2001 American Fairy Tales: A Bird’s Eye View of Contrived Terror–
Part III. The Gladio Conspiracy

We have a group of people who have the power to act with impunity. They are above the law.–Catherine Austin Fitts, 2013

Summary:

This third posting of the Gladio-USA six-part essay recalls the horrors the Syndicate visited on Europe in the 1960s through the 1980s. These horrors, now conveniently subsumed under the Gladio rubric, involved killing hundreds of civilians (“women, children, unknown people far from any political game”), the overthrow of democratically-elected governments, and assassinations of heads of state and other high-profile friends of the people. Gladio’s shock and awe strategy, its reliance on propaganda, bribes, blackmail, fascists, and agents provocateurs, sought “to discredit left-wing groups and politicians,” confuse and enfeeble the people, and cause mayhem. It thereby induced people to look to the very entity that terrorized them so—the state—for their security. The Gladio Conspiracy—among countless other proven conspiracies throughout the ages—makes a mockery of conspiracy scoffers, thereby corroborating once more Mark Twain’s view that fools make up “a big enough majority in any town.” Gladio also proves that Western governments have long ago fallen under the spell of diabolical Machiavellians. The key take-home lesson  is this: All things being equal, the known involvement of Western governments in Gladio suggests that it is these governments (and not fanatic Muslims and other “extremists”) that are behind the hyped wave of 21^st century terror.

Other postings of “A Bird’s Eye View of Contrived Terror”:

Book Online: 2001 American Fairy Tales: A Bird’s Eye View of Contrived Terror: I. A Preview /  II.   Backdrop of Terror / III. The Gladio Conspiracy / IV.  19 Telltale Signs of Fake Terror / V.    History: Read it and Learn / VI.  Give me Logic or Give me Terror

Hassan al Sabbah, a brilliant Iranian polymath and tactician, was the founder of the Order of the Assassins. This Shia Order flourished for about 200 years, mostly in Iran and Syria, starting in the late 11th century. The Order delivered tangible assassination threats (e.g., placing a dagger on a target’s bed) to rulers contemplating pogroms and persecutions of Shia Muslims. If the threats were ignored, the target was killed. Al Sabbah’s strategy of asymmetrical warfare was astoundingly effective, minimizing bloodshed and bringing to heel such figures as the Sultan Salah A’din. The connection between this strategy and the bogus war on terror will be explored in Part V.

Before moving on to the contemporary phony war on terror, we must remind ourselves of its earlier clone, the Gladio Conspiracy (for an overview, see: Cottrell, Richard, 2012, Gladio: NATO’s Dagger at the Heart of Europe - The Pentagon-Mafia-Nazi Terror Axis).

To my knowledge no one denies the historical reality of the original Gladio Conspiracy. The New York Times, Japan Times, The Times of India, Ha’aretz, PBS, CNN, BBC, or Der Spiegel, naturally ignore or underplay this conspiracy and its earth-shaking implications—but even they do not dare deny its existence (thereby, incidentally, making a mockery of their outright dismissal of “conspiracy theories”).

I shall introduce the old Gladio with a few quotes:

Makinde Adeyinka:

The existence of these secret armies and the malevolent role they played in contributing to politically motivated violence in many of the Western European nations was not officially revealed until November 1990. ... Most shocking about the revelation was how the secret armies had been used to foment violence and bore responsibility for several terrorist outrages against the people of their nations. The secret armies were also used in various plots to subvert and overthrow democratically elected governments, and are also suspected of having been involved in the assassinations of some European leaders.

According to one participant in this CIA-orchestrated acts of terror,

You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, unknown people far from any political game. The reason was quite simple — to force the people to turn to the state to ask for greater security.

Another source:

Operation Gladio is undisputed historical fact. Gladio was part of a post-World War II program set up by the CIA and NATO ... a state-sponsored right-wing terrorist network, involved in false flag operations and the subversion of democracy.

The existence of Gladio was confirmed and admitted by the Italian government in 1990, after a judge, Felice Casson, discovered the network in the course of his investigations into right-wing terrorism. Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti admitted Gladio’s existence but tried to minimize its significance.

The main function of the Gladio-style groups ... seems to have been to discredit left-wing groups and politicians through the use of “the strategy of tension,” including false-flag terrorism. The strategy of tension is a concept for control and manipulation of public opinion through the use of fear, propaganda, agents provacateurs, terrorism, etc. The aim was to instill fear into the populace while framing communist and left-wing political opponents for terrorist atrocities. ...

[Gladios is] a confirmed precedent of the US and western governments participating in ruthless terrorist attacks against their own people in order instill fear, control the population, and frame left-wing political opponents. People who believe that such things do not or cannot happen should be forcefully made aware of such examples as Operation Gladio.

This is not the place to portray each gory aspect of the Gladio Conspiracy, the innocent lives lost, the limbs, hearts, and brains blown up or contorted, the democratically-elected leaders executed by the CIA and MI6 and their fascist continental vassals. Nor is this the place to decipher the true meanings of such euphemisms as “stay behind armies” or “strategy of tension.” Instead, let me attempt to capture the diabolical nature of the original Gladio by relating four undisputed specimens:

Piazza Fonatana, 1969: “In Italy the Piazza Fontana massacre in Milano kills sixteen and injures and maims 80 and is blamed on the left. Thirty years later during a trial of right-wing extremists, General Giandelio Maletti, former head of Italian counter-intelligence, claims that the massacre had been carried out by the Italian stay-behind army and right wing terrorists on the orders of the US secret service Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in order to discredit the Italian Communists.” [Source: Cottrell, Richard, 2012, Gladio: NATO’s Dagger at the Heart of Europe - The Pentagon-Mafia-Nazi Terror Axis]

The Bologna massacre, 1980: “Unfortunate Italians were selected as the main brunt of a campaign of deadly violence that stretched over the better part of two decades. They shudder when they recall the ‘years of lead’ – the anni di piombo. They remember the smoking ruins of Bologna railway station one summer day in 1980. On the morning of 2^ndAugust, 85 Italians eagerly setting off for their annual vacations were blown up by a huge bomb placed in the main station waiting room. It was air-conditioned, unusually for Italy, and crowded in the heat; which the perpetrators callously calculated would maximize casualties. Two hundred passengers and railway staff were injured. A train waiting to depart was completely wrecked, and a large part of the station collapsed. A pair of English sweethearts fresh with graduate laurels was among the victims. The government rushed to claim the device was planted by the Brigate Rosse – the Red Brigades, Italy’s legendary band of self-proclaimed urban revolutionaries. Almost within hours, the truth emerged, subsequently confirmed by the courts. The atrocity at Bologna was conceived in the bowels of the Italian Deep State, in short by the Italian government itself.” [Source: Richard Cottrell]

To sum up. The masterminds of Gladio are now attributing post 9/11/2001 terror to radical Muslims. Given the agreed-upon involvement of the Syndicate and its American, British, and European death squads in the Gladio Conspiracy, it appears more likely (although at this point in this six-part essay far from certain) that the Syndicate is behind the 21^st century’s wave of hyped terror.

Part IV. 19 Telltale Signs of Fake Terror                     Revolutionary's Toolkit