Terror and Intelligence Agencies: Keystone Cops or Coordinators?

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/spanish-intelligence-knew-of-terror-cell-ahead-of-barcelona-attack-say-reports-1.3959554

It reminds one of a broken record. Time and again we learn that the terrorists were known to the authorities and in many cases contained elements directly working with the intelligence agencies.

The official story relies on a Keystone Cop narrative. These agencies have botched it. They're bungling these operations because of poor coordination or because the law has tied their hands in terms of surveillance and having all the data that's needed. Some rather audacious politicians assert that it's because they need more money or more power. Their budgets are too weak and the agencies are not able to keep track of everything. They're unable to properly steer their various operations.

Or there's an alternative explanation but it's one the Establishment will not allow to be seriously entertained. It's rather simple and it's one with historical precedent. Many of these attacks are being quietly encouraged, facilitated or just simply allowed to happen within certain controlled boundaries. Why would state actors and intelligence agencies do this? Why would they be willing to commit treason and allow Islamists and fanatics to murder their own citizens?

Because in war the end always justifies the means. And politics is certainly war... usually without bullets but with them far more often than people realise. These actors wouldn't view themselves as traitors but as Praetorians, as necessary evils meant to keep the peace.

I do not subscribe to the views of some that the Islamists are little more than employees of Western intelligence agencies. That's a simplistic view. Nor do I accept the lame theories which suggest that there are in fact pro-Islamist and crypto-Salafi/Sharia sections within the Western political order. In fact I find such suggestions to be absurd.

It must be understood that the powers that be realised long ago that true democracy is really a sham and many of them don't actually believe in it. This is a generalisation of course but one I stand by. They pay it lip service, they're willing to allow it to function on a limited basis but at the end of the day they are not true Liberals. As societal tensions increase this reality is becoming all the more clear and it sheds light on the manufactured and manipulated history leading up to WWII and what took place in its aftermath. The idea that it was a war of 'democracy' against 'fascism' is exposed as laughable and an absurdity.

Too often fascism is equated in simplistic terms with the extremism of the Third Reich but this doesn't tell the whole story and by focusing on Nazi atrocities the ideas and currents which created and supported fascism are sidelined. And thus its resurgence after the war and its continued existence in the undercurrents of the Western order are therefore missed.

The Establishment is understood by many to be Leftist. This is far from the truth. It is certain the leaders of the Western Globalist order and the Atlanticist project may not be socially conservative on certain points but this doesn't make them Left-wing. Many viewed the EU as a Left-wing movement in its attempt to undermine nationalism. Rather it should be understood as an attempt to create a new nationalism or rather a new type of bloc and cultural nationalism in opposition to extra-European and 'oriental' threats which due (at the very least) to their populations were destined to become global powers and players. A two-edged sword, the West would face either masses of disaffected Orientals and trade squelching chaos or growing power blocs appearing in places like China and India.

The need has always been to push politics to the Right. There was a time in which nationalism was feared because it had the potential to undermine the EU project. Today, that nationalism is needed more than ever to bolster military spending and galvanise societies under economic stress and austerity budgets. Nationalism can be steered... against the immigrant in general, the Muslim in particular and against the Asiatic in economic terms. These attacks serve a purpose and can also be manipulated for political gain.

At this point a case can be made that some elites are already looking beyond the EU or imagining a day in which the EU is a secondary apparatus controlled by groups such as the Aachen Bloc which also has the potential to replace NATO if it were to collapse or become irrelevant.

In this Irish Times article the Spanish intelligence agencies are presented as Keystone Cops, lame and naive, manipulated and used by the Islamists who were able to carry out an attack right under their nose. We've seen this story replayed over and over again in France, Germany, Britain and elsewhere and yet further investigations suggest that the intelligence agencies were not deceived but in fact knew about the attacks and in some cases were all but facilitating them.

Similar accusations were made in the US with regard to the FBI and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Some argued that the government was hiding evidence regarding Middle Eastern terrorists. Others believe US law enforcement was (and is) covering for Right wing extremists and yet others believe the FBI bungled the surveillance and knowing about the attack on the federal building, they were supposed to stop it. But it happened despite their efforts and thus in order to protect their prestige and the wrath of the public the story was re-written and much of the evidence was suppressed.

I would have believed the latter until I discovered just how much the intelligence agencies were involved in European terrorism throughout the 1970's and 1980's. Leftist terrorist cells were infiltrated by intelligence agencies and in other cases were exposed as really being Right-wing and neo-fascist. European politics were pushed to the Right as a fear of Leftist extremism gripped Europe and Britain.

Are we watching the same sort of story unfold in 21^st Century Post-Cold War Europe? Intelligence agencies are running jihadists and weapons from Europe's extremist ghettoes into the Middle East and the various proxy wars taking place in nations like Libya and Syria. Are some of these attacks cases of ones who 'got away' or are they in fact being clandestinely supported? The evidence actually points to the latter and suggests that what we're dealing with are not Keystone Cops but coordinators. Agents aren't losing track of their assets but rather are managing and manipulating them.

In the case of Spain the attack backfired (in part) as the Catalan separatists are using the story as leverage to point to Madrid's mismanagement of domestic affairs.

Sometimes the plans don't work out and clearly not every attack can be connected to the state. In the cases which result in failure the historical record with regard to botched and obsolete intelligence operations is clear... liquidation. Clean the slate and start over. Dead men tell no tales.