Just so progressives are under no illusion as to what we are up against....

[JohnyCanuck]

The Strategy of Tension

Nafeez Mossadeq

SNIP

The “strategy of tension” denotes a highly secretive series of interconnected covert operations conducted jointly by the CIA and MI6 largely in Western Europe during the this period. Well-documented by several respected historians, confirmed by official inquiries, and corroborated by former intelligence officials, the “strategy of tension” is one of those unsavoury moments in contemporary history that we don’t learn about in school, or even university.

My favourite book on the subject, and the most authoritative in my view, is Dr. Daniele Ganser’s NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe (2004). Published in the UK as part of the “Contemporary Security Studies” series of London-based academic press Routledge, Ganser’s study is the first major historical work to bring the “strategy of tension” into the mainstream of scholarship.

During the Cold War, indeed through to the late 1980s, the United States, United Kingdom, and Western European governments and secret services, participated in a sophisticated NATO-backed operation to engineer terrorist attacks inside Western Europe, to be blamed on the Soviet Union. The objective was to galvanize public opinion against leftwing policies and parties, and ultimately to mobilize popular support for purportedly anti-Soviet policies at home and abroad – most of which were really designed to legitimize brutal military interventions against nationalist independence movements in the “Third World”.

SNIP

The existence of this secret operation exploded into public controversy when in August 1990 upon the admissions in parliament by Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, the existence of ‘Gladio’ was exposed as a secret sub-section of Italian military-intelligence services, responsible for domestic bombings blamed on Italian Communists. Ganser documents in intricate detail how a subversive network created by elements of western intelligence services – particularly that of the US and UK - orchestrated devastating waves of terrorist attacks blamed on the Soviet Union, not only in Italy, but also in Spain, Germany, France, Turkey, Greece, i.e. throughout western Europe. Despite a number of European parliamentary inquiries; an European Union resolution on the Gladio phenomenon; NATO’s close-doors admissions to European ambassadors; confirmations of the international operation from senior CIA officials; and other damning documentary evidence; NATO, the CIA and MI6 have together consistently declined to release their secret files on the matter.

http://nafeez.blogspot.com/2007/05/strategy-of-tension.html

[villager]

1. sure glad there's no reason to question the official version of 9/11 events!

;-)

[Ezlivin]

2. Nope, not a one!

Well, maybe one....

[villager]

3. That'd be "pulled down" Bldg. 7, eh?

Funny how the "structure fire" folks leave that one out of the discussion...

[JohnyCanuck]

4. Link to view a BBC 3 part series on Operation Gladio here:

http://www.thedossier.ukonline.co.uk/video_cover-ups.htm

The links to the Gladio videos are about a third or so of the way down the page. There are lots of other interesting videos on the list too, e.g. Adam Curtis (BBC) - Pandora's Box: To the Brink of Eternity (1992)

Focusing on the men of the Cold War on whom 'Dr Strangelove' was based. These were people who believed that the world could be controlled by the scientific manipulation of fear - mathematical geniuses employed by the American Rand Corporation. In the end, their visions were the stuff of science fiction fantasy

[Nikki Stone1]

5. Be careful or this one will end up in the 9/11 forum

:(