Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pecanana Show.
Speaker 2: Hey, Dan Thomas, doing well man, Thanks for thanks for
hosting me.
Speaker 1: As always, of course I'm going to start something new here,
don't really uh know, have an idea of how many
episodes you have in mind for this, But this is
a pretty big topic and a requested topic. So Operation Gladio.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's I suggested we play it by ear figuratively
and literally and see how long it takes us to
cover the material and not just what we consider and
you know, a more than an adequate capacity, but that the
subs like I want to hear about Ladio is one
of these misunderstood things. You know, there's a great deal
of brutality of a of a particular sort. I mean
the Cold War. The Cold War was neither was a
condition of neither war nor peace. So even behind the
verbial lines of peace and divided Europe, you know, there
was a certain callousness that that that bled into contemplation
of what was not just necessary but also reasonable. You know,
the moral metric shifted, okay, I mean obviously in in
Southeast Asia, what was very ine, late bare was that
you know, Okay, the face of modern warfare very much
reduces attrition to a to to you know, to a
subjective goal. You know, that must be coded in the
most contact terms possible and studied as to you know,
the impactfulness on victory odds. You know that quite literally
the manufacturer of human corpses facilitates or does not facilitate.
But again too, you know, there were like peace didn't
really reign anywhere in the Cold War that it was
a contested battle space, and obviously Europe proper, you know,
the the inner German border west, you know, thank god
that didn't become an active battle space. But as I'm
always citing, like William Odum, anyone who served, anyone who's
deployed there, you know, on either side, would relay that
like these were not peace conditioned. That felt like being
at war. You know, it was not remotely like any
other you know, peace time posting. And people look at
something like Operation Gladi. Oh, they it's a gross affront,
I guess, you know, not just to their not not
just their they're they're kind of like moral conceptual horizon
just in absolute terms, but the idea that this kind
of thing could be carried out in their conditions of
peace is just like a bondable, too abominable to them.
And interestingly it's lumped in with the Phoenix program, which
obviously did what what ovidly was like, and you know,
a mac V SAG operation, and mac V SAG was
was very adjacent CIA in those days. It was a
mac V SAG and US civilian intelligence operation, you know,
like the constant to to you know, direct action targeting
of discreet personages who construted the analf infrastructure. You know,
because you're fighting a non state actor, obviously the human
beings are the infrastructure of your ops. Okay, but you know,
people discussed it during obviously the the Gates Committee hearings,
the kind of guilded CIA, and people talk about it
today like, oh, this is what horrible overreach. It's it's
unbelievable America and Americans could do something like this, which
is really kind of preposterous, man, because that by definition,
you know, not just an asymmetrical war, but an ideological
war in a Cold War battlespace, you know, whereby on
top of everything else, you know, there's this kind of
profound difference between combatants, you know, culturally, racially, you know,
every other way Okay, I mean actually come as no
surprise anybody, and I don't want to go too far
a field, but yes, there were instances of corruption within
the Phoenix program. You know, some some army, the Army
of the Republic of Vietnam, like an intelligence officer like
got mad at some guy like carrying out with his wife,
and this guy ended up on the list and ended
up getting whacked. And that's horrible and it's indefensible. But
in absolute terms, you know, presuming a basic integrity of
the officers and NCOs involved, and I believe it was
exclusively officers and n CEOs, and particularly in those days
of special forces, that was a pretty rigidly maintained schema,
you know, had it been where it was, it was
implemented as intended. Not only was it highly effective in
my opinion, but it was far far, far more justifiable
and moral terms. You know. Then then deploying arc light raids,
you know that drop five and a pound bombs on
you know, on women, kids and old people in the
middle of a race, Patty. But you know, so when
people talk about Gladil as if they're discussing, you know,
something like a real life horror film you should look
at it in those terms that as aforementioned, you know,
and or you consider in the same vein as people
do who suggested like the Pinochet regime, like the distilled
essence of evil. It's become this kind of bogey man,
this conceptual bogey man. For whatever reason. I speculate there's
some seminal text, whether by Howard Zander Chomsky and I
really Chomsky's done some worthwhile things, but I think even
his most ardent defenders, at least you know, who are
tuned into your content, would agree with me that, you know,
his uh, his objectivity was compromised by these deeply i'd argue,
almost theologically felt conceptual biases. But there's number there's a
number of things going on with thedio. Okay. First of all,
the Cold War was a totally abnormal conflict. You know,
I'm always making the point again and again. One of
the reasons it's completely foolhardy, you know, whether it's Lindsey
Graham or whether it's you know, the kind of pitiable uh,
you know, seing to be former President Biden talking about
like you know, Putin not not not Russia, Putin, like
he's not gonna stop in Ukraine, He's gonna Poland like this,
but like like this this idea that states, you know,
like mad men just kind of somehow, by accident of
faith or by guile and ruthlessness, you capture apparatus of
space and proceed like capture land like somehow like the
more like, if you collect enough fertile women and sore
like can grow like sortum or something like, you win,
like I even know what their notion is. But even
that was obsolescence really even by the Second World War,
save for the fact of the need of for Germany
or Japan or one of the disadvantage kind of bat
and when I say disadvantage I mean vis a vis
their power potential too, you know, become a superpower. You know, yes,
growth from and and is the is the basis of
political and military challenges which become synonymous and and discreete
and and totally unusual ways and such conditions. But also
like like Laban drom even if you to wholy reject outright,
you know, the kind of national socialist view of of
of blutes and ross and everything else. I mean that
that's there were that was that the twentieth century was uh,
you know. Essentially it was it was the grand clash
of uh, it was the grand class of civilizations to
determine like what globalism would be. Okay, So once the
Cold War said it in earnest, you know, your your ops,
you were fighting your ops because they'd become the standard
bearers of of of of an idea. And America was
always kind of returning the serve to the con immunists
because that both that that conceptual environment as well as
you know, what military imperatives were prioritized within that paradigm.
You know that it was it was, it was, it was.
It was the Warsaw Pact, and they're adjacent elements, you know,
who are the ones pursuing a revolutionary imperative? So, I mean, uh,
that was the problem, and that was one of that.
That was one of George Kennan's points, you know in uh,
in the Long Memo or whatever. You It's it's not that,
you know, we we've got to challenge the Soviet Union
and Warsaw Pact for every ancient ground. It's that we've
got to put ourselves in a position and we're not
simply reacting and returning to serve. You know, Now, how
do you do that if again, you're you're ops are
the standard bearers of an idea, you know, and really
your victory metric to accomplish global domination, destroy all competing ideologies,
you know, assimilate people into this world society essentially, you know,
that was envisioned by the Nuremberg you know ideology. But
you know, obviously the Soviet Union was the concord of
the United States and the Soviet Union. They'd totally falling apart.
So any future victory scenario would entail the United States
basically inheriting the mantle of what was envisioned, you know,
by the Nuremberg ideological program. But the way that you know,
the way that you win that is by eradicating the
me idea and in underconniction of the act of war
that consues the eradication of humans who are the standard
bearers of you know, the enemy idea, such that you know,
along the variety of criteria or perhaps even just one
singular distinctively resilient criteria, that they can't be re educated
or somehow like assimilated into a new paradigm. Okay, obviously
this has implications for you know, the the absolute enmity
between the the Reich and and European Jewry, such that
European jury who was a self conscious, self identified political actor.
But I that's a bit outside the scope of we're
talking about. But there's complications that were emergent here that
must be considered within those realities are just explicated, Okay,
and this is very important now interestingly, and perhaps this
won't surprise anybody, you know, really the pioneers of political warfare,
as you know, from the side of you know, the
colonialist power or kind of perspective of you know, the
more powerful combatant or if you will, you know, the
party combatant who like America, who is you know, perpetually
returning to serve when op for decided to act. You know,
the United Kingdom really kind of perfected what became a
symmetrical warfare doctrine and political warfare doctrine. Okay, we're talking
about Operation Banner and how Frank Kitson, you know, in
Northern Ireland, especially owing to our viewing of resurrection Man
Frank Kitsen, one of his I mean, basically the key
takeaway from his kind of operational theory, if it can
be distilled down to one kind of core principle on
how to wage war against an insurgency is you've got
to create a counter gang. But you've got to do
this in some way. It's basically organic, Okay. You know,
you've got to work with what the Germans called the
mentioned material that's on the ground. You've got to sort
of mold them. And they're political and military and sceptual
horizon around what's instinctively already present, you know, and you've
got to sort of transform the energies into something that's
you know, deadly er, more efficient, more military with the
capital m you know, and more workable in integrated command capacity.
You know, then would just kind of be there, you know,
like autocatonically or whatever. And of course Kits and uh,
you know, despite the fact that he was only the
commander on the ground in an operation Banner and Northern
Ireland for about two or three years, that conflict model
endured the duration of hostilities. And I've made the point
again and again that you know, when when the provisional
IRA and adjacent Republican groupings and others, what insists that
there was for formal collusion underway between the British security
element and loyalists. That was true. Okay, Now that doesn't
mean that, you know, Frank Kitson got together and hired
some mercenary types and said, okay, you're now the Ulster
Volunteer Force, you know, or you're now ready and commando.
It was nothing like that. Like what they did was
they looked at what they looked at what was already
developing on the ground. You know, in uh, you know,
the the sectarian war in the street where like literal
battle lions are being established between you know, sectarian living
between living spaces based on sectarian criteria, and you had
these militious just spontaneously forming, you know. So they began approaching,
you know, guys like Gusty Spence, you know, who was
indispensable and the the the recreation of the Ulster Volunteer
Force in nineteen sixty six. Spence a certain combat in
Greece with the British Army. Okay, the UVF was always
kind of the share punk of loyalism, you know. The
UDA was this kind of like mass vigilante movement which
wasn't out in Hill ninety two, but UFF which was
technically like the their their direct action wing that was
very very very much cultivated by British intelligence and military elements. Okay,
and by by nineteen ninety three, loyalists were out killing
the IRA, you know, Suddenly, like it just became very
very good at targeting people who were either you know,
ir provisional IRA members or you know, shin Fein representatives
or social democrats they wanted dead for whatever reason. Like
suddenly loyals became very very good at what they did. Okay,
I mean no means like saying like what they did
was good. But when the bound of rationality, you know,
and that Kitten's own point was look, you know, and
he was comparing in punitive terms with the British do
things the Americans and the Germans. He's like, you know,
you don't, you don't bring just more and more firepower
to bear, you know, against uh, against an insurgency. You know,
you're you're gonna kill a whole lot of people. You're
gonna you know, many of whom are you know, women, kids,
old people and just you know, other people who are
you know, clearly noncombatants. And you're probably gonna you're probably
gonna create more insurgents than you annihilate. But also there's
got to be a kind of like menuet like ridiculously
that sounds between forces under arms, you know, for them
to for one hostile contact is made for them to
remain engaged and actually you know, push for victory, you know,
by by by you know, by the way you're killing
the enemy. You know, if you if you seek your
counter gang loose on like this gang of like Mau
Mau rebels, if you lose like the u v F
on the p I R A, when they make a contact,
they're gonna fight it out and slaughter each other in
a way that wouldn't happen if you know you, you
know you you you roll, you roll through cedar tanks
into the streets. When the IRA doesn't anything you don't like,
you know, they'll disappear literally into the ether. And then
the like lab of Satchel charge into like the turret hatch,
you know, like when your when one of your people,
like pops us head out for smoke. You know. And
there's something that's kind of understated, needing to mirror what
op for is in order to annihilate him in kind
of like the post conventional Westphalian landscape. Now, what was
gladiol and how does that had to do with like
anything else was talking about. Well, around nineteen fifty two
America in the UK, this is when they became really
truly kind of like fully indexed in military terms, not
not not just at the operational and kind of command
to control level and drilling with one another, you know,
like in the inner German border, you know, be at
the North German North German Plains, it was primarily the
British that Benelux State's responsibility and like the fold the
gap which is primarily American armored cavalies area of operation.
But they like like a conceptual indexing, like took a
route and I believe a lot of this ode to
the fact that by by January fifty two, obviously both
you know, American forces as well as you know, the
British Army had been engaged, you know, in a very
brutal conflict in Korea. Okay, their learning curve was expanding
in all kinds of ways relating to the study of war. Okay,
they developed this need within the minds of you know,
military analyst types on the civilian side and kind of
like think tank whiz kids or were ubiquitous in the
Cold War as we've talked about, but also you know
military officers, uh, you know, from from from company level upward,
you know, like we need, we need to develop some
kind of tactical strategic imperatives, you know, relating asymmetrical warfare
that allows you know, the the realization of you know,
kind of the like the full spectrum of our of
our killing power, but again without without allowing politics to
creep into decision making, you know, in a in a
way that you know, it's kind of proven fatal in
some key instances visa vis the managerial state, you know,
the like the experience of the Gall in Algeria, like
first and foremost, I mean I think the Gall was
not I don't think highly of them, but just in
purely objective terms, I mean, that's one example. But so
in nineteen fifty two, and especially when you have the
experience of fighting the People's Liberation Army at China, you know,
and this this this kind of like endless ability of
them to absorb casualties, you know, and utilize combined arms
with Soviet help, and there was a lot of Soviet
pilots flying sorties over Korea and kind of horrifyingly, a
number of American POWs ended up in the Soviet Union
and never returned. But because it may, you know, it
became clear that when war comes, and uh mind you
this was you know, uh, this was long before strategic
parody existed between the United States and Warsaw Packed, but
I mean it was also before the it's it was
also like manned manned bombers were you know, the the
zenith of of kind of strategic nuclear platforms. But the
understanding was in basically every scenario game that you know,
the Warsaw Packs is gonna overrun Europe. They're gonna smash that.
The National Volks Army, which emerged later, but in nineteen
fifty two, a combination of Volks two Lights I were
the East German Army in all but name and group
of Soviet forces in Germany were as possible for the
operational sector I'm about to describe. After fifty six it
became the National Vokes Armies domain. They were gonna smash
through the inner German border, you know, which at times
at the time the Berlin Wall wasn't there. After the
Berlin Wall was created, Interestingly, there were these like weak
points where like chargers could like blow holes you know,
so that the National volks Army can storm through with armor,
but because it may the understanding that was when war
came the National Volks Army They're gonna storm West Berlin. Well,
you know, the warsaw packed overshoots Berlin assaults across the
North German plane smashers to the Foldy Gap, almost certainly
utilizing chemical weapons and possibly taking the nuclear weapons if necessary,
and NATO at best get hold out for seventy two hours,
you know, until until the Soviet army reaches the Rhine.
And then even if NATO is the capacity to reconstitute,
it's not gonna have the forces and being in order
to prevent you know, a further Soviet push, you know,
thin Atlantic Ocean. Okay, so you're looking at a situation
where okay, you know, and in these days, mind you,
the the catal is changed. For why this uh was
considered in terms almost exclusively of conventional war fighting, save
again for you know, the tactical deployment of chemical and
nuclear weapons and the real this this isn't this endured
thirty years later, but for very different reason. Then we'll
get into that. But the fact isn't it basically it's
a basically conventional fight NAT, it was gonna be overrun
by the massive superiority of forces in being by warsaw PCTs. Okay,
The only hope really of liberating the continents in these
cases would be some sort of infrastructure, infrastructure in situ
that could be activated, you know, in order to generate
UH an insurgency, like a pre existing insurgency basically, and
this had never really been attempted before, unless you count
the Viet Cong, but it's kind of a different thing.
But you know, the understanding was that UH men were
selected who are designated, you know, to be stay behind
elements all the way up to I believe battalion level. Arms,
cachetes were hidden, escape were prepared. Politically, loyal civilians were
recruited when TURN developed their own like social infrastructure around
what was to become the core mission, an event of
UH Soviet conquest. Plant the true truly clans, truly clandestine
cells were established who made contact with one another, but
didn't even make contact with each other's respective handlers, you know,
or with the above board but still highly secret GLADIO
designated elements and UH. This was largely devised by the
United Kings what was which during World War Two, what
came to be called the United Kingdoms Special Operations Executive
Okay Gladiol was largely created with the experience and development
of former SEO officers. I had the pleasure a man
who was a dear friend of my family and who
was actually one of them. That of going to the
old university is because he taught there. His name was
Uh Samuel Sarcesian. As he might have gleaned, he was Armenian.
His parents are Armenian immigrants. He was in the Special Forces.
He was in a heavy action in Korea in the infantry,
and he was one of the first true green Berets,
you know, to pass the Q course and get the
Green Berets. And why they recruit him, it wasn't just
because he was an excellent comments soldiers. Because he was Armenian,
you know, he could stay behind and blend in, you know,
And the earliest like special forces became something somewhat different
or it included that mission as well as like many
other adjacent UH ones as time went on. But Uh,
that really is the birth of special Forces. It's very
much a Cold War creature, you know. I'm not saying
that's bad or something. I actually think, I actually are
any Special Forces is in a lot better shape these
days than I think so kind. It's got a lot
of problems, but I don't want I don't want to
upset the that our friends who are military guys, and
they I mean, like are literal friends of hours. Like
I'm not talking like Randos and I. I they don't
mean they know I hold them in tremendous respect. But
its point being, uh, you know it, Uh, this was
very much you know, it's taking very seriously. And not
only was like for example, like my my, my mentor
and family friend, the Sarkesian, like not only was he
a you know, Armenian immigrant stock, but uh the dialectical
inflection he could affect that properly to fit in with locals.
You know, this was very very sophisticated on operational terms,
especially for the time. Now something interesting happened. It's always
developed and the center of gladio because of the gladio
was Italy. Okay, now now why Italy? You know Italy?
Uh I maintained that, uh, the real it is the
Marshall Plan. It wasn't it wasn't just uh it was.
It wasn't what Stalin said and just you know, kind
of bind the Buddhist Republic to American debt or whatever like. Yeah,
I mean that was like an added benefit. But I
mean the Buddhist Republic was done. I mean they were
they were being more in the plan out of existence.
Like Italy on the other hand, just geostrategically as well
as in sheer economic terms for you know, a European
zone of of commerce and industry. You know, they were
incredibly important. Okay, Italy had to be brought in the NATO.
Italy also had to be repaired from the devastation it
had suffered, you know, and throughout the fifties and sixties.
You know, it'll ended up becoming i think for a time,
you know, like the fifth largest economy in the world,
you know it only also it never underwent a denacification
process it Uh, there was still a very active communist
party there, you know that that didn't just participate and
challenge for seats, but they insulated themselves into coalition and
governments regularly, you know. And on the other side you
had openly fascist and national socialist parties that uh were
rapidly they weren't just rabidly anti communists, they were rapidly
anti Soviet. They still viewed the Soviet Union like as
their ops. Okay, and I maintain, you know, the big
you don't know. I mean, you're you're a learned guy,
but some of this stuff is trivia. You know. YACKI
had a huge falling out with Moseley, and Moseley refused
the publish imperium through the Union movement the brand because
Mosley wasn't an arch cold warrior, you know, like one
hundred and ten percent, And a lot of people are like, well,
he was trying to find his way back to respectability
in British political life. I don't think that's the case.
I think he really believed that.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, anybody who knows, anybody who knows what Mosley
went through in the next you know, fifteen to twenty years,
knows that he he was he knew he wasn't getting
back into oh yeah, the main stream of politics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's ridiculous what he was saying. I
think he's gonna be a prime minister or something. I mean,
like all the fair people thinking what it's uh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's video on YouTube of him in like nineteen
sixty two going into some British town to and their
people chasing him, trying to beat him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a preposterous claim. And like who's he trying
to impress? And it's like Mosley even in the even
in the inter Warriors, like, uh, I mean, Mosley did
his own thing, and he was uh, he indexed very
much with Hitler. But at the point he disagreed with
Hitler on and he was like open about it, I
mean like and he yeah, he one of the reasons
is he's a hero of mine. He was very like
free thinking man. But so Italy being this back to
where we were, Italy being Italy being ground Zery Gladio. Again,
it wasn't just because the political the internal political situation,
you know, the need to bring Italy back into the
fold of Europe under his perannumber. You know what was
then the European coal and Steel community, and you know,
and the and to bringing up the snuff as as
a real uh as a real you know, like regional
power into itself. But also you hadn't, Gladio, was you
had You had a whole lot of very fit, very
committed fascist men of military age who had experience you
know what I mean, these this is not that kind
of duty that just regular guys are gonna sign on for,
you know, even if they're basically patriotic anti communists like
you need uh, like you need basically like like fascist
jihadi for something like this. Okay, you know, and it's
also too you know, how do you how do you
recruit men for for these roles? Do you? You don't just
like put an ad out, you know and like the
them equivalent of you know, Craigslist or something, you know,
like as it was in two thousand and six. You
don't uh, you know, you don't just uh, you know,
you know, at the evening news, you know, just say like,
you know, we're building a state behind fascist army. You know,
would you look to be part of it? You know?
They they had like you know, NATO uh intelligence as
well as uh, you know, like the NATO's kind of
commanding control element, which would have been at that point
the supreme alleyed command in Europe. They had to basically
which is why I brought up, you know, kissing this
point on counter yangs. They basically had the index with
you know, the fascist resistance that still existed there, and
these national socialist guys who never changed their stripes and
who were very very active. You know, you basically had
index with them when some kind of trust sell them
on the merits of the mission and you know, convinced
them to essentially start start training for this you know
what was then a very like real contingency and we're
gonna these people into cells you know, like a self
stroke that's actually workable, that allows them, you know, to
become habituated to their the command structure of uh of whatever.
I don't know the force levels would have been exactly,
but you know, whatever arm element they were part of.
But also it got them habituated to drilling with one
of you with another and all the all the kind
of psychosocial imperatives that one needs to cultivate if you're
gonna send you know, what is called the military sociology,
a primary group of men, you know, into action. But uh,
a lot of this, you know a lot of people
didn't know about any of this. I mean people like
my dad did, but like, uh, that to my dad,
so secret squirrel. But he was in a position to
know about certain things that other people didn't. But the
general public it really didn't know about the scope, breath
and Purpose and Gladio until about October nineteen ninety, Okay,
and that was very interesting because basically, like right about
a year after the Energement border collapsed, a lot of
these uh, a lot of these, a lot of these
kinds of like deep dark secrets of the Cold War
wanally that way, we're just kind of like things that
had been very eyes only like suddenly came to light.
I think the I think it's still the people who
are in control of a lot of this data. They
knew that this was very very rapidly you know, gonna
be kind of censored and take out, taking out of circulation,
which is exactly what happened, say this sense of like
it's now or never now. So in October nineteen ninety,
I'm gonna butcher this name and I'm so sorry, but
uh Julie Androtti he issued for this series of revelations
relating to the internal situation like of the Western Bloc,
like pretty much from you know, the emergence in NATO
and especially kind of it's the starting point was you know,
mid Korean War, like when Gladio first became kind of
you know became more than just sort of a you know,
like an abstract uh you know model banded about it
among like war college types. Giulio Androtti, I think it
was something of like an Italian and in hour man,
but not quite I think it was. I think he
was far more of a compelling person is I don't
mean that negatively, but he My point is that he
wasn't even considering the Italian situation he was in. He
was unusual for a post post war European executive in
DROUGHTI he was the forty first Prime Minister of Italy.
He served in seven governments seventy two, seventy three, seventy six,
seventy nine, nineteen eighty nine to ninety two. He was
really and he was the leader of the primary organizer
of the Christian Democrats from the earliest days. And here's
the thing. People don't understand the Christian Democrats in Europe.
They're not just like the Republicans of the Tories. They
were basically the Vatican Party in Italy to a lesser
degree in Germany like after World War Two. Okay, they
were genuinely conservative, were socially right wing. They had a
very strong IDENTI vacation with the Catholic Church, and Catholic
what alistair magendire, I guess we call virtue I Thics,
although I'm sure they had I'm not Catholic and I'm
no read Italian. I'm sure they had different sources to
draw upon. But my point being the Christian Democrats, they
they uh there there their heritage probably had more to
do uh with you know, the kind of political culture
one had in Austria and the Inner War years than
it did, you know, with with somebody like uh like
you know, like uh like like like Adaer Okay, for example.
Much as like I said, there there was some basic
similarities and and Geordie had an inner thing uh perspective,
and he he's viewed these days as probably the most
powerful and prominent like political like executive political figure of
uh of the Italian First Republic, you know, since you know,
since nineteen forty five basically Okay, And I'm going so
deep into his biography because it's essential understanding gladio okay,
and you'll see why or like what I mean in
a minute. He begins a protege of a man named
Elsid de Geest Sperri, the Sperry became a member of
the Parliament of a Trentino, which was a UH part
of the Austrian reichstad It was one of these uh
it was one of these Italian territories that was semi
autonomous but was under the sovereignty of the Habsburg Empire. Okay,
because Sperry began began the First World War is partitically neutral.
He sympathized very very strongly with Pope Benedict and said basically,
like you know, if you're if you're a good Catholic
and you know, like a good Italian, you know you're
you're gonna buy you know, Pope Benedicts, Uh, ultimately what
were ultimately unsuccessful, you know, like but very well intentioned
of Resince here everts towards peace. Carl the First of
Austria was another figure very much kind of like Index
with this respective who uh whom you know who uh
Ugus Berry saw, you know, I die with but Gaspari
as time went on, became somewhat radicalized. Okay. In nineteen
nineteen he was one of the founders but became the
Italian People's Party along with Luigi Sturzo. He served as
a deputy in the Italian Parliament for a few years
from twenty one to twenty four, which is obviously you know,
the fascist ascendancy was nineteen twenty two. He was enthusiastic
about support of his party, the PPI and UH the
first UH government around their first kabinet Mussolini, because the
way he viewed it, it was that you know, this is this,
this is what we need to standing is of Bolshevism,
because Bolshevism is going to destroy the Catholic Church and
they're already you know, just like they're doing to the
Orthodox Church. And he wasn't wrong, you know, and Mussolini's
Moslene's relations to Catholicism was complicated. It was kind of
like Charleston Moross okay, And it's hard for like, first
of all, I don't believe Mosleini was an atheist, even
though he wasn't you know, God fearing in the sense
we're talking about. But it's when a si rumors put
themselves and you know, kind of a twenty twentieth century
modernist perspective, especially when shaped by the Great War, and
you know, the kind of certainly humanizing paradigms like they're
in all level of which seemed to mirror each other,
and some sort of like grand constellation tailored the rob
man of his ability to live othe his historical he
had as a discreet personality. It's not as like Marxist
Pavelin or something. It's you know, they're very very much
the core of the European right, like the true right,
like thought in these terms. Yeah yeah, but uh as
uh as Mussolin's grip kind of became absolute and unlike Hitler,
who you know was a huge or a tremendous aspect
of his ascendency oud uh you know, the strategics of
of plebisites. You know, Mussolini was much more. There's not
only called a personality on Mussolini in there. There definitely
wasn't you know, uh, from the from from the center
right to the to the truly fascist. You know, I
mostly he had had a very strong mandate for a
twentieth century executive, but uh, he was prone to almost
like quasi Leninists, you know, sort of utterances that then
that henceforward just became the law. You know. He mostly
mostly fundamentally, uh fundamentally altered the structural balance of power
between the executive and and in the parliam and and
and in the electoral system itself as well as the
parliament was largely becoming someone gilded anyway by the Serrebral Law,
which basically guaranteed like the National Fascist Party, you know,
like a certain signage of cabinet seats, okay, so essentially
became a one party state without you know, something like
the Enabling Act to finesse it. And for the record too,
and this is a subject for a different series or episode,
but you know, Hitler didn't. Hitler didn't take the oath
of office as counselor, you know, and then or even
later after you after the Enabling Act, you know, when
he became a consulor and and fear of the German Reich,
he didn't. He didn't something declare that like you know now,
like you know, organized state are all you know, or
all apparatus of the party, you know, and the internal
police apparatus was very directly co opted by National Socialists
and became an organ of the party, which is interesting
of itself, but other than that, that's one of the
reasons there was this kind of agonistic pluralism in the
Third Reich, where in some ways people didn't couldn't quite
grasp like where you know, sort of like the state
bureaucracy stops and the party bureaucracy began. Or you had
you had organic government that literally had like an identical mandate,
you know, but one was you know, like a branch
of the s D which was accountal of the s S.
Like another was you know, like a an internal security
department that was you know, tied to the AD there,
you know, which had absolutely no leg accountability to the
same chain of command. But the uh, what ultimately happened was, uh,
these kinds of these kinds of like reform is by
the by bully pulpit flexing like figuratively and literally. This
led to this led a great deal of turmoil in
the early years of the the National Fascist Party. And
it's a single party rule, there's a great deal of
violence against other parties would refuse to accept, uh you know,
the serbral law and just kind of refuse will accept,
you know, it'll dose a sort of self appointed mandate.
This caused the PPI to this the fracture. Digas Ferry
became uh he remained on as a secretary of a
of the Anti Fascist faction that remained until November twenty
November No. Twenty until until November nineteen twenty six. You know,
in a true climate of kind of over violence and
intimidation became the norm. You know, the the PPI was
was just formly dissolved. You know. Gasperi himself was arrested
in March of twenty seven. He did four years in prison.
The Vatican negotiated a real lease, you know, which again
as the indexing and the relationship between the Vatican and
the Christian Democrats and their precursors, that's really important, you know,
to understanding the politics the inner warriors nearly Cold War.
But you know, he was, uh, he was after his
release in nineteen twenty eight, he was basically unpersoned, you know. Yeah,
he had deficuely finding employment. He was in serious financial difficulties.
His uh, some of his church contacts, you know securit
yim a job as a cataloger in the Vatican Library,
which probably saved his life, and that's where he spent
the next that in the next fourteen years until until
the collapse of the of the Kingdom of Italy I mean,
the Rum state in forty three, I mean the rum
state of the Cellar Republic endured. But you know it's uh,
the big contribution of Gaspari one of the major international
one of the major international newspapers, which in those days
a political newspaper, a new political newspaper having international circulation
was a big deal. He wrote a column where this
was in Ninete, this was in nineteen thirty four, I mean,
when he had absolutely no love for the National Fascist Party,
but uh he uh he celebrated the defeat of the
Social Democrats and uh in Austria we claim were you know,
on a on a mention of de christianizing Austria, and uh,
you know that they were cobD allies of the Bolsheviks.
And he see declared to knowing certain terms that the
German Church that we you know in Italy we should
follow example of the of the German Catholic Church, you know,
and we should prefer knowing certain terms you know, national
Socialism to Bolshevism, like Bolshevism is our is the mortal
enemy of Christ and of the Catholic Church. So this
is uh, you know, these these these alliances are more
complicated than people will. You know. It's during uh, during
World War two. This is one of the spirit has
formally established the Christian Democrats. I think it was clear
to me he saw the writing on the wall that
you know, the Acts were going to lose the war.
He published, uh, and deliberately limited circulation to uh what
appears to be you know, like a handful of cadres
that we trusted. The samounted to a program for the
new Christian Democrat Party, and uh it was titled quite literally,
you know, Ideas for Reconstruction. Okay, Gasperry. From that point on,
you know, he was like the under He was the
undisputed kind of han show. Not just the Christian Democrats,
which were a new sort of constellation of of of
political values contained in one you know, pretty pretty autocratic
and well managed party, but they ended up dominating Parliament
for decades, you know, and they were basically right wing.
I mean I don't mean that in twenty first century terms.
I mean they were very much like a nationalist Catholic
you know, very you know, very pro very very patriotic,
you know, like racialism didn't feature into their equation to
the same degree that it did and does some continent
all tendencies. But this was a genuine like right wing tenancy, okay,
And when Southern Italy was conquered by the Allies, this
ferry became basically like the main representatives of the Christian
Democrats and what became known as the National Liberation Community,
the National Liberation Committee, like dissident elements that you know,
we're we're all kind of jockeying from you know, patronage
by the Allies and you know who would give them
the mandate and uh, you know, the security elements in
order to in order to do insinuate themselves as you know,
the prominent pre eminent like cadre or party like ruling
the country. It's uh, this very first uh became a
minister without portfolio and a government led by Ivan Benom.
Later in Farizio Perry's cabinet, he became the Minister of
Foreign Affairs. And that's kind of when that's got all
these ideas he's been cultivating, like got wide sort of circulation,
you know, And in my opinion, he was always a
more kind of thoughtful individual than add and hour I
think of adding now it's kind of like a great
perbial horse trader and like literally like an incredibly like
skilled politician, but I there was there was no real
vision there like good or bad. I mean there's I
Han Drudell had something to say about adding how but
I'm not I'm not going to repeat it less like
YouTube virus or something. But to be fair, I compared
to some possibilities I had now looks pretty good and gaspary. Uh,
I think it was positively hero. I'm considering a lot
of a lot of you know, the challenges he was
facing quite literally not just a you know, his his
soul and sanity, but his life and whim. Finally, uh, Gaspari.
From forty five to fifty three, he was prime He
was prime minister of a successive Christian Democrat like governments. Now,
if you know what about Italian politics, that's that's like
absurd longevity. Okay, that's like that's that that's basically a
British prime minister like ruling for like you know, like
eighteen years. Okay, Like I don't think if I'm not
making front of the Italians. This is like a fact.
But uh this uh you know this, it was declared
a republic. You know immediately they signed uh a peace treaty.
Uh like a from a Peatriot with the Alan forty seven.
They they were they were one of the original Natal
members in forty nine, you know. And again uh Gasparri
and uh the Christian Democrat delegation, they actively courted the
United States, you know. And again I don't I don't
buy into the mythology of like, oh, the Marshall Plan
just like created magic money and like made made Europe
like rich. Again. Uh, that's that's complete nonsense. But there
were infrastructural needs and there was a need for capital
and key sectors in order for Europe to be able
to like like realize its great power potential. And the
Marshall Plan when it's uh, when it when it's capital
inflows were truly targeted in a way that indexed with
necessary developmental schemes. It was highly effective. And he uh
he lobbied very very hard for U for participation in
the Marshall Plan. The like the Marshall Plan, I gets
it really did. In the case of Italy, I I
don't think the term you know, like economic miracle, like
the Spanish miracle or itself pretty miracle, you know, because
it's it's just another everything kind of like conscious or
not to like make economics. It's a good secure thing.
But to act like it's literally some kind of magic
and it it doesn't owe to you know, the human
ability to you know, to truly like build equity, you know,
from from the raw stuff of the capital again quite
literally and you know, the uh, the Marshall plane itself
did not revide Europe. But at the same time, again
the European colon steel community was essential. And you know,
gesperit's like like like pushing to make this, you know,
a policy priority and you know, making it an unconditional imperative,
you know, for for his government was essential when uh,
when he did take uh when when he did it
become prime MINSI that first time, succeeding Ferruccio Pary. He
inherited a coalition that included both Italian Communist Party and
Italian Socialist Party delegates, along with along with other like
smaller parties that were nominally independent or you know, had names,
you know, like the you know, like a Liberal Republican
Party or the Action Party, but you know, some of
which had very much you know, we're communists at Jason
if not, you know, no proxies too. To Gatsbury's credit,
his Deputy Prime Minister Palmiro Togliotti did cooperate in gas
Spurry's attempts to soften the terms of impending l I
PCE treaty with Italy. You know, again, you know, seeing
very much what was being done to Germany, and this
was this, This is you know, him lobbing so heavily
and so very publicly for relief through and cop operation.
They're in the European recovery program, you know, which was
the tangling of the Marshall Plan. You know this this,
this was opposed most siparously by the communists, but gas
Sperry did manage to hold this you know, initial prime
ministership together despite all odds, especially when you consider you know,
the the fact that he was dealing with the cabinet
has very much stopped. But that was very much stocked
by os the Uh. It was under Gasperry's watch that
Italy would you know, the one thing significant referendum on
his watch pose the question of whether Italy was to
remain a monarchy here become a republic, you know, and
again that I believe very much was uh was uh
the spirits like Machiavellian streak. You know, like I said,
like he like Franco's redeem post World of the Spury
obviously was a far more amorable figure. One of the
ways that uh, they were able to you know, kind
of bring the Vatican into the fold and not just
uh administrative capacities and in terms of uh insinuating a
kind of moral legitimacy, which you know carried a lot
of cachet still in those days, but also uh it's
allowed it allowed for a certain freedom of movement in
global politique vis a vis what you know, other countries
would respond to that they wouldn't have, you know, if
Italy was merely, you know, a a client regime in
the United States with all the trappings they're in, including
you know, the stripping away of the Roman Church from
you know, not just uh authority in government and administration,
but also in national life. It's uh. He was chief
of the Italian delegation at the World War two peace
conference in Paris. Uh. You know, he remained harshly critical
of the sanctions that remained on in poets on Italy,
owing to various intrigues and some of which were just
kind of born of vengeance driven sensibilities, especially considering that
you know, Italian leadership was not going to be placed
on trial or you know, or certect these kinds of
show trial homicides under auspices of you know, justice. But
he did gain very strong concessions from the allies that
guaranteed Italian sovereignty, particularly as regarded the bulk and some
of the eastern border territory was lost Yugoslavia, but the
free territory of Trice was divided between the two two stays.
And obviously you know, NATO meaning at that point just America,
like you know, signed on as the guardan tour of
of these uh borders. Now back to Androtti again, this
is important to understand. I'm not boring with it, but
let's figure out the hell I am you have my
senior moments. Back to Androtti, Androti had achieved cabinet rank
at a very young age, and by the time, by
by the end of his tenure, he'd he'd occupied virtual
every major office of the post war Italian state, and
he again was seen as quite literally like the unofficial
liaison with the Vatican, you know, and foreign policy terms
and DROUGHTI you know very much the protos vego Sperry.
You know, he guided the European unions like Italy within
kind of the what the ecing and the EU, and
Roti guided Italy's integration into it, and fascinating leads to
me if you know what my kind of research interests
are and if you kind of understand the nuances of
what Gladio was to the men who staffed it, which
was something very different than the men who conceived of
it and wanted to utilize it for strategic purposes, you
know that were fairly transparent and already pursued uh close
relations with the Arab world, you know, and he uh
he had a strong, strong following not just in Italy
but uh especially through Catholic Europe, but also like you know,
throughout the futality, throughout the totality of what was becoming,
uh you know, the Burgening ec EU. He substantially mediated corruption.
He'd ow's seen the transformation of the country from you know,
a basically rural country into literally the world's fifth largest economy.
That's totally insane. That's only comparable, I think to like
South Korea went from having an economic profile comparable at
Burkina Fosso to like being like the number nine Ruld economy.
Like granted there was like massive subsidies and infrastructural aid.
You know, that was kind of like the reward for
you know, contributing some very much and not not just
in not not just in in in treasure, but in blood,
you know, to the Vietnam War. But it's truly remarkable
to consider, especially when it's something that just seems like
impossible an AGV man, you know, like undercurrent historical conditions.
But the uh his uh, he was a huge uh.
Andrati's ops claimed that he was a neoliberal. That's kind
of like the catch that's kind of like the favored
uh sort of slander, you know, of of of the
of these kinds of posts war European politicians, you know,
who rejected kind of like the Keynesian model, and you know,
began to realize that this overregulation and state planning was
was quite literally crushing what remained in national industry. But
it also it was you know, it was it was
actually like you know, enslaving Europe to the dollar like
even more than a you know, even even even more
than today. I mean by by like a wide mile,
it's not even close. But I he was only a
supply sider. But he you know, like I said, I think, uh,
I you know, I don't know seriously, especially people who
articully learned it in economics, you know when they bandied this,
uh like, oh he was he was a neoliberal and
like God's in the right. Do that too, that that
means that you have no like credibility or something as
a right winger. It's like, I don't, I you know,
the the political was the economic and I mean that
that's that's a liberal con seed man. That's not the
way you think of things anyway. But uh, you know
Androtti again is also his His two other kind of
big commitments were you know, staunchly supporting an the next
thing with the Vatican, and you know, a strong hostility
towards the Italian Commedist Italian Communist Party and the Soviet Union.
Now remember how we're talking about the English, the British, rather,
there's plenty of Scots and uh and the Alsterman among
the ryans of those Biostards. And how they really were
the pioneers of asymmetrical warfare well around uh, around the
nineteen seventies, very late seventies. Look here, general Sir John Hackett,
he was former commander in chief of the British Army
on the Rhine, which was again they they were the
primary UH British Army element and the inner German border. Okay.
They were kind of the equivalent of ah of of
of twelve twelve Black Horse, the folding Gap. Okay. He
he confirmed over a series of interviews and like talks
you know, at various you know, war college side venues.
This was November sixteenth, nineteen nineties. So again you're right
on the heels of these earlier disclosures about Gladio Well
Hacket hack I said, have known certain terms that a contingent,
a contingity, a contingency plant plan involving quote stay behind
and resistance in depth was drawn up after ninety forty
five and was absolutely essential. Okay. A proto j of
his anthony for R. Hockley, a former commander in chief
of NATO's UH forces in Northern Europe, which would have
been area of operation would have been UH UH Norway, Denmark,
the UH, the North, the Scandinavian, the North Sea. He
uh reiterated to The Guardian magazine that yes, what General
Hackett that suggested it was was absolutely true. Now, the
British were big on public diplomacy in a way America wasn't,
you know, I think a couple of years back, it's
before there was as many options available on Twitter to
you know, do spaces and things. And I don't believe
I've ever done on pot about it, but I've posted
many images of the Soviet Military Power magazine that you
could purchase in any post office and it was released
every year from I believe eighty one until nineteen ninety.
It was put out by the Defense Intelligence Agency. It
was full of this incredible artwork because obviously a lot
of these weapons platforms, NATO didn't have actual photographs of them,
but you know, they knew they existed. But this was
obviously an effort at you know, true public diplomacy, like
educates the public on a question of policy significance or
political goings on. You know that you know, they wouldn't
they wouldn't ordinarily be availed to, you know, a body
of work that could sort of explain such college matters
and in concise terms, and that seems completely quaints like
in the Internet era. But Britain was always big on this.
America was less big on this, you know. But in
the Cold War there were a few kind of very
striking examples, and Soviet military power was one of them. Well,
what the British did was and my dad had these
books on his bookshelf as when I was a little kid,
and they only blew my fucking mind. But Sir General,
Sir John Hackett, he wrote a book in nineteen seventy
eight and it was marketed as a novel in America.
I don't believe it was marketed as such in the UK.
And in the UK it had a different epilogue, and
we'll get into that in a minute, but it was
called the Third World War August nineteen eighty five. It
was a fictionalized account that reads kind of like threads
and a threads. You know, it was a movie, but uh,
you know the it doesn't have a traditional like fiction
narrative structure. You know, like it'll jump to some you know,
like warsaw packed like early warning posts you know in
East Germany, you know, and they'll like jump to you know,
some Soviet missile base in Kazakhstan, and they'll like jump
to like you know, the President's like situation room. But uh,
what it basically is is it's it describes a scenario, okay,
that being that in August nineteen eighty five, Sovie mean
Warsaw packed the Salt Western the Uh. There's a follow
up in nineteen eighty two called The Third World War
The Untold Story, which elaborated on the original with some
details of this counter faction universe, but also again like
it it it added a kind of what I think
it was an alibi for Western for American audiences. It's fascinating,
but for context. Some of them hack it believed in
you know, this was the final really critical phase of
the Cold War. You know, like seventy eight, seventy nine,
like eighty five were able Archer era. You know, it
was a four armed conclusion to a lot of these uh,
a lot of these general law officers that there was
going to be a war in Europe, Okay, and uh,
basically their job was not just to protect you know,
the people in the United Kingdom or the people the
United States, you know, the people of Italy, you know,
depending on the executive we're talking about, it's the folks
of their abilities and also to you know, to do
everything they can to fight and win in nuclear war
for our Hockeley, who was heck gets some protege I
mentioned a minute ago. During this time he started advocating
strongly for the creation of a new Home Guard and
anticipation of a potential Soviet assault. You know, the the
Home Guard of World War two was like lampoon and
stuff like Dad's are you know, have you've ever seen that?
But for Hogween Haggar were serious about having able bodied
young men, you know, like basically, uh take on the
role of uh of a gladiol element an event, uh
of warsaw Pact, assault of the island. Okay, So in
the books or in the book, uh, we'll start with
kind of I think is the primary source, which is
the first addition, and uh the Third World War untold
story they describe uh, basically the political situation as it
stood then in terms of you know, alliances, allegiances, then
active battle spaces. There was some speculation about space based
weapons platforms, but otherwise it was all based on like
forces and being you know, at then extent force levels
and weapons systems that actually existed and could expect it
to be performed, could expected to perform an action as
described in the narrative. But uh, the novel starts then
for presidential election, Walter Mondale, who's the Democratic nominee, loses
the former Governor Thompson of South Carolina, who's obviously supposed
to be Ronald Reagan. Okay, most of what's going on,
as you know, in the world situation, as it's person
and witnessed by like Reagan and his cabinet, is detailed
by you know, President Thompson's advisors, you know, who are
briefing him on the international situation, like from the time
he takes office, you know, until and then beyond the
outside of hostilities, you know. So at the outset of
the book, Uh, Asia's uh becoming a real powerhouse. They've increasingly,
with the accepts in North Korea and Vietnam, liberalize their
economies and the sort of you know, ease back from
any kind of political interdependence with the Soviet Union. From
a strategic and military perspective, China has a has like
a Dang type figure at the helm. It was like
not like a reformer kind of in like the Western
you know, like fox democracy sense, but he's basically become
a hostile to communism and all but name he's trying
to flip UH North Korea and Vietnam against the Russia,
but basically buying them off, you know, and pursue UH
a kind of gradual you know, encircle them into the
Soviet Far East, the India, which is UH, the Soviet
Union's like only real like strong ally in the region.
You know, it continues to deteriorate. They're the exception to
like Asia's prosperous condition. It's literally the tior rating. The
Arab Cold War is intensifying as UH as a a
nacerost Uh government in Egypt that's basically you know, like
a left wing nationalist like some of communists adjacent dictatorship
is creating towards war with Saudi Arabia. South Africa has
become a federation, like a racially divided federation, but under
a Bantu bantustan system, which is basically stable but lives
under concerns threat by Nigeria, which is now like fully
committed to the South African border war. As are like
actual Soviet troops Ethiopia as UH all apart including Eritrea,
the Soviets try to show up the situation and install
their own proxy government but this fails, and then the
book shows like a world map, like what the implications
of all these things are like a hypothetical like you
know Reagan like a situation room, like on every front,
like the Soviets are are are losing the Cold War,
you know, it's uh. Meanwhile, the Pollet Burrow, which presumably
the trifecta of because this public is rated in seventy
eight the trifecta and drop off Vermiko and Ustenov is
kind of like the real trum Rather, they're like they're
the real executive of the USSR, you know, with the
with the increasingly kind of disabled, the version of the
figurehead and drop of or his like counterpart in the story,
he basically drops the same speech that he did in
eighty or eighty one where he talked about how, you know,
the Soviet Union was like could not compete, you know,
like in the information revolution, and you know, they the
amount of computing powder computing power in the country was pathetic,
you know, compared to any developed state. And if this
wasn't altered within a decade and remedied, like the Soyds
would lose the Cold War. Basically, an identical speech is
given by you know, the stand in for a drop
off or you know again the trump we just mentioned.
You know, the poet bro accepts these conclusions proffered by
this uh composite executive character or character character is kind
of consensus that you know, the total state nation of
the economy means that the Soviet armed forces will not
be able to retain technological parody for the with the
West for beyond a decade, and that the that the
only way like the Soviet Union can bring the Cold
War to a victorious conclusion is uh to assault Western Europe,
annihilate NATO, you know, kind of forever, banish American forces
from the continent, you know, and then you know, the
super peace from a position of uh a strength and
uh if not benevolence. The poet through understands that those
resistance from NATO is guaranteed that before you state it's
amount of counteroffensive, the threat of the threat, especially of
tactical nuclear weapons and the use of chemical weapons, and
the potential in the case of the former of horizontaliscalation
will not some NATO states out of the war further
compromising you know, their ability to reconstitute amidst you know,
the massive kind of gap and numerical forces and being so,
the Soviet Diplomatic Corps also believes that they can cause
a schism in the Western Defense Court on by convincing
France the sty out of the conflict. Who you know,
France is not a NATO member. They remain adjacent, but
during this period of relations between NATO and France were
particularly frosty. The poet broad decides that there's three options
before them, very in a wills with a large a
massive preemptive nuclear strike against Europe alongside UH special as
paratrooper elements deployed in areas not under direct nuclear assault,
followed by a seven day land invasion to the Linz
frand for wins Frankfurt Dunkirk line. So another event is
so bad in any event, assault the proverbial center with
nuclear weapons like without regard for you know, counter value
attriction like assault the periphery with special operations elements, and
then smashed through UH. Then now it radiated you know,
former main line of resistance, you know, with warsaw packed armor,
you know. And then upon reaching UH again the lens
Frankfurt Dunkirk lying basically within you know, a stone's throw
of of the ocean, you know, to demand a demand
Natal come to peace terms. Variant B is identically above,
but with full deployment of chemical weapons and high explosive
conventional ordinance, but a complete ban on the use of
nuclear weapons. Variant C would be a conventional invasion with
tactical nuclear strikes being employed. If if, if, if NATO
is able to hold before warsaw path reaches the Rhine
within seven days, the PO ultimately decides on Invariant C
to avoid horizontal escalation. And you know, the development of
what almost certainly would you know, snowball into a general
nuclear war, especially based upon the platforms then deployed and
the particularly kind of dangerous coupling of their their sensitivity
to the sensory data, but their lack of ability to
gauge you know, the the the true strength of forces
from where the you know, the enemy device detected is
ben emergents. You know. But uh what uh like short
story long, What basically carries the day for NATO is
like these stay behind like Gladio units and like the
US Marine Corps. They they were able to flip Yugoslavia
out of a position of neutrality into like actual hostility
against the Soviet Union, with the exception of like some
aspects of you know, uh of ethnics serves, like serving
in the security apparatus, you know, both police and military.
But you know, the uh, the Soviet Union stalls basically
because uh when warsaw packed uh they hit West German
forces at Kreenfield, attempts to chase them out of the Netherlands,
and compounding you know, the the setback of the the
high attrition they took. You know these uh, these these
these Dutch militias, you know like raise up and and
just uh and just smash. You know. Essentially these these
already weakened uh, the Soviet columns, you know they are
they're they're essentially you know, becoming kind of like dead
uh where they sit, going to their uh lack of
access to fuel. But you know, it's obvious that this
book was published, uh to present a scenario to the
British people. I mean, it's like it's like a it's
a policy, Uh, it's it's a war plan. It's it's
a work plan slash war gaming manual, coupled with uh,
you know, an argument in favor of you know, this
tactical doctorate is how Britain can best protect itself an
event of World War three and over this taste where
people might find the kind of place in such things.
It's essential and people need to be behind these aforementioned elements,
you know, for them to be effective. You know, not
just in you know, material and logistical terms, but in
terms they're rational, morale and everything else. Now it's got
very interesting when you know the the early four structure
of Gladio elements like turns out to be like like
out and out you know, fascists, you know, especially in Italy,
and there's a parallel here. I think it was Roberto
Fiori who was uh. I think it's the Italian the
Italian Liberation movement to the Italian national movements. You know,
the the legacy of the National Fascist Party they had
us gives them development in the ranks, not unlike that
of the national fronts, you know, into the into the
into the into the political, into the political soldier wing
and like the Flag group, which I find totally fascinating,
and it bears directly on what we're going through today
within our own within our own resistance culture. And we'll
get into that next episode. I'm sorry if that went
too long, but I'm like really tired. Otherwise I keep
on going. But I hope that's an acceptable stopping point.
There's like a lot more to take in, and this
is kind of a logical stopping point. You'll see what
I mean. We'll get in the next episode. If that's cool.
Speaker 1: Yep, that works. Two plugs real quick from on line.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, you'll find me on Twitter at Capital r
e a l underscore number seven him as seven seven seven.
You'll find me on substick real Thomas seven seven seven
at subset dot com. I got a pot on there,
I got long from on there, I got a Mersh line.
Now it should be so kind, like we drop the
Mersh address and on the description section, you know, buy
like really dope shirts and flags and stuff like that
that I think are really cool. My uh the artist
who who mocked him up, Hair Kreeg. He's he's He's
fucking incredible, Just an incredible dude and a fine artist.
I'm working on this documentary of our and Taylor. I'm
going to the DNC convention in a few weeks. And again,
I am sorry to everybody I had to miss Nashville
this weekend, but I got to see my strength. Man.
I'm sorry to sound like some like banged up freaking
old lady or something, but as far as my plugs
like seeking you so fine man in my Instagram, you know,
I'm all over the place. I'm trying to bear down now.
And you know this uh, this documentary kind of video
content type stuff which I which which I think is
not that I don't know, some pretentious. I think there's
a profundity to it, man, but also it's this is
important history that's going to be lost then. But that
and my manuscript is kind of like my my big
focus right now. But I'm always available to do pods
man like uh never ever hesitate to ask me. Yeah,
let's let's reconvene and and do part two of Lady,
and we should watch we should watch another movie too, man,
so we can.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we're gonna do that. Well we uh while
we sign off, I'm gonna recommend a movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah man. Yeah, well thanks, yep, take care.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pecingano Show. Thomas,
how are you doing?
Speaker 2: And well thanks for hosting me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, let's get uh, let's get part two of
Operation Gladio going. It's been a little while, you know,
I've been busy and decided to take a break for
one episode and uh talk about current events. But yeah,
I'm eager for this. Let's do it.
Speaker 2: I think I left off talking about public diplomacy and
talking uh the civili about Sir John Hackett and his
uh you know, in his his conflict model, his predicted
conflict model. Those then later made available and marketed as
you know, in book form, you know, as a bit
of strategic forecasting, you know, like like fiction. And I
think I was discussing that to emphasize did agree to
which you know, convention know four structure planning returned in
earnest you know, not just in policy corridors, but it
was it was very much at the forefront of in
the minds of public intellectuals, you know, people at Thomas
shilling people you know, like like Hackett himself, you know,
the emergency deeper parodies and you know countermeasures uh against
both you know, long range nuclear weapons platforms as well
as theater based weapons systems, you know, led people to
realize that that conventional forces had had acquired a new relevancy,
and obviously there's a political aspect of that very much
related to, you know, how to manage a potential occupation
by Soviet forces. And that's really what that that's really
what gave sort of momentum to GLADIOH from something that
was just sort of bandied about in in think tanks
and and various defense ministries and in the constellation of
states that made up NATO, and you know, it became
a real essential aspect of of war planning for the
Western Alliance and uh, I think particularly the experience of
Vietnam as well as some of these experiences in in
Latin America and Africa. You know, you don't you don't
want to wait until the onset of hostilities to develop
what Frank Kittson called, you know, your your counterinserviancy element.
You know, you want that to be part of your
force structure and being okay, and also especially in Italy,
but in other states too. You know, there was a
radical right wing that were it not assimilated in some
sort of formal capacity into the into the into the
formal political and military structure like the former kind of
the formal sort of you know, conflict readiness paradigm. You know,
these these these people could have caused a whole lot
of problems, you know, I mean, they did cause problems.
I'm talking within the bound of rationality of old world logic.
I'm not rendering an absolute judgment on these people's values
and what they considered to be acceptable, owing to you know,
what was in their perception an ongoing emergency. But it
was an odd sort of conspiracy of historical variables, particularly
in the final phase of the Cold War, that you know,
kind of like led to this being. Is something that
was developed in earnest and then taken seriously by people
like a different a different paradigm with with less binary
possible outcomes and event of hostilities. It's not something that
really would have it sounds that really would have acquired
legs metaphorically speaking, you know. And and like we talked
about command and control, really what under like the revolution
and military affairs, which was a real thing. It wasn't
just a propaganda work to intimidate Warsaw Pact. It wasn't
just something that wore college types or constantly looking for
ways to kind of tweak not just force structure, but doctrine,
like kind of P NUMBERC doctrine it. It had a
real core of realism to it, you know, the kind
of the computing revolution and the emergence a true high
tech you know, at the very close of the nineteen seventies,
and they're like the very very early nineteen eighties, like
this changed everything. Okay, and America and NATO, they never
had the same kind of rigid commitment, arguably inflexible commitment
that the Warsaw Pact had, you know, to treating things,
to treating battle doctrine almost like regulation and not deviating
from that. You know, they didn't do that, but they
were similarly interested in eliminating uncertainties from the bad space
in terms of operational outcomes, okay, and command to control,
which also spills over into in devetails with situational awareness,
you know, up to the minute, if not the moment.
You know, this was a real thing. And one of
the things that it takes on an outside significance when
you're trying to control the battle space and a future
conflict in that capacity is there's there's outliers that are
unconventional in nature, Okay, both in absolute terms as well
as in according to the rationale of military science. Okay,
So you couldn't really leave these elements that were already
existing and kind of coalescing, you know, in Italy and
in the Bentalic States, to a less a degree, in
the Buddhist Republic, Like, you couldn't just leave these kind
of resurgent through or vestigial fascists and national socialist cadres.
You couldn't just kind of like leave them alone and
hope they behave themselves. You know. But then suddenly, you know,
when war arrives, you know, you have a problem with
these people. And then like while you're while you're fighting
the Soviet Union and warsaw packed, you know, the outcome
of which probably would have been decided within like seventy
two to one hundred hours in the initial phase. I mean,
you know, it just was it was a recipe for
disaster to say like, oh well, we're just we're just
going to like address this contingency when it emerges. You know,
that's not realistic. So that was that's something to keep
in mind, you know, kind of like a very different
initiative in terms of it's underlying reasoning, in terms of
you know, its application of force, and in terms of
its purpose, Like the Phoenix Program, I raised because people
act like the Phoenix programs like this sinister thing. You know,
there was nothing nice about it. It definitely blurred the
line between you know, civilian in combatant, and it pretty
much flew in the face of what was at least
formal precedent as regards the laws and customs of war
and what is legitimate what and who is legitimate target
and who is not. But there's an organic quality to
two doctrines that develop incident too and then anticipation of
armed hostilities. Okay, so they're really there wasn't some like
sinister thing about surrounding Edo. It wasn't some shadow government
waiting in the wings, because oh then NATO was actually
you know, occulted fascist and it's it wasn't that, you know,
these guys were you know, secretly indexed with the government
and they were just like mask reading as extremists to
kind of try and get an understanding of of of
how exactly how many people in the population at large
was sympathetic to these ideas and then in turn could
be mobilized. It was nothing like that, Okay. It was
very organic. Okay, whether people agree with it on ethical
or doctrinal terms, or not, that was essential and one
of the reasons one of the ways NATO survived, especially
after France about out, despite continuing to participate in a
lot of a lot of command post exercise for NATO.
You know, it was the nuclear question changed things, obviously,
but it was.
Speaker 3: One of the the main thing that that changed was
that NATO kind of developed into and one of the
reasons it's obsolete today among the many, but NATO kind
of developed into by about nineteen eighty, like late.
Speaker 2: Very late seventies, early eighties, it kind of morphed into
this sort of forum to integrate and optimize assets of
the several member states and in so doing also kind
of marshaling, mobilizing and optimizing assets that were just like
intrinsic to the battlespace, like literally natural features of Europe,
you know, within the territories that constant of the alliance,
as well as within spaces that were undoubtedly going to
be you know, the setting for future engagements nature. You know,
so everything from you know, setting up logistical infrastructure to
facilitate rapid reinforcement, you know, in terms of uh, you know,
homogenizing the gauge of of railroad tracking to you know,
making sure that the properly uh paved roads were uh
you know, abutted the essential uh like the essential choke
points as it were, where you know, NATO is likely
to be able to hold op for you know, for
at least you know, forty eight hours or so, you
know it. It's what an aspect of this too is
a utilizing the terrain a lot of a lot of
theater based nuclear weapons we're actually based on on farmland,
you know, and and getting getting these farmers to agree
to that, like it took some out and out bribery
as well as you know, very kind of aggressive political
finesse and I'm sure in some cases threats. But you know,
the human aspect of ecologies, discrete ecologies within defined territorial spaces,
I mean that they're not only an important answer to
that think may be the most important aspect. Okay, So
people likely to become partisans in event of warsaw Pack conquest,
you know, these were people who already existed, you know,
and kind of drilling them into a viable you know,
stay behind military force or paramilitary force built around you know,
what kind of a kind of counterinsurgent cadre structure that
that only tracked with like the overall disposition of what
constanted preperedness and what constituted adequate force structures you know,
to survive, if not actually defeat were saw packed in
uh in general uh war conventional or otherwise. You know.
So these uh, these guys in the Italian social movement,
you know, these these these these national socialist guys who
you know already had kind of a self structure their own,
you know, these these uh, these guys who were affiliated
with the non traditional conservative elements, but like we're very
much you know, engaged in the Cold War. Like these
people had to be brought into the fold in some way,
shape or form, Okay, And this had precedents, I mean
even in Europe, you know obviously like both the exists
and the Allies. You know, you're talking about OSS or
the the od there the Ladder, which had all kinds
of problems and was shot through with with with some outtraders.
But there's also some you know, there's there were some
aspects of it, particularly I don't know how intelligence agencies
like break down what would be the equivalent of an
order of battle, but there were there were there were
company level elements, if that's the proper way to conceptualize it,
who had no truck with Canarists, had no only idea
he was even you know, conspiring against the fear and
the party, you know, who were very much engaged in
doing things like you know, identifying chet Nicks that you know,
we're we're not just fighting the Partisans, but you know,
we're also fighting other factions at chet Nicks and basically
found themselves you know, adjacent to uh, the access powers
and theater and what they want to accomplish, you know.
And and these guys are brought in the fold okay,
America obviously OSS and and British secret intelligence. They're constantly
trying to they're constantly trying to identify, you know, French
resistance types who they could insist, you know, we're not
actually communists. And they were failing at that in terms
of ideological bonafides. But that's not the reason why like
the Gaul becomes such an important front man to them.
It's not that these it's not these like partisans stay
behind elements in France, like just like a level of
trills to golf so much. It's that, uh, you know,
in the Anglophone world especially, he could be held out
as kind of a catalyzing figure that the people would accept,
you know, and when the when the reality of uh,
when the reality of of of the elements that you know,
supposedly he inspired and upon his you know stage return
to France to be the commander of it. I mean
often these people had like no trouble them whatsoever. But
you know, it's the it's the appearance, uh that matters,
and the ability to you know, finesses that people will
basically accept it. You know. The U in nineteen forty seven,
that's kind of the critical year in my opinion, and
in terms of like the first real kind of the
first real kind of like integrated NATO war planning what
became NATO, This this kind of like integrated operational structure
sort of like emerged, you know. It was nineteen forty
seven in France, the United Kingdom, the Benelux states. They
they had commissioned well came to me known as the
quote Western Union Clandestine Committee, which technically was just kind
of like this academic forum of like military officers and
conflict specialists in military science types. But it was its
work was informing policy in a direct way. It was
like a direct pipeline to the several defense departments of
of post war Europe. And one of the first things
they did was create at least on at least formally,
was create a joint policy and stay behind elements, you know.
And this was what was presented by the Europeans in
ninety fifty one, after you know, NATO had formally come
to existence, that this whole, this format, this Clandestine Committee,
it was basically formally assimilated into in the NATO or
on ninety fifty one, fifty two, okay, and that's when
Supreme Allied Commander Europe, you know, in other words, you know,
the Americans, they they established they were own kind of
assimile of it, which was also like you know, had
jurisdiction over earlier incarnations such as the Western Union Klindestine Committee.
They UH she Supreme Allied Command Commander Europe UH branded
this UH committee the quote Clandestine Planning Committee, and it
was housed at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe. I mean,
this was taken very seriously, you know, and of course
America at that time was was engaged in Korea in
a very a very brutal war, you know, and not
not just was not was America engaged against you know,
the North Korean Army, but you know they were engaged
against the Chinese people of Origion Army. Okay, this was
very critical time. The peacetime role obviously of uh the
Glendeston Planning Committee, you know what a basically to coordinate
the different military and paramilitary plans and kind of conceptual
paradigms in the several states and adjacent partners states like
you know, Switchland to Austria and then later France in
order to both like avoid you know, like duplicate committees.
You know that, especially in military capacities at the command level,
at the general command level, you can't have like, as
it said, too many cooks in the kitchen without every
real problems. Okay, So Supreme l i'd command. They were
sending a message like, look, you know that that's not
happening what we just described. You're not You're not all
going to develop your own policy on houses coordinated. There's
gonna be one policy. It's it's going to be an
integrated command and control structure, and it's going to be
treated basically like any other like any other NATO Branch
Combat Element. Okay, there is two groups formed within uh
this uh, this clandestine Planning Committee, one of which was
uh pretty much exclusively focused on on communications, you know,
and and homogenizing language fluency and familiarity with you know,
essentially uh, the platforms, the weapons platforms, the command and
control technologies, everything else you know that was agreed upon
to be utilized. One of the we this is a
warsaw pact was that you know, German uh like not
spell folks. Army officers probably above the equivalent of captain,
like most of them had at least some fluency in Russian.
Like most Russians did not speak speak German. You know,
most of the Germans did not speak Polish. You know.
The uh you had the the Baltic people, a lot
of them spoke like neither Russian nor German. You know.
So there was this this uh led to kind of
like a house divided, I mean commanding control level that's fataled.
So NATO, you know, they they integrated their rank structure,
you know, these like formal equivalents of uh like like
what like uh, well like an E three is six
and everything. Okay, they uh it was you know they
it was decided you know, like in what command, I
mean different commands, like different languages would be favored like
within that command based on you know, the the the
the ethnic constitution of primary elements in theater. But uh,
basically like fluency, basic fluency and like German or English
like was was essential. You know, they're uh, there was
an integration of uh, like the main battle tanks used
you know, like uh back then, Uh, it was less complicated.
It was far more brutal and perilous to like be
part of a tank crew, but it was comparatively like
little tech compared to like we'd used to. But you know,
like they you know, like American tank crew has become
familiar with you know, like we like British tanks and
vice versa, and like both would you know, become familiar
with you know, like German panthers that were in heaviest
deployment and things like that. You know, So similarly, you know,
the way this the dis vision towards stay behind elements
and partisans was was homogenized, you know, and and brought
into this homogenization process of of command and control. And
in addition to that working group that you know focused
on communication and networks and everything else. There's another working
group you know, or committee if you will, called the
Special Projects Branch, and that basically you would it would
work a different scenarios, okay, I know it. Try and determine, okay,
like what what what? What are the capabilities of these
stay of these stay behind units, Like what can they
actually do? You know? What's their mission orientation? And concrete terms,
you know, like what what are they? What are they?
What are they trying to strike at? You know, like
are they trying to are they trying to index with
civilian elements that can either be cajoled into cooperating with
them or who are naturally disposed to be friendly to
them anyway? You know? Basically, are they like a European
Viet cong except on the right? Are they? Are they
basically like a reserve element so that when you know,
mass casualties occur, like these guys can basic rush to
the front and and and and fill the roles of regulars,
like are they is their function basically like partisan attacks
and terrorism, you know, against the East German and Soviet
and check who occupiers or whatever, and so the Special
Projects Branch, you know, like clarified this stuff. Okay, Eventually
this became integrated in UH in nineteen fifty seven, and
I I think that's really when UH, that's really when
like NATO came into its own and that's when still
people were banning about, especially people who did not want,
especially people who favored like a demilitarization in Germany, you know,
like the United States and warsaw packs basically out of Europe.
And their notion was, well, we can create our own
collective security arrangement with with with without European defense community,
you know, consisting like the Benelux states, you know, like Germany,
ideally France, you know, Italy and the UK. And the
idea was that it would be a totally integrated structure
and it wouldn't represent like anyone nation. Like one of
the reasons why I like the BUNDESLH like their uniform
seems so like dull and there's not even anything like
about them, that's like, other than the fact that cuff
titles are still in use, you can't really tell that
they're like a German army. But the whole the uniforms
they adopted ultimately was in this era like fifty seven
and that was like deliberate because the idea was like, Okay,
this is like the Army of Europe, but we've also
got to like make it clear that there's not any
quot unquote like chauvinistic tendencies like avafan SS you know,
but where you know, where we're kind of just like
this like European Defense Force and in a in parliament
committees across the proposed member states. The conceptionally like it
gained some some ground, but you know it it proved
basically unworkable, particularly after you know, the things things changed
in Berlin and it was clear that you know, really
after Korea in my opinion, and some other things, but
it became clear that like the Soviets were not they
and they had no more good faith credibility and as
of the Soviets Sovits, we're never gonna leave Germany, okay,
and Berlin particularly it wasn't just like the coveted sort
of prize on the on the war map, but it
was it was a thorn in the side of warsaw Pack,
just like Cuba was a huge thorn in the side
of you know, the United States. But it that by
you know, by like nineteen sixty sixty one. I know,
nobody was talking about a European Defense Committee anymore. But
one of the things that one of the things that
came out of kind of this experimental like military culture
on the continent was the establishment of a combined the
Six Powers Lions Committee is the United States, United Kingdom, France,
Benelux countries, you know, all of whom again had been
involved in developing developing a war plan in doctrinal paradigm
for the stay behind organizations. But you know when when
this when the Six Powers Committee like formally convened, which
became the quote Allied Clandestine Committee, and its final iteration
of nineteen seventy six was the quote Allied Coordination Committee.
It literally its functions like the way people described it,
you know, I'm talking about you know, top NATO brass
as well as you know, civilian elements, you know, like
in the in the Bundust Republic government who were like
indexed with the NATO structure. They uh, they uh, they
refer to it as specifically, you know, the technical committee
to bring stay by the organizations together and clearly defined
like their mission, mandate, force structure and all of that. Okay,
what was the authority of a supreme all command in Europe,
and it was basically godlike within its dominion. You know,
That's one of the things. I mean when you signed
on for NATO, you signed on to go all in
when war arrived, were saw packed. I mean you also
agreed not just tacitly, but in a very what what
what what would become a very active, actively engaged capacity
of you know, not just allowing like theater based nuclear
weapons to be based on your territory, but like essentially
UH allowing UH America to have you know, control over
these munitions, you know, I mean it was just like
one example, I mean at the point somebody the other
day like when the when when these intermediate range platforms
plitsic mental platforms arrived in Europe and went platforms like
the person too, which people find odd these days, but
was you know the army had was it was an
army weapons platform like at the folded Gap, it was
a loof off flowed that retained control over the launch mechanism.
It was the Americans who retained physical custody of the warheads.
And you know, if an order came down, you know,
those wards actually married to their launch vehicles. But I mean,
obviously it was it was America who had the final
say on these things, you know, but it uh the
UH and this is pretty openly talked about, at least
within within within NATO command corridors. I mean, some of
the languages was deliberately ambiguous. But it's not. It wasn't
this like eyes only thing where people would claim like
it didn't exist, you know, which is kind of interesting.
And that's why, like when what it came to be
colloquially and kind of flippantly known as you know, like
the Years of Lead and Italy jumped off. That's one
of the reasons why a lot of the media establishment,
you know, found uh allied command structures to basically be culpable.
I mean, if you there's a whole other issue, we'd
probably to get in that another episode, like what were
the Years of Lead? Like were these were these were
these self described like fascist?
Speaker 1: I mean they were they were allied with the Red
Army Froction, the Red Army Froction, and so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some of them were definitely, Yeah, some of them
it's not clear who they were. And some of them
the guys they arrested, it doesn't really track. It was
like who they could blame these things on, you know,
but assuming as you know, but the some of the
subs probably don't like. The claim was that you know,
this this quote unquote like neo fascist terrorism, which killed
a lot of people. The claim was that, well, these
are the stay behind organizations, you know, NATO and these
you know, right wing governments. They're directing these attacks to
happen so as to procure you know, like a permanent
emergency mandate, you know, to basically like militarize the country
in perpetuity. I mean that's not impossible, but I mean
the late seventies, early eighties, when you had the Soviet
Union from a few hundred kilometers away, you know, like
pointing pointing these like massive i RBMs at Western Europe,
you know, that had multiple warheads that you know, when
they hit their target would just like devastate the entire country.
In the case of like these smaller states, I mean,
like it's not if you want people to if you
want to create some sort of like balance of terror
at in you know, at scale such that you know
it provides like a catalyst for martial law, I mean,
you can you don't need to kill eighty people in
a train station bombing in nineteen eighty. You can say that, like, well,
the Soviets have targeted us for annihilation and obviously based
on the deployment pattern, like they now believe that, uh,
that nuclear that first use of nuclear weapons is perfectly
acceptable as a means of accomplishing their goals by by
megacittle force of arms. I mean you ok, there you go.
You know, like the Soviets gonna kill us all if
we don't build countermeasures and and and mass arrest people
who are are not willing to support, you know, the
war effort when it comes, Like, there's ways, there's ways
you can do it in epoch or could have done it,
Like you don't need to like pull off a spectacular
you know, a series of bombings or shootings and like
kill a few hundred year own countrymen. Like that's not
and again it's not impossible, but it just kind of
defies credibility to me in the absence some more concrete evidence.
And again this was this was discussed very openly. It
like US Army at the US Army War College. This
was circulated later. I mean, it's still in the Cold War.
I don't know when it first emerged, but there was
a there was a document like a study put out
by Supreme Ali Command Europe that from the Supreme Headquarters
of the Light Powers in Europe. It was titled Supreme
Headquarters Powers in Europe Problems Outstanding with the quote standing Group.
There's a subheading number four titled quote special Plans and
quite literally it it it was Taylor to address, uh, like,
the DeLine the literal delineation of responsibilities of the quote
clandestine services. And it went on to say, you know,
quote the delineation of responsibilities that's a premium and commanded
Europe on clandestine matters, including quote pertinent definitions and organizations
and principles for unorthodox warfare planning. You know. So this
was really at the forefront. And again I don't I
don't want to go too far afield because this is
already a dense topic. But you've got to understand the
overall as the Soviets approach to nuclear parody and arguably
you know, shot past NATO and specifically United States in
terms of its strategic nuclear capability. Yeah, like America developing
countermeasures that you know, characterized by deep parrot what's called
deep parodies. You know, arguably that kind of neutralized Soviet
advantages owing to smarter and higher tech. But like, regardless
of the nuclear weapons are off the table or not,
even if horizontal escalation was like an inevitability, even you
could prove that World War three was going to start
with a conventional like combined arms fight across a massive front,
and casualties were gonna be utterly horrifying. One of the reasons, uh,
the tankers on the North German plane, which was mostly
a British Army area of operation conto the Folded Gap,
you know, which was patrolled by eleventh Army Calory. You know,
black Horse is like the lead element. These guys are
totally knowing certain terms, you know they I mean, they
were issued in phetamines on the regular. You know you're
gonna you're gonna have Our job is to hold for
seventy two hours and you're not gonna survive this. But
we will hold for seventy two hours without sleep, you know,
and kill as many, kill as many of Ivan's tanks
as we can before we get over run. And we
will get overrun, you know. And the thought was it
wasn't the thought it was I think it was pretty
well grounded and based on the inputs that were utilized,
which for the time was was correct. Within six to
seven days Warsaw pack that had reached the Rhine, and
around ninety two ninety three when the old Soviet archives
that brief period they were basically open, you know, to
Western historians, including mister Irving, it was pretty clear that
the Soviets planned once they reached the Rhine to stop,
to reconstitute, regroup and refit, and then presumably like demand
like issue surrender terms to the Allies and then you know,
like demand demand the Allies demure and accept the you know,
the Soviet dominance of Europe. So it was even like
a best case scenario. You're you know, you're you're looking
at being overrun, okay, and the only way to combat
that you can't you can't you can't combat that from
the air, okay. You know, the only way to combat
that is literally on the ground, you know, in a
way that uh essentially makes the again kind of like
the social, political and military and paramilitary like ecology essentially
too hostile and too dangerous and too unstable like for
the occupied to manage. Okay. And again I mean, for
this might seem obvious to some people, but it seems
obvious for the reasons I'm talking about, because that that
became this essential, this essential aspect of of war doctrine,
you know, says Clindestine, uh, the Ali Clandestine Coordinating Committee.
It created what was also known as the several quote
Allied clindistant Coordinating Groups. And these guys would they the
liaise on the personnel front with the NATO command elements
down to like at least battalion level and probably comedy level.
These uh, the these these coordinating groups were almost exclusively
staffed by uh, you know, men from from Supreme headquarters,
you know, Allied UH forces in Europe. The uh, the
idea was, uh, you know again to create a kind
of how much an aity of of thought and orientation,
you know, towards the formal mission statement. Well, uh, at
the same time kind of tailoring these efforts to address
and kind of satisfy the local conditions in each of
these countries, which varied quite a lot, you know, culturally, linguistically,
you know, the terrain was different, like the way people viewed, uh,
the way people viewed like the Easterns and the Russians differed.
You know, it was there's there's political, there was anthropological,
there was you know, sociological aspects. How these decisions were running. Now,
an event of World War three, Supreme Allied Commanded Europe
absolutely intended and was meant to and was structured to
exercise operational control well for pretty much every aspect of
the member state. For then the reason without like micromanaging
or trying to make micromanage you know, like unit or
into tactics because of self defeating. But so in terms
of like overall, in terms of like overall strategic orientation,
there wasn't in forest homogeneity, but to coordinate activities such
that we're talking about across like all different commands. An
event of wartime, you know, particularly where you're raising the
clock because you basically have you know, seventy two hours
to hold the Soviet Union at Bay on the mainline,
resistance at Fold in the North Rim and plane. You're
not gonna be able to just like splendidly like and
incorporate this structure into in a pre existing community areas.
I mean, you're gonna have to abide for those differences
and for those discrete you know kind of sensitivities to
various things that might seem totally innocuous or ridiculous or whatever.
You know. So I'm not suggesting this with some like
well machine, but it was basically I mean that that's
kind of the best you can do if this is uh,
if this is the mission orientation, you know, like the
you get the world as the world is not, you know,
like the not not not a tlleric utopia or everybody
is everybody privileges reason over a passion and man is
basically melible. And I mean that's that's not the way
things are, you know, I believe. And this takes us
back some years to it was after you know, the
Supreme Allied command elements, We're already devising ideas on how
to incorporate stay behinds into the order of battle and
the war playing structure. I mean that like again, that
that that kind of research began in ernest around nineteen
fifty seven as NATO kind of evolved, and again like
as as nuclear forces came off the table, as you know,
both the primary deterrented and the primary kind of assault
platform you know again, conventional forces and political uh warfare
took on an outside significance, and in nineteen seventy two,
a man named Vincenzovi and Seguerra. He's the man who
was blamed and continues to be for the Patiano massacre
on May thirty first, ninety seventy two. Patiano is a
suburb of Cigarato in Italy. Apparently some anonymous call came in,
you know, this is like provisional Ira style to the
local police, the Cadabagnetti, I think they're called, telling them
to check this car, this abandoned car. The car itself
turned out to be an explosive, like like the whole
thing was like wired with like I think plass speak.
So when these coppers investigated it, you know when they
like Jimmy didor open like like it exploded and and
and you know killed the I think it killed three
of the cop three of the five cops, and like
the others were aimed. But you know, it begs uh.
There was more severe attacks subsequent, some of which were
bona fide man's casualty events. But it does beg the
question like why, And it's not just uh, people like
Howard's in and with crank ideas you see, like fashion's
under their bed it's reasonably serious historians who claim that
like see like this is this is the fruits of
Operation Ladio, and it's like okay, but like why what
was the motive of these guys doing this? You know,
I mean, I like I said, like their claim is that,
oh well, it was just part of a tension strategy.
But it's like, but again, like you you don't need
that when warsaw packed as as twenty three thousand nuclear
weapons and thousands of them are pointed it at Europe
at decapitation range. You know, it's kind of the same
reason in my mind, Like you don't need to like
blow up the World Trade Center and pretend al Kaeda
did it to like pass the Patriot Act. You know,
that's not that's not things worked, you know. I mean
it's like look at the COVID nonsense that the government
like murder ten million people to pretend COVID with like
this deadly virus. Like no, I mean, like it's it's uh,
that's not really a propaganda works, and people generally go
along with it, you know, like at the face value.
You know, and again, especially during the Cold War, there
was peculiar exigencies due to the history of students of
history will know, like Juliusavola when he was arrested and
indicted and he was acquitted. It was events so these
uh years of light attacks, and the claim was that
Evla was some kind of like guru figure took this
cult of like young fascist partisans and so in some
like in chot way, like he was conspiring to kill
people with these like terrorists, which made no sense whatsoever
and basically got lapped out of court. But the perpetrators
of the Patiano massacre was alleged to be Vincenzo Vinceeguera,
a guy named Carlo Sicatuni, a guy named Ivano Boccaccino.
All these guys were members of the New Order was
Chloe called the New Order. The full name of it
was the New Order Scholarship Center, okay, which was basically
it was. It was basically like uh, that kind of
kind of like neo fascist cell, like intellectual type guys
who were also in into like paramilitary stuff and things.
They were big on like Julius Evlon stuff. You know.
But like I said, it doesn't really like it doesn't
really track, you know. Bocaccino was in fact he he
he himself was involved in some of these events, and
he later was killed like in in murky circumstances during
like a similar event. You know, some people claim that like,
well he was like a cop or like some intelligence
ass that that is possible, or maybe he was just
like a nut. Okay, Vinciguerta and Cicutini, they were both
sentenced to life in prison for years. Uh. Cicutini, Uh,
he fled to Spain, like when the indictment came down
with the informational complaint. I don't know if in Europe,
like they actually indict people, they afford people to process,
at least in a loose sense, like but they I
think their protocol is different. But he uh, he was
finally pinched in like you know, nineteen ninety eight, and
then uh about a decade later, like when his health
was failing, like they just they just like coult him
lose it for compassionate release. And it's like, really, man,
like you, this guy's just like demented terrorists, acording to
you when you're like cutting them loose for ill health.
I mean, like the whole the whole thing was strange.
What's significant too, is that like the New Order and
this whole, uh, this whole kind of like New Order
like like think tank or like intellectual kind of cadre,
do anything about it. Like that. These guys were they
were born out of the the Italian Social Movement, which
wasn't me. It was it was an openly like neo
fascist party, but it was a mainstream party, you know,
uh like Mussolini's granddaughter, you know, like she was, uh
she was like a public face of it, you know,
and in their traditional strongholds like Pepe, people people like
openly like celebrated and rep and repped that. You know,
like that, the New Order was something of a schismatic
breakoff from that from the Italian Social movement. Like I said,
what I like in it too, what I like in
it too. It's an imperfect example, but you know, like
that like the National Front schism that uh led like
you know, the Flag Group, which was you know the
uh different traditional kind of John Tyndall National Front, And
there's nothing wrong with that. I think National Front actually
did some really great things, especially for especially for uh,
you know, the downwardly mobile kind of like white working
class whose communities really were devastated by you know, the
UK is sort of Swiss dal Merstic globalism. But you
know the uh, and like I said, the Italian social
movement itself is every evil and like sense of build
the new order was very much more on like a
national socialist tip if that uh, I don't know if
that makes any different seqal or not. But again, like
I don't, this whole narrative doesn't really add up. But
you know the uh, it's also too like I don't,
I mean happened the regene is basically speaking out of
like both sides of its mouth. It's like, okay, like
these state behind organizations, I'm not going as far as
to say that like well, you know, like NATO created them,
Like you can't. You can't just like create al Qaeda
or whatever like idiots like Michael Morrissey. You can just
like create some radical like neo fascist cadre as a
state on one element. Like it's how life works, you know.
The these tendencies developed very organically, They solidify in a
harden and become in some people's cases like extreme owing
to like you know, personal influences in their orbit who
kind of feed on these people's like youth of energy
that tends to outshine their their capacity for self reflection.
But it's uh, you know. But at the same time,
at the same time, the fact that these guys were
for decades by the time this stuff was happening, they
were not just fully assimilated into kind of like the
NATO command and control structure, but they were considered to
be like an essential part of it. So it's like,
but now you can't control your people anymore, and they're
like blowing up cops. They're like, you know, they're they're
opening fire, they're ripping through fill auto like it at
train stations and killing old ladies and everybody else who
happens to be down range their fire like that. That
doesn't really make sense, man, Okay, you know, it just doesn't.
And not everything is uh not not not everything's a
science experiment, and you know, not everything's uh not not
everything lends itself the cutable inputs where you can you know,
derive like a concrete answer on the human condition and
you know, war and peace and stuff like that. I uh,
some I think that that's there's a lot of uh,
even to this day, there's like a lot of smoke
around these things, like for really for no reason, you
know what I mean. Like the men who were really
instrumental in these activities are long dead. You know. It's
like like you could say, well, this might like embarrass
the government. It's like, okay, if peop want to take
the people want to take government seriously anymore. Even if
they did, it's like okay, I mean there is there's uh,
there's a laundry list of like AAST nine A grievances
like people hang on you know, like the government. You know,
it's like, what's what's one more? You know, I don't
I don't really understand the discussion. I mean I understand it intellectually.
You know. What I mean is I continue to kind
of stupefy me that people don't see uh like see
through how like fucking uh transparent? The this is Oh wow,
we've been going for out an hour, haven't we. Yeah,
let's get into the years of LED next MANX. If
I if I start that now, we're gonna be here
like another hour.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no problem.
Speaker 2: I don't want to fuck with the program.
Speaker 1: Sounds good to me.
Speaker 2: Someone I want to crash thom because I got frankly,
I got a big day tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah you do, but uh do plugs real.
Speaker 2: Quick yes, sir, you can always find them. You can
always find me on my web site. It's Thomas seven
seven seven dot com number seven h M A S
seven seven seven dot com. I'm on Twitter. I got
a pretty active I got a pretty active timeline. It's
real capital R E A L Underscore number seven h
M A S seven seven seven. I'm on t ram.
I'm on Instagram. I uh my substack is the best
place hitting me up. I got I got a lot
of video. This My podcast is a lot of just
kind of like random audio and me talking to people.
We got a very active chat that's been hopping a
lot lately. That's real Thomas seven seven seven dot substack
dot com. If EP could include like some of my
plugs in the video description, that would that would be great. Man.
You'd have my gratitude of course. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have your and I have your the uh the
the new merch you have and everything included there.
Speaker 2: No, that's awesome. Yeah, thanks so much. Yeah, I am
very blessed that our our buddy Harrik Kreeg. I have
no idea how to mock that stuff up, man, and
he's got real ability, you know.
Speaker 1: I'm very It looks good it looks really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look really good. Looks yeah yeah, no, it's people
really like it, and it makes me happy, man, that
we can deliver stuff that people like you can actually
want to like wear on their body, you know.
Speaker 1: And you actually got retweeted by Candae Owens yesterday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. That's why it's been like a deluge
of It's weird, man, It's I it's weird being like
Internet famous in some small way. Like I mean, okay,
I'm fine with it. I don't know, think about Cannas Owens.
I don't really mess with their content or anything whatever.
I mean, she wants to retweet me, that's fine, but
uh yeah, it's kind of nutty.
Speaker 1: All right, Thomas, thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, Bud.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekaniana Show.
Thomas is back, and I think this is the I'm
going to conclude Gladio today, right, it's long time coming.
You're muted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm just call up my outline he
real quick, No problem, Yeah no, I think, oh yeah,
here we go. I already got it up. Yeah. Like
I said, man, just to advise the viewers and subs,
like I don't. I don't feel great, so like forgive
me if I repeat myself or like lose my place.
But I think we're I think we're good. So I
think I want to get into today, and like I
will as we get into the topic. Gladio created an
interesting ideological culture that is relevant to like what we
do today. It's not it's not just a strange footnote
of history. It's not just something that gives rise to
conspiratorial narratives. It's not just you know, this kind of
artifact of Cold War grand strategy and military planning and
and you know, related specifically to the nuances of political
warfare and and all of that. You know, And like
I said, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves,
but you know, ground zero for gladi was really Italy, okay,
and Italy. Italy absolutely lost the war, like like all
of Europe. Did you know the Vatican was hit incredibly hard,
like figuratively and literally, you know, like Vatican two was
basically like like the the the Catholic leadership hierarchy reuh
reinventing itself to to be agreeable to you know, to
American hegemy and like and like that. In the Nurmer
World War, okay, and the rest of Italy. Italy was
was a key. I mean, Italy was like the fifth
largest economy I think into the seventies on this planet.
And Italy, Italy and the Benelux countries they were they
were they were like NATO's literal flanks, okay. I mean
obviously like the the Bunis Republic, the Bunia you know,
the US Army, you know, espeifically, the armored KAEV and
field artillery, the British Army on the North German plane.
They they were they were the fare punk of like
the mainline of resistance in near German border. But the
Italian Army you know, in the south and the Benelux
uh military elements on then in the north they were
just as essential. So there was this weird situation with
the Italy because it wasn't occupied like the Bundus Republic was.
It was part of NATO. But there was also this
like overtly fan that's just culture that was still active there,
like they were sending people to parliament, you know, they
and it just kind of had to be tolerated because
it's like what are you gonna do? It's like they
had they had a pro they had a Cold War
your government that they had like a permanent incumbency, you know,
they were they they hated the Communists. They were like
one hundred and ten percent fying the Cold War. It
was kind of like something that it was kind of
something like Washington had to tolerate. So but of course
they decided to kind of like try and purpose that
towards Cold War ends on the political side, not just
the military side. And that was like the core of Gladio.
You know, there's there's obviously Gladio elements in in the
Benelux countries, like in France as well, even though France
wasn't you know, part of the formal NATO structure, there
was a there were there were Gladio elements of a
sort like in in the Buddhist Republic. Oh that was
like a tricky thing, you know, and it was it
was weirdly handled. But Italy, like the of these guys
was Italy. You know. Also you know, like the Italians,
the Italian Seven, they contribute like an outsized in an
outsized way to European cultural things. And like we've talked about,
you know, like I mean going back to the to
the inner warriors, you know, like Mussolanie's March on Rome.
That was a huge development, you know. Uh, it was
this right wing revolutionary tendency that was basically like returning
the serve like out of the bullster of revolution. And
weird when you seem to Americans like art and like
artistic endeavors and and aesthetical things that has this that
has like an outsized cachet in Europe like to this day,
Like you wouldn't think of America of some painter or
even like a novelist or a filmmaker, like you wouldn't
think of You wouldn't think of him like putting something
in the stream of cultural commerce and it like a
movement developing around it or coming to like symbolize some
kind of movement. But in Italy that's very much the case.
It wasn't it is, you know, and the Cold War
was no exception. So you had these guys in Italy
running around who constant kind of like the core of
Gladio and like some of them are very compromised. They
were basically like NATO agents and that's like just what
they were, and they didn't really give a fuck, like
about what your knowing ideology was beyond you know, cold
war imperatives. But you also had these guys who were
you know, who were basically like act like said Julius
eve Lah or whore in the early days, had you know,
fought in the Italian army like with the Axis, or
you know, they were guys who came to Gladio because
they were agitating against communists, you know, or they were
or immigrants or you know, whatever their kind of core
issues were, and they got swept up, you know by
like Italian carbonaria or or political police. And I'm like, okay,
look like why why do you make it so useful?
Like this is what you're wanting to do? You know?
So that that's that's kind of like the that that
that's kind of that was kind of like the situation
on the Italian street, you know, particularly in Rome, but
kind of like all over the country. And I can't
remember I got into this or not. I refreshed my recollection,
but I if I'm repeating myself, call me on it.
But what kind of brought gladi out of people's awareness?
I'm talking in terms of like the general public was,
uh was the Patiano massacre? I can't remember we got
into this last time or not, but basically on May thirty,
first seventy two, there was was characterized as a neo
fascist terror attack. There's an anonymous call, uh play to this
carbonary barracks in a suburb of uh the Sigadado, and
the caller said, you know, hey, check this car, Check
this abandoned car. You know it's it's an I ED.
And when they did, and it like it exploded, as
like they were trying to investigate it, and it killed
these three cops. The perpetrators are the guys who got
brought up, who got stuck with the charges on grounds
of it. They were, uh, this guy named Vincenzo and Seguera,
Carlo Sicatini, and this guy Ivano Bucket Chino and all
these guys remembers of this of this group called New Order,
the the the official name is the New Order of
Scholarship Center. It was basically like a think tank and
it wasn't a political party. It was kind of like Ellen.
The ben La was like uh Greece g R E
c E or Grace, you know it was. It basically
was what it appeared to be. It was like a
Research Group, you know, and when when you know what,
where they who was funding them and where they were
getting money from wasn't exactly clear, but there was a
lot of that. There's a lot of there's a lot
of like money going into it. And the Italian Social Movement,
which was a mainstream political party despite they can they
considered and consider themselves to uh to be the direct
descendance of the the National Fascist Party and they kind
of are like, it's not cap but the New Order
Scholarship Center they came about based on like a schiz
on in the Italian Social Movement, which is interesting, like
as as the Italian Social Movement kind of approached mainstream
respectability and like the Eisenhower era, which happened to like
a lot of like right wing parties in Europe and
during that era too, I mean that was one like
Francis Yacki was like writing speeches for Joseph McCarthy, Like
very unusual stuff was going on due to you know
what amounts so like an enduring emergency. You know, this
is the era like the Berlin crises and things. You know,
people are convinced that coldor is gonna be him hot
become hot This was also in a bunch of guys
with real trigger time, you know, like basically the entire
first SS, like leap stand Art, they were rotting in
prison sept Dietrich had a life sentence, Yak and Piper
at the death kind of lead. A bunch of these
guys got released during this era, like not because NATO
wanted to be nice and not not because Washington decided
they wanted to roll back the present they've established at Nurnberg.
But they're like, you know, we're we're we're almost certainly
going to fight World War three imminently, and we need
we you know, we need officers and n c os
that we actually fought the Ivans and we can't be
going around to arresting people for being right wing and
that's not gonna work. So kind of the mainstream of
the Italian social movement are Turo Michellini, who was like
their Hancho, Like he was basically a moderate for the time.
He was like a right wing moderate. He uh, he
wanted to click up with the Christian Democrats, with the monarchists,
you know, basically he wanted to join kind of like
the mainstream coalition of like center right parties, and these
guys uh, like Buggaccino and like Vinci Gatta and like Sicutini,
they were like, uh, like that's not happening, like they're forebears.
I don't think they were involved at that time, but
you know, these there was these schismatic guys you know
who were who were uh, who are very much like
Evold and Ancolytes, and they're like that's bullshit, like you're
not You're not gonna turn us into some like some
like regime approved like like part of the parliamentary apparatus.
You know. So these guys found a new order, okay,
and there was a uh and this guy this is
kind of formalize the nineteen fifty six there was this
big meeting in Milan that was the Italian social mooge
in Congress and this guy Pino Rowdy, who was the
he was he was like kind of the representative what
became like new order. He basically stood up and said,
like you know that you're you're disgracing the honor like
the man who died like fighting the Americans and the communists.
You know, how dare you? You know you're trying to
hijack us? You know this this is this is Jewish,
you know, fuck you basically, So like that was that
So these New Order guys were kind of like and
everybody shit list anyway, Like I'm not saying they didn't
plant as Bob. Maybe they did or maybe they didn't,
but it served multiple purposes to claim these guys did it,
even if they did not. And I love Italians and Italy.
I'm not saying bad things about them as a people,
but Italian justice is not exactly rigorous or going to
do process, you know, especially during that era.
Speaker 1: If you don't like the Italian government, wait five years,
we'll get a new one.
Speaker 2: Yeah that too, But that's that's kind of the context
and other other right wing movements in Europe, and this
is a very different circumstance. It wasn't like now there,
you know, like I'm always talking about these these literally
mentally retarded people who like show for Zelensky and stuff
because they're like too stupid to be alive. But some
of the are they're like they're like brain eating amba
or something. But but in those you know like that nowadays,
there there's there's literally like the regime, there's globalism, and
then there's people resisting it, you know, whether there's Salathis
who are not good guys, or our friends, whether they're in Iran,
whether they're in Russia who are our friends, whether they're
you know. But I mean in the Cold War there
was all these bizarre intrigues and everything was characterized by
Cold War dynamics and phenomenon. So like even if you
didn't want to take a side, you had to insinuate
sinsinuate yourself somehow into that paradigm, like otherwise you were
just pissing into the wind, you know. So and plus two,
you could play people off against each other, you know,
like if you know in the fifties and sixties and
then post it tot you know, in the nineteen eighties.
I mean basically, if you were approached, if you were
if you were a partisan, whether you're in Italy or
the or the Benelux countries or the UK, and you've
got actual bodies on in the street, you could approach
by some intelligence guy or some NATO type. Yeah, I
mean you can basically take turns to him. You know,
you want to start behaving myself, You want me to
commit to doing something when you need to fight the communists,
you would have given me a lot of money or
a lot of small and ammo or like a lot
of drugs I can sell or something, you know. And
there was like limits to this obviously, but you know,
it was a rarefied circumstance, you know, a new order. Also,
there's stuff was disseminated throughout Europe and in those good days,
you know, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, you know, print media
was the only thing, was the only game in town,
you know, so and what you could find, especially especially
based on the censorship censorship regime, not just in the
Buddhist Republic, but in the UK and other places, you know,
you had to take like you had to get what
could be smuggled in, you know, and sometimes it be
in English, sometimes it wouldn't. Sometimes it'd be like an
English translation that was imprecise. But a whole lot of
this material relevant to the right, relative to the old
resistance in Europe. What's coming out of Italy and you
know now orders publications they very much valorize the Third
Right and the Kingdom of Italy. And there were dead,
you know, in the independent State of Croatia, and like
all the excess powers they also they had links with
the Boor of Republican Rhodesia also, like they had strong
support there. You know. It was very anti modernist. It
was very Strasser, right, you know, and despite what people
think Strasser had, uh, he had he had a he
had a very nuanced view of things. I don't agree
with this perspective. But it wasn't just oh he was
a socialist, but he also didn't like Zionism. It's there
was nothing like that. And he was not pro Soviet.
He said that, you know, Europe has to fight some
kind of concord with Moscow no matter what the government
is there, and that's the way forward. But he basically
the reason why the standard of the Black Front it
was the hammer and sword. It wasn't just because it
looks cool. You know, he's the Strassers, the Strasser. His
whole point was we've got to return to like medieval origins.
That's you know, not not in some ridiculous way or
or not in some luodite way. But he's like, you know, this,
this devolved, localized governmental structure is what's natural to Europe.
You know, yes, we need a national government, but it's
got to be totally federated and not just the name only,
you know, like they like down to down like the
township level, like they basically wanted like local sovereignty and
for matters that you know impact you know, like the
folk community or like war in peace question the base
of security, like that's that's what the national community ossifies
as one. But otherwise, you know, it's it exists in
this totally like organic kind of like spontaneous and the
wealth capacity. And that's basically what the third position was
up on during the entire Cold War. And the third
position as we think of it, it does not exist anymore.
You know. John Bowden made that point. So if you're like, oh,
I'm a third positionist, well that doesn't make any sense
in America anyway, because there is no American third position. Okay,
there was like a there there was there was a
there was a taffy and right wing position that was
America first, we shouldn't be fighting the Cold War. But
that's something totally different. And in the twenty oars centi's
just not a third a third position anywhere, because there's
not there's not the binary paradigm. There's globalism and everybody
opposing it. That's it. And those people opposing it. They
have different motives for opposing it, some of which are
some of which you know, are like rhyme with one another,
some which don't at all. But there's but but there's
not two positions. There's one position and there's the resistance.
This is actually important. It's not just something that academic
types and people like me are into or relate to,
you know, contemplate, pontificate that.
Speaker 1: Well people, but people may. I think sometimes people think
that you say stuff like that just to just to
upset them. Because it upsets them. They you know, they
think they're a third positionist and they underah in what way.
You know, It's like it's like talking about being right
wing or left wing and you're talking about the early
you know, twentieth century.
Speaker 2: In Europe.
Speaker 1: It's not the same thing as in Europe as it
is in the United States. There's a lot more nuance there.
Speaker 2: Well, there's also the same guys who think that they
like they think that they think that they're right wing
if they agree on foreign policy with Chuck Schumer, Ben Nettinya,
who Joe Biden in Nancy Pelosi. It's like, I don't
care if you don't like the Russians. If you're ethnically
cleansing Slavic people on orders of a zion Is for
the purpose of dismantling Ukraine and Russia as discreete ethnocultural entities,
you're not right wing. You're some kind of fuck head
who's killing people for the globalist regime. Like the fact
you wear like a little swastigardless of a black metal
or because you're like some like Brony Satanists, doesn't make
you right wing. It just makes you a fucking idiot.
You know. Like if I if I like rob a
liquor store when I'm high on crack and say, you know,
God saves the King, that doesn't make me a monarchist.
It makes me a crackhead who robs liquor stores and
says weird things. You know. It's kind of the same thing. Man,
Like if Nambla started like wearing swasiguds nimblesics to fucking basted,
I'm gonna go like fucking kid because it's like beast
like they literally would be like that, you know. Like,
but that's a different I don't want to ran about
that and get my blood pressure up. But the uh,
but you know, yeah, I did. I mean, but that
that was basically like the situation in Italy and again
like uh the damastic car, these these Carbonariti like that
that these guys probably I don't think they wanted to
kill the police, but I think they definitely were like
guilty of the crying charge despite whatever propaganda might have
been milked out of it by by the Italian government.
Because these guys are these guys are serious, like the
New Order guys, they jumped the gun a little bit.
A lot of them didn't have practical experience as partisans
like the like the Growth Army fraction did you know,
they weren't properly trained in that stuff. But you know
they were serious. They were like willing to engage in
direct the action. But as time went on, they kind
of they became something of an elite uh organization. You know,
they very they gave, they gate kept very hard. They
always helped themselves out as a vanguard as tendency. You know,
as time went on there there kind of causeic paramilitary
aspect became more uh like a high speed and and incredible.
You know, at peak they had about ten thousand numbers
and these guys, Uh, this is only campaign for nuclear
disarmament was a big thing in Europe, which it selves
like a cover not just for like you know, uh
like like Soviet and wasn't like money was coming into
fund this stuff, but it's also a cover for like
real radicals, you know, and and and communists and anarchists
of varied stripes like now order they they go out
and like kick the shit out of these guys when
they'd have like protests and these like mass demonstrations, you know.
So that that caused the Garment in Rome to kind
of like raise a cyber and be like, okay, like
let's not just like smash these guys. And then I
think that had a lot to do with them kind
of being the Cora Gladio beyond like what I already suggested,
what I was just going to peculiar conditions of Italy
and and and nuances they're in. But it's like, Okay,
these guys, these guys will get dirty, Okay, you know
that they're not afraid to do that. And they they
seem to be thirsty for action, you know, so they're
not we we can be advised, especially if we if
we sent some special operations for US types to kind
of bring up the speed. These guys will probably be
like looking forward to some kind of Soviet assault where
they can go out and and and play cowboys and Indians.
It's kind of like a perfect stormist stuff. But uh,
later on a substantial uh the stancial percentage of these
guys like rejoined uh the Italian social movement, but that
they remained kind of like I think some of that too.
It was them like hemorrhaging off people who like weren't
really up to the task of doing extra legal stuff.
It's complicated, but there's a lot of historians, and not
just mainstream historians, but like you know, uh, like vanguardist
types like us, we like read this as like, oh,
there was a second schism. I don't think that's true.
But that's kind of complicated. I in the time we
got left, I don't want to I don't want to
go on that tangent deeply. But the uh and not coincidentally,
the New Order's motto was our honor is called loyalty.
I'm not gonna try and pronounce the Italian variant of that,
but obviously that's you know, my yeah, has Troy, my
loyalty is my honor which is the en SS model.
The symi of the organization was a double headed axe,
you know, like meaning like we look both right and left,
but you know, the ross, the folk community is the center,
and like we represent that as a vanguard, you know,
and we fight both elements from within when they threaten us,
but we will act as like the shpare punkd of
either if it advances, you know, the interests of the
folk community. An important side note to this is what
became of the British National Front, which today and I
can't say for sure what the state of the London
Street is or anything. I read the Nation and so
if our English and Ulster friends and Scottish friends, if
I'm wrong about this, please weigh in and don't be offended.
But I don't think I'm wrong. I think the National
Front the British National Fraud, not to be confused with
the French organization, which is a lot more mainstream and
regime approved. The I think the National Front these days
is basically a website, okay, or like a social media Uh,
it's got some social media presence, but like even they're
like nobody, not even just fold, like a couple hundred
people who fuck with it and don't care about it.
But it was a big deal in the seventies and eighties.
They're the fourth largest party. They're they were the largest
party after the lib Dems in the UK for a minute. Okay.
They were founded by A. K. Chesterton who had been
who'd been affiliated with Mosley. He came from UH. He
came from the League of Empire Loyalists and the first
British National Party and he was related to UH. He
was related to G. K. Schesterton. He'd been born in
South Africa. During the Second Bold War, his family fled
back to the UK. But it uh, this was uh.
This was during the time when Enna Powell was really
kind of carving out like a dissident tendance in the
UK too. But the National Front it really got cloud
when John Tindall kind of came to the helm And
Tindall was an interesting guy. I highly recommend his autobiography.
It's really it's good stuff. But you know Tindall, Uh.
Kindall's big thing was, you know, stop non white immigration,
and he campaigned on a plat from a repatriot these
people now, which absolutely would have been possible at that time.
That wasn't He wasn't just like talking shit like we're
gonna build a wool and it's gonna stop all these
Mexicans because it's a wol. It was like nothing like that.
It was like you could do this because the politable
will was there, you know, and uh, this is when
things are totally going to hell in Northern Ireland, and
Northern Ireland is relevant to this Gladio a third position
thing two. I'm not just on a crazy tangent, but
Tindall was basically like a main He was a pretty mainstream,
like white nationalist, empire loyalist type guy. He's like, why
we post the footing with the IRA, Fuck these people
smash them? Why are we getting flooded with these Third
world immigrants? Like why, you know, why? How come? You
know why? Why why are the Tories like talking a
lot of shit. But we're basically getting state socialism then,
and and we're not you know, we're we're not even
a competitive economy anymore. But something started happening within the
National Front and the NF two. They'd have these mass
rallies in London and you know, in uh, in Liverpool
and in Belfast, although it hit Belfast a little bit later,
and I'm getting ahead of myself. But the guys who
came to constitute the West Belfast Brigade, like C Company
of the West Belfast Brigade of the UDA, Johnny Adare,
who was who was an infamous guy and not an
admirable guy, very much a gangster. He was a National
Front still head and he was in the Rock against
Communism scene, and so were all his friends. And these
guys became C Company, okay, and like they were all
about the National Front. So on the one hand, like
Comedy eighteen and these guys other than other than the
mid Ulster UV which became the LVF under Billy Rice Rain.
You know, people say like, well it was an outlie
or like the far right and loyalists don't have the
common ground. That's not really true, okay, Like, but we'll
get into that in a minute. And this totally relates
to the third position of schismatic schismatics in Italy, which
in turn impacted the National Front, which in turn found
an audience in Ulster, specifically belf Pass. But what happened
in the National Front was the schism happened between what
was called the political soul faction and what was the
Flag group because the National Front zine or newsletter was
the Flag. Okay, But essentially Tindall leaves a National Front
and identity too and he forms the British National Party,
which in turn became the b n P of the nineties,
where Nick Griffin was at the helm, which is understanding
because Griffin was part of the political soldier faction. But
the uh, the National Front split during the during this
time appropising when Tindall left, okay, and the Official National Front,
which was the political soldier faction, they started they started
associating with this guy, Roberto Fiori. But I believe Griffin
actually lived with for a time, not in some weird way,
but like they lived into like the same rooming house
or a bunch of like right wing guys. It was
more like their h hughes basically. But the Official National
Front or the Political Soldier faction, they basically are like,
why why are we worried about preserving the monarchy? Like
why are we worried about trying to bring the UK
back to you know, as it existed between you know,
like the reign of you know, the minute of the
Prime misership A Disraeli and you know through like Getwardian
days to you know, basically probably like when Ramsey McDonald
the game PM, It's like, why is that like our model?
You know, He's like, we got to start looking at
ourselves as as uh as political soldiers. You know, Uh,
we got to start viewing uh, you know, America and
its client regime in London as our enemy just as
much as the communists are. They started uh making overtures
to cut offy because cut off he would would, uh,
he'd support elements that he thought would advance the goals
that you know. Kadafi was very much Warsaw packed adjacent,
like ten percent, but he was an unusual guy and
like my friend Big D like in you know, the
first time I cut con it what I mean, it
was no Rouken and he was talking. You know, he
got swept up in the indictments when when Jeff Fort
you know, was and the Rukens were taking money from
Kadafi was fourth then talk and spent on dope to
put on the street. And Kadafi he's like, fuck, this
guy put a hit on them. But you're, like Big
D said, He's like the a lot of the Rooken
leadership was all about that. But so we're like these
third positions guys in Europe, okay. And and of course
the uh like the Flag Group, you know, they they
were like, this is bullshit. You know, you don't you don't,
you don't associate with non whites. We're not radicals, you know,
a all of that. Okay. But as the National Front
was doing that, the uh you know, and and this
kind of stress right stuff was was being like widely
disseminated at least within like right wing circles, you know.
At this time, like in nineteen eighty six, when the
two wings that party formally split, it was probably about
they probably about like five thousand like like hardcore members
like paid dues and they're like like on record and
all of that stuff, and about uh probably about three
thousand of them like mhm, like stay with like the
mainstream National Front, but two thousand like clicked up with
you know, like the political soldier like official National Front
political Soldier wing. But they had you know in the
UK only here like if you got a form of play,
if Yourenacord is a political party, like you pay dues,
you know, it's like a membership organization and you've got
supporters who aren't at all involved in like the membership
side of things. So despite like what seems like paltry
numbers for like a protest party, that's actually pretty good
for the time. And like I said, these guys could,
these guys could get a crowd in the streets in London,
particularly if they were you know, if they were if
they were clashing you know with the campaign for nolear
disarment types or or or like radical left types, because
like people didn't like those types, you know, they just didn't,
you know, I mean, at end of this day, I
think if the man in this I realized London has
changed dramatically since then and since I was there in
the late nineties. But I I'm sure it's kind of
like Shytown. There's there is kind of like but the
silent majority type element that gets mad when they see
that stuff. And a lot of these non white people,
whether they should be there or not a different question,
but a lot of them don't like that shit either.
But you know, so plus do like the National Front,
even it's early iteration. You know, under Tyndall, it did stand,
it did contest, it did contest elections, but it viewed
itself as a vanguardist tendency when it did, uh that
change really after Tyndall left, they decided they wanted to
become almost like a mainstream party in some ways, you know,
and like a mass membership organization. This is one of
the reasons for the skins of my belief because for
something like for an organization like that, like that's fatal
to it. You know, it's not. It's not just that
you've got to adopt a vanguardist posture if you're in
the United States or the UK or or the EU
these days, like an those days, even when there's kind
of more room to participate in formal processes, you you
couldn't you couldn't just try and like reinvent yourself as
kind of like the dissident Tories or something like or it.
It wouldn't like just just by like sheer value and
you would be diluted and the into becoming an effectual
like regardless of the fact that you know, there's not
there's not real social capital between an organization putting people
in an organization like a million members or something. But
any event, and now that was the big thing the
political Soldier faction. They refuse to stay in for protect
contest elections, but bringing it to bringing it to bring
it to the to the Northern Ireland situation and kind
of how Gladiol which in turn kind of gave rise
the third position, which in turn impact like an active
conflict on the ground and weighs unforeseen. This guy named
Andy Tierry, he was born in Belfast. You know, it's
a poor family. He sounded like an x x ex
British Army soldier. He grew up in the loyalist heartland
on Shango Road, and his family and many others he
had like uh moved to bally Murphy and then New Barnsley,
like when his dad needed work, like you know, cause
among other things. In the late sixties it was like
a huge recession you know across the UK, but I
mean Belfast was especially hit hard. And when the troubles
kept off in sixty nine, the family, uh, they got
ethnically cleansed, like they're they got attacked. So they go
back to the shay I go Try is an ancient
Scottish name, So I'm sure like the Tierries are on
the shit list of the of the provos, anybody else,
Like when it first jumped off yet is his roots
could be traced to the early days of the ulcer plantations.
I mean this, this guy had like loyalism in his DNA. Okay,
I'm not saying that's good or bad. That's a fact.
It's just a fact. But so Tierry clicks up with
the He first clicks up with the UVF. They liked
him because he was serious and tough, and he was
literally from the Shanghio Road and his family had been
attacked by out of the provos or adjacent vigilantes. But
Tierry looks at the UVF and he's like, you know,
these guys are like the UVF soul notion first of all,
I mean it, you know, it was this the second
iteration which came about in sixty five and in which
Tierry joined. They were very, very selective. They looked at themselves,
this direct action element, who's job it was to kill
the IRA. Like, yes, they dropped a lot of civilian
bodies too, just to terrorize people. But their idea was
were not a mass members sportman is, We're not a
vigilante grouping. You know, we're an elite element. We're a
counter terrorist element. You know, we we attack the provos
and we killed them. You know. Tiri's old thing is like,
look like my family, but my family got murked and
and like kicked out of our home. You know, we
we need somebody to protect Protestant areas from this kind
of thing. Yes, you say, you know what, that's not
we do. So Tiri joins the UDA. Well, first he
joined the shankillt Defense Association, And there was a bunch
of quote defense associations that got set up in Protestant hoods,
especially in interface areas, and basically they'd organize on like
quasi military lines, you know, and like vigilantism, whether it's
here in the American South and whether it's an Ulster,
that's just like what we do. You know, that's just
what that's what Ulster Scott do. Okay. As the as
these defense organizations like started street fighting with their Catholic
neighbors and and with the provos and and with other elements,
they start getting coalesced into a single element which became
the Ulster Defense Association, which at peak I think had
about fifty thousand members. And UDA's notion they weren't outlawed
until nineteen ninety two because they incorporated above Board, and
they said we're a defense organization and like an event
Dublin intervenes, we're gonna go to the rifle and we're
going to attack, or an event you know, we get
sold out by London, we're gonna fight. You know. That
was their whole deal. And UFF was the current name
for the direct action element, which was Ulster Freedom Fighters. Okay,
those are their shooters, that's what they called themselves. And
they claimed that they weren't the same organization. And a
lot of people on the provo side as well as
just kind of observers are critical of how this whole
thing was handled by the Crown. They say like, well,
you know, UFF was very much like in part of
Crown proxy and that's why they just let it do
each thing. That's not the old It's it's more murky
than that, okay. Butterierry, he he developed a reputation for
two things. He was a guy who kind of raised
hell within the organization for like strongly heterodox ideas, and
he was he was very very tough, so like the
men respected him, even though he thought that he was
kind of spinning off into crazy territory. I said with
all respect, that's just a fact. He Heerry's kind of
the zenith of this tendency. In May nine seventy four
there was the Ulster Workers Council strike and Tierry knew
a bunch of these guys and like the in the
Belfast and Ulster wide labor movement because he'd been like
a shop steward like back in his like days as
like a factory laborer, you know, So he was he
was somewhat close to this guy Glenn Barr, who was
the strike leaders like the UDA. In those days they
had like a very socialist event you know, and like
the and like the the worst council strike like basically
like shut down Belfast. This was still when you know,
like the UK was an economy relying on national industry.
There's like really really food barred things. So Tierry got
this reputation is like this kind of like labor leader
and like hero the working man like which he was.
I wasn't cap he was those things, but he also
was like this like rabid loyalist. So that like raised
the UDA's profile because like people theretofore have been like
these guys are just like a munch of like yahou
vigilantes and killers and like sectarian wacos. They're like, oh,
maybe these guys are like actually like serious people or
and whether we like them or not, they're gonna have
like a serious impact on how the crisis resolves in
Northern Ireland. But Terry, he was a big strass arrist.
He was like reading the kind of content that like
the New Order was putting out. He was like reading
like potical soldier stuff that the National Front was putting out.
He took out. He started putting out essays and like
the UDA magazine. But we got a push for an
independent ulster like Ian Paisley's a bastard, Like fuck these
politicians who are trying to like piggyback on the fact
were fighting the war. You know. Tierry famously banned like
Ian Paisley from like this one UDA meeting, Like he
physically is like you like pushed them bags, like get
the fuck out of here. That made a bunch of
people really upset. They're like, you can't do that. He's
not gonna do what the fucking want. You know, what
are you gonna do about it? You know? So maybe
he had more balls and good sense in some ways,
but point being This is like when the third position
like came to Ulster, which at that point was like
a peaked conflict cycle. Okay, so that's kind of when
and people started like connecting the dots. I don't like
mean like you know, like the man in the street.
I mean it's like academic types and these military sociologists
and these guys were very much kind of on the
public affairs and psychological warfare side of special operations. They're like,
what's happening here, Like maybe this isn't like a great
thing that this third position off is like spinning off
from what was a very manageable and constructive, you know,
missing profile and Gladio and I believe that was the
earliest stuff that's super critical of Gladio. It kind of
got it kind of went into circulation again during during
uh the uh the premiership of of h who's the
Italian guy who who likes the ladies and dyed his
hair and like Sconi, Yeah, yeah, he bro Leasconi was
part of this weird like quasi Mason Lodge that people
added like a bunch of these guys and like they're
like two thousand, like oh, that's that's part of Gladio.
So these kind of info wars type guys and like
other kind of people like that, they started circling all
this stuff like Gladio like it's just like this big
conspiracy like not, and like a lot of the content
they were dropping about in like the later seventies, as
people were kind of like saying, like Gladio is a
is a terrorist tendency and here's why what was happening
in Belfast. You know, look at these cops got blown
up in Italy, Like look at all these bad guys.
Who are you know, they're fascists. They they they got
crazy ideas. They're sitting around reading reading Stressorus propaganda. That's
kind of like what brought it into and kind of
into the into the conscious mind of some of these people.
And this is this is actually important. You know, It's
not I realized I got like a strong research interest
and things and like not in Ireland. But that that that, uh,
that they that it's significant what we're talking about. And
you know, like I said too like as it later on, Yeah,
after Thierry was killed, Uh, you know this kind of
third force in the loyalist paramilitarism or third way rather
third position in paramilitarism that kind of endured man. And
like I said, like I put Billy Wright in the
camp even though conditions were different. By the time he
became powerful on the on the street. And uh, but
this guy, uh Tierri's buddy was this guy named Sammy Duddy.
And uh one of the there's a there's an there's
a there's a conflict resolution outreach center in Belfast named
from Duddy, which is interesting. But he was a guy.
He's a guy with a reputation, is like a thinker
in the U d A. And a lot of these
UDA guys are very committed to their politics. But a
lot of them are kind of like brawlers and like
roughnecks and and and like action oriented guys. The other
kinds of guys were prone to by like discussing political
theory with you, you know. But you know, uh Tiri
and uh Duddy absolutely worth those kinds of guys as
well as being you know, very very very hard dudes.
But that the uh tiriy Uh he was one of
the guys who found the quote the new Ulster of
political research group. They they they became famous or within
conflict study circles because uh, they published this paper called
UH Beyond the Beyond the Religious Divide, and it reiterated
the call for an independent Ulster or at least like
it devolved a truly devolved UH political structure to be
implemented and finding some way to make peace with the
provos and some sort of like organic capacity which was
really which was really which was really interesting, I think,
but that uh, you know, he this is this this
really if you look at people want to know about
like what the real world impact was of of Gladio
and whatnot. Like that's I mean, beyond the fact there's
a series of insane murders in Belgium that people think
was Gladio adjacent. I don't think that's the case. We
can talk about that in another I've i think playing
with the idea of doing some content unlike the big
like conspiracy theories, like the things that ways, the ones
that always think are worth addressing, you know, and I
know it's just like stupid, but that would be the
time to take up something like that. But that's that's
basically what I have on Gladio, man. And then like
it's just like as an addendum or an epilogue, you know,
this people gotta understand too, you know, the original mandate
of Special Operations Forces it wasn't to train Navy seals
to be like direct the action super commandos you know
who who deployed the landlocked countries and get on target
of individual guys who are thought to be you know,
teleban operatives and like penetrate our targets and then kill them.
That's like not what they were for, Like Special Operations Forces,
as Kennedy envisioned it as a William Odom who was
very much big army, but as he you know, he
had he was he was instrumental in native war planning.
The way he envisioned in their role in the force structure,
it was when Warsaw Pact overruns us, we're gonna we're
gonna parachute or glide in. You guys who like the
people in theater and talk their language are going to
click up with these gladiol guys on the ground and
you're gonna train them on how to do things operationally,
and you're gonna lead them and you're basically gonna play
Red Dawn in occupied West Germany or in Italy. Like
that was the idea. You know, it took time for
this is gonna develop into a mainstream idea, and like
by the late eighties, like yeah, that everybody took that
for granted. But this was viewed as weird and crazy
and dangerous and shady pretty much by everybody. And that's
one of the reason it's green Berets like nowadays, like
the spare punked up of the Army of Special Operations Forces.
Until the nineties, people like at green Berets as you're
a weirdo, you like killing people, you're probably a fascist,
and you're creepy, and you will never get promoted above
like colonel probably that's not just like something in Rambo movies.
That was like the way it was okay, and it
wasn't clear like how in a general war this would
actually develop because it never you never know when you
have a novel concept, don't get me wrong, Like this,
this idea of repecial forces was absolutely correct. That was
a very forward looking idea and it was a very
ballsy idea, and it was absolutely the way uh, you know,
Army Command Europe should have been looking at things. But uh,
it was not something that people felt comfortable with. And
of course there was a concern too, like what if
these guys like go native, which was entirely possible, Okay,
but that's that's where a lot of this kind of
strange uh stuff came from. In terms of cap about
Gladio of being this conspiracy the part it was a
typical typical lefty stuff about oh, the government is actually
fascist and doing all these bad things, like the government
is terrible things. But it's not because they're like secret
fascists or something, obviously, but the a lot of the
concern about this kind of stuff, that's where it came from.
But it did despite the fact that you know, World
War three never came, there was a direct impact on
the politics of Europe and even in conflict zones like
Northern Ireland. And those guys who constituted that the core
of these tendencies that came up with Gladiol, we they
are part of what we are. I mean, if if
you're somebody who you know is finds common cause with me,
I mean I'm not I'm not speaking for anybody else,
you know when I say we, you know, so that's
you've got to know. You've got to know your own heritage,
not just you know. Uh. In terms of ethnos and
and and your familiar lore and your your your race
and your nationality, like you've got to know, like where
are these ideas that you commit to or come from?
And that's part of it. I hope that wasn't a
scattershot like I said, I don't know. I think we
can wrap up now because I don't frankly have much
else and I'm not feeling good, so forgive me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, not a problem. I have two questions. Yeah, One,
were you thinking of Mark du trou when you talked
about the serial killer.
Speaker 2: Or he's he's another one who's also affiliated with that? No,
these guys in Belgium, they pulled these high incident robberies
where they'd storm like a grocery store or something like
not even like a turn of the made set. They'd say,
this is a robbery. Empty your pockets. Then they take
like the manager and they them open the safe and
they take like like like if quoting like three hundred
dollars or something. Then they'd kill everybody and witnesses and
see them like loading into this van. And it was
guys with like glocks and h and k's and stare
like like military weapons, like wearing gloves who were like
in shape, and it's like these guys are killing like five,
they're catching murder liability for five bodies to steal like
a few hundred dollars. And they did this like six
or seven times, like they were never identified. But guys
doing that kind of stuff like got like like three
to six guys would show up in like military gear
with like balaklavas or ski masks. This is a robbery.
No one's gonna get hurt. But then they kill everybody
and a lot of people like these guys were gladiooperatives,
you know, trying to scare people. But it's like why
would they be doing that. It's not like subsequently the
government of Belgium's like this is martial law. It was
just like they were doing this and nobody knew why
the government was being weird about it. Definitely said people
are like, oh no, they were just training for you know,
like on target direct the action mission. It's like, that's
not any train people. And if they're gonna do that,
you know what you do or what you would do.
You'd say, this is a tramp house. See if you
guys can get in there kill everybody and not die,
Like that's how you do it, you would say there's
some pensioners and like women and kids shopping for groceries
like shoot them. Oh, and nobody has any weapons like
that's not that doesn't make any sense. But I'm not
feeling well, so I'm having some brain flog. But I'll
I'll do chows another one though, and that case also
makes like no sense.
Speaker 1: But all right, well then I'll let you. I'll let
you get going here. Yeah, just do quick plugs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, man, thank you, Pete. I've got a lot
of content in the can from my pod and people
like my homie Jefferson Lee and like my friend Danna
they Ramondo. They've been like helping me with all this stuff,
which is awesome. So there's a lot of fresh stuff
on my substack where the that's where the podcast is
and other good stuff. It's real Thomas seven seven seven
dot substack dot com. I'm on social media at real
capital r E A L underscore number seven lowercase h
O M A S seven seven seven. I'm on t
gram and Instagram.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: My dear friend HERR Kreig, he puts out like branded
merse that we make because just like stuff that I
think it's cool because I'm kind of like a T
shirt guy and like a closed guy. If you'd include that,
like in the descriptions. I can never remember like what
the what the website is, but yeah, that's so where
I'm at. Then I promise im I'll be better in
a few days and and forgive me if this wasn't
up to snuff.
Speaker 1: Man, No, this is all good. This was uh, this
was good. There was a lot there. Yeah, I'll include
everything that you you asked.
Speaker 2: All right, that's a great, thank you.
Speaker 1: Hete all right talks. So thanks