Harry's Place

Come on, Dave. Don’t be such an innocent abroad. (signed An old cynic.).

Well the bit about Hezbollah is perfectly understandable. Do you think the UNIFIL force could stand up to Hezbollah if Israel couldn’t handle them since the 80’s?

It is so obviously true I don’t understand why anyone is surprised. Didn’t the UK had a similar agreement with the Islamists “you don’t hurt me, I wont hurt you”, that created Londonistan?

What are you saying? Do you believe that the Italian Government actively conspired with Palestinian terrorists in this manner?

David T
Lots of governments conspire with nasty groups to achieve certain goals (mostly unpalatable for public consumption). A good example is the Russian Govt’s use of their own secret service (FSB) and external criminal gangs to conduct a whole range of illegal activities. I wouldn’t be shocked if the Italians did something similar – I wouldn’t even be shocked if they worked with Mossad too to eliminate a few of the scumbags (Zwaiter for instance)

But the agreement did not always run smoothly. On August 2, 1980 an explosion shook Bologna’s train station; 85 people were killed and 200 more were injured in the blast. Cossiga believes it is entirely possible that the explosion was due to a “work accident” and that explosive materials handled by the Palestinians were responsible for the incident.

David, the Bologna train station bombing is pretty well-established to have been an operation of far-right Italian political groups who wanted to blame it on Communists – whether this was part of the “strategy of tension” established by the local CIA station under Operation Gladio is a point of controversy, but all the individual plotters were certainly connected to Gladio. It was also an actual Masonic plot – Licio Gelli, lodge master of the famous P2 lodge was given a prison sentence for interfering with the investigation into it.

Cossiga knows very well that the Bologna bombing was Italian right-wing terrorism with connections to the Italian business/Mason/CIA network (please spare me the HAHAHA MASONS LOL stuff btw, the P2 network is very well understood by all historians of the period). For him to be pretending that it was in some way involved with PFLP or Palestinians is clear bullshit; he’s presumably trying to work some sort of political agenda, not sure what, although it’s obviously very convenient for the Italian political right if one of the most iconic terrorist attacks in Italian history can be shifted away from them and into the general category of “oooh terrorism, probably the work of nasty Muslims and immigrants”.

While I agree that “principle”, is a concept that does not often find expression in governments, concerned as they are with self interest, I think it might be prudent, to investigate this matter more deeply, before rushing to any conclusions.

That the Italian government turned a blind eye to terrorists in their midst, would not come as a surprise, as that is how most countries behaved.

as my post on the sliming thread disappeared I try again with the US green party candidate who is a 9/11 truther and a conspironutter
http://redstarcommando.blogspot.com/2008/10/i-didnt-know-there-was-competition.html

bah! harrys place hates me!
won’t let me post links!

Dsquared

Yes, that’s what I thought. I’ve never heard it seriously doubted that Bologna was the work of the Italian Far Right: except by Cossiga

There is, however, this interview with Bassam Abu Sharif, which confirms an agreement between the PFLP and the Italian Government, to transport arms through Italy.

What do we make of that?

At grave risk of stating the obvious none of the so called “truther” movement’s so called “truths” so far shows Palestinains, Islamists, Dicataors, Nazis etc. to be on the “wrong” side. If this is true then, its a first.

“What are you saying? Do you believe that the Italian Government actively conspired with Palestinian terrorists in this manner?”

Yes.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/9_11_conspiracy_theories

I wondered what it meant that there was not a peep about such a bombshell story in any British papers, not that I had seen. Is this because their fact checking caused them to dismiss it as crazy? They have had no such qualms about giving 9/11 truthers the time of day. But if they are suppressing the story, does that require me to subscribe to some other conspiracy theory about the British press? My head hurts.

More seriously, I’ve read a variation of this claim elsewhere:
“Italy has a deal with Hizbullah according to which UNIFIL forces turn a blind eye to Hizbullah’s rearmament so long as no attacks are carried out against soldiers in the force.”
- can’t remember the source, but it was when Prodi was Prime Minister.

Also, I’ve read that the West Germans cut similar deals when they released the three surviving terrorists responsible for the Munich massacre.

Most 9/11 conspiracy theorists have never been in the same room as the truth.

“I wondered what it meant that there was not a peep about such a bombshell story in any British papers”

An explanation may be that retroactively the PLO and the Palestinian terrorists who did nothing but murder Jews are seen as legitimate Two-Statist Statemans, of the moderate Fatah party led by the moderate Mahmoud Abbas following a policy of moderated moderation. So what is news about Europe collaborating with the Palestinians? They are shoving millions of dollars now to the PA coffers, and the Palestinians are as moderated now as they were before.

Very moderated!!

One more thing, could you please get a better translation for the Francisco Cossiga quotes; looks as though someone has run it through a computer programme.

It is not a bombshell because to be a Palestinian by definition is to be someone deserving of international help.

Most 9/11 conspiracy theorists have never been in the same room as the truth.

Well, it is widely considered that 9/11 was a conspiracy. Unless you believe that only one person was involved or it happened to be a terrible accident.

The ones that involved Iraq were always pretty laughable and yet senior US politicians allude to the Iraq-was-behind-9/11 theory on a regular basis.

It’s possible that the Italian government had such an agreement; they were obsessively concerned with Communists and might have struck all sorts of funny deals with outher groups in the hope that they’d get hold of something to stick the Left with. But that Bassam Abu Sharif interview specifically denies that the Bologna bombing was anything to do with Palestinians, and so the fact that Cossiga seems to be lying about that surely has to mean that his interview can’t be treated as reliable.

Organised crime, terrorists, fascists aren’t teh lines blurred? They all buy weapons of each other, sell drugs to one another, run prostitution rackets etc. The IRA was involved with the Palestinians, they attended bombmaking camps I remember; so the Bologna rail station may have been planted by a fascist, but that doesn’t mean that somewhere in the background that there isn’t murky goings on. We live in a globalised world remember. Governments like to keep in with people who may become rulers in their (own) countries, they hope it will stand them in good stead for trade agreements etc. Morals are the last thing you should have in politics.

Nobody is suggesting that Cossiga should be swallowed whole, but if the gist of what he is saying is true (leaving aside any shenanigans about Bologna), it is a pretty massive scandal, no?

Dsquared:

Unless Cossiga is correct and Sharif is lying. Sharif, after all, thinks it possible that the USA was behind Bologna, but that it is possible that they used a Palestinian to front it up…

What everybody does seem to be agreed on is that the PFLP had an agreement with Mori’s government, which Cossiga says he had some involvement in, to operate within Italy.

Cossiga also says that there was a degree of complicity involving (a) the terrorist attacks on Jews at the Great Synagogue and (b) the attack on El Al.

I don’t think I can reach a considered opinion on any of this because I find it incredible that Italy would

- have allowed Palestinian terrorists to operate within the country
- have turned a blind eye against Palestinian attempts to massacre European Jewish civilians

Don’t you?

Yet both Cossiga says that both happened and Sharif confirms that they operated freely in Italy.

I don’t think I can reach a considered opinion on any of this

didn’t stop you writing the article though did it. What was the point?

I mean, this is a huge scandal, isn’t it?

The PFLP and the former President of Italy agreeing that there was an agreement for Palestinian terrorists, not simply to remain unmolested in Italy, but to arms traffic via Italy?

I mean, even if you discount all the stuff about Italian complicity in terrorist attacks on Jews, and the Bologna stuff, there’s agreement on those core facts.

In the UK, it was enough of a scandal that we allowed Jihadist groups to organise. But this is far more serious than just not cracking down on Jihadists.

sadly enough, some of my friends told me that i’m not open_minded cuz i dont believe 9/11 conspiracy theory.

If I were to tell my friends that a former Italian President had claimed that the Italian Government actively assisted the PLO and the PFLP, I’d get the same sort of pitying looks that I’d get if I opined that the moon landings were staged in a TV studion in Burbank.

I know what you mean. When I first heard that France 2’s footage of the supposed Israeli killing of Mohammed al-Dura had been faked, it sounded outlandish and desperate. Then I saw images of him, clearly still alive, but chronologically after the shots of his ‘corpse’, and I had to reconsider. Chirac was involved in covering that up, wasn’t he?

Conspiracies do happen, and any theory about them can technically be described as ‘conspiracy theory’. I’m not sure what is the best way to distinguish between conspiracy theory and theories involving conspiracies. Obviously the substitution of supposition and mea culpa? conjecture for actual evidence is a start. If said conspiracy would require the collusion of many individuals, the mass media, or includes the word ‘Mossad’, the person proposing it is a fool (previously I would have said ‘nut’, but I know too many otherwise intelligent people who indulge this sort of nonsense).

On a tangent, David: there is a disturbingly popular theory in Israel that Rabin was assassinated by Mossad. Is this antisemitic? I really can’t make up my mind. The notion of Mossad as global string-puller is so popular, would it be so surprising if many Jews adopted this perspective, at least regarding its local activities?

On the other hand, whilst Cossiga’s ‘work accident’ may be politically-motivated mischief, that European governments colluded with Palestinian terrorists is surely uncontroversial, even if many of the details have still to come to light.

What’s interesting in this post is the contrast between the outrageous conspiracy theories that are so widely held, and the rather more banal conspiracies that really do occur. Oh, and the fact that while Jews are the most popular villains in conspiracy theory, they’re far more likely to be the victims.

What are you saying? Do you believe that the Italian Government actively conspired with Palestinian terrorists in this manner?

Certainly.

In the UK, it was enough of a scandal that we allowed Jihadist groups to organise. But this is far more serious than just not cracking down on Jihadists

Yes; and?

Well, I “don’t think I can reach a considered opinion” on this because, apparently, the Government of a European national allowed terrorists to bring arms into Italy and – apparently according to Cossiga – then allowed them to shoot up Italian Jews in the Great Synagogue in Rome.

I mean, if I believed that this were true – and I would really not like to believe it was true – then it would be a huge scandal, and one of the major outrages of European post war history.

Think of the reaction to the news that there was collusion between the RUC and Loyalist Paramilitaries, which enabled them to kill their enemies in the IRA. This is much more serious than that. It is a European government, facilitating terrorism against its own (Jewish) citizens.

I really, really want to believe that this is not true.

If I were to tell my friends that a former Italian President had claimed that the Italian Government actively assisted the PLO and the PFLP, I’d get the same sort of pitying looks

So?

I really, really want to believe that this is not true

So do I; but that’s hardly the same as saying it definitely isn’t.

“This is much more serious than that. It is a European government, facilitating terrorism against its own (Jewish) citizens. I really, really want to believe that this is not true.”

You are mistaken. They were Zionists, not just Jews.

(Collective European sigh of relief)

you could at least get a proper translation for the Cossiga quotation. does anyone understand this sentence?

I always knew, though not by official documents and information kept from me, Foreign Relations about the existence of an agreement based on ‘don’t harm me and I won’t harm you’ between the Italian Republic and organizations such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the PLO.”

or this one:

Cossiga believes it is entirely possible that the explosion was due to a “work accident” and that explosive materials handled by the Palestinians were responsible for the incident.

I’m not sure the ‘and’ works there at all.

check the sources.

This is the Italian Government. Italians think everything is a conspiracy – and in Italy everything is. So this is probably true. This is a country where football scores are routinely decided in smoke-filled rooms.

The Government will have been keen to be involved in some sort of conspiracy, after all, the Government’s first responsibility is to conspire. Since all the lucrative dodgy dealings will have been snapped up by the French and Russians, the Italians will have been forced to conspire with penniless, second rate co-conspirators like the Pals.

Don’t believe it? My ex lived in Rome for many years. One of her mates was on house arrest for much of that time for possession of, wait for it, plutonium. Yep – he had plutonium in his garage. His papa was just ‘looking after it’ for the mafia.

Bologna though was down to far right elements in the security services trying to blacken the name of the far left. Was someone paid off to allow the anti-Semitic shootings? Sure – the workers union’s would have demanded payoffs for everyone involved! People get paid off to ignore killings all the time in Italy – it’s nothing unusual. How far up would that go? As far up as it could! No-one wants to miss out on a payout further down the chain!

Anna, I was told the same thing by a girl I recently dated. I upset her when I described as ‘horseshit’ her view that there might be something to 9/11 theories. She thought I was rude and narrow-minded. Later, it transpired that she thought that Jews control the media, global finance, and the foreign policy of many governments. She’s felt that such Jewish meddling helped explain, if not justify, the Holocaust.

She would definitely have considered herself anti-racist and ‘progressive’, and thought I was one of those paranoid Jews who cries antisemitism at everything, when I told her that Dieudonné was an antisemite; she was in disbelief when, a couple of days later, it transpired that Le Pen had become godfather to his child.

She’s Jewish, and an otherwise lovely girl.

You are mistaken. They were Zionists, not just Jews.

(Collective European sigh of relief)

That about sums it up, Fabian.

“She’s Jewish, and an otherwise lovely girl.”

That didn’t come out at all right! You know what I meant.

Sharif, after all, thinks it possible that the USA was behind Bologna

No, he says “the CIA”. The fact that the CIA was not following US official policy in Italy during the 1970s and 1980s is not exactly an unknown fact about the period.

Sharif confirms that they operated freely in Italy.

No he doesn’t. Have you read the thing? Even in the Google translation it clearly says that the Moro agreement only extended to small transits and weapons smuggling operations, with pre-information of the Italian secret services, not involving Italians and with a two car escort, and with Sharif liable to be personally executed if the pact was breached. What he specifically says is “Da parte nostra, garantivo anche di evitare imbarazzi al vostro Paese, attacchi che partissero direttamente dal suolo italiano”. Which doesn’t look consistent with what Cossiga said – he claimed that they were allowed to carry out attacks on Italian soil, “operate bases” and so on. Maybe there were very different agreements with the PLO and with the PFLP (and with Abu Nidal?) but I doubt it, not least because Sharif was a principal to these talks and Cossiga heard about it secondhand from Moro.

Basically, I view this consipracy theory as being about as believable as the idea that the Red Cross faked an attack on one of their ambulances, which I cannot help reminding you, you swallowed.

Italians have some very interesting conspiracy theories – my favourite for Venichka and John P :)

http://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/a02tPaulV_Accusations.html

Oniad: I’m reading some stuff about Georgia at the moment: their conspiracy theories put anything Italy (or, yes, even the Papacy) can come up with in the shade

The PFLP and the former President of Italy agreeing that there was an agreement for Palestinian terrorists, not simply to remain unmolested in Italy, but to arms traffic via Italy?

and this one has been known for years; the Italian government also had agreements with Mossad and the CIA that they could capture and assassinate them. Italy’s view (and recall that during this period of Italian history, the Italian right wing was very close to being a wholly owned subsidiary of the CIA) was that they were not involved in the Middle East and that their domestic priority – communists – was all they cared about.

Sorry Ven – it was a cheap shot. But it did have a link to Aldo Moro and a cover up!

Tim Allon
Your not dating Deborah Fink are you?

I’m sorry, but Italy allowing “small transits and weapons smuggling operations”, by Palestinian terrorists, in Italy is a major scandal, Dan.

You don’t agree? What do you think would constitute a scandal?

We know that both a terrorist leader, and a former Italian president agree that there was arms smuggling by Palestinian terrorists in Italy. We also know that there were attacks on Italian Jews by Palestinian terrorists, on Italian soil. Cossiga suggests that those latter attacks were carried out with Italian complicity.

Your point is that Cossiga should simply not be believed, because you think it is part of another plot to create the impression that “terrorism [is] probably the work of nasty Muslims and immigrants”.

But, as a matter of fact, Palestinian terrorists did gun down innocent civilians – Jews, as it happens – in Italy.

You seem entirely chilled about this, we’ve known it all for ages, apparently, nothing to worry about…

As a matter of interest, if it hadn’t been for the Sharif admission, would you have been prepared to accept that Italy had permitted arms smuggling by Palestinian terrorists?

Do you even find that scandalous?

I’m not sure what is the best way to distinguish between conspiracy theory and theories involving conspiracies.

Conspiracy theory usually seems to revolve around “cui bono” analysis and magnification of the importance of small details at the expense of ignoring larger but less specific trends and information.

For example in the 9-11 attacks, the fact that Al Qaeda has been involved in numerous attacks against Western targets, that the nominal “head” of Al Qaeda admitted the attacks and that Al Qaeda had previously attacked the Twin Towers is subsumed to the fact that one of the buildings fell in an at-first-glance odd manner, and that the Bush administration was able to use the event to accomplish one of its goals (the invasion of Iraq).

In this case I guess you would have to look at the fact that Italy is slightly dysfunctional when compared to other Western European states, that it has some extremely corrupt elements in political and general society, and that at least parts of the establishment have colluded in terrorist attacks on its own soil previously, and that collusion with or tacit acceptance of terrorist organisations by Western countries in general (including the UK and the US) is not in anyway unheard of.

So I’m not sure this is a roll of the eyes conspiracy theory. That doesn’t mean it’s true though.

Sorry, you say:

“and this one has been known for years”

I have obviously missed this, but you haven’t. Can you let me know when the Italian Government, or any senior Italian politican, or any senior Palestinian terrorist leader, admitted that arms were trafficed, to Palestinian terrorist groups, with the assistance of the Italian government?

Good to see you on my side, Tim.

I said mea culpa. I meant cui bono. I never studied Latin. It probably shows.

“Gilad Atzmon”: “Good to see you on my side, Tim.”

What on earth can that mean?

Further to what’s been said above, I can believe that the Italian state tolerated gun-running more readily than I can believe the Kremlin was involved with the 1999 flat bombings, but actually conspiring with specific plots? That’s up their with the Kremlin planning Beslan.

One thought, by pinning Bologna on the PLFP, could Cossiga be denying that any Italian, let alone the sort who hang around with the Mayor of Rome, could have been responsible?

An otherwise lovely girl. Despite being Jewish.

Machivelli was Italian after all.

7 October 2008, 11:27 am

“That didn’t come out at all right! You know what I meant.”

Freudian slip.

An otherwise lovely girl, despite holding some crazy, antisemitic conspiracy theories. I’m sure you understood that first time, though, otherwise you wouldn’t feel the need to post under someone else’s name.

My jewish ( and very zionist) uncle was working in WTC at that day , but he had good luck and miraculously survived by fleeing out of the WTC in the LAST minute. No any mossad agents warned neither him nor any other zionist employers ‘not to come to work at the wtc’…

Btw, he’s survived even 1993 WTC-terror attack !

Alec
There are a lot of assassination of political opponents and critics which occur in Russia and go unsolved despite state investigation. Some (Litvinenko/Politskaya for instance) fingered the Russian Govt. and claimed that they were using both the FSB and criminal gangs to execute these murders. Unfortunately for them, one died of polonium poisoning and the other was gunned down in their apartment complex IIRC. Oddly enough, neither crime has been solved.
Don’t agree with the flat bombings/Beslan nonsense though. The Chechens are more than nasty enough to do those.

An otherwise lovely girl, despite holding some crazy, antisemitic conspiracy theories. I’m sure you understood that first time, though, otherwise you wouldn’t feel the need to post under someone else’s name.

-Gilad’s making too much of a poorly phrased comment. Anyways, you couldn’t tell she was Jewish when the lights are off, so don’t worry about it.

I’m sorry, but Italy allowing “small transits and weapons smuggling operations”, by Palestinian terrorists, in Italy is a major scandal,

in the 1970s.

But, as a matter of fact, Palestinian terrorists did gun down innocent civilians – Jews, as it happens – in Italy.

in the 1980s.

As a matter of interest, if it hadn’t been for the Sharif admission, would you have been prepared to accept that Italy had permitted arms smuggling by Palestinian terrorists?

I would have regarded it as possible but not by any means proven, as I still frankly do; the sources here are not particularly good quality.

Your point is that Cossiga should simply not be believed, because you think it is part of another plot to create the impression that “terrorism [is] probably the work of nasty Muslims and immigrants”.

No, I think he should not be believed because he is demonstrably lying about another related issue (the Bologna bombing) in the same interview. It’s called “taking a critical approach to one’s sources”, just like you didn’t do when you embarrassed yourself over the Qana ambulance (I see that the comments on that post didn’t make it to the new servers, hahaha).

You’re taking a completely uncritical view of some very slanted sources (you haven’t even stopped to think that if this happened, it certainly happened with the knowledge and co-operation of the CIA, because Italy didn’t operate an independent secret service in the 1970s) and as a result you’re haring off on another conspiracy quest, coupled with fake incredulity that one interview with a corrupt ex-pol about things that happened twenty years ago isn’t on the evening news in other countries.

Here’s something! The US government used to actively permit the IRA to raise funds! Christheckgoddammit!

Speaking of conspiracy theories, US Green Party presidential candidate has well and truly jumped the shark by claiming there was a mass execution of 5,000 prisoners during Hurricane Katrina:

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=2911

Rather pathetically, despite actual video of her saying this, Green Party Head Yogic Flyer Derek Wall claims in the thread she’s just a “victim of smears” and an “out of context comment”, thus demonstrating that the UK Green Party shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near sharp scissors, never mind government.

P.

more than 500 jews (sorry ‘zionists’) died in 9/11.

http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jan/14-260933.html

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=331277

This is only official numbers.
In fact there was much more jewish victims of 9/11, cuz many jews-’zionists’ have non-jewish names and didnt join any jewish community.

by pinning Bologna on the PLFP, could Cossiga be denying that any Italian, let alone the sort who hang around with the Mayor of Rome, could have been responsible?

this is the strange thing. He can’t possibly be denying this – everyone in the world and his dog not only knows who was responsible for Bologna, but knows that Cossiga knows.

“Speaking of conspiracy theories, US Green Party presidential candidate has well and truly jumped the shark by claiming there was a mass execution of 5,000 prisoners during Hurricane Katrina”

I nearly posted that into a comment thread here, but some things are just too damn easy.

I’ve been told that I am a naive and stupid for believing er… Popular Mechanics account of the collapse of the towers. That I was biased because I’d studied engineering?!? (So, like that’s forethought, Mossad must have planted all the principles behind load bearing beams in textbooks years in advance).

I should say that I wasn’t arguing that the CIA didn’t ignore or even pay the hijackers, all I was arguing against was the “controlled demolition” theory. Apparently I therefore get all my opinions from Fox News. By the way, this was in the street, in London. Can we even get Fox News here? Argument from the internet I feel. Still, the nice man did punch me in the face, so he must have had a point. o_O

I’m sorry, could someone redirect me to the Centre-Left blog Harry’s Place as I seem to have stumbled onto some slaverous zionist love-in site.

Aye, d^2, plus a “work accident” makes it look entirely inadvertent and, even if the Gov’t were providing cover, not something which direct responsibility could be pinned onto. I recall after the IRA Golden Square bomb in 1993, either the BBC or Channel4 ratonalized the bogus directions given in the ‘phone warning as being down to unfamiliarity with the Warrington area.

Six months later the Shankill bomb was, in passing at least, linked to one Red Hand loonie (presumably not one of the two children who died) who’d been boasting about killing a dozen Catholics. Similar explanations were not offered a week later after the Rising Sun shootings.

(Tim, I might as well take my mask off and apologize.)

I write some comments against antisemitism, with one line that could be misconstrued only if taken out of context. Without prompting I clarify that line.

For this I’m accused of antisemitism.

Only “Nearly Oxfordian” has the power to unmask antisemitism that latent. I’m right, amn’t I?

Dsquared

I’ve looked around further, and I don’t think that I’ve seen senior Italian politicians or senior terrorist leaders admit that Italy was used to supply Palestinian terrorists with arms.

I have seen a report on Carlos “the Jackal”, claiming that there was supposed to be a deal to exchange Red Brigades terrorists for Aldo Moro, that involved Palestinian cooperation: but that it had accidentally been scuppered by the PLO. But that isn’t the same thing as an agreement to traffic arms through Italy, with the Government.

I find your attitude towards this quite remarkable. It seems to be, in summary, as follows:

1. “this one has been known for years”

2. Cossiga must have some sort of ‘agenda’ (no? really?!!) which is probably to associate Muslims and Palestinians with terrorism.

3. Cossiga is talking about an agreement to allow Palestinian terrorist groups to bring weapons into Italy in the late 1970s, that couldn’t possibly have had any relation to an attack on the Great Synagogue in 1982

4. Let’s talk about the CIA and Mossad instead!!!

Are you completely unconcerned by the information that both the PFLP and Cossiga agree upon? Apparently, you are.

While we’re at it, you have also claimed, falsely, on Socialist Unity that:

“The habit of the Harry’s Place management of deleting and banning people who were in danger of winning arguments with the management is one of the best known things about the site. ”

(interestingly, I was getting precisely this from a Holocaust Denier, who objected to me closing a thread in which he was laying out his theory)

At the same time, you claim that:

“You could play a decent game of “David Duke or Harry’s Place comment section”.”

… because I don’t delete coments people with whom I disagree.

You know perfectly well what the editorial line of this site is, and that every single one of the contributors fiercely argues against racism directed at cultural minorities.

Yet, here you are, in my comments thread, not being deleted, while you expound your thesis that Italian collusion with Jew-killing terrorists is old news, and that anybody who is concerned about it is silly.

Can you see how you’ve achieved a reputation for being sneering and smug?

Abou Diaby, that would have looked (marginally) less barking mad in a thread actually discussing Israeli policy and not terror attacks on Italians.

I’m wrong. That was obnoxious, Alec. Apology accepted.

Only “Nearly Oxfordian” has the power to unmask antisemitism that latent. I’m right, amn’t I?

Got, I really upset you bad, right?

I see that the comments on that post didn’t make it to the new servers, hahaha

Was your meltdown in the comments on the Lancet report post copied over?

That was a classic.

Which one, Dirigible?

Dirigible?

‘Tim Allon
7 October 2008, 12:09 pm
..I’m sure you understood that first time, though, otherwise you wouldn’t feel the need to post under someone else’s name.’

Who?

anna
Someone poked fun at Tim Allon’s comment about a strange but nice Jewish girl he’s been dating. They used the name Gilad Atzmon to poke fun at him. He objected to this. Show’s over folks, move along…

“Can you see how you’ve achieved a reputation for being sneering and smug?”

And that is just among the people who like him.

I mean, I hate to harp on about this, but according to Dsquared, the fact that there was an agreement for Palestinian terrorists, not simply to remain unmolested in Italy, but to arms traffic via Italy:

“has been known for years”

Can somebody please direct me to such an admission having been made by senior and authoritative Italian or Palestinian figures.

David
What neither you nor Ami mention is that Cossiga has admitted his involvement with setting up Gladio, which is implicated with a number of false flag operations on Italian soil. He might well have a strong vested interest on muddying the waters on this topic.
Citing the El Al murders as evidence of some conspiracy with the PLO is a little disingenuous, since they were carried out by the Abu Nidal organisation which generally devoted far more of its energies to killing PLO members than it ever did to Jews.

Don’t we have Lenin to blame for the Conspiracy Theory?

Look for those that benefit and viola….. despite any and all other evidence right in front of your face.

Thank you, Mike S: that’s precisely what I was wondering about with his diverting attention from homegrown Italian terrorists.

Mike S

But what we do appear to know, is that both Sharif and Cossiga say that Palestinian terrorists were allowed to traffic armaments through Italy.

Cossiga may have all sorts of reasons for spinning theories about the subsequent relationship between the Italian state and Palestinian terrorism. However, he claims to have direct knowledge of this:

“During my time as interior minister I learned that PLO people were holding heavy artillery in their homes and protected by diplomatic immunity as representatives of the Arab League. I was told not to worry and I managed to convince them to lay down their heavy artillery and make do with light weaponry”

The spokesman for the PFLP says:

(”There was an understanding with the Popular Front, you could carry weapons and explosives, in exchange for ensuring immunity from attack?)

“I personally followed the negotiations for the agreement. Aldo Moro was a great man, a true patriot. He wanted to save some headaches. I’ve never met. We discussed the details with an admiral, people of the secret services, and Stefano Giovannone (Chief of Sid and SISMI in Beirut, ndr). Meeting in Rome and in Lebanon. The agreement was adopted and since then we have always respected. ”
….
“There was allowed to organize small transits, passages, purely Palestinian, without involving Italians. We had to inform the appropriate people: we are carrying A, B, C. .. After the pact, each time I was in Rome, two car escort waiting for me to protect myself. For our part, guaranteed to avoid embarrassment to your country, attacks that leave directly from Italian soil. ”

If Carlos “the Jackal is to be believed, it certainly looks as if there were at least open channels of communication with the the PLO which were leveraged in the late 1970s in order, abortively, to free Aldo Moro.

However, what appears to be pretty clear is that Palestinian terrorist groups brought arms into Italy in the 1970s, with the direct collusion of senior members of the Italian government.

Then, in 1982, the PLO shot up ordinary Italian Jews in a synagogue in Rome.

Would you guys like a separate thread to discuss Chechenya on?

I’m very happy to take all of your discussion on this issue and put it into another thread.

Let me know if you’re prepared to let me do that.

Sorry David for the digression.
No need for a new thread, I think our discussion is finalised.

David, if you’re asking for information about Italy in the 1970s but you don’t want to discuss the CIA, then good luck, but you’re bound to end up as ignorant as when you started. Which is apparently ignorant enough not to know about the safe-conducts granted all over Europe to Palestinian terrorists during the Cold War, discussed at length in the Mitrokhin archive.

OK, I’m putting it here:

http://www.hurryupharry.org/2005/10/07/a-thread-for-alex-and-oniad-to-discuss-chechenya/

It was *vaguely* linked, David. Conspiracy theories an’ all that. But, it’s finished.

I’m aware of the Mitrokhin allegations about the USSR’s corruption of senior Italian figures, and the complicity of the KGB in promoting Palestinian terrorism.

You may have a deeper knowledge of Mitrokhin than I do, and if so, you’ll be able to answer this question:

To your knowledge, has a senior Palestinian terrorist, and a senior Italian Government minister, ever previously admitted that Italy facilitated the trafficing of arms by Palestinian terrorists through Italy?

Yes? No?

Sadly, Cossiga’s revelations are very easy to believe.

The main thrust, that Italian authorities permitted a limited level of Palestinian (and, for that matter, other) terrorist activity on their soil is unremarkable, and I expect it was replicated in many other West European countries during the 1970s and 1980s. I am hardly alone in suspecting this; for instance, from just one of the books on my shelf, in a section describing an episode in which the Italian government accepted Libyan denials of involvement in the murder by Palestinian terrorists of 31 passengers on a Pan Am airliner at Rome airport in 1973:

The Italian government was behaving no differently from its European allies at the time. Throughout the decade, nearly all Western governments chose to consider ugly episodes like these as spillovers of an Arab-Israeli conflict that was essentially none of their business. Live-and-let-live understandings were reached with Colonel Qaddafi and Palestinian leaders in the Middle East, by France, West Germany, Great Britain, and Italy, in effect assuring immunity for Palestinian hit-men. (A survey by the Israel Information Center in the mid-seventies showed that of 204 Palestinians arrested for terrorist acts outside the Middle East between 1968 and 1975, only three were in jail by 1975.)

[Aldo] Moro himself would one day describe the bargain he made. In regard to terrorist acts on Italian soile, he wrote, “Liberty (with expatriation) was conceded to Palestinians, to avoid grave risks of reprisals. Not once, but many times, detained Palestinians were released by various mechanisms. The principle was accepted… The necessity of straining formal legality was recognised…” He went on to reveal that an Italian secret-service agent, Colonel Stefano Giovannone, was actually sent to negotiate the terms in Lebanon – where he stays on to this day. (Claire Sterling: ‘The Terror Network’, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1981)

Agreements such as this have been commonplace in European governments’ dealings with terrorists – eg the Londonistan era – but have usually been accompanied by a promise not to carry out attacks in the country in question. However, it is not too big a step for this line to be crossed, especially in a country with politics as fractious, murky and corrupt as Italy in the 1970s and 1980s.

Nor is it out of the question that individuals, factions, cliques or – who knows – whole organisations in the security and intelligence establishment could collude in such attacks. For instance, the Bologna bombing is generally accepted to have been carried out by Italian fascists linked to, or part of, the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei (NAR). In December 1895 Bologna magistrates issued arrest warrants for 16 people in connection with the bombing; these included three former heads of the Italian Intelligence and Military Security Service (SISMI) and the head of the P2 Masonic lodge. You can add in the fact that Italian fascists and Red Brigadists were both trained in Libyan terrorist training camps. As somebody commented above, there are conspiracy theories, and there are theories that involve conspiracies.

In other words, it is difficult to know which of Cossiga’s claims is true, and which is not (with the exception of the 9/11 stuff, obviously), because it is all possible, but he is pretty unreliable as a source.

David
I think where your original post falls down is that it paints Cossiga as a disinterested actor in proceedings whereas he was up to his neck in Gladio (indeed I believe there were calls for his impeachment by his fellow parliamentarians), and there are allegations (and not wild, baseless ones) that Gladio was up to its neck in what happened at Bologna. It might be interesting to look at Bologna in the context of the Munich Oktoberfest bombing in 1980, (where there was also some evidence of Gladio links).

You also omit to mention that there is a member of NAR in prison for the Bologna attacks, whose conviction has been held up by two courts.

“Then, in 1982, the PLO shot up ordinary Italian Jews in a synagogue in Rome.”
Again, all the literature I’ve seen on this disgusting attack pegs it as the work of Abu Nidal, unless you’ve seen anything different?

BTW Abu Nidal wouldn’t have needed the consent of the Italian Government to move weapons around. They would have gone via Iraqi and latterly Libyan diplomatic bags.

David,

while it is true that the Italian government has, well, looked the other way more than once where Palestinian terrorists were involved (but no more than the British government, all in all, if we exclude the Achille Lauro/Abu Abbas affair), the involvement of the Italian far right (Ordine Nuovo and all its splinter groups) in the Bologna massacre is well known and documented. It is also a well known fact that in the current climate many people are trying to rehabilitate those far right groups, since many of their members now sit in Parliament or even in the government – so there is a concerted attempt to shift the blame for a vast number of Fascist atrocities onto other targets: anarchists, Palestinians, you name it. Finally, Cossiga is well known for making outlandish statements, as well as for being a very useful tool for those same far-right groups since before he became President.

So: yes, the Italian government has protected Palestinian terrorists in the past – this is accepted as a fact, and approved of, by at least part of the Italian press and public opinion; but no, the Bologna massacre had nothing to do with it, and I do not believe (nor does anyone else, not even Cossiga) that any Italian government actively cooperated with or facilitated specific acts of terrorism performed by Palestinian terrorists – the terrorists at the Fiumicino airport, by the way, were not all killed by the El Al security people: at least one or two were killed by Carabinieri

You’re right. Abu Nidal is usually said to have been responsible for Rome.

I certainly wouldn’t hold up Cossaga as a “disinterested actor in proceedings” by any means.

I wasn’t aware of how extensive passive collusion by European governments with Palestinian terrorism in the 1970s and 80s was.

I’m still shocked that this collusion took the form of facilitating arms smuggling by Palestinian terrorists.

If this is what happened, then … I’m not sure really what… I mean, Jews were basically set up for murder by European governments.

Or is that going too far?

When are you coming home, David?

Sorry, I couldn’t help it.
But since you have around friends so very concerned about anti-Jewish terror like Mike S. and DSquared, I thought you might like to live in a country where those people are not part of your national blogosphere.

I mean, Jews were basically set up for murder by European governments

Specifically, although you have apparently ruled this out of bounds for discussion, Jews (among others) were set up for murder by an Italian government which was to a shocking degree under the control of the Central Intelligence Agency, whose priority during the period was to harass and murder Communists, and which was prepared to sacrifice more or less all other objectives to this aim.

dsquared

But have I misunderstood the Mitrokhin allegations? That’s what you referred to earlier?

Weren’t they about the KGB running sympathetic Italian politicians as agents, and the KGB’s role in promoting Palestinian terrorism?

What has this got to do with the CIA’s role in harassing Communists?

PS: To your knowledge, has a senior Palestinian terrorist, and a senior Italian Government minister, ever previously admitted that Italy facilitated the trafficing of arms by Palestinian terrorists through Italy?

There is nothing to see. Killing Jews was just something people did and governments helped in the Cold War. It was really nothing.
Just like in the Second World War.
Don’t make such a fuss.
Here, have a bone, they killed Communists too!

Just re-rereading the source material, more holes…
“Then there was the hijacking of the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro off the Egyptian coast in October 1985. Palestinian terrorists led by Abu Abbas commandeered the ship.”
The PLF terrorist were members of a group led by Abbas. But he wasn’t one of the hijackers. His presence there was because he was sent by a reputedly livid Arafat to negotiate their surrender.
“The Italians refused to permit the Americans to take the hijackers into custody and freed Abbas. The Italians cast the standoff as a victory against American bullies. But it really amounted to a surrender to Palestinian murderers.”
Italy put the hijackers on trial and sent them to prison. Abbas was reputedly a particularly unpleasant piece of work even by the not especially lofty standards of Palestinian terror groups, and his role in the affair was probably dirtier than a negotiator, but it’s misleading to describe him as the “leader of the hijackers”.
In any case the US got their man, when they picked him up in Iraq after the invasion and he died in their custody.

“The PLF terrorist were members of a group led by Abbas. But he wasn’t one of the hijackers. His presence there was because he was sent by a reputedly livid Arafat to negotiate their surrender.”

I can’t find a source for this. According to this, he was the mastermind.
http://palestinefacts.org/pf_1967to1991_achille_lauro.php
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/15/sprj.irq.abbas.arrested/

In fact, I think that Mike S. is trying to continue the old cover up of Arafat’s involvement in the affair.

Mike S., was Arafat a friend of yours?
It looks like.

Of course, in the previous messages that was me.

I mentioned the Mitrokhin Archives because that was where I first read that Palestinian terrorists got safe conducts around Europe – the KGB sponsored the PFLP. But as you can see above, it was pretty common knowledge that this sort of thing happened in the Cold War. I don’t know whether any senior Italian politician has confirmed it before, but whether they had or they hadn’t, it was well sourced and well known; after all, for a very long time, no senior British politician would confirm the existence of MI6! No senior American political figure has yet admitted that they lied about Iraqi WMD, but when one does I won’t be hugely surprised.

The point about the CIA is not difficult to understand. First, that any statement about Italian secret services in the 1970s is misleading if it doesn’t mention the role of the CIA. And second, that the various free passes given to various types of Palestinian terrorists during the 1970s has to be seen in the context of the Cold War; terrorism in the Middle East was another of the secondary theatres, and terrorist groups were used by both sides as useful catspaws. For example, our side might have wanted to avoid harassing a PLFP cell because they hoped they would lead them to their KGB contact – or indeed, might allow them to get away with murders or kidnappings because they knew there was a KGB agent with them and they thought it would be a bad time for the ensuing diplomatic incident. Again, this is pretty well known.

You might or might not find this to be cynical and/or disgusting – most people do in fact find the work of the secret services to be extremely morally compromised, which is why so few people, apparently including you, choose not to look into it too closely. But it happened and is part of the history of the period.

If Cossiga’s claims (that the Italian government of which he was part allowed the PLO to carry out attacks) were true, then that would be quite a big revelation – it would indicate that the safe conducts given to Palestinian terrorists were much greater than we’d previously believed. But I don’t find them credible.

Ahhh, good to see that the idiot impersonating me was just Fabian; I had been worried that it might have been someone I took seriously.

I can’t find a source for this. According to this, he was the mastermind.

Maybe true but Israel allowed him into the Gaza Strip to vote in Palestian elections because he supported Oslo.

The US still wanted him for the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, though. And after being detained in Iraq he…fell down the stairs or something.

Fabian
This is a slightly more comprehensive account of the incident.
To reiterate: Abbas was a thug, and quite possibly the mastermind of the incident, but he wasn’t one of the hijackers. I’m sceptical of any claims of Arafat’s involvement in the incident. There’s no evidence, he had nothing to gain from it, and it in fact scuppered one of his many attempts to woo the US Government.

Oops, forgot to paste
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A730900

Dan

So, in summary, what you’re saying is this:

1. This may well be the first time that it has been confirmed that the Italian Government facilitated the trafficing of arms through Italy by Palestinian terrorist groups.

2. We shouldn’t be surprised by the fact that the Italians were doing this because the Russians sponsored Palestinian terrorism.

3. However, it is more important that we concentrate on the CIA’s role. That might explain why the Italian Government was assisting Palestinian terrorist groups too.

4. You believe that possible reasons are:

(a) That the Italian Government was hoping to cultivate the PFLP in order to unmask a KGB spy in their midst!

(b) That the Italian Government were trying NOT to unmask a KGB spy.

I see.

Isn’t it more likely, as Dave Rich suggests, that the Italian Government was running a “Londonistan” policy?

(Isn’t it also possible that this had nothing to do with the CIA at all?)

“Isn’t it also possible that this had nothing to do with the CIA at all?”

The very thought! Still, it is encouraging that nobody has yet suggested that the Italian government was working for Mossad (you know, supporting PLO terrorism in order to justify oppression of Palestinians, tghat sort of thing). Plenty of time for that, though.

David T, I think that point 2 in your summary of dsquared’s little smokebombs is more coherent than is justified. A better version, I think, would be:

2. We shouldn’t be surprised by the fact that the Italians were doing this because the Russians sponsored Palestinian terrorism and the CIA controlled the Italian government.

Sorry.

I think that this whole article is a joke.

Goodbye.

“Maybe true but Israel allowed him into the Gaza Strip to vote in Palestian elections because he supported Oslo.”

Maybe true, but bla bla bla unga unga unga…

David T:
But have I misunderstood the Mitrokhin allegations?

I think so.

Weren’t they about the KGB running sympathetic Italian politicians as agents,

Looking through the Mitrokhin archive, every allegation concerning KGB agents in Italy, refers to civil servants rather than politicians. And while there was an attempt to implicate Prodi a few years ago (which Mitrokhin completely disavowed), I don’t think any suspicion of KGB activity has fallen on the man Cossiga claims was responsible for beginning this alleged accord with Palestinian organisations – Aldo Moro. Of the agents mentioned by Mitrokhin, those still active in the mid-1970s don’t sound like they could have influenced such a policy. They mostly appear to be cypher clerks – so if this collusion was taking place, they may well have leaked information on it to the KGB.

and the KGB’s role in promoting Palestinian terrorism?

There is certainly mention of that – but at no point is it linked to Italy, or any European country as far as I can see (at least, not in the first volume – are you and dsquared referring to allegations in the second volume?). The only KGB operation to supply arms to the PFLP mentioned in Mitrokhin I, involved a submarine taking them from Vladivostok to Aden.

What has this got to do with the CIA’s role in harassing Communists?

I can’t see any direct link, but (again, if Cossiga is telling the truth), then Moro set up and Cossiga himself supported this collusion between the Italian government and Palestinian terrorists – and both have been accused of (and Cossiga has claimed) involvement in the creation of Gladio. Perhaps both relationships, with the CIA and with the PFLP, could be seen as advantageous to Italian nationalists.

PS: To your knowledge, has a senior Palestinian terrorist, and a senior Italian Government minister, ever previously admitted that Italy facilitated the trafficing of arms by Palestinian terrorists through Italy?

I think we should be clear what we’re talking about here. If I understand Cossiga correctly and he is telling the truth, then members of Palestinian organisations were resident in Italy and were trafficking arms and explosives around the country with impunity. They were able to do this thanks to an arrangement with Italian PM Aldo Moro. Cossiga learnt of this during his time as Foreign Minister under Moro’s successor, and proceeded to convince the Palestinians that they didn’t need to be so heavily armed in Italy but did nothing else about it. When Cossiga in turn became PM, he did nothing to alter the arrangement – not even after the Bologna bombing, which he apparently believes may have been accidentally caused by these Palestinians, and which occured in the middle of his own premiership.

Surely at that point, after Bologna, he’s going to ask himself “is this really still in our national interest?” and conclude resoundingly that it isn’t. But apparently not. Nor did he try to do anything – did he even reveal the deal – when he became President, despite apparently knowing that the Italian government had degenerated to (again, if he’s telling the truth) effectively colluding in Palestinian attacks, including the El Al attack in Rome which occured six months into his Presidency. So, if this all happened, he was in it up to his eyeballs – it happened, serially, on his watch and with his own collusion, and he’s kept it secret for over thirty years. That would be quite an admission. I’m inclined to think he’s a nutcase.

1. This may well be the first time that it has been confirmed that the Italian Government facilitated the trafficing of arms through Italy by Palestinian terrorist groups

Absolutely not. As I believe I’ve said once or twice, it hasn’t been confirmed. The unsupported word of Cossiga isn’t “confirmation” of anything and given the definite lie he tells about Bologna alongside it, it adds very little weight to anything at all.

2. We shouldn’t be surprised by the fact that the Italians were doing this because the Russians sponsored Palestinian terrorism.

No, we shouldn’t be surprised by the fact that the Italians were doing this, because we knew already that governments all over Europe did it.

3. However, it is more important that we concentrate on the CIA’s role. That might explain why the Italian Government was assisting Palestinian terrorist groups too.

Well, the Italian government was a client of the CIA, not the KGB, so in that sense yes. But my real point is that you have to look at the whole system, and you *can’t* ignore the existence of Operation Gladio when you’re writing about things that the Italian secret services did in the 1970s.

4. You believe that possible reasons are:

there are a zillion possible reasons why the Italian secret service might have done this, including the one that Sharif suggested – the hope that a terrorist attack might be carried out that could be blamed on Communists. I don’t propose to spend a lot of time on making guesses about what intelligence services were intending which can never be confirmed or falsified. The central historical fact is that there was a “strategy of tension” in operation at the time; the CIA/Italian intelligence/P2/rightwing network of organisations and people believed that it was in their interests for Italian (and more generally, European) society to be a little bit less safe, and in particular to be scared of Reds.

Isn’t it more likely, as Dave Rich suggests, that the Italian Government was running a “Londonistan” policy?

That’s certainly possible. But given that the Italian government was intentionally allowing and fostering terrorist attacks from fascist militias, it’s not quite so obvious that they would be trying to reduce violence from other groups as it was in the case of Londonistan.

(Isn’t it also possible that this had nothing to do with the CIA at all?)

No. That’s the one thing that isn’t possible.

1. Is Sharif lying? If so, is he lying to boster Cossiga? Why would he do that? Or are the lies fortuitous and indepedent?

“(”There was an understanding with the Popular Front, you could carry weapons and explosives, in exchange for ensuring immunity from attack?)

“I personally followed the negotiations for the agreement. Aldo Moro was a great man, a true patriot. He wanted to save some headaches. I’ve never met. We discussed the details with an admiral, people of the secret services, and Stefano Giovannone (Chief of Sid and SISMI in Beirut, ndr). Meeting in Rome and in Lebanon. The agreement was adopted and since then we have always respected. ””

2. ” we knew already that governments all over Europe did it.”.

Did what? Facilitated arms trafficing by the PLO and PFLP?

Which governments? Apart from the USSR, that is.

4. So you think that the Italian government, as the client of the CIA, was helping Palestinian terrorists traffic arms through Europe, for all sorts of reasons, all of which were to do with the CIA.

Right.

Thanks Dan!

David, are you making a distinction between the Italian state and the Italian secret service here? I think you’re not, which is part of the reason you’re confused. Since we’ve pretty much abundantly established that you don’t know very much about the anni di piombo, and your means of finding out seems to involve being rude to people who are trying to inform you, why don’t you just go back to being ignorant and spend your time on something else. Isn’t there anything in the Guardian to complain about this week or something?

By his last comment, I would say that dsquared has lost completely the argument and is reduced to ad hominem.

“isn’t there anything in the Guardian to complain about this week..”

well, if David T is busy I’m sure I can find something.

I’m very confused, really, by your argument.

You started off by telling me that I shouldn’t be surprised to find out that Aldo Moro had facilitated arms trafficing by Palestinian terrorist groups, and that my shock illustrated that I wasn’t familiar with the Mitrokhin files.

You then claimed that “governments all over Europe” were “doing it”.

I asked you what relevance the Mitrokhin files relating to KGB activities in Europe and support for Palestinian terrorism had to do with Aldo Moro, and which governments all over Europe had been facilitating arms trafficing by Palestinian terrorists.

You then explained to me that, actually, you weren’t talking about the Mitrokhin files at all, but that it was inconceivable that Aldo Moro could have agreed to the trafficing of arms without it being part of a CIA scheme.

When I asked you what you thought might induce Moro to behave in such a fashion, you opined that “there are a zillion possible reasons why the Italian secret service might have done this”.

You’ll forgive me if I’m finding your explanation a little obscure and difficult to follow.

However, I appreciate that as you’re such a prodigiously clever fellow, it is most improper for me to question you further on this matter.

Thank you for your patience.

Fabian, you are in a particularly poor position to make any comments about ad hominem, given your own rather embarrassing use of a sockpuppet identity to make an accusation of anti-Semitism above.

The fact that David doesn’t know very much about Italian politics in the 1970s isn’t controversial – he wrote it in the post. The fact that he’s being rude when people try to inform him is also clear from the thread. There’s no question of me arguing about these things – they’re facts.

David seems to believe that Cossiga is telling the truth. I don’t; what he’s saying is unlikely on the face of it, he has a clear reason to lie, and where his statements are checkable, they are not consistent with the other available evidence. David thinks that Sharif’s interview supports Cossiga, but it doesn’t – it’s only evidence that there existence a sort of truce between the Italian government and the PFLP which was very common in Europe in the 1970s. I think David has accepted this point, but sometimes it appears that he’s really surprised to discover it – whether or not, it’s pretty well known to people who know a bit about the subject, as several other commentators have pointed out.

On the other hand, my point about the CIA is being mocked by David as a strange loony conspiracy theory, when the existence of Operation Gladio and its importance in Italy is extraordinarily well corroborated by dozens of publicly available sources. I think it’s really weird that, whenever I raise this subject, David decides to get sarcastic, even though he’s as good as admitted that this is a subject where he doesn’t know very much.

“Fabian, you are in a particularly poor position to make any comments about ad hominem, given your own rather embarrassing use of a sockpuppet identity to make an accusation of anti-Semitism above.”

dsquared, you are such a web-illiterate. I have used a sock puppet to take the piss from your offensive comments about the Jews, but I have never hidden that it was me. That is why “shorter dsquared” still linked to my blog.
Do I have to explain it all to you?

Having searched various strings on google, this is all I could find of relevance:

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/7436

The authorities have also been at work. Franco Piperno was arrested in Paris on August 17, 1979, and extradited to Italy on October 17 to stand trial for the murder of Aldo Moro. In early November Daniele Pifano, the leader of a Rome Autonomist group, was apprehended along with two companions in possession of two Russian-made ground-to-air missile launchers. Pifano claims he was only transporting the weapons through Italy for consignment to the PLO.

Does the Sharif interview not support Cossiga?

Cossiga says that Moro promoted an agreement with the PFLP, which allowed them to traffic weapons in Italy, unmolested.

Sharif is asked whether there was an agreement that they “could carry weapons and explosives, in exchange for ensuring immunity from attack?” His answer is that there was such an agreement, and states “Aldo Moro was a great man, a true patriot. He wanted to save some headaches”

Now, what exactly is the difference between Cossiga and Sharif?

David, if you’re interested in finding out about this subject, then please say so and I’ll explain. Alternatively, read this thread again, particularly the excellent contributions from Mike S, Dave Rich and Eugenio, and make up your own mind; not all of them agree with me but they’re all reasonably well informed.

If you just want to sneer at me and flail around until you can find some excuse to say “ha! gotcha!” and pose for the impersonators, trolls and nuts who constitute your comments section, then go ahead, but a) don’t expect me to take much part in helping you and b) please stop deleting comments, since you have actually accused me of lying about this subject and I think it’s really rather blatant of you to delete comments other people made responding to that post.

On your specific question, which I am (probably against my own best interests) treating as being in good faith:

You are confused because you seem to think I have agreed that there is any evidence that the Italian government under Moro facilitated arms trafficking. I actually don’t believe this because the only evidence for it is Cossiga, who I think is lying, and Sharif, who I think might be lying, and who in any case doesn’t support Cossiga on the important points.

What I believe happened is that the Italian government, like every other government in Europe, was in the habit of negotiating armed truces and safe passage agreements with Palestinian terrorists. I first read this in the Mitrokhin files, but it’s pretty commonplace – Dave, Mike and Eugenio all apparently came across it from different sources. I brought up the Mitrokhin files because I thought (apparently erroneously) that you’d be able to use “Search inside” to see what I meant.

It is certainly inconceivable that the Italian secret service would have made a decision like this without the co-operation of the CIA, because the Italian secret service didn’t do anything without the co-operation of the CIA during that period.

If that’s still confusing, then I’m afraid you’re going to have to show some evidence of good faith before I try again.

Here is a link to a Wikipedia article were similar accusations against the west-German government have been raised in the context of the Munich massacre:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_massacre#Aftermath

The specific paragraph appears in the aftermath part

On October 29, hijackers of a German Lufthansa passenger jet demanded the release of the three surviving terrorists, who had been arrested after the Fürstenfeldbruck gunfight and were being held for trial. Safady and the Al-Gasheys were immediately released by Germany, receiving a tumultuous welcome when they touched down in Libya and giving their own firsthand account of their operation at a press conference broadcast worldwide. In both ESPN/ABC’s documentary The Tragedy of the Munich Games and in Kevin Macdonald’s Academy Award-winning documentary One Day in September, it is claimed that the whole Lufthansa hijacking episode was a sham, concocted by the West Germans and Black September so that the Germans could be rid of the three Munich perpetrators. The view is that the Germans were fearful that their mishandling of the rescue attempt would be exposed to the world if the three Fürstenfeldbruck survivors had ever stood trial.

it transpired that she thought that Jews control the media, global finance, and the foreign policy of many governments. She’s felt that such Jewish meddling helped explain, if not justify, the Holocaust.
… an otherwise lovely girl.

An antisemitic idiot. Otherwise, quite intelligent and even loves dogs, I am sure.

For this I’m accused of antisemitism.

Only “Nearly Oxfordian” has the power to unmask antisemitism that latent.

I could answer that if I had the slightest idea what you are ranting about.

Ahhh, good to see that the idiot impersonating me was just Fabian; I had been worried that it might have been someone I took seriously

Calling Fabian of all people an idiot is simply yet more proof, if any were remotely needed, that you are a brain-dead asshole.

Do you shout at people at bus-stops too?

Here is a link to an 24/08/08 article in “Makor Rishon” which is a right wing publication in Hebrew.

http://www.makor1.co.il/makor/Article.faces;jsessionid=3edb07f230d5f12e0bea57964a49a5febc61516758bc.e34Mc3aTbNiTby0LaxmNbxqRchmMe0?articleId=33749&channel=1&subchannel=2

The author is Meir Uziel, who had been the manager of the Jewish agency in Italy between 86-89. Uziel quotes an article of Cossiga in Corierre della Sera saying the same things he said to Yediot Achronot. According to Uziel (who quotes someone named Reivman) he is saying that since 2004, and nobody in Italy cares. Perhaps nobody really believes him.

Uziel quotes a senior Mossad agent who told him that he does not believe that the Italians had approved the PLO to hold huge arsenal of
weaponry (definitely not heavy artillery), but he believes that they allowed them a certain amount of freedom, in return for safety for Italian citizens. Back in August Cossiga did not say this, and the story about an agreement which allowed the attack on a Jewish synagogue isn’t mentioned. In my opinion it appears to be a hoax – these Jews were Italian citizens and it is very unlikely that someone has agreed to abandon their safety.

It was not only the Italian government that was involved. Someone mentioned above that the C.I.A. were often working independently of the U.S. government; the Italian government had even less control of their own intelligence services- which included neo-fascists- and possibly palaeo-fascists- and their policies. It’s been suggested that there was involvement in or knowledge of the Bologna bombing by elements of the Italian intelligence services, but what kind and at what level is disputed.
Given the turnover of Italian P.M.s, how far were policies determined by the intelligence services and presented to the politicians? How far were the policies presented to the politicians laundered compared with the actual policies put into practise?

Do you always mumble nonsense to yourself, Mike S?

If I recall correctly, in the early 1970s, the Italian Govt. dissolved the Military Intelligence Service (SIM) because its commander and senior officers were plotting to overthrow the Italian Republic in favor of a military junta like that of the Greek Colonels. Given that and, as Roger stated, the frequent turnover of Italian Govts, it is likely that the control of Italian politicians over Italian Intelligence Agencies were, and perhaps are, more nominal then real.

Note: the CIA does NOT operate independently of the US Govt. CIA may undertake operations that contradict the Public position of the US Govt., but in support of Secret US Govt. objectives.

2nd Note: Gladio was, I believe, the name of the short sword carried by Roman Legionaires to be used in hand-to-hand combat. It was also used by Roman assasains including the Conspirators led by Crassius and Brutus who murdered Julius Caesar in the Roman Senate. (And we think modern day politics are nasty!)

“Note: the CIA does NOT operate independently of the US Govt. CIA may undertake operations that contradict the Public position of the US Govt., but in support of Secret US Govt. objectives.”
Sorry, I should have said that C.I.A. members have operated independently of the U.S. government. They have also undertaken operations that actively damaged the U.S. government in the long term as well as contradicting its public position, so there’s ne reason to think they were fulfilling any US government objectives, unless “Secret US Govt.” refers to a secret U.S. government rather than the open U.S. government’s secret objectives.

Nearly Oxfordian, I look forward to the day when you come onto this blog, and advance a substantive point, or even say something humorous, rather than just chuck around insults at anyone who doesn’t share your worldview. I fear that day isn’t imminent.
Have a lovely morning.

Mike S screeches about me:
you really are the biggest tosser ever to have posted here

Mike S screeches about me:
when you come onto this blog, and advance a substantive point, … rather than just chuck around insults at anyone who doesn’t share your worldview

Shame you don’t have mirrors in your house.