-Caveat Lector- http://www.rense.com/general63/sword.htm
Sword Play And Operation Gladio By Chris Floyd Moscow Times 2-18-5 '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." This was the essence of Operation Gladio, a decades-long covert campaign of terrorism and deceit directed by the intelligence services of the West -- against their own populations. Hundreds of innocent people were killed or maimed in terrorist attacks -- on train stations, supermarkets, cafes and offices -- which were then blamed on "leftist subversives" or other political opponents. The purpose, as stated above in sworn testimony by Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra, was to demonize designated enemies and frighten the public into supporting ever-increasing powers for government leaders -- and their elitist cronies. First revealed by Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti in 1991, Gladio (from the Latin for "sword") is still protected to this day by its founding patrons, the CIA and MI6. Yet parliamentary investigations in Italy, Switzerland and Belgium have shaken out a few fragments of the truth over the years. These have been gathered in a new book, "NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe," by Daniele Ganser, as Lila Rajiva reports on CommonDreams.org. Originally set up as a network of clandestine cells to be activated behind the lines in the event of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, Gladio quickly expanded into a tool for political repression and manipulation, directed by NATO and Washington. Using right-wing militias, underworld figures, government provocateurs and secret military units, Gladio not only carried out widespread terrorism, assassinations and electoral subversion in democratic states such as Italy, France and West Germany, but also bolstered fascist tyrannies in Spain and Portugal, abetted the military coup in Greece and aided Turkey's repression of the Kurds. Among the "smoking guns" unearthed by Ganser is a Pentagon document, Field Manual FM 30-31B, which details the methodology for launching terrorist attacks in nations that "do not react with sufficient effectiveness" against "communist subversion." Ironically, the manual states that the most dangerous moment comes when leftist groups "renounce the use of force" and embrace the democratic process. It is then that "U.S. army intelligence must have the means of launching special operations which will convince Host Country Governments and public opinion of the reality of the insurgent danger." Naturally, these peace-throttling "special operations must remain strictly secret," the document warns. Indeed, it would not do for the families of the 85 people ripped apart by the Aug. 2, 1980 bombing of the Bologna train station to know that their loved ones had been murdered by "men inside Italian state institutions and ... men linked to the structures of United States intelligence," as the Italian Senate concluded after its investigation in 2000. The Bologna atrocity is an example of what Gladio's masters called "the strategy of tension" -- fomenting fear to keep populations in thrall to "strong leaders" who will protect the nation from the ever-present terrorist threat. And as Rajiva notes, this strategy wasn't limited to Western Europe. It was applied, with gruesome effectiveness, in Central America by the Reagan and Bush administrations. During the 1980s, right-wing death squads, guerrilla armies and state security forces -- armed, trained and supplied by the United States -- murdered tens of thousands of people throughout the region, often acting with particular savagery at those times when peaceful solutions to the conflicts seemed about to take hold. Last month, it was widely reported that the Pentagon is considering a similar program in Iraq. What was not reported, however -- except in the Iraqi press -- is that at least one pro-occupation death squad is already in operation. Just days after the Pentagon plans were revealed, a new militant group, "Saraya Iraqna," began offering big wads of American cash for insurgent scalps -- up to $50,000, the Iraqi paper Al Ittihad reports. "Our activity will not be selective," the group promised. In other words, anyone they consider an enemy of the state will be fair game. Strangely enough, just as it appears that the Pentagon is establishing Gladio-style operations in Iraq, there has been a sudden rash of terrorist attacks on outrageously provocative civilian targets, such as hospitals and schools, the Guardian reports. Coming just after national elections in which the majority faction supported slates calling for a speedy end to the American occupation, the shift toward high-profile civilian slaughter has underscored the "urgent need" for U.S. forces to remain on the scene indefinitely, to provide security against the ever-present terrorist threat. Meanwhile, the Bushists continue constructing their long-sought permanent bases in Iraq: citadels to protect the oil that incoming Iraqi officials are promising to sell off to American corporations -- and launching pads for new forays in geopolitical domination. Perhaps it's just a coincidence. But the U.S. elite's history of directing and fomenting terrorist attacks against friendly populations is so extensive -- indeed, so ingrained and accepted -- that it calls into question the origin of every terrorist act that roils the world. With each fresh atrocity, we're forced to ask: Was it the work of "genuine" terrorists or a "black op" by intelligence agencies -- or both? While not infallible, the ancient Latin question is still the best guide to penetrating the bloody murk of modern terrorism: Cui bono? Who benefits? Whose powers and policies are enhanced by the attack? For it is indisputable that the "strategy of tension" means power and profit for those who claim to possess the key to "security." And from the halls of the Kremlin to the banks of the Potomac, this cynical strategy is the ruling ideology of our times. http://www.pej.org/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2885&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0 "CIA's" Italian Job Gets Interesting Another Day in the Empire - Kurt Nimmo - Last week details of an alleged kidnap plot in Milan scaled the media wall of silence. Italian authorities issued warrants for 13 Americans believed involved with the "extraordinary rendition" of outspoken Muslim cleric, Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, apparently spiriting him away to Egypt for what's become the usual suspect's treatment. But, the case has proven much more complex than originally believed, turning over a rock on one of the spy world's ugliest secrets: State terrorism against its own people. {lex} Gladio-Styled Strategy of Tension Spawning Islamic Terrorism? Kurt Nimmo Monday July 04th 2005 7:32 am As it turns out, Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, who was reportedly abducted in Milan on February 17, 2003, was a CIA informant, according to Albanian intelligence officials. Why would the U.S. government go to elaborate lengths to seize a 39-year-old Egyptian who, according to former Albanian intelligence officials, was once the CIAs most productive source of information within the tightly knit group of Islamic fundamentalists living in exile in Albania? muses the Chicago Tribune. Italian prosecutors seem to believe Nasr had wandered and the CIA wanted to turn him back into the informer he once was. Maybe. However, there is also the possibility the CIA (and there is evidence the abduction has nothing to do with the CIA) wanted to make sure Nasr didnt spill the beans on their covert activities. Italian prosecutors are discovering some interesting links as they probe the Nasr abduction. As Wayne Madsen writes, it wasnt the CIA who kidnapped Nasr but rather a covert team of U.S. Defense Department Special Forces, mercenaries, and intelligence agents who are now the subject of international arrest warrants. It now appears members of this Pentagon-based (not the CIA) covert team were in cahoots with Gaetano Saya and Riccardo Sindoca, two neofascists who reportedly have close ties to both the P-2 (Propaganda Due) Masonic lodge and a secret Cold War network known as Gladio, according to Madsen. Saya and Sindoca set up something dubbed the Department of Strategic Anti-Terrorism Studies, which reportedly had links to both the Bush administration and Ariel Sharons Likud government in Israel. Operation Gladio is very interesting in the current context because it was essentially a tool for political repression and manipulation, directed by NATO and Washington, as Chris Floyd explains. Using right-wing militias, underworld figures, government provocateurs and secret military units, Gladio not only carried out widespread terrorism, assassinations and electoral subversion in democratic states such as Italy, France and West Germany, but also bolstered fascist tyrannies in Spain and Portugal, abetted the military coup in Greece and aided Turkeys repression of the Kurds. Gladio employed a strategy of tension, that is to say the secretive group pulled off terrorist plots and blamed it on left-wingers, fomenting fear to keep populations in thrall to strong leaders who will protect the nation from the ever-present terrorist threat. In Secret Warfare: Operation Gladio and NATOs Stay-Behind Armies, edited by Daniele Ganser and Christian Nuenlist, we learn about specifics of the Gladio strategy of tension. Vincenzo Vinciguerra, who confessed to carrying out the Peteano terrorist attack of 31 May 1972 (blamed on the Red Brigades), testified that the terrorist line was followed by camouflaged people, people belonging to the security apparatus, or those linked to the state apparatus through rapport or collaboration. Right-wing organizations across Western Europe were being mobilized into the battle as part of an anti-communist strategy originating not with organizations deviant from the institutions of power, but from the state itself, specifically NATO. Mark Zepezauer writes: One of P-2s [members of Operation Gladio were also connected to P-2] specialties was the art of provocation. Leftist organizations like the Red Brigades were infiltrated, financed and / or created, and the resulting acts of terrorism, like the assassination of Italys premier in 1978 and the bombing of the railway station in Bologna in 1980, were blamed on the left. The goal of this strategy of tension was to convince Italian voters that the left was violent and dangerousby helping make it so. Is it possible a new (or extended) version of Operation Gladio is currently at work in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, endeavoring to convince us that Islam is violent and dangerousby helping make it so? It appears Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr (currently a disappeared person) worked for either the CIA or intelligence units run out of the Pentagon (specifically, the Pentagons Task Force 121 covert units). It should be noted that Osama bin Laden was a CIA asset during the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Last October, I theorized the kidnapping of CAREs Margaret Hassan was a joint CIA-Mossad operation. I wrote at the time the kidnapping of Margaret Hassan is part of a counterinsurgency operation devised to make the resistance look bad and thus turn world opinion against it, in other words a classic Gladio-like operation. Since it is obviously impossible for the United States to defeat the Iraqi resistance, it makes perfect sense for the CIApossibly in alliance with other covert intelligence operations, for instance the documented Mossad operation in northern Iraqto covertly engage in terrorism, which the White House and the corporate media subsequently blame on the resistance. It is interesting the Italians are in the process of linking two fascist Gladio warriors to the Pentagon abduction of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, a Muslim apparently working under cover for the CIA, according to sources quoted by the Chicago Tribune. Of course, all of this will blow over in a few days as the news cycle revolves around more important storiesfor instance, women desperate for Jessica Simpsons hair, or singer and reality show attendee Pinks marriage to motocross racer Carey Hart. Most Americans have no idea who Nasr isor if they did would they particularly careand Gladio must be a movie about gladiators or something. Ignorance is blissalthough it may ultimately prove to be deadly bliss as the Bushcons nudge the nation closer to total war (with more than a little help from strategy of tension covert operations) and the cell phone and flat plasma HDTV generation are reminded their sacrifice is required (through bullet-stopper conscription) to bring democracy to benighted Arabs and such who, coincidentally, are a thorn in Israels side and just so happen to be sitting atop a whole lot of oil and other natural resources. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! 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