Is it actually so or not, it makes a lot of sense to me, much more than anything else, FWIW.
Cold War “Strategy of Tension”: Right-Wing Terror Framed as Left-Wing
karat.substack.com
Thanks for that, had a read the article, which seems to mesh with the past well - to what has become better now know, from the stay-behinds - Gladio itself.
Thomas Karat said:
showed how deeply a narrative can diverge from reality when bias and cover-up take hold.
Yes, pretty much so.
Karat focuses on Charlie Kirk, quickly setting up the narratives that were rolled out to tie a bow around Robinson's affiliations that work for one side. As far as narratives go, tagging NSPM-7 would make sense, except that this time many on right are not buying the concocted script being sold (which Karat describes as bizarre counter-conspiracies blaming Mossad or "the deep" state actors for a false flag (showing that such disinformation is not confined to one side),' he says.
That's the thing, that now some from both the left and right know something in this case is not right, and to go back to his argument of history, he is describing a deep state - false flags. That has always been the state, and now the lines are more blurred, each side more divided while the so-called deep state represents .
So, Karat in the latter part of his article is dismissive to a point, and that is easy, as it marries what he has been saying of history, which is not wrong (IMO). His summary' is not wrong in general, either:
...The difference is the amplification machinery – social media echo chambers, partisan news – which can cement a misleading storyline long before investigators or journalists establish the facts. This creates a dangerous feedback loop: perceptions drive immediate political reactions, which in turn pressure authorities to “confirm” a convenient story, sometimes at the expense of truth. It’s the strategy of tension on broadband: fear and anger are stoked instantly, and the public “memory” of the event becomes hardwired to the initial spin.
Yet in this Kirk case, he is laying down the truth as "only once investigators or journalists establish the facts," and that is the age-old problem, establishing facts, and many peoples distrust (left/right) the official investigators (FBI in this case) and journalists (assume he means from established news organizations, or perhaps unofficial, but who?). It is that fool me once shame on you, and fool me twice bit. It has happened so often that many people naturally do not trust official investigators or journalists. Moreover, the same people are also wising up to online competing narratives, and assessing each.
From his conclusion (his bold):
Looking across these cases – from Cold War Italy’s secret terror schemes to the instant misinformation after the Kirk shooting – a clear throughline emerges. The “strategy of tension” mindset, once hidden in the conspiratorial depths of spycraft, has seeped into overt politics. Its core tenet is attribution inversion: when violence occurs, blame the enemy within. If no convenient enemy is present, invent one or steer the narrative toward one.
Well, that is certainly what goes on.
His last statement (black bold his):
To guard against history repeating, it’s essential to apply a
forensic, skeptical eye when violent incidents occur. We must ask:
Who benefits from this narrative? What do we really know versus what is assumed? {
IMO, whatever constitutes a deep state benefits}. In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s murder, those questions were largely drowned out by the drumbeat of blame {
indeed}. Only later
did the more complex reality emerge – and by then a policy train had left the station (only later,
what exactly has emerged?). Going forward, resisting the
“fast-twitch” blame game may be critical to preserving democracy. Otherwise, we risk living permanently in what one Italian senator called
“a kind of double state – one open and democratic, the other clandestine and reactionary”phpisn.ethz.ch, where dark plots and reflexive fear drive us into the arms of demagogues promising order. The lesson of Operation Gladio and its successors is that
democracies can be manipulated into destroying the very freedoms they cherish, if they are first made afraid enough of an internal enemy. Today’s narrative tactics, from online disinformation to directives like NSPM-7, show that those who would manipulate us
have adapted with the times – and that
we the public must not be so easily led into the trap of the convenient culprit.
By design, it is a confusing time for people, and in the case of Charlie, the official narrative "the convenient culprit" (his words denoting a trap but this time it is official) delivers simply that:
[1] Charlie was murdered by a target assassination.
[2] The Killer was caught (Robinson), a lone wolf.
[3] Video of the killer running on the roof and jumping off - so-called evidence.
[4] The killer's rifle was found so-called evidence.
[5] The Killer is under arrest.
[6] Text messages the killer sent prove his guilt - so-called evidence, case closed
[6] Charlie's body was cremated.
It is now a done official deal, move along.
With a narrative like that, is any wonder that the work of a few (a pretty big list with some large influencers that have had to look at their own side) have challenged the official narrative with a "skeptical eye," with a redirection away from that what appears to be a Robinson is to blame schtick (it would be easier if the investigators actually gave people something tangible). In this case, one might get the sense that Karat does not like that people do this, calls skeptical people bizarre on the one hand, and to guard democracy we must remain skeptical, on the other hand.
Again, agree with Karat on much of what he is saying, yet times have changed from the 50, 60, 70s etc., and data is more vast (he says that) and manipulation also expands (he is saying that, too), which does not mean that assessing other narratives other than the official ones is not worth perusing. People will make their minds up.
When reading what Karat has been saying, and going back to Butler and Thomas Crooks, recently Tucker provided a online sketch of Crooks alleged mental hygiene spanning many years, and the FBI's avoidance of it, not their awareness of it (Crooks seemed to be exhibited competing states of mind). If Trump had been killed that day under that current democratic administration more than a year ago, it could be reasoned that the one state of Crooks mind would dominate in the news. As Trump was not killed, it forced the other state of mind to semi-dominate - which again, they kind of abandoned both of those state of mind narratives, and now there is nothing more to see, it has moved on to Kirk.
Going back to NSPM-7 that Trump sanctioned into law (September 2025), this will work just as easily no matter who is in power, and that is the workings of a deep state, to control.
Notice what Karat says below (again, his bold):
Meanwhile, major instances of political violence by the far right (e.g. the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, a 2022 white-supremacist mass shooting in Buffalo) are conspicuously omitted from NSPM-7’s narrative
Think he has missed the boat here, yet blame is assigned in the case of J6, yet not so fast. For
Buffalo (had semi-forgotten this case perhaps because at the time we were all locked down), the shadow was cast on the left (there is not a big thread on it here). He does ask, why omit from NSPM-7 these instances, though? Perhaps because some of it (J6) was BS and they all know it, and Buffalo was a kid who had been wound up? (update: Aug 2025:
Gunman who killed 10 Black people in N.Y. supermarket wants federal charges dropped, says grand jury was too white)
Edit: Forgot to add, that Karat is describing of old all kinds of blame laid at the feet of left-wing terrorism groups in Europe (and all over the world had other groups):
Red Army Faction (Baader–Meinhof): Red Brigades: Action Direct: Irish National Liberation Army etc.
The difference where Karat goes to now, is it is no longer groups per say, it's lone wolfs, often with alleged ideological thinking depending on the political circumstance at the time.
In the first case, Karat has the right of it, manipulated groups let loose to create chaos, and blame the left. In the latter case(s), one needs to be more discerning than to say it is the same - the outcomes may be the same, fear.
