit of
the hostage deal with Iran (Israel favored such a transaction), and
his former boss in the Pentagon, Noel Koch, asserts that while Ledeen
was in Italy the CIA station chief there took him to be “an agent of
influence of a foreign government” [7].
In articles written for Commentary and the New Republic, Ledeen argued
in favor of U.S. support for right-wing terrorists (“resistance
forces”) such as UNITA and the Nicaraguan contras, and claimed that
the Soviets had aligned themselves with the Mafia in order to use drug
money to support international terrorism. In the first piece, entitled
“Fighting Back,” Ledeen urged the U.S. government to assassinate
selected leaders of the Sandinista, Cuban, East German, Libyan, and
Palestinian armed forces as a “counter-terrorism” measure [8]. In
“K.G.B. Connection,” after repeating the oft-told tale of the
Bulgarian plot to kill the pope, Ledeen asserted that the Soviets were
working with drug smugglers because they are “alarmingly short of hard
cash these days.” “Yuri Andropov’s old organization, the K.G.B., has
apparently become a major backer of drug smugglers, arms runners, and
terrorists…” [9]. And all of this without a shred of evidence to
support his charges.
Orwell rolls in his grave
Ledeen’s writings on terrorism, as exemplified by the examples above,
are intellectually negligible and entirely opportunistic [10]. His
superior in the government, Noel Koch, who hired him as an expert
consultant on terrorism at the urging of Reagan officials, described
his work on the subject as “transparent crap.” Not only did the head
of SISMI denounce him as an intriguer, but the authors of the Tower
Commission Report concluded that the CIA should permanently terminate
its relationship with Ledeen and his associate, Ghorbanifar. All of
this, however, has not interfered with his status as a terrorism
expert for the U.S. mass media. His connections are still potent, the
right-wing and Israeli lobby are fond of him, he is glib and his
“transparent crap” is therefore acceptable
http://www.eyeranian.net/2003/05/07,54.shtml
And from Yellow Cake and Black Shirts
Michael Ledeen
Yellow Cake and Black Shirts
“We should have been paying attention all along, but particularly since the sadly unsurprising revelation that Italian military intelligence looks to have served as a linchpin in the Niger “Yellow Cake” caper, we would do well to brush up on the strange case of Michael Ledeen
You know Ledeen: arguably Washington’s most influential neoconservative. He’s resident scholar of the senior neoconservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, and regarded widely as one of the world’s leading authorities on intelligence, counter-intelligence and international affairs. From the beginning, and before the beginning, Ledeen has been one of the loudest cheerleaders for the “War on Terror.”
Now, do you know of Italy’s “Strategy of Tension”? It was a campaign of false-flag terror in the late 1970s, waged by outright fascists who enjoyed the patronage of the CIA, the Mafia and far right elements of the Italian State. These were the Gladio Brigades and Licio Gelli’s P2 Lodge, and they intended to discredit the increasingly popular Communist Party, and to ensure it would not take power, by staging terrorist acts in the name of the Left. Their campaign culminated in the Bologna train station bombing of 1980.
Now, do you know where Michael Ledeen was during these years, what he was doing, and with whom he was doing it?
From tompaine.com:
...terrorism has been Ledeen’s bread and butter since at least the late 1970s, when he consulted for Italian military intelligence.
From Asia Times:
Ledeen’s right-wing Italian connections – including alleged ties to the P2 Masonic Lodge that rocked Italy in the early 1980s – have long been a source of speculation and intrigue, but he returned to Washington in 1981 as “anti-terrorism” advisor to the new secretary of state, Al Haig.
Over the next several years, Ledeen used his position as consultant to Haig, the Pentagon and the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan to boost the notion of a global terrorist conspiracy based in the Kremlin, whose KGB pulled the strings of all of the world’s key terrorist groups, especially in the Middle East.
An excerpt from Herman and O’Sullivan’s The “Terrorism” Industry:
In 1980 [Ledeen] entered into a collaboration with Francesco Pazienza, an agent of the Italian secret service (SISMI) and a member of Rome’s extreme right-wing Masonic Lodge, P2 (Propaganda Due), headed by the fascist Licio Gelli. In an Italian criminal court in 1985, Pazienza was judged guilty of political manipulation, forgery, and the protection of criminals and terrorists, among other offenses. Indeed, according to the findings of the court, Pazienza falsified information about the Bologna bombing in order to divert attention away from the real (right-wing) terrorists who had staged the attack.
From Barbara Honegger’s October Surprise:
When the Italian police raided (P2 Lodge founder) Gelli’s home in March 1981, it was Michael Ledeen who, at the instigation of Alexander Haig and Henry Kissinger, offered to buy the list of 953 P2 members in an apparent attempt to keep it from becoming public. Henry Kissinger had also reportedly sent Ledeen to Italy to try to squash an investigation into his and Haig’s involvement in the founding of P2.
On the morning of August 2, 1980, a massive bomb since linked to Gelli…exploded in the waiting room of the central train station in Bologna, killing 81 people and injuring 200 others. General Santorito, the chief of Italy’s military intelligence agency, SISMI, who was also reportedly a member of P2, testified in the wake of the bombing that it had been planned by the British-Swiss-American Montecarlo Comite, P2’s “sister” organization based in Monaco. When P2 had come under increasing scrutiny in 1979, grandmaster Licio Gelli had reportedly made his base of operations the Montecarlo Comite…. Not surprisingly, reported members of the Montecarlo Comite are Gelli, Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig and Michael Ledeen.
And this assessment, translated from the Italian:
One of the most dangerous of these “bad teachers” is Michael Ledeen, promoter of the the idea of “universal fascism”. These days he does not stop threatening war against Iran, Syria, and Lebanon, and has evidently been chosen once more by the establishment to manipulate institutions and threaten those who oppose his dangerous and wicked madness. On the other hand, Ledeen has a long history of interference in Italy’s strategic choices. During the Moro case he was among those “most suspected” of having misled the enquiries, with the collaboration of the “bretheren” of the P2. It was wondered and it is still wondered why the Italian magistrates do not carry out adequate enquiries about him and his work
And now, from the man himself. Some of Ledeen’s own words, on a leadership trait he admires, from his book Universal Fascism:
In order to achieve the most noble accomplishments, the leader may have to ‘enter into evil.’ This is the chilling insight that has made Machiavelli so feared, admired and challenging… we are rotten…. It’s true that we can achieve greatness if, and only if, we are properly led.
Back to Italy, for some of his thoughts on the fascist era:
...fascism nevertheless constituted a political revolution in Italy. For the first time, there was an attempt to mobilize the masses and to involve them in the political life of the country.
And on Mussolini himself:
He never had enough confidence in the Italian people to permit them a genuine participation in fascism.
The resemblance between the recent mass murder in Madrid and the Bologna bombing extends, I suspect, well beyond the scale of carnage.
Why do some insist on calling these people neo-fascists? I see nothing new here.
posted by Jeff at 1:02 PM
And on a final, sinister note: Madsen:
“In addition, DSSA shopped around a video of the Jihadist slaying of Fabrizio Quattrocchi, an Italian private security officer, in Iraq. Italian investigators are trying to determine how DSSA got the video of the slaying and whether official levels in the Italian government were involved in the procurement of the video. Carlo Taormina, an MP with the ruling Forza Italia Party, said DSSA was known to top levels of the Italian police and intelligence services.
