NATO's Secret Armies Post World War II -- Gladio
THE NETHERLANDS
[....]
Somer explained that men should be recruited and trained in radio communication and encryption techniques, and insisted that these men should not be part of the regular Dutch military for only then they would be available for special operations in case of an invasion. Defence Minister Meynen agreed with the plan and Somer became the first commander of the Dutch stay-behind with the specific task to set up a secret army. At the same time Somer was given the task of closing down the wartime secret service IB that he had previously directed. The task gave him the perfect cover for his clandestine preparations. He attached the new stay-behind service to the old pre-war Dutch military secret service GS III and therefore the first Dutch stay-behind received the cover name GIIIC.
After some months Somer started to dislike the organisational structure. He resented that his stay-behind network GIIIC was placed under the command of the Chiefs of Staff. Somer, little inclined to tolerate a section chief above him, stressed that such a structure represented a secrecy risk. 'Somer was of the opinion that his top-secret unit must exist, but can not officially appear', Dutch scholar Koedijk described the situation.
In January 1948 it was therefore decided that the stay-behind section should no longer be mentioned in organisa- tional charts of the Defence Ministry and the clandestine army came under the direct command of Somer. Furthermore the label of the Dutch Gladio was changed from GIIIC to G7. Somer furthermore insisted that his Gladio headquarters could no longer be in the headquarters of the Dutch General Staff which was located in the Prinses Juliana military complex half way between the Hague and the Dutch village Wassenaar. He was therefore allowed to search for an adequate building not too far from the headquarters of the Dutch General Staff. With less than total emphasis on secrecy he decided upon House Maarheeze in Wassenaar, an architectonic highlight and impressive villa built in 1916 by a Dutch businessman who had become wealthy in Indonesia. Located within an acceptable distance of five minutes' driving from the headquarters of the General Staff, Somer in May 1945 took up residence in the Villa Maarheeze, still officially under BI activities. In 1946 the Dutch Gladio GIIIC, shortly thereafter renamed G7, also moved into the same building.
Somer insisted that secrecy was of the utmost importance for the clandestine army. While he was in command no Roman Catholics for instance could become members of the secret unit, for Somer believed that their duty for confession stood in contrast to the principle of secrecy within the service. At the same time Somer made sure that the Dutch executive was informed of his clandestine preparations. Assisted by the Chief of Staff Kruls he debriefed Dutch Prime Minister Louis Beel when the latter took office in July 1946 to head the Dutch executive until 1948. Beel was soon convinced of the values of a stay-behind, and thus consented to the secret operation despite the fact that he considered the scenario of a Soviet invasion to be rather unlikely.
'Operation Gladio' reveals `Gladio', the secret state-sponsored terror network operating in Europe | BBC documentary - 1992 |
"Deception is a state of mind
and the mind of the State"
James Jesus Angleton,
Head of CIA Counter Intelligence 1954-1974
Secret Warfare: Operation Gladio and NATO's Stay-Behind Armies
Synopsis of the Book
Chapter One: A terrorist attack in Italy
This chapter describes the discovery of the secret stay-behind army "Gladio" in Italy. The chapter takes the reader back to the Peteano terrorist attack of 31 May 1972. In that year an anonymous phone call after the attack suggested that the left-wing terrorist organization "Red Brigades" had carried out the atrocity, and for many years Italy believed that the crime had been carried out by the political left. Yet in 1984 Italian judge Felice Casson reopened the Peteano case after having discovered large-scale manipulations.
The chapter describes how Casson during his investigations discovered the Italian secret stay-behind army "Gladio" hidden within the military secret service and how it had linked up with right-wing terrorist Vincenzo Vinciguerra who confessed to having carried out the Peteano terrorist attack. The chapter focuses on the agitated Italian public debate that followed when Vinciguerra exposed the so called "strategy of tension" through which members of the secret stay-behind armies and the military secret services had manipulated the public through terrorism. The secret armies supplied right wing terrorists with explosives to carry out terrorist attacks on the Italian population who were thereafter blamed on the communist party and the political left in general in order to discredit the political opponent.
Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy
Just before midnight on 15 December 1969, Giuseppe Pinelli was seen to fall to his death from a fourth floor window of the Milan police station. Three police officers interrogating Pinelli, including Commissioner Luigi Calabresi, were put under investigation in 1971 for his death, but legal proceedings concluded it was due to accidental causes.
Pinelli's name has since been cleared, and the far-right Ordine Nuovo was accused of the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing (in 2001, three neo-fascists were convicted, a sentence overturned in March 2004; a fourth defendant, Carlo Digilio, was a suspected CIA informant who became a witness for the state and received immunity from prosecution).
Strategy of Tension
The strategy of tension (Italian language: strategia della tensione ) is a tactic that aims to divide, manipulate, and control public opinion using fear, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents provocateurs, and false flag terrorist actions.
The theory began with allegations that the United States government and the Greek military junta of 1967-1974 supported far-right terrorist groups in Italy and Turkey, where communism was growing in popularity, to spread panic among the population who would in turn demand stronger and more dictatorial governments.
Secrets and Bombs -- The Piazza Fontana bombing and the Strategy of Tension by Luciano Lanza
Nothing has changed in style of subversion, McCarthyism, CIA agents, neo-Nazi's, war on "Communism". Very, very sad. War propaganda,
From the diaries ...
(Italian Elections 2008-Introduction)
The Bologna Train Station Bombing occurred on August 2, 1980. 85 people died and over 200 were injured. It is still covered by state secrecy.
The revolutionary fascists, Giusva Fioravanti, Francesca Mambro and others, were condemned for the crime. They are now in semi-liberty. Shortly before a passenger plane flying from Bologna to Palermo was shot down over Ustica [NATO intrigue], killing all passengers. It too remains a mystery. Lucio Gelli had been extradited to Italy by the Swiss on several charges. Extradition was not granted for charges directly related to the massacre. Francesco Pazienza and the P2 heads of the SISMIwere charged and condemned for planting false evidence (bombs no less) and misleading investigators. Pazienza was an enterprising and charming homme d'action chiefly known to Americans for having produced the Billygate documents, which cinched Reagan's election, together with Michael Ledeen. According to Pazienza it was an action that involved the CSIS, Bush père's favorite policy tank.
Gelli's famous first list
contained 962 names. Another list as well as an address book eventually surfaced. The address book was more important in that it contained his frequent contacts. Gelli did not fight in Spain. His brother did- and died there. [posted by di Gondi - March 28, 2008]
Who Really Kidnapped Abu Omar? | by soj on Jul 10th, 2005 |
Naturally, everyone's been focused on the London bombings lately. But something perhaps far more sinister, with further implications, has been going on in Italy.
At the end of June, a major story broke that CIA operatives had kidnapped a man named Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr ("Abu Omar") off the streets of Milan in 2003.
[...]
Gaetano Saya recruited up to 150 members of Italian police and security agencies to simultaneously work for Department of Anti-Terrorism Strategic Studies (DSSA). These members would share with DSSA the work their organizations were conducting, and it seems at least one member gave DSSA access to the Interior Ministry's computer network (with its anti-terrorism information).
Many of the DSSA-affiliated members are considered "top" police officials. And while the Genoa investigation says that DSSA was gaining access to this information illegally, Saya says that DSSA's work was both "legal" and "well-known".
So who is Gaetano Saya? He's a well-known member of an extreme nationalist group called "Destra Nazionale" or "National Rightists" in English. Their website is online and can be viewed here. It's very open about its mission, which is to defend and support Italian "patriots" and to defend the "homeland".
What follows is the complete unwinding of a tape recorded on a July night. Quite incredulous to hear the river raging from a person not at all worried about being under house arrest. He talks about everything: about the DSSA, about himself, about his past and about certain special operations. It tells of Giorgiana Masi (the student killed by the police in Rome on May 12, 1977 during an unauthorized demonstration) and Carlo Giuliani (the young man killed in Genoa on July 20, 2001 during the G8), Aldo Moro and Nicola Calipari.
It's also anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim extremists and uses a lot of imagery of soldiers of the Middle Ages in the Crusade to reclaim the "Holy Land" from Muslims. I note here that most of the figures pictured look like members of the Knights Templar.
Saya's organization is an offshoot of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), which was a neo-fascist party founded after World War II by supporters of Mussolini.
The MSI was officially disbanded in 1995, with the more moderate (but still virulently nationalist) wing becoming the Allianza Nazionale (a coalition member of the gov't). More hardcore splinter factions emerged, including Mussolini's granddaughter's Alternativa Sociale and the Fiamma Tricolore (three-colored flame). And of course Saya's MSI-DN faction, which is not even a registered political party.
It was when Saya was arrested that RAI news reported that he and his associates might be linked to the Gladio network, which piqued my curiosity.
The word "Gladio" is Latin and refers to a short sword carried by Roman soldiers. Operation Gladio was a codename for a NATO operation set up shortly after the end of World War 2 by the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). Time for a brief history lesson: History of SHAPE and Allied Command Operations
.
The Calipari Assassination Case | by de Gondi - Feb. 10, 2007 |
The judge for the preliminary audience, Sante Spinaci, has decreed that the US soldier Mario Luis Lozano will stand trial on charges of voluntary homicide and attempted homicide. Nicola Calipari, a high-ranking SISMI official, was murdered at a checkpoint after liberating the reporter Giuliana Sgrena in Baghdad. (Major breaking coverage of the tragedy was done at DailyKos and Booman, especially by Jerome and Gilgamesh.)
From the diaries @BooMan ..