To some it may seem that the author has taken slight leave of his senses; that in obsessive pursuance of now obscure events of mere historical relevance he evidences a strange and incurable critical distemper. Certainly, judging by the mass amnesia - even amongst so-called 'progressives' - for these events, such a diagnosis appears well-nigh unassailable.
But for those who (to quote 'V') 'see what I see' then the entire slew of major terrorist attacks starting with 9/11 and continuing on through with those in Bali in 2002, Istanbul in 2003, Madrid in 2004,
© Nick Kollerstrom
London in 2005 and Mumbai in 2006...and beyond,
can be, indeed must be, viewed in the light of 'false flag' terrorism. By which we mean, of course,
state terrorism in the service of supporting both US / NATO imperialism abroad, and oligarchic social control and para-fascism at home.
The thesis, then, (and to make it explicit) animating these extended forays into the obscure bowels of mere history, is that
false-flag terrorism, far from being some fevered figment of the paranoid political imagination (as so tendentiously characterized by the establishment), or even just an isolated, irrelevant tactical ploy that simply distracts from more 'substantive', more strategic, political happenings (as portrayed by many leading progressive pundits),
is, in truth, systemic in nature. As such, it is a highly effective pillar of elite policy that is deployed with depressing regularity and with depressingly predictable consequences. It is a time honoured, well-honed tool solidly situated in the political kitbag of every imperial and fascist state. What's more, as Kevin Barrett forthrightly opines in his introduction to
Terror On The Tube:
'In the end, the reader of this book will understand that the post-Cold War West is being terrorized not by Muslims, but by the Western state apparatus itself. This is hardly surprising, since we know that it was NATO (under command by the Pentagon) that was carrying out the worst "terrorist attacks" against Europeans during the Cold War, which we now remember as 'Gladio'.'
Comment: See also: