{"id":88806,"date":"2017-03-20T12:01:46","date_gmt":"2017-03-20T12:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=88806"},"modified":"2017-03-18T14:30:18","modified_gmt":"2017-03-18T14:30:18","slug":"the-deep-state-and-the-unspoken-crimes-of-the-u-s-empire-operation-gladio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/03\/the-deep-state-and-the-unspoken-crimes-of-the-u-s-empire-operation-gladio\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cDeep State\u201d and the Unspoken Crimes of the U.S. Empire, Operation Gladio"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

14 Mar 2017 – The key institutions of Western societies have lost their credibility.\u00a0 They fail to merit either the respect or loyalty of the domestic populations they purport to serve.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Testing the validity of this assertion requires examination of Western institutions from a holistic rather than fragmentary perspective. This is easier said than done.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

There exists a massive amount of near real-time web based information available for us to process daily if we are attempting to keep abreast of world events.\u00a0 This often leaves us diligently evaluating recent events, while lacking the opportunity to step back and assemble these discrete events into a more comprehensible whole.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The assassinations of the entire elite level of progressive leadership<\/strong> in the United States during the 1960s (JFK, Malcolm X (image right), MLK & RFK within a 5 year period).\u00a0 In Europe this includes the later assassinations of Aldo Moro and Olaf Palme.<\/p>\n

Following is but a partial list of the crimes of the U.S. empire (with the routine complicity of many Western European governments) over the decades since the end of WWII.\u00a0 It is important to briefly review them as the intersection of these orchestrated criminal actions casts light on the lack of legitimacy of Western governments and institutions:<\/p>\n

Operation Condor<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0,\u00a0<\/strong>the Phoenix program<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and ongoing material aid and military training support for dictators, torture and death squads in numerous non-Western nations,<\/p>\n

The extensive history of CIA and Western involvement in global narcotics trafficking<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0including importation of drugs into the United States<\/p>\n

US government criminalization of drug use by the poor in conjunction with CIA importation<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>to create the apartheid-like prison-industrial system<\/p>\n

Covert and overt U.S. foreign policy operations involving the destabilization, overthrow<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>and\/or\u00a0assassination<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>of many dozens of foreign leaders of former colonies with assistance from Western European intelligence and\/or military<\/p>\n

U.S. corporate financial support for the Nazi regime before and during WWII<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(trading with the enemy), followed by post-war recruitment and incorporation of Nazi war criminals by the CIA and other U.S. government agencies<\/p>\n

The failed plot to overthrow FDR<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0by U.S. oligarchs prior to WWII<\/p>\n

CIA & FBI programs to undermine and destroy progressive social and political change within the U.S.<\/strong>\u00a0such as\u00a0COINTELPRO,<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0MKUltra,<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0Operation Mockingbird<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Operation Chaos<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Creation of the Mujahideen<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and continued logistical support, training and arming of related evolving jihadist forces\u00a0(i.e. al-Qaeda, ISIS, al-Nusra),<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0used by the West in ongoing efforts to destabilize secular nations in the Middle East<\/p>\n

The instalment of former Nazis, Nazi collaborators and fascists<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0into governing and institutional positions of power across Western Europe following WWII<\/p>\n

The continuing\u00a0<\/strong>failure to abide by the stipulations of a single legal treaty entered into with Native American tribal nations<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Many decades of\u00a0<\/strong>maintaining an institutionally based apartheid system restricting access by African Americans<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to housing, voting, job opportunities and access to basic public services such as equal education<\/p>\n

Many dozens of U.S. led\/or sponsored outright military invasions<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0of sovereign nations in violation of both domestic and international law<\/p>\n

The U.S. manipulation and rigging of ostensibly democratic election processes<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0in Europe and throughout Latin America since WWII<\/p>\n

The publicly state\u00a0<\/strong>justification of the use of sanctions to bring about the deaths of half a million Iraqi children<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0framed as an acceptable policy decision<\/p>\n

The routine outright\u00a0<\/strong>police murders<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0of unarmed minority American civilians and the\u00a0mentally ill<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The utilization of both\u00a0<\/strong>NATO<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0<\/strong>United Nations<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to sanction, destabilize and\/or militarily intervene<\/strong>\u00a0in nations that remain independent of Western control<\/p>\n

Ongoing Western looting of the natural resources of Africa, Latin America and the Middle East facilitated by\u00a0the IMF, World Bank and related Western financial and military institutional structures<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The proposed murder of U.S. citizens in the Northwoods document, and\u00a0the actual murder of European citizens under NATO\/CIA run Operation Gladio<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This litany of institutionally based criminality has taken place in service to the larger foreign and domestic policy agendas of the U.S. and allied Western European governments.\u00a0 The United States has played the primary coordinating and leadership role among Western nations and intersecting institutions since the end of WWII.<\/p>\n

This is of course but a very partial list of the crimes of the U.S. empire and Western Europe since the end of WWII.\u00a0 However, it is clear by the breadth of this subject matter that any one, or even several subject areas, will provide only a partial view of the larger puzzle that depicts the institutional structures and behaviors by which the West dominates and controls the entire planet.<\/p>\n

We are fortunate to have a global community which includes researchers who have focused in great depth on the various aforementioned crimes sponsored by Western governments and their institutions.\u00a0 Many such individuals have sacrificed a great deal personally to do so.\u00a0 Some have given their lives in the pursuit of truths that powerful violent institutions prefer be kept hidden from public view.\u00a0 Their efforts provide exhaustive detail regarding particular historical actions and policies of Western institutions.\u00a0 However, it is critical that we assemble these discreet puzzle pieces into a discernible image that can unify and shed light upon the whole.<\/p>\n

Let us return to the assertion that Western governments and institutions by simple objective evaluation of this history currently lack all legitimacy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>While the intersection of institutionalized Western criminality and war crimes cited in our partial list should be enough to persuade an impartial observer, one particular example from our list can stand alone.\u00a0\u00a0Operation Gladio<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>is an individual puzzle piece that helps unite and shed light upon many other disparate pieces.\u00a0 This is precisely why it is seldom acknowledged, much less discussed in Western MSM or academia.\u00a0 Even a cursory examination of Operation Gladio offers us a much more comprehensible image of the essentially illegal and amoral nature of many important Western institutions.<\/p>\n

Gladio offers us a rather frightening glimpse into the thought processes and ethics of the assemblage of oligarchic Western elites and institutions that continue to literally rule our world.\u00a0 These powerful Western hierarchical institutional structures evolved over many centuries.<\/p>\n

They evolved from control situated in earlier periods under the auspices of popes and feudal monarchies.<\/p>\n

They evolved through various forms of parliamentary and dictatorial rule.<\/p>\n

Their current manifestation today is one in which massive global corporations rule in tandem with entrenched Western military, intelligence and economic institutions,<\/strong> all of which function beyond any practical popular input much less control.\u00a0 Oligarchic rule, carried out through these institutional structures is the reality, in spite of the West\u2019s much publicized devotion to liberal democracy.\u00a0 Examination of Operation Gladio exposes the rot at the very core of the structures of Western rule.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Operating under the aegis of NATO with CIA input\/supervision, Operation Gladio utilized false flag terrorism, mainly bombings but also shootings, in service to what it defined as the \u201cstrategy of tension<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 This \u201cstrategy\u201d was seen as a way to manipulate European public perception, thought, opinion and voting behavior away from progressive political parties and leadership, and toward the conservative pole of the political spectrum.\u00a0 Some Gladio operatives have testified that the intent was to force the public to seek a stronger more authoritarian police and State presence in order to protect citizens from political violence.<\/p>\n

Critically important is the fact that the violence carried out by Operation Gladio operatives was routinely blamed on the left, on communist or socialist political parties, and\/or on groups advocating progressive or revolutionary change.\u00a0 However, the many decades of violence were in actuality carried out by right wing cells within NATO\u2019s Gladio stay-behind army units.<\/strong>\u00a0 Thus Operation Gladio was by definition orchestrated false flag terrorism carried out not by \u201cleftists,\u201d but rather by a multiplicity of Western institutional structures in Europe in coordination with the CIA.<\/p>\n

The Gladio units were originally organized under the supervision of the CIA and NATO, ostensibly as a way to respond in guerrilla warfare fashion to a possible future Soviet invasion of Western Europe.\u00a0 However, lacking cooperative Soviet troops to kill and terrorize the population of Western Europe, the CIA and NATO\u00a0<\/em>took up the task of doing the killing and terrorizing themselves.<\/p>\n

Gladio\u2019s terrorism was conducted in order to shape the minds of the European public, and thus manipulate the political landscape in favor of the goals of U.S. and European elites.\u00a0 This is the reality of Operation Gladio, and it is also why knowledge of its actions is critical to our understanding of present day terrorism.<\/p>\n

In the process of authorizing and conducting false flag bombing attacks, Western elites and institutions intentionally killed, maimed and\/or psychologically terrorized thousands of European citizens.\u00a0 This violence was carried out with the top-secret collusion of select members of Western European governments, as well as through loyal right-wing cadres within their intelligence agencies, judicial branches, and various police services.\u00a0 Operation Gladio was of course hidden from the public, since it constitutes both treason as well as murder conducted by the very Western government institutional structures sworn by law to protect their citizenry from such crimes.<\/p>\n

Although its false flag violence was based in Western Europe, Operation Gladio offered a domestic propaganda benefit to CIA operations in the United States.\u00a0 Mass protests and progressive groups in the United States were tarred in the public mind through guilt by association with the Gladio terror events in Europe.\u00a0 The false reality created by Gladio intentionally portrayed leftists in Europe as \u201cviolent murderers of innocent civilians.\u201d\u00a0 This narrative was endlessly amplified by corporate media in the U.S. where it meshed rather seamlessly with both the FBI\u2019s COINTELPRO activities and the CIA\u2019s Operation Chaos program on the domestic front.<\/p>\n

The critical conclusion we arrive at from reviewing the history of Operation Gladio is that Western elites used a great many institutions of State to intentionally target and kill their own citizens for political purposes<\/strong>, and then conspired to hide that fact.\u00a0 The importance of this reality cannot be overstated.\u00a0 Failing to widely publicly expose and discuss the history of Operation Gladio has left all citizens of Western nations vulnerable to the continued use of State sponsored false flag terrorism in new and varied manifestations.<\/p>\n

When we examine Operation Gladio from a more macro perspective we must remain cognizant of both past and ongoing U.S. and Western European assaults on Third World governments.\u00a0 That people of color around the globe have been the targets of Western imperial violence for over 500 years is simple historical reality.\u00a0 What Operation Gladio demonstrates decisively is that Western elites saw the cold blooded murder of their own citizens as no more an obstacle to their plans for global control than the murder of countless residents of the many Third World nations which were still struggling to free themselves from Western domination.<\/p>\n

Consider that Joint Chiefs of Staff in the\u00a0Northwoods document<\/a>\u00a0requested authorization to conduct false flag terror operations in the U.S. in order to justify an invasion of Cuba.\u00a0 Only JFK\u2019s fateful refusal to comply stopped those proposed Gladio-style false flag operations from occurring on U.S. soil.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Historical knowledge of both Operation Gladio and the Northwoods document should be at the forefront as we attempt to analyze the numerous false flag terror events in Western Europe and the United States that have occurred since the disintegration of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

Official narratives often leave us with rather disturbing questions regarding the true nature of such attacks.\u00a0 With the loss of the Soviet Union as a military danger and its replacement by Islamic terrorism, the identity of the official enemy changed.\u00a0 However, we would be remiss if do not question whether the dynamic of false flag terrorism might continue as a tool to manipulate the public mind.<\/p>\n

The perceptions, thinking and consciousness of the citizens of Western Europe and the US have been powerfully shaped by the new narratives emanating from events of 9\/11, and from subsequent terror attacks.\u00a0 Although these events are routinely blamed upon Islamic jihadist groups, knowledgeable observers find that numerous questions remain unanswered regarding the true identity of the perpetrators, often including the nature of their connections to Western intelligence structures.<\/p>\n

Yet in spite of the historical reality of Gladio never has NATO been subjected to legal action and criminal prosecution for conducting the false flag bombings and murders of civilians in Western Europe.\u00a0 Unaccountable and unpunished, with its Gladio units still possibly in place, NATO instead offers possible cover for the continuing conduct of false flag terrorism in Europe.\u00a0 On the US domestic front the CIA also has never been subjected to legal action and criminal prosecution for its role in advising\/coordinating Operation Gladio bombings and terrorism.\u00a0 Nor has the Northwoods document been treated to widespread public discussion and analysis.<\/p>\n

The total impunity enjoyed by NATO, the CIA and all the interconnected Western institutional structures of police, military, politicians and judiciary exists for a very specific reason.<\/p>\n

In the words of convicted Operation Gladio bomber Vincente Vinciguerra, the reason is simple:<\/p>\n

\u201d . . .\u00a0 because the state cannot convict itself or declare itself responsible for what happened.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

This is because, as Vinciguerra openly acknowledges, it was the institutions of the\u00a0State itself who were responsible for the Gladio bombings and for hiding the truth of those bombings.<\/p>\n

For the State to investigate, prosecute and punish itself for terrorism is of course unimaginable.\u00a0 To do so would be an admission that Western institutions have in fact been for many decades morally and legally bankrupt, and have been operating to systematically murder their own citizens while engaging in a cover-up.\u00a0 Such an admission would validate my contention that the institutions of the West currently lack all moral and legal legitimacy, therefore such an admission cannot occur.<\/p>\n

It is clear from this history that what is required to move toward the restoration of any semblance of legitimacy to Western institutions would be the investigation and criminal prosecution on charges of murder, treason and cover-up for all parties, individual and institutional, involved in Operation Gladio.\u00a0 This would need to take place in every country in which it operated in Europe, and would need to also address the organizational and operational support of the CIA.<\/p>\n

This is not about some obscure ancient history from the 1970\u2019s and 1980\u2019s.\u00a0 The link between Operation Gladio and present day terrorism is as disturbing as it is clear.\u00a0 Today NATO, multiple Western European governments and the government of the U.S. are suspected by increasing numbers of the world\u2019s citizens of continuing to use false flag terrorism in order to validate their ongoing \u201cwar on terror.\u201d<\/p>\n

This war is at least in part designed to destroy the remaining secular governments of the Middle East while manipulating the control of petroleum the resources of the region.\u00a0 In the course of pursuing such policies Western governments and institutions have now maneuvered the entire planet to the brink of nuclear war between the West and Russia.\u00a0 Yet in spite of the danger posed to all of humanity the U.S. continues a publicly stated quest to achieve\u00a0full spectrum dominance<\/a>.\u00a0 Given post-WWII history and our current state of affairs Western governments and institutions clearly exist as criminal entities which function outside the rule of all recognized morality and law, domestic and international.<\/p>\n

Even the limited amount we know of the history of Operation Gladio should destroy in the mind of any thinking person the utter and complete fantasy that Western leaders would \u201cnever harm their own people\u201d to achieve their larger strategic goals.\u00a0 Western elites in fact did so for many decades.\u00a0 They systematically killed their own citizens and they lied about it.\u00a0 There is a great deal of evidence that they continue to do both while hiding \u00a0\u00a0behind the mask of false flag terrorism<\/a>.\u00a0 Our failure to adequately investigate and prosecute Operation Gladio paved the way for our current wave of false flag events used to manipulate Western public perception and behavior in support of endless war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

From the U.S. government\u2019s official account of 9\/11, which requires belief in the temporary suspension of the\u00a0<\/strong>laws of physics<\/a>\u00a0in conjunction with the magical suspension of fighter jet intercept protocols, 9\/11 can be seen as a logical continuation of Operation Gladio\u2019s \u201cstrategy of tension.\u201d\u00a0 9\/11 is false flag State terrorism writ large. It is by definition the \u201cbig lie.\u201d\u00a0 It makes both the\u00a0Reichstag fire, and Operation Himmler<\/a>\u00a0look like the work of small time amateurs.\u00a0 It is perhaps more than simply ironic that so many former Nazis made their way into U.S. intelligence services after WWII, given the many decades of politically useful false flag events in the West that have followed.<\/p>\n

The State kills its own citizens and blames a foreign or domestic enemy.\u00a0 The population looks to the state for protection and surrenders their democratic rights to an ever more militaristic, invasive and repressive State.\u00a0 State power increases along with corporate profits in many sectors of the permanent wartime economy of the U.S.\u00a0 The bewildered populace lives in fear and is psychologically vulnerable to the next false flag terror event which in truth the government, rather than \u201cterrorists,\u201d actually control.\u00a0 In the instance of the 9\/11 attacks it is the State itself that is the terrorist entity.\u00a0 The official Islamic enemies exist very simply as Oswald explained his own role, that of the designated \u201cpatsy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since we have mentioned Oswald, the puzzle piece that is the JFK assassination, carried out by our\u00a0deep state<\/a>, fits quite well alongside the later false flag operations of Operation Gladio and 9\/11, as well as intersecting the assassinations of European leaders such as\u00a0<\/strong>Aldo Moro<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/strong>Olaf Palme<\/a>.\u00a0 These assassinations all appear to be activities of the unaccountable deep state institutional structures which exist outside of view, law and morality, and which serve to connect elites in Western Europe and the United States.<\/p>\n

One cannot admit this information into one\u2019s consciousness, without reaching the logical conclusion that Western governments and institutions have become quite literally massive criminal enterprises which routinely violate the very laws, international and domestic, they ostensibly exist to enforce.\u00a0 Given this state of affairs, it is rather difficult to view electoral politics as the way forward if justice, meaningful institutional change and a planet not rendered uninhabitable by nuclear war are our goals.\u00a0 Our institutional structures have shown themselves to be irredeemably corrupt.<\/p>\n

The recent election cycle in the United States has writ this large into the consciousness of anyone with a pulse.\u00a0 If the two nominees of this past election are the \u201cbest candidates\u201d with the \u201cbest platforms\u201d the two major political parties can field, it is without doubt an absolutely definitive indictment regarding the deadly gangrenous condition of our electoral charade.\u00a0 Cognitively amoral and behaviorally psychopathic elite policies are hardly a new phenomenon.<\/p>\n

For centuries such behavior has typified Western elites regardless of how polished their public personas.\u00a0 Such are the political scoundrels we peasants are graciously allowed to choose between every four years.\u00a0 There does appear to be a silver lining to the recent Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton carnival of the absurd.\u00a0 It would appear that for growing numbers of Americans of all persuasions the ability to continue to believe in the fairy tale that is the U.S. electoral process has finally been shattered beyond repair.<\/p>\n

Before closing let us step back for a moment and imagine a world that might have been.\u00a0<\/strong> A world in which progressive leaders in the U.S. and abroad had not been assassinated or overthrown in favor of fascists; dictators hadn\u2019t been armed, taught torture techniques and supported against the interests of their own people decade after decade; and the CIA prevented rather than facilitated the international drug trade.<\/p>\n

Imagine a world in which corporations and oligarchs weren\u2019t allowed to own the mass media and so were not allowed to\u00a0weaponize<\/a>\u00a0the news, reducing it to simplistic pro-war mass culture propaganda, all while buying the services of the political candidates who will support their ongoing war profiteering.\u00a0 Imagine a world that could have been in which the political organizing of the masses wasn\u2019t systematically infiltrated, disrupted and shut down by the institutions of State; Third World nations were allowed to develop independently of Western subversion and control; and the massive amounts of Western taxpayer money spent on war and violence went instead toward the public good.\u00a0 This is the world that has been stolen from humanity by violent unaccountable oligarchic interests ruling through long discredited and massively corrupt Western institutional structures.<\/p>\n

The history of Operation Gladio, including the failure of Western institutions to publicize and prosecute its murderous activities, unmasks our elites as capable of \u201cdoing literally anything\u201d in their quest for power and domination.\u00a0 However, we are ourselves complicit.\u00a0 A public that can find any legitimacy whatsoever in economic and political institutions that systematically engage in and profit from endless war, while the\u00a0<\/strong>8 richest people<\/a>\u00a0possess as much wealth as the bottom half of the entire earth\u2019s population, one fears, can make themselves\u00a0\u201c<\/em>believe literally anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/p>\n

Gary Weglarz\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>recently retired from practice as a clinical social worker.\u00a0 He worked with, and learned from, Alaskan Native peoples who were\u00a0attempting to\u00a0heal the damage inflicted by the collective intergenerational trauma of colonization.\u00a0 Currently he is engaged in research and writing regarding the relationship between past mass trauma in Western societies, and the subsequent\u00a0colonial violence that has characterized Europe and her colonies.\u00a0 He was actively involved in Central American solidarity efforts throughout the 1990\u2019s, traveling with human rights delegations to Nicaragua, El Salvador and Colombia.\u00a0 He currently lives in France.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 Gary Weglarz<\/a>, Global Research, 2017 <\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 globalresearch.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The history of Operation Gladio, including the failure of Western institutions to publicize and prosecute its murderous activities, unmasks our elites as capable of \u201cdoing literally anything\u201d in their quest for power and domination. However, we are ourselves complicit. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88806\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}