Former Italian president Francesco Cossiga thinks 9/11 was an inside job?

Yesterday morning I got an email message calling my attention to the news story Ex-Italian President: Intel Agencies Know 9/11 An Inside Job by Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet, Tuesday, December 4, 2007. The former Italian president is Francesco Cossiga, described as the “Man who set up Operation Gladio.” (See the Wikipedia articles on Operation Gladio and False flag operations.)

The Prison Planet article contains a link to the original source, described as “Italy’s oldest and most widely read newspaper, Corriere della Sera.” Unfortunately I don’t know Italian. Prison Planet provides the following “rough translation”:

“[Bin Laden supposedly confessed] to the Qaeda September [attack] to the two towers in New York [claiming to be] the author of the attack of the 11, while all the [intelligence services] of America and Europe … now know well that the disastrous attack has been planned and realized from the CIA American and the Mossad with the aid of the Zionist world in order to put under accusation the Arabic Countries and in order to induce the western powers to take part … in Iraq [and] Afghanistan.”

I figured I should do a little checking around on the Internet. The Prison Planet article says, “Coming from a widely respected former head of state, Cossiga’s assertion that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job and that this is common knowledge amongst global intelligence agencies is highly unlikely to be mentioned by any establishment media outlets, because … he can’t be sidelined as a crackpot conspiracy theorist.” That’s probably true here in the U.S.A., but would overseas newspapers be similarly shy about it?

As of yesterday morning, I didn’t find what appeared to be any mainstream media accounts overseas, at least not in any English-language sources on the Internet. I did find the following:

1) An article titled Were the U.S. & Israel Behind 9/11? by Gideon Polya, December 6, on a Canadian website called Media With Conscience (MWC). This article too contains a link to the original Corriere della Sera news story and the following translated excerpt:

“From areas around the Palazzo Chigi, nerve centre of direction of Italian intelligence, it is noted that the non-authenticity of the video is testified from the fact that Osama bin Laden in it ‘confessed’ that Al Qaeda would have been the author of the attack of the 11 September to the Twin Towers in New York, while all of the democratic areas of, America and of Europe, with in the forefront those of the Italian, centre-left, now know well that the disastrous attack was planned and realized by the American CIA and Mossad with the help of the Zionist world to put under accusation the Arabic Countries and to persuade the Western Powers to intervene in Iraq and Afghanistan For this, no word of solidarity arrived to Silvio Berlusconi, who has been the author of the brilliant falsification, neither from the Quironale nor from Palazzo Chigi, nor from representatives of the centre-left!”

In this translation, the emphasis seems to be on the opinion of “the centre-left” rather than on the opinion of “intelligence services,” as in Prison Planet‘s translation. Furthermore, the MWC article presents Cossiga’s statements as just his own personal opinion, albeit an opinion that should be listened to, whereas the Prison Planet article makes it sound more like actual inside knowledge.

2) A website in India, CounterCurrents.org, with the article Put Option On America – Part 1 by Rand Clifford, 07 December, 2007. The author appears to be an American, judging by his use of the word “our” in the sentence “Why is it that Americans seem among the least aware that the radical changes needed for America to regain its Constitution, and survive as a Republic, will never happen within our rotted-out system?” Clifford also mentions “Neocon alpha reptiles” – I hope he’s just speaking figuratively, rather than endorsing David Icke. Anyhow, this article doesn’t say a lot about Francesco Cossiga’s recent statement. It’s more about 9/11 in general and the American political scene in general. But it contains the following about Cossiga himself:

Cossiga was forced to resign in 1992 after admitting he helped set up the CIA’s Operation Gladio, where a group of neo-fascist paramilitary operatives carried out false flag operations across Europe from the 1960s through the 1980s that were blamed on leftists. An agent of Gladio, Vincenzo Vinciguerra, in the Italian parliamentary investigation of 2000 that revealed the attacks were being overseen by the U.S. intelligence apparatus, stated under oath: “You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple—to force…the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security.”

Anyhow, I should mention here that people in the 9/11 Truth movement have a variety of opinions as to which foreign governments, if any (Israel, Pakistan, etc.), might have had some role in the 9/11 attacks, in addition to a cabal within the U.S. government. I haven’t studied this issue enough to voice an opinion on it myself.

What I do know is that the possible involvement of anyone in the Israeli government is an extremely sensitive issue with many people, with many Jews terrified that such a revelation, or such a belief, might lead to a Nazi-like backlash against all Jews. So, as I’ve said before, I think we need to show that we care about opposing all kinds of bigotry, including bigotry against Jews. (See my earlier blog post Taking responsibility for counteracting bigotry in our midst.)

P.S., 12/9/2007: Some discussion about Cossiga can be found in the Truth Action thread Italian Ex-Prez: The Truth about 9/11!. There, I’ve asked if anyone knows Italian. I’m hoping that someone there can straighten out the question of exactly what Cossiga said.

P.S., 12/11/2007: In light of comments below, I’ve added a question mark to the end of the title of this post. I should try to find someone who knows Italian, preferably someone who is familiar with Italian politics too.