NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio [2009)

Film directed by Andreas Pichler.

https://thoughtmaybe.com/natos-secret-armies/

Reference point:

http://www.journalof911studies.com/resources/2014GanserVol39May.pdf

Formed in 1956.

The year after the Warsaw Pact (Comecon [1955]).

A legitimate fear.

Let me be unequivocal.

In my opinion, communism is bad.

One might even say evil.

But no one should be killed or tortured for their political beliefs.

A crime must be committed in order for rule of law to come into play.

It is not a crime to hold naive theories (like communism) on what is a good economic system.

A Marxist can only be punished insofar as they promote the overthrow of the government.

I do not think Joe Biden was duly-elected.

But I am not calling for him to be overthrown.

That is not my place.

I could play no role in that.

The only entity which could overthrow Joe Biden’s regime would be the U.S. military.

They should do what they think is right.

They do, however, have an obligation to NOT FOLLOW illegal orders.

Would all orders emanating from a President who was not duly-elected be illegal?

I would think they would be.

But it is not my role to decide that.

Our military will either let us suffer and cease to exist as a country (under the criminal leadership of Joe Biden), or they will make their voices heard.

Every time our military follows an order of Joe Biden, they are making the choice that that order is legal and valid.

And that is their choice.

History will judge them.

It is not my place to give the military advice.

Even though they work for me.

And Joe Biden also derives his (stolen) power from me.

I repudiate Joe Biden.

He is not the legal President.

But what can I do about it?

Here’s what I CAN’T do about it.

I cannot act like a Marxist and encourage the overthrow of the government.

I don’t encourage that.

But I do encourage our military leaders to think.

I do encourage our military leaders to take the situation and condition of the country into consideration.

And I do encourage our military leaders to be abreast of the “irregularities” (to put it nicely) of the 2020 election.

It is up to them to decide what to do.

If they think they are following legal orders by carrying out the commands of Joe Biden, then there’s not much I can do about that.

Joe is right.

We the people would need nukes and fighter jets.

But we the people will only allow our rights to be infringed UP TO A POINT.

An unjust law is no law at all.

Natural law.

I reserve the right to peacefully protest and to utilize my First Amendment rights of free speech.

I wish Biden well.

I hope he keeps us out of WWIII.

I wish he would get us out of NATO.

But I know he won’t.

Because he’s a corrupt moron.

I hope the 2022 midterms actually happen.

I hope Bill Gates doesn’t unleash a smallpox attack.

I hope the 2022 elections are actually free and fair.

I believe the 2020 elections were neither free, nor fair.

Trump won.

I am very disappointed with Trump’s stance on the COVID vaccines.

I am also quite disappointed that Trump called Zelensky a hero.

But it doesn’t change the fact that Trump won.

Would I vote for Trump again?

I don’t know.

I voted for him two times.

I might prefer Ron DeSantis, Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, RFK Jr., Robert Malone, Joe Rogan, Alex Jones…

I think any of these people would make a fine President.

And I am liking Tulsi Gabbard more and more.

Which brings us to NATO.

NATO is clearly (CLEARLY!) at fault in the Ukraine war.

NATO precipitated this war.

And the presence of the USA in NATO is unnecessary.

Being in NATO is an unnecessary danger for the United States.

NATO should not even exist anymore (because its enemies…the USSR and the Warsaw Pact alliance) no longer exist.

NATO is no longer a force for peace.

Was it ever?

That brings us to our current film.

Years of Lead.

Anni di piombo.

Italy.

Guido Salvini.

Good guy.

CIA using groups like Ordine Nuovo (fascists) in Italy.

New Order.

New World Order.

Britain wants to maintain that MI6 are choir boys.

P-26.

But what about SHAPE?

And SACEUR?

Gladio (Italy) reported (“responded”) to SACEUR.

It is GOOD to know how communist revolutions work.

It is GOOD to stop them before they happen.

But it is VERY, VERY BAD to murder innocent dumbasses who are wearing Che Guevara t-shirts.

And it is even worse to indiscriminately bomb banks and train stations to scare a population into not voting communist.

The formula was:

-NATO-led (right-wing) stay-behind networks commit terrorist attack on behalf of US/NATO

-attack blamed on leftists

-population avoids voting for communists out of fear

Children were killed in these operations.

Bombings.

Mass shootings.

All blamed on leftists.

And most (if not all) carried out by right-wing paramilitary groups under orders from US/NATO.

P26.

Switzerland.

Felice Casson.

Good guy.

Daniele Ganser (whose article I posted near the top of the page).

Good guy.

Italian intelligence may have stolen the 2020 U.S. election.

Via the military/satellite company Leonardo.

In the days of Gladio, the prime mover within Italy was SISMI.

Military intelligence.

Italy.

Switzerland.

Belgium.

Germany.

But Italy was hit the hardest.

Along with SISMI (which no longer exists per se), another suspect would be VSSE of Belgium.

Only the Vatican’s intelligence agency is older than VSSE.

VSSE is the CIA of Belgium.

Belgium also has a military intelligence organization (GISS).

Strategy of tension.

Look it up.

It dominated the USA in the years after 9/11/01.

And it has dominated the past two years of COVID (with biological warfare [disguised as a naturally-occurring pandemic] replacing higher-intensity forms of terrorism).

The W. Bush administration denies that the USA had anything to do with the terrorism of the stay-behind networks (like Gladio) which they set up in all NATO countries following WWII.

Yeah, sure.

This same Bush administration says it’s just all “made up” by the Russians.

All evidence points to the various security services in Europe (Italy, Belgium, etc.) protecting these stay behind networks from prosecution when they committed these acts of terrorism.

So the Bush administration was (in 2006) relying on an implausible deniabilty.

It’s possible, but highly unlikely, that the United States didn’t participate in these terror activities.

And it is even less possible that they didn’t know about them and condone them.

It remains to be discovered just what just the U.S. and NATO played in this terrorism.

There is no question that NATO/US set up these stay-behind networks.

And there is very little question that these stay-behind networks committed acts of terrorism upon European civilians.

Indeed, the original mission of these stay-behind networks appears to have changed from “use in case of emergency [a Soviet takeover of Western Europe]” to “use for any purpose which will cause Europeans to fear communist political candidates”.

This violence should not have been committed.

When children are killed (as they were by a bombing in Munich at the Octoberfest), then the end does not justify the means.

Try telling the father who lost his young son and daughter to that bombing.

The girl was ripped open by the bomb.

The boy had bomb fragments which went through his head.

They both suffered.

They did not die instantly.

They both spoke to their father.

The girl said, “Please help me, father.”

The boy said, “I’m ok. I’m just cold.”

They both died soon after.

And that father had to live with that grief.

All so that communists would not be voted into power in Western Europe.

Bullshit!

FUCK THAT!!!

SDRA8 in Belgium.

Absalon in Denmark.

TD BDJ in Germany (where a former Nazi, Gehlen, was head of post-war German intel).

LOK in Greece.

Stay-Behind in Luxembourg.

I&O in Netherlands.

ROC in Norway.

Aginter Press in Portugal.

Red Quantum in Spain.

P26 in Switzerland.

Özel Harp Dairesi in Turkey.

AGAG in Sweden.

Plan Bleu in France.

OWSGV in Austria.

The name of the Finnish version is unknown.

Italy.

Giulio Andreotti.

Vincenzo Vinciguerra.

Licio Gelli.

Propagada 2 (Masonic lodge).

Nazis and fascists in South America.

Operation Condor.

CIA-backed Nazis in Ukraine.

Lebed.

Stepan Bandera.

Azov Battalion.

Ihor Kolomoyskyi.

The second or third richest person in Ukraine.

A Jew.

Who supports (and funds) the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.

https://www.newsweek.com/evidence-war-crimes-committed-ukrainian-nationalist-volunteers-grows-269604

IMG_7897

Now why would a Jew support an anti-Semitic (goes without saying) Nazi group?

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS60927080220150505

IMG_7898

SISMI was preceded by SID.

Let’s get into the hideous details.

Piazza Fontana bombing.

Milan.

17 dead.

88 wounded.

Bomb went off in an agricultural bank.

Two farmers had just closed a deal with a bank manager.

Does that sound like the kind of target leftists would hit?

A bank for farmers?

No.

But that wasn’t the only bomb of the day.

Other than the 4:37 p.m. bombing of the Banca Nazionale dell’Agricoltura, there were three other bombings that same afternoon in Rome and Milan.

AA11.

UA175.

“AA77”.

UA93.

Four in a day.

There was a U.S. Navy officer (David Carrett) indicted for his role in the Piazza Fontana bombing by the aformentioned Guido Salvini.

A US/NATO intel official (Sergio Minetto) was also indicted by Salvini.

The CIA coordinator for northeastern Italy (Carlo “Uncle Otto” Digilio) was likewise indicted by Salvini.

The head of SISMI (Sergio Siracusa) was charged by the aforementioned Felice Casson.

It seems the Piazza Fontana investigation was obstructed by SID (SISMI) director General Gianandelio Maletti (a P2 Masonic lodge member).

Neo-Nazi/neo-Fascist Franco Freda got life in prison in 1979 for the bombing.

As did Giovanni Ventura.

As did Italian secret agent Guido Gianettini.

All three were then acquitted on appeals in 1981.

Freda and Venturi still each got 15 years for bombings they committed in Padua and Milan.

Gianettini was acquitted in 1982.

All defendants acquitted in 1985 (including alleged conspirators Valpreda and Merlino).

Two members of the Italian secret services went to jail for misleading the investigation.

Now what possible reason might they have had for doing that?

I don’t know…maybe because the bombers were working for them???

Gian Adelio Maletti got one year in prison.

Antonio Labruna got 10 months.

For the death of 17 people.

But in 1987, here comes our good friend from Operation Condor.

Stefano Delle Chiaie.

Tried for the Piazza Fontana bombing.

Acquitted.

By 2000 it had come to Delfo Zorzi.

He received life in prison for the bombing.

Carlo Digilio received immunity in exchange for information.

Zorzi was then acquitted on appeal in 2004.

U.S. intelligence knew about the Piazza Fontana bombing (and the Piazza della Loggia bombing five years later in Brescia) before they happened.

But they did nothing to stop them.

Why?

This sounds awful similar to what the CIA did in South America with Operation Condor.

In Brescia, it appears that the target was even more stupid.

Why would right-wing false-flaggers bomb an anti-fascist protect?

That makes no sense.

France was the only member of NATO to ever withdraw from the alliance.

And if they had been smart (which they evidently are not), they would have stayed out.

But they didn’t stay out.

Nevertheless, SHAPE was forced by France’s withdrawal in 1967 to move to Mons, Belgium.

The Brabant massacres.

The Brabant killers.

The Nivelles gang.

De Bende van Nijvel.

Les Tueurs fous du Brabant.

Delhaize grocery stores.

28 deaths.

Burglary.

Etterbeek. 1981

Theft.

Dinant. 1982

Armed robbery (grocery store).

Maubeuge (France). 1982

Armed robbery.

Wavre. 1982

Death of policeman.

Armed robbery (restaurant).

Employee tortured and killed.

Beersel. 1982

Robbery.

Murder of taxi driver.

Brussels. 1983

[car found in Mons {SHAPE}]

Armed robbery (grocery store).

Rixensart. 1983

Armed robbery (grocery store).

Uccle. 1983

Armed robbery (grocery store).

One employee killed.

Halle. 1983

Armed robbery (grocery store).

Houdeng-Gougnies. 1983

Armed robbery (textile factory).

One worker killed.

Temse. 1983

Service station robberies.

More murders.

Armed robbery (restaurant).

Owner killed.

Ohain. 1983

Armed robbery.

One customer killed.

Beersel (again). 1983

Armed robbery.

Two owners of shop killed.

Anderlues. 1983

AND THEN IT ALL STOPPED?!?

Nothing in 1984.

Armed robbery (Delhaize grocery store).

Three people killed.

Braine-l’Alleud. 1985

Armed robbery (Delhaize grocery store).

Five people killed.

Overijse. 1985

Armed robbery (Delhaize grocery store).

Father, mother, and daughter killed in the parking lot.

Son ran back into the shop and was shot at point blank.

Eight deaths today during this robbery.

Aalst. 1985

Buckshot in 12-gauge Winchester pump shotguns was a rare type similar to a former Belgian special forces unit called Group Diane.

SDRA8.

SDRAVIII.

S.D.R.A. VIII.

In Greece, there was CIA coordination with General Lucian Truscott.

LOK is Greek special forces.

There is some evidence they were involved in the Greek military coup of 1967.

This coup happened one month before national elections.

There were 10,000 arrests in this coup.

This ushered in the Regime of the Colonels which lasted in Greece from 1967-1974.

A secret NATO army in Greece appears to have been named Red Sheepskin (or Operation Sheepskin).

Arms cashes of the stay-behinds were found near Arnhem, Netherlands.

Operation Gladio again connects to Operation Condor by was of Stefano Delle Chiae.

In Spain (where many Nazis hid out before fleeing to South America).

We also find another connection to Vincenzo Vinciguerra.

William Colby is the only CIA Director that I like.

-PD

Deutschland im Jahre Null [1948)

The first thing film critics have to get right is the title.

Let me explain a bit.

On my site, I always list a film in its original language (to the best of my ability).

In my opinion, that is the best way of honoring the film.

So far, I have encountered the mild idiosyncrasies of Romanian, Serbo-Croat, Czech, and Polish in addition to the mind-blowing intricacy of Farsi and Japanese.

But with Deutschland im Jahre Null we are seeing a German-language film by an Italian director…sort of.

Italy has a very peculiar tradition concerning voiceovers and direct (or, conversely, indirect) sound.  It is an oddity which caught the attention of Godard in his role as film historian.

I cannot give you as erudite an explanation as my hero Jean-Luc, but suffice it to say that foreign (non-Italian) films in Italy have traditionally been overdubbed into Italian.  So, in other words, no subtitles.

This is distinct from an American viewer watching a Fellini film.  The “American” version (whether on DVD or as a film print in a theater) will be in Italian with subtitles in English.  This goes for almost all foreign-language (non-English) films marketed in the United States.

But getting back to Deutschland im Jahre Null…  It is similar to the Danish director Carl Th. Dreyer directing the French film La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc…with one major difference.  Dreyer’s film was a silent one (the only French being the intertitles).  Rossellini’s Deutschland im Jahre Null is very much in German.  We are hearing German actors speak (exclusively) German dialogue.

What is most interesting is the linguistic lineage of this film.  In English, this film is known as:

Germany, Year Zero

Which is quite similar to Rossellini’s preceding masterpiece (in linguistic parallel):

Rome, Open City

To be fair, let’s consider the Italian name (the real name) of Rome, Open CityRoma città aperta.  Fine.  That is the way I recognize the film.  The true name is (in my mind) Roma città aperta.

But with Deutschland im Jahre Null we come to a very strange case.  If we do not recognize the primacy of its English title (Germany, Year Zero), and I do not, then we are directed by that great arbiter of cultural legitimacy Wikipedia to consider our options exhausted by being cognizant of the Italian title (Germania anno zero).

What is the message of this omission by English Wikipedia?  I believe the message is that Germany was (and continues to be) a null.  A zero.  A conquered culture.

We see a similar thing in the kowtowing stereotype of conquered Japan.  And though Japan might be experiencing some moderate-to-light financial troubles in recent years, Germany is by all accounts the economic powerhouse of continental Europe.  Why do I bring economics into the discussion?  Because wealthy nations are able to assert themselves.

But let us step back a bit.  Wikipedia does have some tasty morsels of information concerning this film.  If the source can be trusted, this 1948 film was not shown in Germany (the country from whence the language of the film takes its name) until 1952.  After its single screening in München (Munich), it was not heard from again within those borders until it ran on German television in 1978. 

Wow…26 years.  Either this film was grossly misunderstood, or it was understood all too well.  From my reading, this is a very pro-German document.

Rossellini was not George Stevens making concentration camp propaganda.  Roberto was making art.  The sign of art is the admission of possibilities.  Art seduces us because it is subtle.  Art does not proclaim in blanket statements.  Art does not underestimate the intelligence of the viewer.

Roberto Rossellini did something with his “war films trilogy” which seems to have been unprecedented.  The desire of neorealism was to film fiction as if it were documentary.  This fiction would be, likewise, based on reality.

But why is it, then, that we have very different views of Roberto Rossellini and Robert Flaherty?

I will tell you my guess.  Flaherty’s sin was in the framing of his presentation.  To wit, he presented his staged documentaries (take the oil industry propaganda piece Louisiana Story for instance) as if they were naturally-occurring, spontaneous documentaries. The sin, then, was his duplicitous relationship with his subjects.  He actively made his human subjects into actors.

Rossellini takes a different tack.  There is no pretense that Deutschland im Jahre Null is an ACTUAL documentary.  It merely has the feel of that medium.  Likewise, Rossellini’s use of nonprofessional actors was likely more of a precursor to Robert Bresson than a twist on Flaherty’s bizarre formula (which predated Roberto in both Nanook of the North [1922] and Man of Aran [1934]).  No, Rossellini had created something new. 

It’s not so much the films of Flaherty to which I object as it is the idea of them.  At least one of his concoctions (perhaps thanks to director F.W. Murnau) is very fine indeed:  Tabu [1931].  Flaherty and Murnau co-wrote this ostensible documentary.  Indeed, with Flaherty we come into contact with inchoate, obscure film genres such as docudrama, docufiction, fictional documentary (ethnofiction), etc. etc. etc.

Most importantly, none of what I have written here has even scratched the surface of Deutschland im Jahre Null.   What ever became of the heartrending main child actor Edmund Moeschke?  I do not know.

One thing is certain to me:  no film before Rossellini’s “war trilogy” (Roma città aperta, Paisà, and Deutschland im Jahre Null) [1945/1946/1948] takes on such politically sensitive and important topics in such a raw way.  The closest would be the socialism of Eisenstein or the humanism of Chaplin. 

It is, therefore, no wonder at all that Rossellini spawned a million “new waves” the world over.

 

-PD

 

Per un pugno di dollari [1964)

They say the pen is mightier than the sword.

And so we place into a single room

the greatest writer of all time

and a schmuck with a sword.

The writer has his pen…for self-defense.

But we feel the Yojimbo trappings are too antiquated (1961)

so we give the bard a typewriter…no, a laptop

and the schmuck…a gun.

Who will draw first?

For speed, it is the gun which wins (assuming the schmuck knows how to fire it).

It is a big assumption.

So, let us add some lag time…

as the schmuck experiments with the mechanics of his weapon.

And then we stop the test and replace the schmuck with a professional assassin.

By now the poet is sweating blood.

Will he hit “send” in time?

Ah, but now we have overshot the mark with our rhetoric.

So let us back up to the computing of the 1960s.

Computation #1:  Westerns are no longer in vogue.  American Westerns are the subject of ridicule in Italy.  Laughable.

Enter Sergio Leone into the equation.

A smart guy.  Sees a gap in the market.  How would Rossellini direct a Western?  Or Fellini?

Do they make revolvers that hold 8 1/2 bullets?

And who gets the half-a-bullet?

I had intended to talk about Guantanamo Bay.  Moral disgust.

But the sands of time in the Tabernas Desert are pouring away…a steady stream of grains.

And so the faceoff makes imperative that I get the most bang for my click.

Eastwood.  Leone.  Savio.  Savio?  Morricone.  Ah, that’s better.

Gian Maria Volonté (the bad guy) would go on to play in the first (and one would assume only) Marxist Western.  A subgenre which never really caught on.  The film Vent d’est (1970)–director Godard–filming location Mozambique.

Sounds too weird to be true, right?  Just don’t be fooled by Robert Enrico’s Vent d’est from 1993.

Just because a film is Franco-Swiss (like Godard, Franco-Swiss)…uh-uh, not the same thing.

But the assassin schmuck is getting the lay of the land.  I digress, I die.

I am not the worst writer to ever live.  Give me time.  I may yet claim that title.

We cannot, however, forget Marianne Koch.  So long…

Never forget a woman from Munich.  The beautiful Renate Knaup, for instance.

A double umlaut for your trouble.  Amon Düül II.  Zwei.

But time is unkind to me…merciless.

Will we reach José Calvo in time?  With our heart of iron?

Well hello Joe, what do you know?  The “Man with No Name” and Une Femme est une femme.

I’ve hardly talked about the film.  That’s what some call “no spoilers”…

But I can make no such guarantee.

Only brilliance.  Leone.  Eastwood.  As good a Western as could possibly be made.

A triumph.

If you feel your heart in your throat…your tears well up

then maybe you think of Guantanamo Bay.

Inmates list.

One by one.

No charges.

No charges.

Suicide.

No charges.

Certainly it would help to know that Abdul so-and-so knocked off an Army Ranger medic.

The medic part is no superfluous detail.

But the rest?

No charges.

No charges.

Held for three years.

No charges.

It seems, from the outside, that the war has been run by the CIA.

There are no armies to battle.

No high-value targets.  I’m not the first to comment on the ludicrous situation of a $200,000 bomb being dropped on a mud hut.

Bad guys torture.

Idiots torture.

And so Clint Eastwood does not torture.  Here.  In 1964.

If you jump down the rabbit hole you will be disgusted.

How does this in any way have to do with a Spaghetti Western?

It is the message.

We might not have a hell of a lot of time.

Find the quote by the general…about the detainees at Guantanamo who arrived with mental problems and left with “none.”

That’s rich.

I also have a bridge to sell you in Arizona.  And I’ll throw in the Seven Dwarfs as maintenance crew.

You see, it’s a hell of a lot easier to just write a film review and not worry about all this stuff.

That’s what happens in totalitarian countries.

Hang on, someone’s knocking at my door…

-PD