[Crossposted, with minor edits, from
Southpaw:]
In the course of researching other things, I recently came across this interesting little nugget at Wikipedia about Strategia Della Tensione -- the Strategy of Tension:
The strategy of tension (Italian: strategia della tensione) is a way to control and manipulate public opinion using fear, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents provocateurs and false flag terrorism actions.
More below the fold...
The term was coined in Italy during the trials that followed the 1970s and 1980s terror attacks and murders committed by neofascist terrorists (such as Ordine Nuovo, Avanguardia Nazionale or Fronte Nazionale). The terrorists were backed by intelligence agencies, P2 masonic lodge and Gladio, a NATO secret "stay-behind" army set up to perform guerilla and resistance activities should Italy be successfully invaded by the Soviet bloc (there were equivalent armies in most Western states), which due to its clandestine nature was largely unmonitored and so unchecked by civilian agencies and began to pursue its own right wing, anti-communist agenda using the rather violent means at its disposal, including false flag terrorist attacks.
The suspected aim of these crimes was to make the public believe that the bombings were committed by a communist insurgency, to promote the formation of an authoritarian government, and to prevent the growing Italian Communist Party (PCI) from joining the ruling Democrazia Cristiana (DC) in a government of national reconciliation ("historical compromise").
Besides the vague echo, why does this make my hair stand on end?
Ledeen has often been accused of associations with shady organizations. According to the Asia Times, for example, "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." P2 was also involved in Operation Gladio, which was managed by NATO.[1] Michael Ledeen has denied any connections with Licio Gelli's masonic lodge. However, he acknowledged being paid by the SISMI in 1980 for "risk assessment" - along with P2 and Gladio, the SISMI secret services were involved in Italy's strategy of tension. [emphasis mine -c]
Oh, and another thing:
Soon after the September 11th attacks, the Italian military intelligence agency SISMI sent its first report to the US government including details of an alleged Iraqi purchase of 500 tons of lightly-processed uranium ore from Niger.
Details of this and a subsequent SISMI report formed the basis of a reference to alleged Iraq-Niger uranium sales which was included in a CIA briefing Vice President Cheney received in early 2002. It was that briefing that prompted Cheney's request for more information on the Iraq-Niger sale. And that request led, in turn, to the CIA's decision to dispatch Joe Wilson on his trip to Niger. The Italian reports had set the whole process in motion.
But there was another key detail: The reports out of Italy were not a separate source of intelligence from the forgeries. They were the forgeries. To be precise, the intelligence reports from Italy were actually text transcriptions and summaries of the forged documents. The reports from Italy and the forgeries were one and the same.
...
A US government source pointed me toward a series of suspicious points of overlap between the forgeries story and a series of unauthorized meetings between Italian intelligence figures, two Pentagon employees working under Doug Feith,[emphasis mine - c] other Americans and the disgraced Iran-Contra figure Manucher Ghorbanifar. These meetings were the subject of an article ("Iran-Contra II?") I published with Laura Rozen and Paul Glastris in the Washington Monthly in early September 2004. Around the same time, another source -- this one outside the US government -- told me a murky series of details about the meetings which purported to connect them to the emergence of the forgeries in Rome in October 2002.
And Doug Feith's connection to all this?
The first meeting occurred in Rome in December, 2001. It included Franklin, Rhode, and another American, the neoconservative writer and operative Michael Ledeen, who organized the meeting. (According to UPI, Ledeen was then working for Feith as a consultant.) Also in attendance was Ghorbanifar and a number of other Iranians. One of the Iranians, according to two sources familiar with the meeting, was a former senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who claimed to have information about dissident ranks within the Iranian security services. The Washington Monthly has also learned from U.S. government sources that Nicolo Pollari, the head of Italy's military intelligence agency, SISMI, attended the meetings, as did the Italian Minister of Defense Antonio Martino, who is well-known in neoconservative circles in Washington.
There's a lot here to digest. One thing that occurs to me is that while 9/11 didn't turn out to be a false flag attack, it was effectively used like one -- we wouldn't be in Iraq today otherwise. And "fear, propaganda, disinformation, [and] psychological warfare" all are obvious and major components of Bush administration domestic policy.
I think what we have here is starting to look like a coherent narrative. Thankfully, I'm sure the liberal media will be all over it soon. Right? Why is everybody laughing?