Michael Ledeen and fascist false-flag terror

[Minstrel Boy]

You know Michael Ledeen: arguably Washington's most influential neoconservative. Resident scholar of the senior neocon think tank, the American Enterprise Institute; regarded by keepers of the official story as one of the world's leading authorities on intelligence, counter-intelligence and international affairs. Ledeen is one of the leading champions of the "War on Terror."

Have you heard of Italy's "Strategy of Tension"? It was a campaign of false-flag terrorism in the late 1970s, waged by fascist groups which enjoyed CIA sponsorship - the Gladio Brigades and Licio Gelli's P2 Lodge - with aid of the Mafia and the connivance of elements of the Italian state. Its purpose was to discredit the increasingly popular Communist Party, and to ensure it would not take power, by staging terrorist acts in the name of the Left. The campaign culminated in the Bologna train station bombing of 1980.

Now, do you know where Michael Ledeen was during the Strategy of Tension, and what he was doing, and with whom he was consorting?

"...terrorism has been Ledeen's bread and butter since at least the late 1970s, when he consulted for Italian military intelligence."
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8249

From Asia Times:

"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.

"Over the next several years, Ledeen used his position as consultant to Haig, the Pentagon and the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan to boost the notion of a global terrorist conspiracy based in the Kremlin, whose KGB pulled the strings of all of the world's key terrorist groups, especially in the Middle East."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EF26Ak03.html

"In 1980 he entered into a collaboration with Francesco Pazienza, an agent of the Italian secret service (SISMI) and a member of Rome's extreme right-wing Masonic Lodge, P2 (Propaganda Due), headed by the fascist Licio Gelli. In an Italian criminal court in 1985, Pazienza was judged guilty of political manipulation, forgery, and the protection of criminals and terrorists, among other offenses. Indeed, according to the findings of the court, Pazienza falsified information about the Bologna bombing in order to divert attention away from the real (right-wing) terrorists who had staged the attack."
(excerpt from Herman/O'Sullivan's The "Terrorism" Industry, 1989, quoted http://billmon.org/archives/000653.html).

From Barbara Honegger's October Surprise, more on Ledeen and P2:

"When the Italian police raided (P2 Lodge founder) Gelli's home in March 1981, it was Michael Ledeen who, at the instigation of Alexander Haig and Henry Kissinger, offered to buy the list of 953 P2 members in an apparent attempt to keep it from becoming public. Henry Kissinger had also reportedly sent Ledeen to Italy to try to squash an investigation into his and Haig's involvement in the founding of P2.

"On the morning of August 2, 1980, a massive bomb since linked to Gelli...exploded in the waiting room of the central train station in Bologna, killing 81 people and injuring 200 others. General Santorito, the chief of Italy's military intelligence agency, SISMI, who was also reportedly a member of P2, testified in the wake of the bombing that it had been planned by the British-Swiss-American Montecarlo Comite, P2's "sister" organization based in Monaco. When P2 had come under increasing scrutiny in 1979, grandmaster Licio Gelli had reportedly made his base of operations the Montecarlo Comite.... Not surprisingly, reported members of the Montecarlo Comite are Gelli, Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig and Michael Ledeen."

Now, here are Ledeen's own words, on a leadership trait he admires (from his book, Universal Fascism):

"In order to achieve the most noble accomplishments, the leader may have to 'enter into evil.' This is the chilling insight that has made Machiavelli so feared, admired and challenging... we are rotten.... It’s true that we can achieve greatness if, and only if, we are properly led."
http://www.indymedia.ch/fr/2004/01/17406.shtml

And back to Italy, with his thoughts on the fascist era:

"...fascism nevertheless constituted a political revolution in Italy. For the first time, there was an attempt to mobilize the masses and to involve them in the political life of the country."

And on Mussolini himself:

"He never had enough confidence in the Italian people to permit them a genuine participation in fascism."

A translation of an Italian website,

"One of the most dangerous of these 'bad teachers' is Michael Ledeen, promoter of the the idea of 'universal fascism'. These days he does not stop threatening war against Iran, Syria, and Lebanon, and has evidently been chosen once more by the establishment to manipulate institutions and threaten those who oppose his dangerous and wicked madness. On the other hand, Ledeen has a long history of interference in Italy's strategic choices. During the Moro case he was among those "most suspected" of having misled the enquiries, with the collaboration of the "bretheren" of the P2. It was wondered and it is still wondered why the Italian magistrates do not carry out adequate enquiries about him and his work".
http://www.salaam.co.uk/themeofthemonth/january03_index.php?l=36%82%22=0

In the wake of Madrid, many are remembering the Bologna bombing, and seeing striking similarities. (See, for instance, this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1309661) Though the Madrid bombing, against expectation, drove enough of the public towards the left, it does well to remember, in the hysteria of the "war on terror," that false-flag operations are a proven strategy to manipulate opinion, and that one of the ablest manipulators is Michael Ledeen.

Some more links for the "Strategy of Tension":
http://users.westnet.gr/~cgian/gladio.htm
http://www.copi.com/articles/guyatt/gladio.html
http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/stories/gladio.htm

[blm]

1. Ledeen is a longtime BFEE loyalist. Worldwide fascism is their goal.

Ledeen was also a propagandist who planted news stories in South and Central America alleging various crimes by leftists. They used these planted stories to validate the covert military actions of BushInc, in the 80s.

[buycitgo]

2. isn't THIS special?

”The Ledeen Doctrine” - - Jonah Golberg has a wonderful G File today outlining the “Ledeen Doctrine” which states, more or less, “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.” Print it off, and post it to your fridge. This of course is another way to clear up any ambiguity that people have about US Foreign Policy.

this is from some ultra-moronic wingnut blog

surprised?

[Minstrel Boy]

4. another charming quote:

"I think the level of casualties is secondary. I mean, it may sound like an odd thing to say, but all the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war.... What we hate is not casualties, but losing."
http://www.guerrillanews.com/bunker/bunker_archive/doc1462.html

[bobbieinok]

3. Leeden on fascism

Flirting with Fascism


Neocon theorist Michael Ledeen draws more from Italian fascism than from the American Right.


By John Laughland

....

Ledeen has gained notoriety in recent months for the following paragraph in his latest book, The War Against the Terror Masters. In what reads like a prophetic approval of the policy of chaos now being visited on Iraq, Ledeen wrote,

"Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence—our existence, not our politics—threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission."

This is not the first time Ledeen has written eloquently on his love for “the democratic revolution” and “creative destruction.”

...

Ledeen had himself argued this very point in his book, Universal Fascism, published in 1972. That work starts with the assertion that it is a mistake to explain the support of fascism by millions of Europeans “solely because they had been hypnotized by the rhetoric of gifted orators and manipulated by skilful propagandists.” “It seems more plausible,” Ledeen argued, “to attempt to explain their enthusiasm by treating them as believers in the rightness of the fascist cause, which had a coherent ideological appeal to a great many people.” For Ledeen, as for the lifelong fascist theoretician and practitioner, Giuseppe Bottai, that appeal lay in the fact that fascism was “the Revolution of the 20th century.”

more


http://www.amconmag.com/06_30_03/feature.html


The stuff he writes is unbelievable.

[Minstrel Boy]

5. "Reporting directly to Oliver North was Michael Ledeen..."

From The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro, by Kenn Thomas and Jim Keith:

"Reporting directly to North was Michael Ledeen. Ledeen was responsible for obtaining Israeli Mossad spy Jonathan Pollard his job in the Department of the Navy, for establishing a line of Israeli influence into the NSC, and is known in Italy to have been a member of the P2 Masonic lodge....

"The Wall Street Journal detailed a meeting between Alexander Haig, Michael Ledeen, and high-ranking P2 member and number two man in Italian intelligence Francesco Paziena. Paziena is said to have been involved in shipments of US arms to Iran arranged by the Reagan administration."