Eurasia note #32 - Ukraine May Meet Its Gladio

Insurgents may drag Russia into a version of Italy's 'Years of Lead' or Greece's 'Z'

U.S. is waging economic war against Russia, says Kremlin spokesman.
China says sanctions will not bring peace, slams Biden oil ban.
Six humanitarian corridors open Weds, with 12-hour ceasefire.
Two million citizens and foreign residents have now left Ukraine.
Azov Battalion mines in Mariupol claim lives of citizens.
Russians surround Kyiv to north-west and -east; approach Chernihiv
Chernobyl and Zaporozhye nuclear plants routine, Energograd calm.
(3,500 words or 11 minutes’ read — conclusion for paid subscribers)

Tbilisi, Mar 9, 2021

The Western press is in a tizzy about the letter ‘Z’ painted on Russian tanks and armoured vehicles, and even the vests of soldiers.

Even if we dimly perceived its meaning we would be ignorant of its significance to those who wear it. Is it za pobedy (to victory)? на запад (to the west)? No matter. The meaning is internal. Westerners had better search their own minds for meaning.

The letter Z was painted on Greek walls after military intelligence killed the politician Grigoris Lambrakis. It signified, Ζει, or “he lives.” The New York Times mocked the Greek people in 1975: “Greece sees ‘Z’ and gets excited.” Political murder is no joke.

Lambrakis was a medical doctor, an athlete, and a member of the resistance who had freed Greece from Nazi occupation. He was a peace activist during the time the Central Intelligence Agency was installing the Greek Colonels, a fascist regime that looks quaint by today’s impending standards.

Whoever staved in his skull, Lambrakis fell to the spear of Gladio, the NATO, CIA, MI6 operation to keep government in “right” hands. The problem Gladio addressed was that the fascists had just been forced out of power by, among others, communists, who were reaping the electoral reward. Gladio’s response was the tip of steel.

‘Z’ became the title of a 1969 movie by the director Costa-Gavras. Haaretz in 2016 carried an article: “Z Depicts Lethal Links Between Governments and Right-wing Thugs. Sound Familiar?”

The film begins with a general describing leftism as mildew, a parasitic disease, a germ to be eradicated. [1]

The pestilential parallels go further: the general says the protestors must be allowed to express themselves, so their opponents may vent their frustrations as “healthy antibodies.”

This is the long term language of fascism.

Two thoughts come to mind. The indiscriminate elimination of elements “counter” to order. And our lack of the 1970’s sensitivity to a right-wing, paramilitary apparatus that was “coiled around the heart” of democracy.

Looking more broadly at the circumstances that have dragged Europe like an unwilling creature back into the Colosseum, we see there is more to Russia-Ukraine than a local fist fight.

A guerrilla-style insurgency in Ukraine is increasingly mentioned as “inevitable” by the U.S. intelligence and foreign policy establishment.

Holding south and east Ukraine will not be possible without purging the west. In this analysis, taking the whole country would trigger a “bloody insurgency that could spread across multiple borders, perhaps even reaching into Belarus,” writes Douglas London in Foreign Affairs. [2]

This is a different outcome to that anticipated by former U.S. senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense, Col Doug Macgregor (Ret’d) who maintains that Russia is poised to eliminate Ukrainian troops if they don’t surrender. That could see the country split along the Dnieper river; the east and Kyiv forming an independent state and the western half a neutral buffer. His conclusion discounts Russian miscalculation or the guerilla advantage of Ukrainian militia and credits Russia with overwhelming force.

See Moneycircus, Mar 3, 2022 — Eurasia note #29 - New Russia-Ukraine Talks: Redrawing of borders looks inevitable, compromise likely, partition possible

Four days ago the guerrilla war went mainstream when the Washington Post reported “Plans for a US-backed insurgency in Ukraine.” The idea being that if the Russians hold onto the country, a guerilla war would be launched to bog them down.

Many commentators cite the examples of Afghanistan and Syria. The nearer parallel is NATO’s Operation Gladio, when fascists and military intelligence-linked assets conducted assassinations and bombings across Europe, often timed for elections.

The question is whether the forces behind the virulently anticommunist Operation Gladio view modern day Russia in the same light as the Soviet Union. The language and actions of NATO, which oversaw Gladio, suggest they do.

Far from an unintended consequence, what could be more effective from NATO’s perspective than drawing Russia into a quagmire on its borders — as opposed to the merely latent threat of missile placement?

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy might have surrendered by now if those who put him in power let him conclude a sober analysis of Ukraine’s options at this point and pursue his offer of neutrality.

Stories have been floated in the media that Russia plans to assassinate him. It is far more likely that the “social nationalists” in Ukraine’s parliament and Waffen SS-venerating militia are holding a gun to his head. They have assassinated several politicians in recent days.

See Moneycircus, Mar 7, 2022 — Eurasia note #31 - Heart With Ukraine, Head With Russia: We must understand what Russia is doing and where it fits in the globalist agenda

These militias are the tools of Ukraine’s ruling oligarchs and their necocon allies who cement their power. The U.S. State Department, like Western analysts, are fully aware that these are not local skinheads with a dubious taste in music.

The CIA has provided paramilitary training at a facility in the southern U.S. since the Obama administration, beginning in 2015, as revealed by Yahoo News in Jan 2022. [3]

Ukraine was described in 2019 as an “emerging epicenter” of extremism that reached into the U.S. military, and as part of an internationally-financed network. [4]

While the U.S. works with extremists in Ukraine, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security points to the same threat at home. [5]

Since Russia’s entry to Ukraine there have been many references, in military journals and news media, to the likelihood of unconventional warfere. This is defined as “the support of a foreign insurgency or resistance movement... unconventional warfare structure by guerrilla organizations.” NATO continues to research “The Psychosocial Factors of Unconventional Warfare.” [6] [Link no longer works. This paragraph edited for clarity 09/22/2022]

As with bioweapons research, everything is acknowledged in the negative. You can’t have a vaccine without a virus, so everything becomes vaccine research. Everything becomes counter: countering threat networks, counterterrorism and counterinsurgency even though the practice of military intelligence, like the FBI, is to infiltrate and cultivate extremist networks in the name of countering them, to the extent of provocateurs instigating and arming activists.

There is plenty of precedent for stirring trouble on Russia’s borders: it blames the CIA for inflaming Chechen separatism in the 1990s. The question is the nature of that war, which in Ukraine would be quite different to the remote, mountainous conflict of Chechnya or Afghanistan.

Mayhem on the streets of European capitals would likely incur more civilian casualties, while the propaganda element could see atrocities committed in order to discredit the other side. Furthermore, with insurgents finding refuge and striking across borders, there is a high risk of contagion into neighbouring countries.

This further suggests the correct parallel is not Syria or Afghanistan but Operation Gladio. In fact, according to FBI whistleblower and terrorism researcher Sibel Edmonds, it is the continuation.

The editor of Newsbud says Gladio never ended but evolved under the guise of the War on Terror.

The stay-behind armies, designed to stop western Europe falling under communist influence are acknowledged. Their role in bombings and murders are disputed by the U.S. government but evidenced by judicial inquiries in five countries and the European Parliament. In the 1990s it was taken seriously by state media like the BBC and featured in a documentary by Alan Francovich. [7]

Edmonds says Gladio B or 2.0 has the aim of “projecting U.S. power in the former Soviet sphere of influence to access previously untapped strategic energy and mineral reserves for U.S. and European companies; pushing back Russian and Chinese power; and expanding the scope of lucrative criminal activities, particularly illegal arms and drugs trafficking.” [8]

State of Siege

The failure of Washington and Moscow to talk the same language is due in part to inherent differences in the purpose of their diplomacy. Russians, like many central European nations with their diplomatic academies, take statecraft very seriously. This comes naturally to countries whose land borders require them to treat with their neighbours every day.

Though the United States has the world's longest international border, at 8,800 km or 5,500 miles, with Canada, its economic and military dominance allows it to behave like an island. This is reflected in its dereliction when it comes to appreciating the perspective of other countries.

The British isles are similarly introverted. What has been inadmissible and appalling during this crisis is that politicians of France, Germany and the European Union know full well the cost of unstable borderlands — and how quickly these turn to bloodlands.

See Moneycircus, Feb 13, 2022 — Eurasia note #21 - UK Foreign Flub: Diplomatic trek to Moscow fails to build understanding on Ukraine

“Oopsie” does not explain how we’ve got to the reality of a new European war. Nor does the fatuous parroting by media that Putin, like Hitler, is simply mad. This is narrative. Causality lies elsewhere.

Neoconservatives like U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland are principals — especially since they put the current Ukraine regime in power.

Their eagerness for war in the Mid East reflects their heritage and ties to Israel, and Jacob Heilbrunn, in his 2008 book, “They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons,” attributes to their “prophetic” turn of mind the fact that they never lost their hatred and zeal for bringing down Russia, whether it was communist or post-communist.

See Moneycircus, Mar 4, 2022 — Eurasia note #30 - When Is A Nazi Not?: Hush now, when he's doing our work. Nuland calls Russia's security concerns fantasy.

Everybody’s paid and even neocons have their employers. The Mid East resource wars of vice-president Dick Cheney, who helped Paul Wolfowitz get the job as deputy to defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, clearly benefit regional powers, corporations and often individual investors.

The Central Intelligence Agency gained control of the State Department, or at least it’s decisive floors, as early as the 1950s according to former U.S. ambassador to Cuba, Earl T. Smith. The CIA in turn grew out of the Wall Street corporate lawyers and bankers representing Rockefeller interests.

The press, if you hadn’t noticed, sings from the same hymn sheet. In the New York Times and The Washington Post you may find faint clues. You will have to look to other sources for analysis as to their significance.

For the love of insurgency

The WaPo waxes strangely lyrical about guerrilla war.

• Dec 2021 — “Ukrainians are already talking about waging guerrilla warfare if the Russians invade, Gen. Oleksandr Pavlyuk told the New York Times.”

• Sep 2021 — “After 20 years of waging religious guerrilla warfare, Taliban fighters in Kabul say they miss the battle.”

• Apr 2017 — “‘The guerrilla wins if he does not lose.’ Henry Kissinger's beautifully concise summation of asymmetric warfare captures something essential...”

In 2003, WaPo discusses the legality of such warfare:

“An ambush by itself does not breach the laws of war. But an ambush by combatants dressed like civilians is clearly illegal. International law makes distinctions between lawful ruses -- such as the use of camouflage, decoys and misinformation -- and unlawful deceit. The law prohibits the killing or injuring of the enemy by treacherous or perfidious means: by feigning surrender or incapacitating wounds and then opening fire, for example.” [9]

Operation Gladio

Gladio was an antidemocratic operation that bloodily resisted any accommodation with the left-of-center coalition, such as between Italy’s Socialists and Christian Democrats. Gladio in many ways mirrored the CIA’s actions in Indonesia and South-East Asia in the years after WW2. [10]

The Bologna Massacre occurred two months after the Italian Communist Party swept the 1980 elections in Emilia-Romagna, having won twice as many votes as Christian Democracy, and formed a government with the Italian Socialist Party. A bomb exploded at the Bologna railway station on Aug 2 that killed 85 people and wounded 200.

Less than two months later a bomb exploded at the Munich Oktoberfest, killing 13 people. That happened a couple of days before parliamentary elections in West Germany, and did not hurt the election chances of the CDU’s Franz-Josef Strauß, known for his anti-communist stance.

As recently as 2004, 10 bombs were planted on Madrid commuter trains that killed 193 and injured 2000. It was three days before the election, with polls favouring the conservative People’s Party of José María Aznar, which supported the neocon’s Iraq war. The media immediately blamed ETA but when that allegation proved unsustainable, the narrative broke down and the media switched to Al Qaeda. Ironically this inflamed opposition to the Iraq War and Aznar lost to the Spanish Socialist Workers Party of José Louis Rodríguez Zapatero. [11]

Gladio exposed

The Bologna bombing was one of the events that exposed Operation Gladio. The short version is that the U.S. State Department in 2006 admitted there were stay-behind units in Europe, but denied that the U.S. ordered, supported, or authorized terrorism by these units.

Many separate inquiries, however, have linked these terrorist units to various parts of the state.

Judge Guido Salvini of the Italian Massacres Commission, concluded that some right-wing terrorist organizations of the Years of Lead: La Fenice, National Vanguard and Ordine Nuovo were the trench troops of a secret army, remotely controlled by exponents of the Italian state apparatus and linked to the CIA.

What would these prosecutors say, if they could judge the crimes we are poised to witness?