On Terrorism and the State

by Gianfranco Sanguinetti

http://www.dailybattle.pair.com/2013/sanguinetti_state_terror.shtml

"The first duty of all conscious subversives is to pitilessly chase all illusions about terrorism from the heads of those called to action."

Note: Gianfranco Sanguinetti's "On Terror and the State", published in April 1979 in Italy, is a detailed analysis of the long series of terror attacks in Italy, from the Piazza Fontana bombing in December 1969 in Milan, to the kidnapping and execution of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978, which he concluded had been carried out by the Italian intelligence agencies (aka "secret services"). His conclusions have been confirmed by subsequent revelations: the Italian intelligence agencies had been controlled and directed by the CIA and FBI, working through NATO's "stay behind" armies, as the Italian component of what has come to be called Operation Gladio. Sanguinetti's analysis, written more than twenty years before 9/11, illuminates the dark background of the attacks and their aftermath, as we demonstrate by here presenting excerpts that are especially revealing with respect to 9/11, the new global "Strategy of Tension", and their impacts on the anti-capitalist movement. Our commentary follows the text, in numbered notes to key passages.

From the [bombing of the] Piazza Fontana to the kidnapping of Moro, the only things that have changed are the contingent objectives that this defensive terrorism has achieved, but the goal of the defensive can never change. And the goal from 12 December 1969 to 16 March 1978, and today, as well, has in fact remained the same: to make the entire population, which had not supported the State or had been struggling against it, believe that it at least has an enemy in common with the State and that the State will defend the population on the condition that no one questions it. The population, which is generally hostile to terrorism, and not without reason, must then agree that, at least in this instance, it needs the State, to which it must delegate the most extensive powers so that the State can vigorously confront the arduous task of the common defense against an enemy that is obscure, mysterious, perfidious, merciless and, in a word, illusory. Faced with a terrorism that is always presented as the absolute evil, evil in itself and by itself, all the other evils, which are much more real, become secondary and must even be forgotten. Because the struggle against terrorism coincides with the common interest, it is already the general good, and the State that generously leads that struggle is the good itself and by itself. Without the cruelty of the devil, the infinite kindness of God cannot appear and be properly appreciated.

The State, extremely weakened by all the attacks it has suffered every day for ten years – attacks on its economy made by the proletariat, on the one hand, and attacks on its power and prestige made by the ineptitude of its managers, on the other – can thus [negate] both of them by solemnly tasking itself with staging the spectacle of the collective and sacrosanct defense [of all] against the monster of terrorism and, in the name of this pious mission, it can take from all of its subjects a supplementary portion of their already limited freedom and thus reinforce the police-related control of the entire population. “We are at war,” and war against an enemy that is so powerful that any other discord or conflict is an act of sabotage or desertion. It is only to protest against terrorism that one has the right to the recourse of the general strike. Terrorism and “emergency,” a state of emergency and perpetual “vigilance,” become the only problems, at least the only ones with which it is permitted and necessary for people to be occupied. All the rest doesn’t exist or becomes forgotten, and in any case is shut up, banished, repressed into the social unconscious because of the seriousness of the question of “public order.” And confronted with the universal duty of its defense, everyone is invited to become an informer, to be base and to become fearful. For the first time in history, cowardice becomes a sublime quality, fear is always justified, and the only form of “courage” that is not contemptible is the one that approves and supports all the lies, abuses and infamies of the State. Since the current crisis doesn’t spare any country in the world, there are no geographical boundaries between peace, war, freedom or truth. These borders pass through every country, and each State arms itself and declares war on the truth

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