How catalytic events change the course of history: From the 9/11 attacks to the coronavirus pandemic

The 9/11 attacks of 2001 are classic examples of  "catalytic events" that change the course of history. They can be seen as triggers for "Seneca Collapses," sudden and catastrophic, they are well described by Seneca's words, "the way to ruin is rapid." It is the way history moves: never smoothly but always in bumps. The most recent example of a catalytic effect of this kind is the current epidemic of coronavirus.

If you are a chemist, you know very well how catalysts can work small miracles: you had been trying for some time to have a reaction occur, without success, then you add a little pinch of something and - suddenly - things go "bang." In no time, the reaction is complete. Of course, as a chemist you know that catalysts don't really work miracles: all they can do is to accelerate reaction that would occur anyway. But that may be mightily useful, sometimes.

The concept of catalysis can be used also outside chemistry, for instance in politics. Let's go back to the year 2000, when the group of American neoconservatives identifying themselves as the "Project for a New American Century" (PNAC) issued a document titled "Rebuilding American Defenses." In that document, they argued that the American public could be led to accept a major shift of the available resources to military purposes only by means of "some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."

Surely, the PNAC members were highly successful with their plans, perhaps more than they themselves would have imagined. One year later, in 2001, the world saw the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and on other locations, providing exactly the "catastrophic and catalyzing event" they had invoked. It was Pearl Harbor again: a new attack on the American soil that catalyzed a strong reaction on the part of the American people. The result was that several of the PNAC proposals, such as a significant increase in military expenses, were adopted in the following years.

The PNAC may be credited for having proposed perhaps for the first time the concept of "catalyzing event" for a class of events that change the course of history. It is normal that human societies tend to resist changes, but changes are unavoidable. Small changes pile up until something gives way and the result is the big change called the "Seneca Collapse."

The oldest catalytic event in history may be the defeat of the Roman army at Teutoburg in 9 AD that generated a perennial state of war of the Empire on the Germanic peoples. In modern times, we may cite the sinking of the US "Maine" that started the US-Spain war in 1898. Then, the iconic fire of the Reichstag in Berlin, in 1933, that consigned Germany in the hands of the Nazi party. Many of these events are related to the current world empire, such as Pearl Harbor in 1941, that started the war on Japan, the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, that started the Vietnam war, and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) in 2014 that started the ongoing economic war against Russia.

There have been many more incidents of this kind, in most cases in the form of military attacks, never serious enough to be an existential risk for the attacked side, but sufficient for an aggressive media campaign aimed at terrorizing people. The recent coronavirus epidemic has similar features. It was not a military attack, but it was surely a catalytic event that deeply changed society also with the help of an aggressive media campaign that succeeded at terrorizing everybody.

It is often said that these events are "false flags," that is, they are engineered by the attacked side with the specific purpose of creating a desired political change. Indeed, why should the attacker engage in provocation against a stronger adversary when that is likely to cause a strong reaction? Yet, actual proofs of false flag attacks for these events are rare. Even for the paradigmatic case of the Reichstag fire, often defined a false flag, we don't really know what role the Nazis exactly had in the story. Mostly, it seems that these events involve the opportunistic exploitation of a mistake. Pearl Harbor, for instance, was surely not a false flag but a gigantic strategic miscalculation on the part of the Japanese government. About the 9/11 attacks, there is a whole cottage industry engaged in describing them as having been perpetrated by forces controlled by the US government, but there is no proof that this was the case, nor that the PNAC could actually create the event they were hoping for. Even the Covid-19 virus, the culprit for the current pandemic, has been said to have been manufactured in a lab or spread on purpose by someone. Very unlikely, to say the least.

In any case, the "false flag" aspect of these events is a moot point, what counts is that they acted as catalysts for major changes that would have occurred anyway. In 2001, the American Empire was finding it more and more difficult to maintain its grip on its vast possessions worldwide because of rising costs and dwindling resources. The most obvious reaction was to increase military expenses, a typical evolution of most empires of the past. It was unavoidable and the 9/11 attacks provided the kind of push that was needed to trigger it. It matters little whether or not the attacks were organized by a mad sheik living in a cavern in Afghanistan.

Similar considerations hold for other catalytic events in history, but let's move to the current coronavirus epidemic. As a catalytic event, it is surely one, complete with the related aggressive campaign aimed at terrorizing the public. But what kind of change is it catalyzing? Chuck Pezhesky has correctly identified the epidemic as something "akin to a Dirac Delta, or Impulse function." Applying a Dirac function to a system is like whacking it with a hammer. The system oscillates in response and it shows its "natural" frequencies. There is no doubt that the coronavirus was a sledgehammer hitting society, what we are seeing are resonances scattering all over. In practice, everyone is trying to emphasize the frequencies they think are favorable to them. But, in this game, there are winners and losers.  

At the time of the 9/11 attacks, there were some attempts to emphasize some frequencies different than the main ones, such as proposing that the West should have been acting less aggressively toward Islamic countries. But these feeble attempts were rapidly swept away when the balance of power decisively moved in favor of the military-industrial complex. In the case of the coronavirus, something similar is going on, with various lobbies trying to frame the event in a favorable light for their specific economic interest. The fossil fuel industry, for instance, is asking the elimination of "useless environmental regulations" in order to "restart growth." The military-industrial lobby cannot claim that they can bomb the virus into submission, but they are using it as an excuse to make war on China.

But, overall, it is clear which frequency is resonating most intensely. It is the "new capitalism" of the Silicon Valley companies. Those who are benefitting from it are the communication industry, the surveillance industry, the e-commerce industry, and just about everything that involves virtual communication. It is Bill Gates' triumph over the Koch brothers, but not just that. It is a resonance that rings deep in many layers of society: we had been told many times that we had to get rid of fossil fuels, airplanes, private cars, and activities such as tourism, and more. That's exactly what the virus is forcing us to do, at least the way it has been interpreted by our governments.

But, again, as well known in chemistry, catalysts don't do anything by themselves: they just trigger unavoidable transformations. And if something is unavoidable, it means that one day or another it has to take place. It is what we are seeing.

There remains a question: why does history have to go in bumps? It is, of course, because we are unable to plan ahead and so the future always takes us by surprise. And the fact we can't plan ahead is also deeply ingrained in the way modern society works. The wonderful technologies that link everybody in virtual space won't make us better able to predict the future -- perhaps they'll have the opposite effect. And so we seem to be condemned to march toward the future as a ship that sails onward climbing great waves one after the other. Maybe we'll arrive to a safe harbor, someday, or maybe not.




A note from Ugo Bardi's personal troll, Mr. Kunning-Druger

So, Mr. Bardi, this time you are showing us that, in addition to being a climate warmunist, you are also a conspiracy theorist. Sure, you think you are clever by telling us that it is not so important that the 9/11 attacks were a false flag or not, but really, what you mean is that they were: you think it was a conspiracy, don't you? You and your climate alarmist gang are friends of Osama Bin Laden and of the Islamic terrorists who want to destroy the American way of life, all because they hate our freedom. And, now you and your gang are probably behind the attempt of using the coronavirus scare to lock Americans inside their homes and stripping them of their freedom in the name of the climate change scam. But we are resisting and our cure for the coronavirus has been developed by two doctors whose names are Smith and Wesson. Remember that!

False Flag Operations: How Common Are They?

Something made me think that it could be appropriate to repropose here a post that I published on Cassandra's Legacy in 2015 on the "false flag" operation that the Mussolini government mounted in 1940 in order to justify the Italian attack on Greece. It is one of the few documented cases of a false flag operation carried out by a national government.

The study of false flag operations is fascinating but, at the same time, difficult and even dangerous. One consequence is the extreme paucity of serious historical studies on the subject. A recent study that I may suggest to the interested reader is the one published by Maddox in 2016. Rich in data and examples, by reading it you will be able to note by yourselves how difficult it is to avoid a hefty dose of political correctness in this kind of studies, but so is life. At least, Maddox's study shows that false flag operations do exist, take a variety of shapes, and are relatively common in modern history.

I was planning to write a little history of false flag operations but, as I worked on the subject, it became larger and larger and, at the same time, less and less defined, lost in a sea of misinformation, disinformation, conspirationism, and psyops. So, for the time being, I'll just summarize what I learned so far. The basic point, I believe, is that the modern kind of false flag operations is a recent phenomenon if we define it in terms of self-inflicted damage in order to justify retaliation. 

In my opinion, the first example of this kind of strategy is the "Gleiwitz Incident" carried out by the Germans in 1939 in order to justify their attack on Poland. There is a lot of misinformation associated with this story, but the basic historical facts seem to be well established. The mechanism of the operation is also clear: trasform aggression into self-defense by inflicting damage on one's own forces, or on the forces of an ally. The German Nazis were innovators in many fields, not just with tanks and missiles, but especially with propaganda. With the Gleiwitz incident, they created an example that was soon to be followed by Mussolini in Italy, as you'll read below. And it was later followed by many other governments, even though, as you move closer to the present times, the fog of war becomes thicker - as it has to be. 

As a final comment, I'd say that this kind of operations is an emergent property of modern democracy, a good example of all that's wrong with democracy as we intend it nowadays: the aggressive demonization of opponents, the brazen disregard of facts, hidden manipulation of the debate, strict enforcement of political correctness, and more. False flag operations are part of the larger phenomenon of "fake news" which, in turn, is part of the complex science which we call "perception management," once known as "propaganda". It is a "soft" technology but when coupled with "hard" ones such as nuclear weapons, it may well be the most dangerous technology ever invented. And, as usual, we tend to employ new technologies much before we understand their ultimate consequences. 

See also "The Empire of Lies"

When conspiracy is not a theory: an example of a false flag operation in the Italian invasion of Greece in 1940 

by Ugo Bardi - Oct 29, 2015

(shortened and slightly modified with respect to the original version)

The Italian attack against Greece, that started in October of 1940, was preceded by a textbook example of a "false flag" operation.

False flag attacks are a popular item, nowadays: secret operations carried out by governments to place the blame on their political or military enemies. However, if you try to examine the question in any depth, you immediately find yourself facing a wall of claims and counter-claims. On one side, there are those who simply laugh at the conspiracy theorists and at their funny antics, and, on the other, those who list case after case of presumed false flag attacks, including everything from the sinking of the Titanic to the blowing up of a tire of uncle Joe's truck. So, do strategic false flag attacks exist? And, if so, how common they are?

Given the paucity of documented historical examples, I think it is worth discussing here a case of a false flag operationg that can be verified in some detail and which is not well known in English. It is the false flag operation that preceded the Italian attack against Greece, during the Second World War, carried out in 1940 under orders by the Mussolini government.

The story of the Italo-Greek war is described in detail by Mario Cervi in his 1969 book "Storia Della Guerra di Grecia" (translated into English as "The Hollow Legions"). I won't go into the details in the story of how the Italian government decided to engage in this totally insensate campaign, focusing just on the "false flag" episode.

We have ample documentation about this war from the Italian side. The minutes of the reunions of the high command of the Italian government were approved by Mussolini himself and then filed. These documents were kept and, today, they tell us many details about the origins of the decision to start the campaign and about the false flag operation that preceded the attack.

The story starts with the occupation of Albania by Italy in 1939, which was a relatively easy military operation. From there, the Italian government started considering an attack on neighboring Greece as part of an effort to control the whole Balkan region. That involved a certain propaganda effort and, in 1940, the Italian press started reporting that the Albanian inhabitants of the region of Chamuria, part of the Greek territory, wanted secession from Greece in order to be reunited with Albania. But, of course, it was reported that they were facing a harsh repression carried out by the Greek government. The Italian viceroy of Albania, Francesco Jacomoni, provided reports - mostly purely invented - that fueled this propaganda operation.

Cervi reports how, on August 17, 1940, Jacomoni himself proposed to the Duce to create a pretext for attacking Greece by means of a false flag attack to be performed by "by personnel loyal to us against one of our border posts." The idea didn't have an immediate approval by Mussolini, but, in October, when the attack to Greece had been decided, Mussolini himself asked for "An incident at the border that could give to our action the aspect of provocation to justify our action." The answer was given on the spot by Galeazzo Ciano, foreign minister and son in law of the Duce, "the action will take place on Oct 24."

The "action" was delayed to Oct 26, but it took place as planned. According to Cervi, the Italian press reported that "A Greek band had attacked with automatic weapons and hand grenades an Albanian border post near Corizia and that the attack had been repulsed; that six of the attacking Greeks had been captured, and that the Albanian troops had suffered two casualties and three wounded."

Cervi comments on this point that these Albanian victims had been "immolated, if they ever existed, on the altar of the ruthless needs of the state." Indeed, we cannot exclude that the attack was exaggerated, or even a pure invention. However, it is likely that some kind of attack did take place. The Greek authorities set up an investigating committee and claimed that they were not responsible for it, but never claimed that there had not been an attack. Below, an example of how the incident was presented in the Italian press ("La Stampa") on Oct 28, 1940. The title says "Murky Greek plan to provoke Albania."

Cervi also reports that Mussolini commented on the false flag attacks by saying that "No one will believe in this fatality, but for a reason of metaphysical character it will be possible to say that it was necessary to come to a conclusion," which, incidentally, shows how nearly 20 years of unopposed government had turned Mussolini from a sharp politician into a bumbling fool.

Whether it caused victims or not, the false flag attack served its purpose. In Albania, it was followed by manifestations against the "Greek aggression," and in Italy by a press campaign of insults and protests against Greece. There followed the Italian ultimatum against Greece and then the ill-fated attack.

From these documents, we can learn that "false flag" operations were an accepted and obvious component of strategic actions at that time. Note how nobody challenged Mussolini about the need of carrying out such an operation. It all seemed obvious to everyone involved and that tells us that during the second world war, secret false flags were part of the strategic arsenal of at least some governments and were commonly used.

Note also how Mussolini doesn't think too much about signing and archiving documents that say that he had ordered and approved an action that can only be described as a war crime. Again, it seems that it was seen as wholly normal - not something that could have led anyone to be shot as a war criminal. Later on, that was exactly what happened to Mussolini, but to none of the other people who approved and carried out the false flag operation, including the Viceroy of Albania, Francesco Jacomoni.

Of course, this old false flag operation doesn't tell us anything specific about the many claimed false flags of modern times. It does, however, add a verified case to the number of known ones. Government conspiracies did exist in the past and it would surely be excessive optimism to think they don't exist anymore. In the future, we may know more about the events that have shaped so much of the perception of the conflicts of our times.

When conspiracy is not a theory: an example of a false flag operation in the Italian invasion of Greece in 1940

The Italian attack against Greece, that started in October of 1940, was one of the greatest military blunders of history and it may be argued that it cost the axis powers the whole war. Here, I discuss how this episode provides one of the few documented cases of a  strategic "false flag" operation designed in order to create a pretext for a military attack. (Image: Italian infantryman of the Italo-Greek war, from the front cover of "Storia della Guerra di Grecia" by Mario Cervi)

False flag attacks are a popular item, nowadays: secret operations carried out by governments to place the blame on their political or military enemies. However, if you try to examine the question in any depth, you immediately find yourself facing a wall of claims and counter-claims. On one side, there are those who simply laugh at the conspiracy theorists and at their funny antics, and, on the other, those who list case after case of presumed false flag attacks, including everything from the sinking of the Titanic to the blowing up of a tire of uncle Joe's truck. So, do strategic false flag attacks exist? And, if so, how common they are?

There are several cases of strategic false flag attacks that are almost certain or, at least, very probable. Perhaps the best example of a documented false flag attack is that of the "Gleiwitz incident" of Aug 31, 1939, when Nazi forces posing as Poles attacked a German radio station in order to justify the German attack on Poland. A more recent case is that of  "Operation Northwood" which, however, was only planned and never actually carried out. There are many more examples where false flag attacks are claimed, but cannot be proven. The best example, here, is the Reichstag fire, in Berlin, in 1933. It is likely that it was a false flag attack orchestrated by the Nazis in order to blame their political opponents, but many details of this episode are unclear.

Given the paucity of historical examples, I think it is worth adding here a case of a false flag attack that can be verified beyond reasonable doubt and that's not well known in English. It is the false flag operation that preceded the Italian attack against Greece, during the Second World War, carried out in 1940 under orders by the Mussolini government.

The story of the Italo-Greek war is described in detail by Mario Cervi in his 1969 book "Storia della Guerra di Grecia" (translated into English as "The Hollow Legions"). I won't go into the details in the story of how the Italian government decided to engage in this totally insensate campaign. Let me just say that  it is often reported that the Greek campaign cost to the Axis the war, forcing the Germans to intervene to rescue the Italians and postponing of some months the attack against Russia. This is certainly debatable, and it may well be that it is just an excuse that the Germans used to justify their failure with the Russian campaign. But it is true that with the Greek campaign the Italian government generated a true supermarket of examples of strategic stupidity. In addition, they disregarded the most elementary rules of the international law and even those of human decency. But, here, I'll focus on the "false flag" episode.

We have ample documentation about this war from the Italian side. The minutes of the reunions of the high command of the Italian government were approved by Mussolini himself and then filed. These documents have arrived to us, intact, and they tell us many details about the origins of the decision to start the campaign and about the false flag operation that preceded the attack.

The story starts with the occupation of Albania by Italy in 1939, which was a relatively easy military operation. From there, the Italian government started considering an attack to neighboring Greece as part of an effort to control the whole Balkan region. That involved a certain propaganda effort and, in 1940, the Italian press started reporting that the Albanian inhabitants of the region of Chamuria, part of the Greek territory, wanted secession from Greece in order to be reunited with Albania. But, of course, it was reported that they were facing a harsh repression carried out by the Greek government. The Italian viceroy of Albania, Francesco Jacomoni, provided reports - mostly purely invented - that fueled this propaganda operation.

Cervi reports how, on August 17, 1940, Jacomoni himself proposed to the Duce to create a pretext for attacking Greece by means of a false flag attack to be performed by "by personnel loyal to us against one of our border posts." The idea didn't have an immediate approval by Mussolini, but, in October, when the attack to Greece had been decided, Mussolini himself asked for "An incident at the border that could give to our action the aspect of provocation to justify our action." The answer was given on the spot by Galeazzo Ciano, foreign minister and son in law of the Duce, "the action will take place on Oct 24."

The "action" was delayed to Oct 26, but it took place as planned. The Italian press reported that "A Greek band had attacked with automatic weapons and hand grenades an Albanian border post near Corizia and that the attack had been repulsed; that six of the attacking Greeks had been captured, and that the Albanian troops had suffered two casualties and three wounded."

Cervi comments on this point that these Albanian victims had been "immolated, if they ever existed, on the altar of the ruthless needs of the state." Indeed, we cannot exclude that the attack was exaggerated, or even a pure invention, created out of thin air by the Viceroy of Albania and his staff. However, even though we can't be certain about the claimed victims, it is clear that some kind of attack took place. The Greek authorities set up an investigating committee and claimed that they were not responsible for it, but never claimed that there had not been an attack. Below, an example of how the incident was presented in the Italian press ("La Stampa") on Oct 28 1940. The title says "Murky Greek plan to provoke Albania."

Cervi also reports that Mussolini commented on the false flag attacks by saying that "No one will believe in this fatality, but for a reason of metaphysical character it will be possible to say that it was necessary to come to a conclusion," which, incidentally, shows how nearly 20 years of unopposed government had turned Mussolini from a sharp politician into a bumbling fool.

Whether it caused victims or not, the false flag attack served its purpose. In Albania, it was followed by manifestations against the "Greek aggression," and in Italy by a press campaign of insults and protests against Greece. There followed the Italian ultimatum against Greece and then the ill-fated attack.

From these documents, we can learn that "false flag" operations were an accepted and obvious component of strategic actions at that time. Note how nobody challenged Mussolini about the need of carrying out such an operation. It all seemed obvious to everyone involved and that tells us that in the period before and during the second world war, secret false flags were part of the strategic arsenal of at least some governments and were commonly used.

Note also how Mussolini doesn't think too much about signing and archiving documents that say that he had ordered and approved an action that can only be described as a war crime. Again, it seems that it was seen as wholly normal - not something that could have led anyone to be shot as a war criminal. Later on, that was exactly what happened to Mussolini, but to none of the other people who approved and carried out the false flag operation, including the Viceroy of Albania, Francesco Jacomoni.

Of course, this old false flag operation doesn't tell us anything specific about the many claimed false flags of modern times. It does, however, add another verified case to the number of known ones. Government conspiracies did exist in the past and it would surely be excessive optimism to think they don't exist any more. In the future, we may know more about the events that have shaped so much of the perception of the conflicts of our times.

__________________________________________

As a final note, I think that this story may tell us also something about the dangers of the "story telling" approach to strategic decisions, as I already commented in a previous post. This is a kind of assessment based on assigning roles to the various actors involved, and then having them play out their part in a virtual world theater. In this case, Mussolini and his collaborators had decided that Italy's role was that of a "great power" and, as a consequence, Italy was in competition with the other great powers of the time. Seen in this light, it made sense for Italy to expand its power sphere to the Balkans in order to contrast the expanding action of Germany and of Great Britain. It even gave some sense to another monumental mistake of the Italian government of the time, that of declaring war to the United States in 1941. If Italy was a great power, indeed, the Mediterranean was to be seen as an Italian lake and the United States had no strategic interests there, no more than Italy had strategic interests in the Gulf of Mexico. The problem was that the definition of Italy as a "great power" was hopelessly wrong in quantitative terms; as the events that followed amply demonstrated. That is all past and gone, but unfortunately, story telling remains today the typical way to take  strategic decisions.   

Burning the skeptics: a false flag campaign against the concept of man made global warming

You may have seen the disgusting "no-pressure" video of last year, where global warming skeptics were made to explode in a burst of blood. Now, there comes a new one, similar. It is "Combustible," where we see a climate skeptic catching fire, turning into ashes, and leaving only his eyeballs on the sidewalk. "Combustible" is just slightly less disgusting than "No Pressure" was and perhaps a bit more subtle. Here, the hapless skeptic burns by itself, whereas in the earlier movie we actually see environmentalists pushing the kill button. But the message of both movies is exactly the same: environmentalists are murderers who enjoy seeing people suffering. Indeed, "Combustible" was understood in this way in the comments to it at the WUWT site. 

Who made this crap? Apparently, it was created by a professional advertising agency, "Realm." But there is a problem here: even if it does it "pro bono", an advertising agency acts on the basis of a request from a customer. An agency, in itself, doesn't have the competency to devise a campaign from scratch. Indeed, when Realm created an environmental ad in 2009 it was for a real and traceable environmental association, Earthshare of Georgia. But for the "Combustible" video there is no such traceable sponsor. At the end of the movie, you can read "climatechangeinitiative.com." But, at present, there doesn't exist a site with that name and the link only leads you to Bill Clinton's climate initiative, where (obviously) you find no trace of this video. WUWT suggests that the video originates from WWF, but, again, the the link provided only leads to an announcement of an open position and there no trace of this video in the whole WWF site. Another link  supposed to identify the sponsors leads only to a speech  of President Obama on climate change. It is a game of mirrors: there is no way to know who is behind this video.

So, how come that this video is "orphan" in the sense that it cannot be linked to any known (or even newly born) environmental organization? I think the most obvious explanation is that "Combustible" is a fake environmental movie. It is, actually, a false flag video designed to smear the environmental movement, depicting its members as murderers. Of course, if we reason in scientific terms, there is no way to prove this statement. In scientific terms, whatever cannot be proven must be considered dubious. However, there is a old rule which may not be scientific but which I think applies to the present case (and to "No Preessure" as well). It says that when you start feeling that you are being cheated, most likely you are.

In a previous post of mine, I was noting how the skeptic position on climate change is based mainly on narrative: fancy stories designed to distract people from the reality of the scientific results. I argued that the main narrative behind skepticism is that global warming does not exist; it is only a hoax created by a group of evil scientists who manipulated the data in order to keep money flowing into their fat research grants, as demonstrated by the Climategate mails. But that is not the only story told by skeptics (charitably defined in this way). Videos such as "Combustible" and "No pressure" are part of another narrative created with the purpose of painting environmentalists as a group of monsters who want to destroy most of humankind in order to create their green utopia. It is nothing new; the same lie was used against the 1972 study "The Limits to Growth" whose authors and sponsors were presented as planning to exterminate most of humankind. It is pure fiction, of course, but it is an effective weapon to undermine the credibility of the environmental movement and of climate science.

The people who conceived these videos, whoever they are, are clearly willing to use any means available for their purpose. They are obviously adept at the task and well financed, too. Against this kind of attacks, we are facing a difficult battle: it is hard to fight comfortable narratives with inconvenient truths. But it is also true that these spin campaigns can backfire. The minimum we can do is to expose these tricks when we see them appearing. Eventually, truth will win.