Operation Gladio: NATO/CIA “Stay-Behind” Secret Armies

Operation Gladio is undisputed historical fact. Gladio was part of a post-World War II program set up by the CIA and NATO supposedly to thwart future Soviet/communist invasions or influence in Italy and Western Europe. In fact, it became 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, in the absence of Soviet invasion, 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.

Gladio and its “stay-behind” networks may be one of the most historically “accepted” or “confirmed” examples of false-flag terrorism. The documentation, the resolutions, confessions, and convictions all confirm that Gladio is much more than the media or government would have you believe—a mere “conspiracy theory.” See the State Department’s special site dedicated to dismissing “conspiracy theories,” including their page on Gladio.

Truth movers should take advantage of Gladio and the stay-behind networks as 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.

Evidence

The August 2, 1980 bombing of the Bologna train station which killed 85 people, is widely recognized as a Gladio operation. While it was initially blamed on the communist “Red Brigades,” eventually, right-wing and fascists elements were discoverd to be the culprits. Two Italian secret service agents and Licio Gelli, the head of the infamous P2 Masonic lodge, were convicted in connection to the bombing. 1

“The makings of the bomb… came from an arsenal used by Gladio… according to a parliamentary commission on terrorism… The suggested link with the Bologna massacre is potentially the most serious of all the accusations levelled against Gladio, and comes just two days after the Italian Prime Minister, Giulio Andreotti, cleared Gladio’s name in a speech to parliament, saying that the secret army did not drift from its formal Nato military brief” The Guardian January 16, 1991 1

1969: “In Italy, the Piazza Fontana massacre in Milan kills 16 and injures and maims 80 [….] during a trial of rightwing extremists General Giandelio Maletti, former head of Italian counterintelligence, alleges that the massacre had been carried out by the Italian stay-behind army and rightwing terrorists on the orders of the US secret service CIA in order to discredit Italian Communists.” 10

1985: “In Belgium, a secret army attacks and shoots shoppers in supermarkets randomly in the Brabant county killing 28 and leaving many wounded. Investigations link the terror to a conspiracy among the Belgian stay-behind SDRA8, the Belgian Gendarmerie SDRA6, the Belgian right-wing group WNP and the Pentagon secret service DIA.” 10

According to Vincenzo Vinciguerra, a far-right terrorist linked to Gladio and currently serving a life-sentence for the car bomb murder of 3 policement, “The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security. This is the political logic that lies behind all the massacres and the bombings which remain unpunished, because the state cannot convict itself or declare itself responsible for what happened.” 6

Vinciguerra also made this statement to The Guardian, “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. I say that every single outrage that followed from 1969 fitted into a single, organised matrix… Avanguardia Nazionale, like Ordine Nuovo (the main right-wing terrorist group active during the 1970s), were being mobilised into the battle as part of an anti-communist strategy originating not with organisations deviant from the institutions of power, but from within the state itself, and specifically from within the ambit of the state’s relations within the Atlantic Alliance.” 1

In 1990, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning Gladio. The resolution requested full investigations and a total dismantlement of the paramilitary structures involved—neither of which have come to pass.

Similar Gladio-like operations have been discovered across Europe, including France, Belgium, Denmark, The Netherlands, Norway, Germany, Switzerland…

Sources