• “You were supposed to attack civilians, women, children, innocent people outside the political arena, for one simple reason—to force the Italian public to turn to the state and ask for greater security.”
By Paul Craig Roberts —
Commentators who have learned to distrust official explanations have raised questions about the attack in Nice, France. It seems odd that a lone person driving a large truck can gain access to blocked-off areas where French people have assembled to watch Bastille Day fireworks. It’s also odd that the event is branded terrorism when the alleged perpetrator’s family says he was not religious with no religious motivation.
We will never know. Once again, the alleged perpetrator is dead and conveniently left behind his ID. It looks like a permanent state of martial law in France will be one consequence. This shutdown of society will also dispose of the protests against the repeal of France’s labor protections by capitalist puppet Francois Hollande. Those protesting the take-back of their hard-earned rights will be closed down under the martial law.
Amazing how convenient the attack was for global capitalism, the primary beneficiary of Hollande’s new “labor reform.”
This reminds many of Operation Gladio. Gladio is the codename for a secret North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operation set up by Washington after WWII as a result of fear that the Red Army would overrun Western Europe. Originally, Gladio consisted of hidden arms caches and an organization to conduct guerrilla war against the Soviet occupying army.
Instead of a Soviet invasion, the threat that emerged was the popularity of the Communist Party in France and especially Italy. Washington was fearful that communist parties would win enough votes to form a government and that Washington’s Western European Empire would be breached as these communist governments aligned with Moscow.
Consequently, Gladio was turned against the European communist parties. The Italian intelligence service, together with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), began bombing public places in Italy, such as the Bologna train station in which 285 people were killed, maimed, and otherwise wounded.
Gladio operative Vincenzo Vinciguerra first revealed the group’s existence during his 1984 trial for the bombing of the Bologna train station in 1980. Questioned about the Bologna bombing, Vinciguerra said, according to the Wikipedia entry on his name:
“There exists in Italy a secret force parallel to the armed forces, composed of civilians and military men, in an anti-Soviet capacity that is, to organize a resistance on Italian soil against a Russian army . . . a secret organization, a super-organization with a network of communications, arms and explosives, and men trained to use them . . . a super-organization which, lacking a Soviet military invasion which might not happen, took up the task, on NATO’s behalf, of preventing a slip to the left in the political balance of the country. This they did, with the assistance of the official secret services and the political and military forces.”
It was not until six years later, 1990, that the prime minister of Italy, Giulio Andreotti, officially acknowledged the existence of Gladio.
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Italian General Gerardo Serravalie commanded Italy’s participation in Gladio in the first half of the 1970s. Wikipedia reports that Serravalie testified that those responsible for planning and coordination “were the officers responsible for the secret structures of Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Italy. These representatives of the secret structures met every year in one of the capitals. . . . At the stay-behind meetings representatives of the CIA were always present.”
There were many bombings with many civilian casualties from the 1960s through the mid-1980s. Vinciguerra said in a YouTube video:
“You were supposed to attack civilians, women, children, innocent people outside the political arena, for one simple reason—to force the Italian public to turn to the state, turn to the regime, and ask for greater security. . . . This is the political logic behind all the bombings. They remain unpunished because the state cannot condemn itself.”
The bombings were blamed on communist terrorist groups, such as the Red Brigades and the Baader-Meinhof gang, groups that might have been real or invented intelligence covers to aid the discrediting of European communist parties.
In 1984, Judge Felice Casson reopened a 12-year-old case of a car bombing in Peteano, Italy. The judge found that the case had been falsified and blamed on the Red Brigades, but had actually been the work of the military secret service, Servizio Informazioni Difesa (SID), in conjunction with Ordine Nuovo, a right-wing organization created or co-opted by Gladio. The police official who falsified the investigation was sentenced to prison. Casson’s investigation concluded that the Peteano bombing was part of a series of bombings carried out by Gladio including the Milano Piazza Fontane bombing, which killed 16 and injured 80, and the 1980 Bologna railway station bombing, which killed 85 and injured 200.
Based on the Italian revelations, Belgian and Swiss governments undertook investigations of Gladio operations in those countries. The United States government has denied any participation in the bombings. However, Casson’s search of the archives of the Italian military secret service turned up proof of the existence of the Gladio network, and links to NATO and the U.S.
Western peoples whose democracies have degenerated into plutocracies are inoculated against the belief that the government would kill its own citizens. Clearly, they need to learn about Operation Gladio.
Is Operation Gladio still alive and well? The terror events of today are blamed on Muslims instead of on communists. Is it possible that the terror attacks in France and Belgium are modern-day Gladio operations?
Paul Craig Roberts was assistant secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of The Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for BusinessWeek, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are How AMERICA Was LOST: From 9/11 to the Police/Warfare State and The NEOCONSERVATIVE THREAT to WORLD ORDER: Washington’s Perilous War for Hegemony.
