Thursday, January 01, 2004

The 'strategy of tension'

Letter bombs are being mailed from Bologna to European Union officials. This is being blamed on an "unknown Italian group calling itself the Informal Anarchist Federation". That group allegedly said it had planted the bombs to "hit at the apparatus of control that is repressive and leading the democratic show that is the new European order". We are seeing a return of the 'strategy of tension' used by the fascist elements in the Italian state in the 1960's and 1970's to use violence perpetrated by the extreme right but blamed on anarchists to achieve political goals (this was immediately recognized by Italian Situationist Gianfranco Sanguinetti in his famous pamphlet Is the Reichstag Burning?). The bombings were organized and committed by members of Propaganda Due (P-2), a fascist Italian secret society, and Gladia, a secret para-military group set up by the Italian secret service and the CIA (for a bit more history on much earlier American manipulation of Italian politics, see here). Current Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is a documented member of P-2. He faces the current mass of scandals concerning his personal corruption, the Italian people's displeasure at Italian participation in the American rape of Iraq, and the Parmalat scandal, which is deeply embarrassing the Italian corporate elites who are afraid that they will be seen for what they really are, a more polished version of the mafia. A few 'anarchist' bombs are again just what the fascists who run Italy need to distract the people from what is really going on. The United States is currently facing its own 'strategy of tension', with the Bush Administration using manipulated terror warnings to:

  • bend American popular opinion in favor of restriction of civil liberties;

  • use the 'war on terror' to achieve the Zionist/neo-colonialist goals of the neocons;

  • provide political support for Bush as the protective father figure of the country to disguise the fact that the country is falling apart as a result of his policies (for an interesting analysis of parallels between the Italian 'strategy of tension' and the Oklahoma City bombing see chapter 14 of "The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror" by David Hoffman).

The Reichstag is still burning.