For sure, the State Department knows all about that kind of thing, and moreover US intelligence and the Pentagon are experts in subjecting Greece to the rack for the best part of 50 years. Are they at it again? You bet.
The US and its allies just cannot leave this poor little scrap of a country alone. In 1967, a NATO-inspired secret plan called Prometheus was employed to overthrow the legitimate Greek government and install a military junta composed of second rate toy soldiers who in normal circumstances would not have been left in charge of the officers’ mess funds.
Then they spent almost five years torturing perfectly innocent people who happened not to like their rights and freedoms snatched away by a bunch of commonplace lackeys.
Why did this happen? It happened because the US feared that an independent-minded incoming government might turn its back on the NATO alliance, for one thing.
The US also wanted to chop up the island of Cyprus and throw a chunk to the Turks because the president, a certain Archbishop Makarios, a pillar of the Greek Orthodox Church, had been denounced by the Israelis as a closet communist. A Red Cuba in the Med set the blood vessels bursting in Washington.
Ah, so you might say, “that’s history now.” It’s not. A beleaguered government in Athens is desperately trying to beat off the infamous trio of bandits represented by the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank, all bent on extracting the last dried raisin to satisfy international bankers.
Quite naturally, the Greeks themselves, other than the 1% who like everywhere else are doing just fine, are up in arms, and more to the point, protesting angrily on the public streets any time they get the chance. All this commotion is dedicated to lashing Greece to the euro, the EU, and “international solidarity.”
What passes for the government is cornered. It is led (vaguely) by Antonis Samaras, a member of the rat pack that has misruled Greece for generations. Second in command is Eleftherios Venizelos, who also has serious form in that arena.
Looking over their shoulders is Alexis Tsipras, the charismatic, photogenic rock star of the Opposition, who would probably take any election, were it held now. His left wing coalition called Syriza is regarded by the western alliance as akin to Bolsheviks.
Tsipras and his friends intend to pull the plug on the austerity package, given the chance. Actually that’s quite a minor prospect. Their real intention is to destroy the crony system which misruled Greece for two hundred years. That’s talking tough, it’s talking popular consent and democracy and really you cannot have that kind of sea-change when, from the perspective of western interests, everything is perfectly all right and just dandy as it is.
Greece has ancient patents on urban-style terrorism. I wrote a book about it called “Blood on their Hands,” back in 1987, when I was a member of the European Parliament. Greek governments both left and right used the gun and the bomb to push public opinion in the correct direction. This is the stripe of Gladio, the NATO secret army formation, and what became known across much of Europe as the Strategy of Tension.
A gang called November 17 (after a ruthless massacre conducted near the city’s polytechnic in 1971) set themselves up in the name of righteous correction. But did they? November 17 subjected Greece and particularly Athens to gun law for the best part of 30 years yet not a single member of the band had his collar felt. When they finally came up for trial, the leader, a certain Alexandros Giotopoulos, left the dock bawling that he had been set up by western intelligence. Too right.
November 17 was an exercise in designer terrorism and social management. And that’s also the explanation for the bombs and the attacks on a journalist that Athens is witnessing right now. Samaras is desperate at any costs to libel the Syriza coalition as “soft on terrorism” (code: responsible for the terrorism).
But that’s only part of the story. Many Greeks are subsisting on starvation rations and rummaging through garbage bins for something to eat. Public employees, even in the hospitals, have not been paid for months on end.
The hospitals don’t have enough drugs and because of that and the general decay in public services, malaria has re-appeared on the European continent. Cancer treatment has gone to the winds. There isn’t even toilet paper in wards.
Do they give a damn in Brussels and Frankfurt? Of course they care – that Tsipras and his pals might yank Greece out of the euro and start an avalanche. Unemployment is at a record peak and neo-fascists are out of the starting gate in serious numbers. Fuherina Merkel tells Greeks they must swallow their medicine. They would, if there was any.
You want more? There is. Much more.
Floating around the corridors of power is the famous Legarde List. This is a list that Christine Legarde’s spy boys put together when she was still the (tax-free) head of the IMF, listing the names of thousands of Greeks holding overseas accounts not declared to the tax authorities. Of course it is no surprise at all that names of important politicians are said to figure prominently. That is no doubt why the powers that be made sure this interesting document found its way to the little round filing cabinet called the waste paper bin, pronto.
There are figures clamoring for Venizelos, a man who looks like he has had too many expense account dinners for his own good, to open his books. A prominent finance minister blamed for “losing” the list is already in the public pillory.
The ruling caste are feeling the heat but only, you will note, because they fear their own rights, privileges, handsome salaries and backhanders and slush funds stacked away abroad are under threat. Don’t mention starving old men committing suicide outside the parliament.
I am sorry but it is far too convenient for “terrorists” to appear at exactly this juncture. The coalition is melting away by the day. Wall Street and Washington are spooked by the prospect of elections that might bring Tsipras to power. Under the system gerrymandered by the west, supposedly to ensure “safe” governments, he has only to come first and automatically gets a bonus of fifty seats. Another splendid illustration of the old adage: what goes around comes around.
So am I saying that the terrorist acts blighting Greece right now are traceable to the highest level? It is not exactly a clever calculation, it’s the story of Gladio-style tactics for the best part of fifty years.
The point of Gladio is abysmally simple. You scare the ordinary folk with bombs and bullets to raise the prospect of a breakdown in society, law and order, some anarchist, communist or Jihadist menace. Whatever boogeyman fits the bill at the time. They will then bolt to the welcoming embrace of “respectable” authorities like Mr. Samaras and Mr. Venizelos.
Samaras and Co. are cornered and they know it. No sooner do they force one round of austerity rip offs down the throats of their fellow citizens (but not themselves) then the famous euro-troika turns up like Oliver Twist asking for more. This is rape of a small country.
We look the other way. Greece is too small, too far away to matter. But if Greece did junk the euro, it would start a stampede. World currency disorder might follow, but then again, it might not. No one knows.
We are in uncharted territory, but not when it comes to the authorship of urban terrorism in the Greek climate.
Richard Cottrell is a writer, journalist and former European MP (Conservative).
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