The Pete Quiñones Show - Operation Gladio with Thomas777 - Complete

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

3 Hours and 42 MinutesPG-13This is the complete audio to the Operation Gladio series with Thomas777.Thomas' SubstackRadio Free Chicago - T777 and J BurdenThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Book "Steelstorm ...Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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Starting point is 00:01:13 Liddle Newbridge Warehouse Sale is back. We're talking thousands of your favourite Liddle items all reduced to clear. From home essentials to seasonal must-habs. When the doors open, the deals go fast. Come see for yourself. The Liddle New Bridge Warehouse sale 28th to 30th of November. Lidl. More to Value. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekignano show. How you doing, Thomas? Doing well, man. Thanks for hosting me, as always.
Starting point is 00:01:46 Of course. I'm going to start something new here. Don't really 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 Gladiow. yeah let's i suggest we play it by ear um figuratively and literally and see how long it takes us to cover the material and not just what we consider a and you know a more than adequate capacity
Starting point is 00:02:16 but that the subs like want to hear about gladio 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 a condition of neither war nor peace. So even behind the verbal lines of peace in divided Europe, you know, there was a certain callousness that bled into contemplation of what was not just necessary, but also reasonable.
Starting point is 00:02:54 You know, the moral metric shift. okay I mean obviously in in Southeast Asia what was orange late bear was that you know okay the face of modern warfare very much reduces
Starting point is 00:03:14 attrition to a to a to a subjective goal you know that must be coded in the most concrete terms
Starting point is 00:03:30 possible and studied as to, you know, the impactfulness on victory odds, you know, that quite literally the manufacture of human corpses facilitates or does not facilitate. But again, too, you know, there were, like, peace didn't really rain anywhere in the Cold War that was a contested battle space. and obviously Europe proper, you know, the inter-German border west, you know, thank God that didn't become an active battle space. But as I'm always citing, like William Odom, anyone who served, anyone who's deployed there, you know, on either side would relay that, like, these were not a peace condition that felt like,
Starting point is 00:04:31 being at war. You know, it was not remotely like any other, you know, peacetime posting. And people look at something like Operation Gladio, they, it's a gross affront, I guess, you know, not just to their,
Starting point is 00:04:50 not just that they're, they're kind of like moral, conceptual horizon, just in absolute terms. But the idea that this kind of thing would be carried out in our conditions of peace is just like abominable to, abominable to them. And interestingly, it's lumped in
Starting point is 00:05:08 with the Phoenix program, which obviously did, what obviously was like an, you know, a MACV SOG operation. And MACB SAG was very adjacent CIA in those days. It was a MACV SOG and
Starting point is 00:05:31 US civilian intelligence operation. You know, they that constituted, you know, direct action, um, targeting of discrete personages who constituted the NLF infrastructure, you know, because of your fighting a non-state actor, obviously the human beings are the infrastructure of your ops, okay? But, you know, people discussed it, uh, during, obviously, the, the, uh, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Gates Committee hearings that kind of gilded the CIA and people talk about it today. Like, oh, this, what horrible overreach?
Starting point is 00:06:12 It's unbelievable America, 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 battle space, 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 if you come as no surprise anybody and i i don't want to go too far afield but yes there were instances of corruption within the phoenix program, you know, some Army of the Republic of Vietnam like intelligence officer like got mad at some
Starting point is 00:07:03 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
Starting point is 00:07:21 and I believe it wasn't exclusively officers and NCOs. And particularly in those days of special forces, that was a pretty rigidly maintained schema you know um had it been where it was implemented as intended not only was it highly effective in my opinion but it was far far far more justifiable in moral terms you know then deploying arc light raids you know that dropped 500 pound bombs on you know, on women, kids, and old people, you know, the middle of a rice paddy.
Starting point is 00:08:03 But, you know, so when people talk about Gladio, as if they're discussing, you know, something like a real-life horror film, you should look at it in those terms that is to aforementioned, you know, and, or you consider in the same thing as people do, who suggest to, like, the peniche 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 it's by Howard Zinn or Chomsky, and I realize 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, his objectivity was compromised by these,
Starting point is 00:08:56 deeply I argue almost theologically felt conceptual biases but there's a number of things going on with Gladio, okay? First of all the Cold War was a totally abnormal conflict.
Starting point is 00:09:14 You know, I'm always making the point again and again. One of the reasons it's completely foolhardy whether it's Lindsay Graham or whether it's, you know, the kind of pitiable you know, soon to be
Starting point is 00:09:26 former president of Biden. Talking about, like, you know, Putin, not Russia, Putin, like, he's not going to stop in Ukraine, he's going to attack Poland. Like this, this idea that states, you know, like madman,
Starting point is 00:09:42 just kind of somehow by accent of fate or by guile and ruthlessness, you know, capture the apparatus of space and proceed, like, capture land. Like, somehow, like, if you collect enough, fertile women in soil they can grow like sorghum or something like you win.
Starting point is 00:10:01 Like I even know what their notion is, but even that was obsolescence. Really even by the Second World War, saved for the fact of the need of, for Germany or Japan or one of the disadvantaged combatants when I say disadvantaged, I mean vis-à-vis their power potential to, you know, become a true superpower. Or, yes, Gross Rom is the basis of political and military challenges, which becomes synonymous in discrete and totally unusual ways in such conditions. But also, like, Laban's Rom, even if you totally reject outright, you know, the kind of national socialist view of Blute and Ross and everything else. I mean, that's, there were, that was, um, the 20th century was, uh, you know, essentially it was, um, it was the grand clash of, uh, it was the grand clash of civilizations to determine, like, what globalism would be, okay?
Starting point is 00:11:15 So, once the Cold War said in earnest, you know, your, your ops, you were fighting your ops because they'd become the same. standard bearers of an idea. And America was always kind of returning the serve to the communists because that, both that conceptual environment, as well as, you know, what military imperatives were prioritized within that paradigm, you know, that, it was the, it was the, it was the, it was the, it was the, it was the, it was the, it was the, it was the, it was the, it was the, it was the, and their adjacent elements, you know, who are the ones pursuing a revolutionary imperative.
Starting point is 00:12:06 So, I mean, that was the problem. And that was one of George Kennan's points, you know, in the long memo or whatever. It's not that, you know, we've got to challenge the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact for every inch of ground. It's that we've got to put itself in a position. not simply reacting and returning the serve. You know, um, now how do you do that?
Starting point is 00:12:38 If again, your, your ops are the standard bearers of an idea. You know, and, um, really your victory metric to accomplish global domination.
Starting point is 00:12:52 Destroy all competing ideologies. You know, assimilate people into this world society. um essentially you know that was envisioned by the nuremberg um you know um ideology but you know obviously the Soviet Union was the concord of the United States and the Soviet Union had totally fallen apart so any future victory scenario would entail the United States basically inheriting the mantle of what was envisioned you know by the Nuremberg
Starting point is 00:13:30 biological program, but the way that, you know, the way that you win that is by eradicating the enemy idea. And in under the conditions of the act of war, that constitutes the eradication of humans who are the standard bearers of, you know, the enemy idea, such that, you know, ongoing, a 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
Starting point is 00:14:22 European Jewry such that European Jewel was a self-conscious self-identified political actor but I that's a bit outside the scope of what we're talking about but there's complications that were emergent here that must be considered
Starting point is 00:14:44 within those realities that is explicated okay and this is very important now interestingly and perhaps this won't surprise anybody you know really the pioneers
Starting point is 00:14:59 of political warfare as, you know, from the side of, you know, the colonialist power, or the perspective of, you know, the more powerful combatant, or, if you will, you know, the party combatant who, like America, who was, you know, perpetually returning to serve when Abford decided to act, You know, the United Kingdom really kind of perfected what became asymmetrical warfare doctrine and political warfare doctrine. Okay. We were talking about Operation Banner and how Frank Kittston, you know, in Northern Ireland, especially going to our viewing of resurrection, man. Frank Kitson, one of his, I mean, basically the key takeaway from his kind of operational theory.
Starting point is 00:16:05 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 that's basically organic okay you know you've got to work with what the germans called the mention material that's on the ground you've got to sort of mold them and their political and military conceptual horizon around what's instinctively already presence you know and you're you you've got to sort of transform those energies into something that's, you know. You catch them in the corner of your eye. Distinctive. By design. They move you. Even before you drive. The new Cooper plugin hybrid range for Mentor, Leon, and Teramar.
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Starting point is 00:18:24 that conflict model endured the duration of hostilities. And I made the point again and again that, you know, when the provisional IRA and an adjacent Republican armed groupings and others would insist that there was formal collusion underway between the British security element and loyalists, that was true. Okay. Now, that doesn't mean that, you know, Frank Kitsen got together and hired some mercenary types and said, okay, you're now the Ulster Volunteer Force. or you're now ready in commando. It was nothing like that. What they did was
Starting point is 00:19:11 they looked at what was already developing on the ground. You know, in the sectarian war on the street where like literal battle lines were being established between you know, sectarian living
Starting point is 00:19:29 spaces based on sectarian criteria. And you had these militias just spontaneously forming, you know, so they began approaching, you know, guys like Gusty Spence, you know, who was indispensable in the, the recreation of the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1966. Spence had certain in Greece with the British Army, okay, the UVF was always kind of the spherpunct of loyalism. you know, the UDA was this kind of like mass vigilante movement, which wasn't outlawed until 92, but UFF, which was technically like their direct action wing. That was very, very, very much cultivated by British intelligence and military elements, okay?
Starting point is 00:20:23 And by 1993, loyalists were outkilling the IRA. You know, suddenly like, it just became very, very. very good at targeting people who were either you know I are a provisional IRA members or you know shin feign representatives or social democrats they wanted dead for whatever reason like suddenly loyalists became very very good at what they did okay I'm in no means like saying like what they did was good but when the bound of rationality you know and that um Kitson's old point was look You know, and he was comparing in punitive terms with the British do things the Americans and the Germans
Starting point is 00:21:08 He's like you know, you don't you don't bring just more and more firepower to bear You know against Against an insurgency You know you're you're gonna kill a whole lot of people You know many of whom are you know Women kids old people and just you know Other people who are you know clearly non-combatants and you're probably gonna you're probably gonna create more
Starting point is 00:21:34 insurgents than you annihilate but also there's got to be kind of like minuet like ridiculous as it sounds between forces under arms you know for them to for once hostile conduct is made for them to remain engaged and actually you know push for victory you know by by by by you know, by way, killing the enemy. You know, if you sick your counter gang lose on like this gang of like Mao Mao rebels,
Starting point is 00:22:12 if you lose like the UVF on the PIRA, when they make contact, they're going to fight it out and slaughter each other in a way that wouldn't happen if, you know, you, you know, you roll cruceder tanks into the streets
Starting point is 00:22:31 when the IRA does anything you don't like. You know, they'll disappear literally into the ether, and then the, like, lob a satchel charge into, like, the turret hatch, you know, like, 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 opt for is in order to annihilate him. in kind of like the post-conventional
Starting point is 00:22:59 Westphalian landscape. Now, what was Gladio and how does that have to do with, like, anything I was just talking about? Well, around 1952, America and the UK, this is when they became
Starting point is 00:23:21 really, truly, kind of like, fully indexed in military terms, not just that the operational know and kind of command and control level and and drilling with one another you know like a in the inter-german border you know um be at the north german north german plains was primarily the british that benelux state's responsibility and like the foldy gap which is primarily american armored cavalry's area of operation but they like like a conceptual indexing like took route and I believe a lot of this owed to the fact that by January 52 um obviously both you know
Starting point is 00:24:01 American forces as well as you know the British army had been engaged you know in a very brutal conflict in Korea okay the learning curve was expanding um in all kinds of ways relating to the study of war okay um they developed as need within the mind of you know military analyst types on the civilian side and kind of like think tank whiz kids who were ubiquitous in the Cold War as we've talked about but also you know military officers you know from from company level upward you know like we need we need to develop some kind of tactical strategic imperatives you know related asymmetrical warfare that allows you know the the realization of you know
Starting point is 00:24:58 kind of 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 vis-a-vis the managerial state, you know, like the experience of DeGal and Algeria, like first and foremost, I mean, I think DeGal was not a, I don't think highly of them, but just in purely objective terms. I mean, that's one example.
Starting point is 00:25:31 But, so, in 1952, and especially after the experience of fighting the people's liberation army of China, you know, and this, this kind of endless ability of them to absorb
Starting point is 00:25:49 casualties, you know, and utilized combined arms with Soviet help and there's 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 be as it may
Starting point is 00:26:09 it became clear that when war comes and mind you this was you know this was long before strategic Perry existed between
Starting point is 00:26:29 the United States and Warsaw Pact but I mean it was also before the it was also when like manned bombers were you know the the zenith of kind of strategic nuclear
Starting point is 00:26:43 platforms but um the understanding was in basically every scenario game that you know the world Warsaw Pact is going to overrun Europe. They're going to smash that the National Vox Army, which emerged later, but in 1952, a combination of Vox-Pylaidzai were the East German Army and all but name and group of Soviet forces in Germany were responsible for the operational sector.
Starting point is 00:27:19 I'm about to describe, after 56, it became the National Vox Army's domain. They were going to smash through the inter-German border, you know, which at the time the Berlin Wall wasn't there. After the Berlin Wall was created, interestingly, there were these weak points where, like, charges could, like, blow holes, you know, so that the National Vox Army could storm through with armor. But be as it may, the understanding that was when war came... You catch them in the corner of your eye. Distinctive, by design, they move you even before you drive. The new Cooper plugin hybrid range for Mentor, Leon and Terramar. Now with flexible PCP finance and trade-in boosters of up to 2,000 euro,
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Starting point is 00:28:46 When the doors open, the deals go fast. Come see for yourself. The Liddle New Bridge Warehouse sale 28th to 30th of November little more to value the national folks army um they're going to storm west Berlin well um you know the Warsaw Pact overshoots uh Berlin um assaults uh across the north german plane smasers to the foldy gap almost certainly utilizing chemical weapons and possibly tapping the nuclear weapons if necessary. And NATO at best get a hold out for 72 hours, you know, until the Soviet army reaches the Rhine. And then even if NATO has the capacity to reconstitute,
Starting point is 00:29:49 it's not going to have the forces in being in order to prevent, you know, a further Soviet push. you know if you're Atlantic Ocean okay so you're looking at a situation where okay you know
Starting point is 00:30:06 and in these days mind you the catalyst changed for why this was considered in terms almost exclusively of conventional war fighting save again for you know the tactical
Starting point is 00:30:21 deployment of chemical and nuclear weapons and the reason this this endured 30 years later but for very different reasons and we'll get into that but the fact is in a basically it's an basically conventional fight um NATO is going to be overrun um by the massive superiority of forces in being by Warsaw Pact okay um the only hope really of liberating the continent in these cases would be some sort of infrastructure
Starting point is 00:31:07 in situ that can be activated in order to generate 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 men were selected who were designated, you know, to be stay behind elements all the way up to, I believe, battalion level. arms cachets were hidden escape routes were prepared politically loyal civilians were recruited who in turn developed their own
Starting point is 00:32:01 like social infrastructure around what was to become the core mission an event of a Soviet conquest um planned the truly clinton this truly clandestine cells were established who made contact with one another but didn't even
Starting point is 00:32:24 make contact with each other's respective handlers you know or with the above board but still highly secret gladio designated elements and this was largely devised by the United States what was which during World War II what came to be called the United Kingdom's Special Operations Executive. Okay, um, Gladiotio was largely created with the experience and involvement of former SOE officers. I had the pleasure, a man who was a dear friend of my family and who, uh, was actually, I, one of the reasons of going to Loyola University is because he taught there.
Starting point is 00:33:15 his name was Samel Sarkeesian As he might have gleaned, he was Armenian. His parents were Armenian immigrants. He was in the special forces. He was in
Starting point is 00:33:33 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 Ray and why they recruit him it wasn't just because he was an excellent combat soldier it's because he was Armenian you know he could stay behind and blend in you know and um the earliest
Starting point is 00:33:59 um like special forces became something somewhat different you catch them in the corner of your eye distinctive by design they move you even before you drive the new cupra plug-in high hybrid range. For Mentor, Leon and Terramar. Now with flexible PCP finance and trade-in boosters of up to 2,000 euro. Search Coopera and discover our latest
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Starting point is 00:34:43 regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Ready for huge savings, we'll mark your calendars from November 28 to 30th because the Lidl Newbridge Warehouse Sale is back. We're talking thousands of your favourite Liddle items all reduced to clear. From home essentials to seasonal must-habs, when the doors open, the deals go fast. Come see for yourself. The Liddle New Bridge Warehouse Sale, 28th to 30th of November. Liddle, more to value. 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 um creature
Starting point is 00:35:32 you know um i'm not saying that's bad or something i actually think i actually think i actually army special forces is in a lot better shape these days than i think so kind of got a lot of problems but i don't want to upset that our friends or military guys and they i mean like our literal friends of ours like i'm not talking like randos and i i they know me they know i hold them in tremendous respect but at the point being uh you know it uh uh this was very much um you know, it's just taking very seriously.
Starting point is 00:36:14 And not only was, like, for example, like my, my mentor and family friend, the Sarkeesian, like, not only was he, you know, Armenian immigrant stock, but the dialectical inflection, he could affect that, um, properly to fit in with locals. You know, um, this was very, very, very. sophisticated in operational terms, especially for the time. Now, something interesting happened as always developed. And the center of Gladio, because of the gladio
Starting point is 00:36:59 was Italy. Okay, now, now why Italy? You know, Italy, I maintain that the real it was the Marshall plan it wasn't it wasn't just it wasn't what
Starting point is 00:37:18 Stalin said and just you know kind of bind the Bundes Republic to American debt or whatever like yeah I mean that was like an added benefit but I mean the Bundes Republic
Starting point is 00:37:27 was done I mean they were they were being more without planned out of existence like Italy in the other hand just geostrategically as well as in sheer
Starting point is 00:37:38 economic terms for you know a European zone of commerce and industry you know they were incredibly important okay um Italy had to be brought into NATO Italy also had to be repaired from the devastation it had suffered you know and um throughout the 50s and 60s you know Italy ended up becoming I think for a time you know like the fifth largest economy in the world. You know, Italy also, it never
Starting point is 00:38:17 underwent a denotification process. There was still a very active Communist Party there that didn't just participate and challenge for seats, but they insulated themselves in the coalition governments regularly.
Starting point is 00:38:37 You know, and on the other side, you had openly fascist and national socialist parties that were rabidly, they weren't just rabidly anti-communists, they were rabidly anti-soviet. They still viewed the Soviet Union
Starting point is 00:38:55 as their ops. Okay, and I maintain you know, the big, or maybe you don't know, I mean, you're a real-learning guy, but some of this stuff is trivia. You know, Yaki had a huge falling out with Mosley. and Mosley refused the published Imperium
Starting point is 00:39:13 through the union movement brand because Mosley was like an arch cold warrior you know like 110%. 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 you really believe that. Okay.
Starting point is 00:39:35 Well, anybody who knows what Mosley went through in the next. you know, 15 to 20 years knows that he, he what, he knew he wasn't getting back into. Oh, yeah, yeah. The mainstream of politics. Yeah, I mean, that's ridiculous. He was saying, I think he's going to be prime minister or something. I mean, like, on the fire people thinking, what it's, uh.
Starting point is 00:39:55 Yeah, there's video on YouTube of him in like, 1962 going into some British town to talk. And there are people chasing him trying to beat him. Oh, yeah. It's a preposterous claim. And, like, who's he trying to impress. And most like mostly even in the even in the interwar years like I mean mostly did his own thing He was a he indexed very much with Hitler But on the point he disagreed with Hitler on he was like open about it. I mean like any
Starting point is 00:40:25 Yeah, he one of the reasons 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 Grounds of Gladio again. It wasn't just because the internal political situation you know, the need to bring Italy back into the fold of Europe or into its pernumbra
Starting point is 00:40:49 you know what was then the European coal and steel community and you know and to bring it up the snuff as a real as a real you know like regional power into itself. But also what you had in Gladio was you had a whole lot
Starting point is 00:41:05 of very fit very committed fascist men of military age who had experience. You know what I mean? These, this is not the kind of duty that just regular guys are going to sign on for.
Starting point is 00:41:21 You know, even if they're basically patriotic and anti-communist. Like you need like you need basically like fascist jihadis for something like this. Okay. You know, and it's also too, you know, How do you, how do you, how do you, how do you, how do you, how do you, how do you, just like put an ad out, you know, and like the equivalent of, you know, Craigslist or something, you know, like, as it wasn't 2006, you don't, you know, you don't just, you know, you know,
Starting point is 00:41:54 you know, you don't, you know, we're building a stay behind fascist army, you know, would you want to be part of it? You know, they had, like, you know, NATO, uh, intelligence, as well as, you know, like the NATO's kind of command and control element, which would have been at that point, the Supreme Allied command in Europe. They had to basically, which is why I brought up, you know, Kitsen and pointed out counter gangs. They basically had the index with, you know, the fascist resistance that still existed there and these national socialist guys who never changed their service.
Starting point is 00:42:35 stripes and who were very very active you know you basically had to index with them when some kind of trust sell them on the merits of the mission and you know convince them to essentially start start training for this you know what was that a very like real contingency and to organize these people in the cells you know um like a cell stroke that's actually workable that allows them they got them habituated to their the command structure of a 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 him habituated the drilling with one with another and all the all the kind of psychosocial um imperatives that one needs to
Starting point is 00:43:33 cultivate if you're gonna send you know what is called military sociology a primary group of men, you know, into action. But 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, I'm not sure my dad, so Secret Squirrel, but he was in a position to know about certain things that other people didn't. But in general public, it really didn't know about the scope, breath, and purpose of gladio until about October 1990 okay and that was very interesting because basically like right about a year after the inter-term and border collapsed a lot of these uh a lot of these um a lot of these
Starting point is 00:44:23 kinds of like deep dark secrets of the Cold War going to lead that way we're just kind of like things that had been very eyes only um like somebody came to light i think the piece i think it's of the people who were in control of a lot of this data they knew that this was very very rapidly you know going to be kind of censored and taken out of circulation which is exactly what happened so it's a sense of like it's now or never now so in October 1990 I'm gonna butcher this name and I'm so sorry but uh um Julio Andrade um he issued for this series of a revelation relating to the internal situation
Starting point is 00:45:11 like of the Western block like pretty much from you know the emergence in NATO and especially kind of the starting point was you know you catch them in the corner of your eye distinctive by design they move you even before you drive
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Starting point is 00:46:28 Find out more at airgrid.i.4 slash northwest. Mid-Korean War, like when Gladiol first became kind of... you know, became more than just sort of, uh, you know, like an abstract, uh, you know, model bandied about it, uh, among like war college types. Um, Julio Andrade, um, I think it, he was something of like an Italian aden hour, man, but not quite. Um, I, I think he was, I think he was far more of a compelling person. I don't that negatively, but he, my point is that he wasn't
Starting point is 00:47:11 even considering the Italian situation. He was unusual for a post-war European executive. Andrade, he was the 41st Prime Minister of Italy. He served in seven governments. 72, 73, 76, 79,
Starting point is 00:47:36 92. he was really and he was the leader in the primary organized of the Christian Democrats from the earliest days and here's something people don't understand the Christian Democrats in Europe they're not just like the Republicans
Starting point is 00:47:55 or the Tories they were basically the Vatican Party in Italy to a lesser degree in Germany like after World War II okay they were genuinely conservative. They were socially right wing. They had a very strong identification with the Catholic Church and Catholic,
Starting point is 00:48:19 what Alistair Magandar, I guess we'd call virtue ethics, 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, they, uh, their, their, their heritage probably has, had more to do with um you know the kind of political culture one had in Austria in the inner war years than it did you know with with somebody like like um you know like uh like like an hour okay for example much as like I said
Starting point is 00:49:01 there there were some basic similarities and um and Droddy had an interesting thing perspective. And he's viewed these days as probably the most powerful and prominent, like, political, like executive political figure of
Starting point is 00:49:27 the Italian First Republic, you know, since, you know, since 1945, basically. Okay. Um, and I'm going so deep into his biography, because it's essential to understanding gladio okay and you'll see why or like what I mean in a minute um he begins a
Starting point is 00:49:49 protege of a man named Al Cid de Gisperi um Gisperi became a member of the parliament of a Trentino which was a part of the Austrian Reichstero that. It was one of these Italian territories that was semi-autonomous but was under the sovereignty of the Habsburg Empire.
Starting point is 00:50:27 Okay. Because Sperry began the First World War as politically neutral. He sympathized very, very strongly with Pope Benedict
Starting point is 00:50:42 and said basically, you know if you're if you're a good catholic and you know like a good italian you know you're you're going to abide you know pope benedict's um ultimately honestly what we're ultimately unsuccessful you know like but um very well intention and very sincere efforts towards peace carl the first of austria um was another figure very much kind of like indexed with this perspective who uh who um you know who uh who uh who uh who gisperi saw you know eye to eye with um but gaspare someone on became somewhat radicalized okay um in 19 19 he was one of the founders of what became the italian people's party along with luigi stirzo
Starting point is 00:51:41 He served as a deputy in the Italian parliament for a few years from 21 to 24, which is obviously, you know, the fascist dissentancy was 1922. He was enthusiastic about support of his party, the PPI, and the first government, the first Canada on Mussolini. Because the way he viewed it was that, you know, this is this is what we need to stand against Bolshevism, because Bolshevism is going to destroy the Catholic Church. And they're already, you know, it's like they're doing to the Orthodox Church. And he wasn't wrong. You know, and Mussolini's, um, Muslim's relations to Catholicism was complicated. It was kind of like Charles Maras, okay? And it's hard for, like, first of all, I don't believe Mussolini was an atheist, even though he wasn't, you know, God-fearing in the sense.
Starting point is 00:52:41 for talking about, but it's when it's really much put themselves in, you know, kind of a 20th century modernist perspective, especially when shaped by the Great War and, you know, the kind of certain dehumanizing paradigms like they're in, all the level of which seem to mirror each other and some sort of like grand constellation, and tailored to Rob man of his ability to live both a historically and is a discreet personality
Starting point is 00:53:13 on the sound as like Marxist Pavlin or something it's um you know they're very very much the core of the European right like the true right
Starting point is 00:53:23 like thought in these terms um um but uh as uh as as Mussolini's grip kind of became absolute and unlike Hitler who you know was a huge or a tremendous aspect of his assentany of a sentencing oh you know strategic use of a plebiscites
Starting point is 00:54:03 you know Mussolini was much more there was only a call the personality on Mussolini and there definitely wasn't a you know from the from from the center right to the truly fascist you know
Starting point is 00:54:23 I've Mussolini had a very strong mandate for a 20th century executive but he was prone to almost like quasi-Leninist
Starting point is 00:54:39 you know, sort of utterances that henceforth just became the law. You know, he mostly fundamentally fundamentally
Starting point is 00:54:56 altered the structural balance of power between the executive and and, um, and
Starting point is 00:55:13 um, and, um, in the and the electoral system itself, as well as the parliament, which is largely becoming somewhat gilded anyway, by the acerbo law, which basically guaranteed, like, the National Fascist Party, you know, like a certain percentage of cabinet seats. Okay. So, um, it essentially became a one-party state without, um, you know, something like, enabling act to finesse it and for the record too and this is a subject for a
Starting point is 00:55:49 different series or episode but um you know Hitler didn't uh Hitler didn't um take the oath of office as consler you know and then um or even later after the enabling act you know when he became uh consler and and fear of the German Reich he didn't um um He didn't suddenly declare that like, you know, now like, you know, Oregon of the state are all, you know, are all apparatus of the party. You know,
Starting point is 00:56:23 and the internal police apparatus was very directly co-opted by national socialists and became an organ of the party, which is interesting enough itself. Employers, rewarding your staff? Why choose between a shelf voucher or a spend anywhere card
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Starting point is 00:58:21 but um 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 um this led to this led to a great deal of turmoil in the early years of the national fascist party on its and its single party rule there's a great deal of violence
Starting point is 00:59:00 against other parties which refuse to accept the asserable law and just kind of refuse to accept you know Il Duce's a sort of self-appointed man date. This caused the PPI to fracture.
Starting point is 00:59:24 Digusbury became, he remained on as a secretary of the anti-fascist faction that remained. until November 20 until November 19th until November in 1926 you know in a true climate it kind of over violence and intimidation became the norm
Starting point is 00:59:52 you know the the PPI was just formally dissolved you know Gaspari himself was arrested in March of 27 he did four years in prison the Vatican negotiated his release
Starting point is 01:00:11 which again the indexing and the relationship between the Vatican and the Christian Democrats and their precursors that's really important to understanding the politics the inner warriors in the early Cold War
Starting point is 01:00:31 but you know he was he was after his release in 1928 he was basically unpersoned you know he had difficulty finding employment he was in serious financial difficulties
Starting point is 01:00:52 um his uh some of his church contacts you know security of a job um as a cataloger in the Vatican library which probably saved his life and that's where he spent the next
Starting point is 01:01:07 the next 14 years until the collapse of the of the kingdom of Italy I mean the rum state in 43 I mean the rum state of the Salo Republic endured but you know it's the big contribution
Starting point is 01:01:28 of Gaspari one of the major international one of the major international newspapers which in those days a political newspaper and new political newspaper having international circulation was a big deal he wrote a column where uh this was in nine this was in thirty four i mean when he had absolutely no love for the national faggist party but uh he uh he celebrated defeat of the the social democrats and uh
Starting point is 01:02:08 in Austria we claimed were, you know, on a mission of de-Christianizing Austria and, you know, that they were covert allies of the Bolsheviks. And he said, declared to know uncertain terms that the German church, that we, you know, in Italy, we should follow example of the German Catholic Church, you know, and we should prefer knowing certain terms, you know, national socialism. into Bolshevism. You know, like, Bolshevism is our, is the mortal enemy of Christ. Air Grid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid, is powering up the Northwest. We're planning to
Starting point is 01:02:50 upgrade the electricity grid in your area and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans. Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say, online, or in-person. So together, we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your
Starting point is 01:03:08 community. Find out more at airgrid. i.e. 4.n. Northwest. Employers, did you know, you can now reward you and your staff with up to 1500 euro and gift cards annually completely tax-free. And even better, you can spread it over five different occasions. Now's the perfect time to try Options Card. Options Card is Ireland's brand new multi-choice employee gift card, packed with unique features that your staff will love. It's simple to buy, easy to manage, of all, there are no extra fees or hidden catches. Visit OptionsCardt.aE.e. today. End of the Catholic Church. So this is, you know, these alliances are more complicated than people will allow, you know, it's, during, during World War II, this is one disparity has to formally
Starting point is 01:04:06 established the Christian Democrats. I think it was quite, to me, saw the writing on the wall, that, you know, the actions were going to lose the war. He published and deliberately limited circulation to what appears to be, you know, like a handful of cadres who he trusted. the essay amounted to a program for the new Christian Democrat Party and it was titled quite literally ideas for reconstruction okay Gasperi from that point on
Starting point is 01:04:56 he was like the undisputed kind of hansho not as the Christian Democrats which were a new to the constellation of of political values contained in one you know pretty pretty autocratic and well managed
Starting point is 01:05:16 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 20th century terms I mean they were very much like a nationalist Catholic you know very you know very pro very very very patriotic you know uh like racialism didn't feature into their equation
Starting point is 01:05:40 to the same degree that it did and does some continental tendencies but this wasn't genuine like right-wing tendency okay um and uh when southern Italy was conquered by the allies Gospherry became basically like the main representatives of the Christian Democrats and what became known the National Liberation Community or the National Liberation Committee
Starting point is 01:06:10 like dissident elements that you know were all kind of jockeying for you know patronage by the Allies and you know who would give them the mandate and uh
Starting point is 01:06:25 you know security element in order to in order to insinuate themselves as you know the prominent prominent like cadre or party like ruling the country um it uh Gisbury first uh became a minister without portfolio and a government led by Ivan Benomi later in Ferritio Perry's cabinet he became the Minister of Foreign Affairs and that's kind of when
Starting point is 01:07:09 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 an hour I think of Adonauer is kind of like a great
Starting point is 01:07:26 herbial 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
Starting point is 01:07:40 I Han Trudeau had something to say about Edna hour but I'm not gonna repeat it less like YouTube fire us or something but I look to be fair I compared to some possibilities
Starting point is 01:07:56 I had an hour looks pretty good. And Gasperi, I think, was positively hero. I'm considering a lot of, a lot of, you know, the challenges he was facing, quite literally, not just, you know, his soul and sanity, but his life and limb. finally Gaspari from 45 to 53 he was prime he was prime minister of a successive Christian Democrat like governments
Starting point is 01:08:28 now if you know anything about Italian politics that's that's like absurd longevity okay that's like that's that's basically a British prime minister like ruling for like you know like 18 years okay like I'm not making fun of the Italians this is like a fact but
Starting point is 01:08:46 uh this uh you know this i it was declared a republic um you know immediately they signed uh a peace treaty uh like a phone piece with the alex 47 they they were they were one of the original natal members in 49 um you know and again uh gasperi 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 Europe, like, rich again. That's complete nonsense. But there were infrastructural needs, and there was a need for capital in key sectors in order for Europe to be able to, like, realize its great power potential. And the Marshall Plan, when it's
Starting point is 01:09:46 when its capital inflows were truly targeted in a way that indexed with necessary developmental schemes, it was highly effective. And he lobbied very, very hard for participation in the Marshall Plan. The
Starting point is 01:10:12 Marshall Plan, I get, it really did, in the case of Italy, I, I don't like the term, you know, like economic miracle, like the Spanish miracle or the South Korean miracle. You know, because it's, it's just another ever to kind of, like, conscious or not to, like, make economics, it's an obscure thing. Or to act like it's literally some kind of magic, and it doesn't owe to, you know, the human ability to, you know, to, you know, to, it's really like build equity, you know, from the raw stuff of capital, again, quite literally. And, you know, the Marshall Plan itself did not revive Europe, but at the same time, again, the European coal and steel community was essential. and you know
Starting point is 01:11:12 disparity is like like pushing to make this you know a policy priority and you know making it an unconditional imperative you know for his government was essential um when
Starting point is 01:11:33 when he did take uh when he did become prime minister of that first time. Succeeding Frutio Perry, he inherited a coalition that included both Italian Communist Party and Italian Socialist Party delegates, along with other smaller parties that were nominally independent or had names, you know, like the,
Starting point is 01:12:10 you know, like a liberal Republican Party or the Action Party, but you know some of which had very much you know were communist adjacent if not you know I would know proxies um to um to Gisbury's credit um his deputy prime minister palmyro Togliotti um did cooperate in um gisbury's attempts to soften the terms of impending allied peace treaty with Italy you know again you know seeing very much what was being done to Germany this was um this this is ring you know him um lobbying so heavily and so very publicly for relief through and cooperation they're in the European
Starting point is 01:13:14 Recovery Program, you know, which was the Tangling for the Marshall Plan. You know, this was opposed vociferously by the Communists. But, um, Gisbury did manage to hold this, you know,
Starting point is 01:13:35 initial prime ministership together, despite all odds, especially when you consider, you know, the fact that he was dealing with a can that has very much stopped, but that was very much stocked by. Airgrid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid, is powering up the northwest. We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area, and your input and local knowledge
Starting point is 01:14:03 are vital in shaping these plans. Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say, online or in person. So together, we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.e. 4.Northwest. Employers, rewarding your staff? Why choose between a shop voucher or a spend anywhere card when with options card you can have both?
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Starting point is 01:14:54 Um, the, uh, it was under Gisperry's watch that Italy would, you know, the, the one significant referendum on his watch posed a question as to whether, uh, Italy was to remain a monarchy or become a republic. Um, you know, and again, that, I believe, much was a was a mysterious like Machiavillian streak you know like I said like he um like Franco's regime um post-war although Gisperi obviously was a far more edible figure um one of the ways that uh they were able to you know kind of bring the Vatican into the fold um and not just administrative capacities and in terms of insinuating a kind of moral legitimacy,
Starting point is 01:16:02 which carried a lot of cachet still in those days. But also, it allowed for a certain freedom of movement in global politic vis-à-vis what other countries would respond to. that they wouldn't have, you know, if Italy was merely, you know, a client regime in the United States with all the trappings there in, including, you know, the stripping away of the Roman church from, you know, not just authority in government and administration, but also in, um, national life. He was chief of the Italian delegation at the World War II Peace Conference in Paris. You know, he remained harshly critical of the sanctions that remained imposed on Italy, owing to various intrigues, and some of which were just kind of born a vengeance-driven, sensibilities especially considering that you know Italian leadership was not
Starting point is 01:17:30 going to be placed on trial or you know or sort of 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 a regarded the Balkan some of the eastern border territory was lost Yugoslavia but the free territory of Trees was divided between the two states and obviously you know NATO meaning at that point just America like you know signed on as the guarant tour of of these borders now back to Andrade again this is important important to understand and I will not bring it with but um you figure out what I am
Starting point is 01:18:35 get my senior moments back to Andrade um androddy um androdite had achieved a cabinet rank at a very young age um and by the time by by the end of his tenure 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, in foreign policy
Starting point is 01:19:23 terms, Andrade you know, very much the Protégis Gisperi, you know, he guided the European unions, like Italy within kind of the what the East, being the EU. Andrade guided Italy's integration into it. And fascinating
Starting point is 01:19:44 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. Air Grid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid, is powering up the Northwest. We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area, and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans.
Starting point is 01:20:11 Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say, online or in person. So together, we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.i.4.Northwest. Employers, did you know, you can now reward you and your staff
Starting point is 01:20:31 with up to 1,500 euro and gift cards annually, completely tax-free, and even better. You can spread it over five, different occasions. Now's the perfect time to try OptionsCard. OptionsCard is Ireland's brand new multi-choice employee gift card packed with unique features that your staff will love. It's simple to buy, easy to manage, and best of all, there are no extra fees or hidden catches. Visit OptionsCard.compti today. Which was something very different than the men who conceived of it that wanted to utilize it for strategic purposes. You know, they had worked.
Starting point is 01:21:08 fairly transparent. Andrade pursued close relations with the Arab world. You know, and he had a strong, strong following, not just in Italy, but especially through Catholic Europe,
Starting point is 01:21:30 but also, like, you know, throughout the totality, throughout the totality of what was becoming, you know, the burgeoning EC, EU. He'd substantially mediated corruption. He'd always seen the transformation of the country from a basically rural country
Starting point is 01:21:54 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 to the Burkina Faso to, like, being like, a number nine world economy like granted there was like massive subsidies and infrastructural aid you know that was kind of like the reward for you know
Starting point is 01:22:17 contributing so very much in not not just in um not just in in treasure but in blood you know to the vietnam war but um it's truly remarkable um to consider especially when it it's something like that just seems like impossible at HV man, you know, like, um, under current historical conditions. But, um, the,
Starting point is 01:22:48 uh, his, uh, he was a huge, uh, Andrade's, um, off's claim that he was a neoliberal. That's kind of like the catch, that's kind of like the, the, uh, the sort of slander,
Starting point is 01:23:07 you know, of, um, of, of, of these kinds of post war, um, European politicians, you know, who rejected kind of like the Keynesian model and, you know, began to realize that this over-regulation and state planning was, was quite literally crushing what were made 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, even, even, even. more than today. I mean, by like a wide mile, it's not even close.
Starting point is 01:23:47 But I, he was only a supply cider, but he, you know, like I said, I think I you know, I don't think seriously especially people who aren't really learned in economics, you know, when he
Starting point is 01:24:03 banned you this, like, oh, he was a neoliberal. And like, God's on the right to 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, I, you know, the political was the economic and, I mean, that's, that's a liberal conceit, man. That's not the way you should think of things anyway. But, you know, Andrade, again, is also, his two other kind of big commitments were, you know, staunchy supporting and indexing with the Vatican.
Starting point is 01:24:35 and, you know, a strong hostility towards the Italian Communist Party and the Soviet Union. Now, remember how we're talking about the English, the British rather, is funny of Scots and the Alsterman. among the ranks of those viosters and how they really were the pioneers of asymmetrical warfare well around around the 1970s very late 70s well here General Sir John Hackett he was former commander in chief of the British Army on the Rhine, which was, again, they were the primary British Army element on the Inter-German border. Okay, they were kind of the equivalent of a 12th Black Horse, the folding gap. Okay. he confirmed over a series of interviews and like talks you know at various you know
Starting point is 01:26:08 war college site venues this was November 16th 1990s so again you're right on the heels of these earlier disclosures about gladio well hackett a haggis said of known certain terms that a contingency a contingency plant plan involving, quote, stay behind and resistance in depth was drawn up after 1995 and was absolutely essential. Okay, a protege of his, Anthony Farrer Hockley, a former commander-in-chief of NATO's forces in Northern Europe, which would have been Area of operation would have been
Starting point is 01:27:12 Norway, Denmark, the Scandinavian, the North Sea he reiterated to the Guardian magazine that yes, what General Hackett had suggested was absolutely
Starting point is 01:27:36 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 a a 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, 81 until 1990. It was put out by the Defense Intelligence Agency. It was full of this incredible artwork,
Starting point is 01:28:30 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 ordinarily be availed to, you know,
Starting point is 01:29:05 a body of work that could sort of, explain such colleagues matters in concise terms and that seems really claims like in the internet era but um britain was always big on this america was less big on this um you know but in the cold war uh there were a few kind of very striking examples and soviet military power was one of them well what the British did was and um my dad had these books on his bookshelf as when I was a little kid and I they completely blew my fucking mind
Starting point is 01:29:45 but um this General Sir John Hackett he wrote a book in 1978 and it was marketed as a novel um
Starting point is 01:30:03 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 1985. It was a fictionalized
Starting point is 01:30:20 account that reads kind of like threads. I know threads you know was a movie but you know it doesn't have a traditional like fiction narrative structure. You know it'll jump to some
Starting point is 01:30:37 you know like Warsaw Pact, like early warning post, you know, um, and, uh, East Germany, you know, and then it'll like jump to, you know, some, uh, Soviet missile based in Kazakhstan. And they'd like jump to like, you know, the president's, uh, like situation room. But, uh, what it basically is is it's, it describes a scenario. Air Grid, Operator of Ireland's electricity grid is powering up the Northwest. We're planning to upgrade the election. Electricity grid in your area and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans.
Starting point is 01:31:14 Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say, online or in person. So together we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.i.4 slash northwest. On the many nights of Christmas, the Guinness Storehouse brings to thee Christmas nights at gravity. This Christmas, enjoy a truly unique night out at the Gravity Bar. Savour festive bites from Big Fan Bell, expertly crafted seasonal cocktails and dance the night away with DJs from Love Tempo.
Starting point is 01:31:48 Brett take infuse, amazing atmosphere, incredible food and drink. My goodness, it's Christmas at the Guinness Storehouse. Book now at giddlestorhouse.com. Get the facts be drinkaware, visit drinkaware.com. Okay. that being that in August 1985 the Soviet Army in Warsaw
Starting point is 01:32:12 Pact to salt West Germany There was a follow-up in 1982 called the Third World War the untold story which elaborated on the original with some details of this counterfactual universe but also again like it it added a kind of what I think was an alibi for
Starting point is 01:32:38 western for American audiences it's fascinating but um for context some of the heck it believed in you know this was a the final really critical phase of the Cold War you know like 78 79 like 85 this were able Archer era you know it was a fore on conclusion to a lot of these general officers that there was going to be a war in Europe okay and basically their job was not just to protect you know the people the United Kingdom or the people of the United States or you know the people of Italy you know depending on the executive we're talking about um it's the fullest of their abilities and also to you know to do everything they can to fight and win in nuclear war um for our hockley who is hackett's um protege i mentioned a minute
Starting point is 01:33:52 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 home guard of World War II was like lampooned and stuff like Dad's Army. I don't have you ever seen that. But Farahoghly and Haggit were serious about having able-bodied young men. you know like basically uh take on the role of uh of a gladio element in event of warsaw pack to salt to the island okay um so in the books or in the book uh we'll start with kind of i think is the primary source which of the first edition
Starting point is 01:34:52 in the Third World War the untold story they describe basically the political situation that stood then in terms of alliances, alliances, allegiances, then active battle spaces.
Starting point is 01:35:23 There was some speculation about space-based weapons platforms, but otherwise it was all based on like forces and being, you know, at the next extent force levels and weapons systems that actually existed and could expect it to be performed, could expect it to perform an action as described in the narrative. But the novel starts, the 1984 presidential election, who's the Democratic nominee, loses the former governor Thompson of South Carolina, who's obviously supposed to be Ronald Reagan. Okay.
Starting point is 01:36:06 Most of what's going on as, you know, in the world situation, as it's perceived and witnessed by, like, Reagan in his cabinet, is detailed by, you know, President Thompson's advisors.
Starting point is 01:36:23 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 onset of the book, Asia's becoming a real powerhouse. They've increasingly, with the exception in North Korea and Vietnam, liberalize their economies and sort of ease back from any kind of political interdependence with the Soviet Union from a strategic and military perspective.
Starting point is 01:37:12 China has a ding type figure at the helm. It was not like a reformer kind of in like the Western, you know, like faux democracy sense. But he's basically become hostile to communism and all but name. He's trying to flip North Korea and Vietnam against Russia by basically buying them off, you know, and pursue a... a kind of gradual, you know, encirclement to the Soviet Far East. The India, which is 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.
Starting point is 01:38:10 it's literally deteriorating the Arab Cold War is intensifying as a anastrist government in Egypt that's basically, you know, like a left-wing nationalist, like some of communist-adjacent dictatorship, is cringing towards war with Saudi Arabia.
Starting point is 01:38:48 South Africa has become a federation, like a racially divided federation, but under a Bantu Stan system, which is basically stable, but lives under constant threat by Nigeria, which is now fully committed to the South African border war as are like actual Soviet troops. Ethiopia has fallen apart, including Eritrea.
Starting point is 01:39:19 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 in a hypothetical like you know Reagan like a situation room like on every front like the Soviets are are losing the Cold War you know
Starting point is 01:39:46 it meanwhile the Politburo which presumably the trifecta of a, because it's probably written in 78 the trifecta of a drop off Grimico and Usenov is kind of like the real
Starting point is 01:40:06 or the trombard rather they're like They're the real executive of the USSR, you know, with the increasingly kind of disabled, Brezhnev as the figurehead. And drop of, for his, like, counterpart in the story, he basically drops the same speech that he did in 80, or 81, 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, the amount of 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 soils would lose the Cold War.
Starting point is 01:40:52 Basically, an identical speech is given by, you know, the stand-in for drop-off or, you know, again, the Trombardier just mentioned. you know the Politburo accepts these conclusions proffered by this composite executive character character is going to consensus that you know the total stagnation of the economy means that the Soviet armed forces will not be able to retain technological parity with the West for beyond a decade and that the only way like the Soviet Union can bring the Cold War to
Starting point is 01:41:38 a victorious conclusion is to assault Western Europe, annihilate NATO you know, kind of forever banish American forces from the continent you know and then you know the sue for peace from a position of a strength
Starting point is 01:41:58 and if not benevolence. The poet bro understands that although resistance from NATO is guaranteed, that before the United States had been out of counteroffensive, the threat of, the threat especially of tactical nuclear weapons, and the use of chemical weapons, and the potential, the case of the former of horizontal escalation will knock some NATO states out of the war further compromising their ability to reconstitute amid the massive kind of gap in numerical forces in being. So the Soviet diplomatic corps also believes that they can cause a schism
Starting point is 01:42:58 in the Western defense court on by convincing France to stay out of the conflict. You know, France is not a NATO member. They remain adjacent, but during this period, relations between NATO and France were particularly frosty. The Poet Brod decides that there's three options before them. Variant A will constitute a large, a massive, preemptive nuclear strike against Europe, alongside a specialize peritruber elements deployed in areas not under direct nuclear assault followed by a seven-day land invasion to the lynn's Frankfurt dunkirk line to another event it's so bad in any event assault the proverbial center with nuclear weapons
Starting point is 01:43:52 like without regard for counter value attrition like assault the periphery with special operations elements and then smash through
Starting point is 01:44:07 the now it radiated you know former main line of resistance you know with Warsaw packed armor you know and then upon reaching again the Lynn's Frankfurt Dunkirk
Starting point is 01:44:23 lying basically within you know a stone's throw of of the ocean you know to demand NATO come to peace terms variant B is identically above
Starting point is 01:44:43 but with full deployment of chemical weapons and high explosive conventional ordinance but a complete ban on the use of nuclear weapons. Variant C
Starting point is 01:44:59 would be a conventional invasion with tactical nuclear strikes being employed if NATO was able to hold before Warsaw Pact reaches the Rhine within seven days.
Starting point is 01:45:25 days, the poet will ultimately decide on variant 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 sensitivity to the sensory data, but their lack of ability to gauge, you know, the, the tree's strength of forces from where the, you know, the, you know, the, enemy device detected is many mergers you know but uh what uh like short story long um what basically carries the day for nato is like these stay behind like gladio units and like the u.s marine corps um they they they were able to flip Yugoslavia out of a position of neutrality and like actual hostility against the Soviet Union, with the exception of like some aspects of, you know,
Starting point is 01:47:04 uh, Air Grid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid is powering up the Northwest. We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area, and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans. Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say, online or in person.
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Starting point is 01:47:55 euro a month for 12 months. Our lowest ever price. Availability subject location, new customers only, 12 month minimum terms, standard pricing thereafter, TV and broadband sold separately, terms apply for more info.cise sky.a slash beads. Of ethnic serves, like serving in the security apparatus, you know, with police and military. But, um, you know, the, uh, the Soviet Union stalls, basically because when Warsaw Pact, they hit West German forces at Crefield, attempts to chase them out of the Netherlands and compounding, you know, the setback of the high attrition they took, you know, these, these Dutch militias, you know, like, razos. and just uh and just smash you know essentially these these already weakened the soviet columns
Starting point is 01:48:58 you know they're they're essentially you know becoming kind of like dead uh where they sit only to their uh lack of access to fuel but um you know it's obvious that this book was published uh to present a scenario to the British people. I mean, it's like a, it's a policy, it's a war plan. It's a war plan slash war gaming manual, coupled with, you know, an argument in favor of, you know, this tactical doctorate is how Britain can best protect itself in event of World War III.
Starting point is 01:49:48 and however it's hastily, 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,
Starting point is 01:50:11 but in terms of their operational, morale, and everything else. Now, it's got very interesting when you know the the early force structure of gladiou elements
Starting point is 01:50:28 like turns out to be like out and out you know fascists you know especially in Italy and there's a parallel here I think
Starting point is 01:50:43 it was Roberto Fiore who was I think it's the Italian the Italian liberation movement to the Italian national movement the legacy of the national fascist
Starting point is 01:51:04 party they had a schism develop in the ranks not unlike that of the national fronts you know into the into the political soldier wing and like the flag group which I find totally fascinating
Starting point is 01:51:20 and it bears direct on what we're going through today within our own um within our own resistance culture and we'll get into that next episode i'm sorry if that went uh too long but i'm like really tired otherwise i keep on going but um i hope that's an acceptable stopping point um there's like a lot more to take in and this is kind of a logical stopping point let's see what i mean we get into the next episode if that's cool Yep, that works. Do plugs real quick and well then. Yeah, man.
Starting point is 01:51:59 You can find me on Twitter at Capital R-E-A-L underscore number seven, HMAS 7777. You can find it on Substack, Real Thomas-777.7.com. I got a pot on there. I got a long-from-on-there. I got a Marsh line now. If you be so kind, like me, drop the Murrush. address in the description section you can buy like really dope shirts and flags and stuff like that that I think are really cool my the artist
Starting point is 01:52:37 who mocked him up here Craig he's he's fucking incredible this an incredible dude and a fine artist I'm working on this documentary of R and Taylor I'm going to the DNC convention in a few weeks and again I I am sorry to everybody I had to miss Nashville this weekend, but I got to save 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 shall find. Man, I'm on Instagram. Airgrid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid is powering up the northwest.
Starting point is 01:53:14 We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans. Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say, online or in person. So together we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.com. This Black Friday, game, stream and go full speed with one gig Sky broadband. And watch unmissable shows like all her fault on Sky. These nice people killing each other.
Starting point is 01:53:49 And Ballad of a Small Player starring Colin Farrell on Netflix. I made some mistakes. Right, who hasn't? Get one gig Sky broadband, essential TV and Netflix, all for just 44 euro a month for 12 months. Our lowest ever price. Availability subject location, new customers only,
Starting point is 01:54:03 12 month minimum terms, standard pricing thereafter, TV and broadband sold separately. Terms apply for more infoosies, sky.a slash beads. You know, I'm all over the place. I'm trying to bear down now on, you know, this, this documentary kind of video content type stuff which I which I think is
Starting point is 01:54:26 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 but that and my manuscript is kind of like my big focus right now but I'm always
Starting point is 01:54:42 available to do pods man like never ever hesitate to ask me and yeah let's Let's reconvene and do part two of gladio. And we should watch another movie too, man. So we can. Oh, yeah. Nice.
Starting point is 01:54:58 Oh, yeah. But we're going to do that. When we sign off, I'm going to recommend a movie. Yeah, man. Yeah. Well, thanks again, Pete. Yep, take care.
Starting point is 01:55:10 I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekignano show. Thomas, how are you doing? I'm well. Thanks for hosting me. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get part two of Operation Gladiou going. It's been a little while.
Starting point is 01:55:23 You know, I've been busy and decided to take a break for one episode and talk about current events. But, yeah, I'm eager for this. Let's do it. I think I left off talking about public diplomacy and talking specifically about Sir John Hackett and his, you know, in his conflict model, his predictive conflict model. those then later made available and marketed as, you know, in book form, you know, as a better strategic forecasting, you know, like fiction. And I think I was discussing that to emphasize that degree to which, you know, conventional force structure planning returned in earnest. You know, not just in policy corridors, but it was very much at the forefront of, in the minds of public intellectuals.
Starting point is 01:56:26 You know, people like Thomas Schilling, people, you know, like Hackett himself. You know, the emergence of deeper parodies and, you know, countermeasures against both, you know, long-range nuclear weapons platforms, as well as theater-based weapon systems, you know, led people to realize that conventional forces had acquired a new relevancy. And obviously, there's a political aspect of that very much related to how to manage a potential occupation by Soviet forces.
Starting point is 01:57:12 And that's really what, that's really what, gave sort of momentum to gladio from something that was just sort of bandied about in in think tanks and and various defense ministries and in the the constellation of a state that made up NATO it you know became a real essential aspect of of war planning um 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 want to wait until the onset of hostilities to develop what Frank Kitson called, you know, your counterinsurgency element. You know, you want that to be part of your force structure and being.
Starting point is 01:58:11 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
Starting point is 01:58:31 into the into the into the formal political and military structure like the former kind of the formal sort of you know conflict ready
Starting point is 01:58:48 this paradigm, you know, these people could have caused a whole lot of problems. You know, I mean, they did cost problems. I'm talking within the bound of rationality of Cold War 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 and 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
Starting point is 01:59:24 something that was developed in earnest and taken seriously by people like a different a different paradigm with with less binary possible outcomes and event of hostilities is not something that really would have it's something that really would have
Starting point is 01:59:45 acquired legs metaphorically speaking you know and and like we talked about command and control really what under like the revolution in military affairs which was a real thing it wasn't just a propaganda work to intimidate Warsaw Pact it wasn't just something that were college types who were constantly looking for ways to kind of tweak not just force structure but doctrine like kind of penumbric doctrine it um It had a real core of realism to it. You know, the computing revolution and the emergence of true high tech,
Starting point is 02:00:35 you know, at the very close of the 1970s into like the very, very early 1980s. 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 battle space in terms of operational outcomes, okay? And command and control, which
Starting point is 02:01:21 also spills over into and dovetails 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 takes on an outside significance when you're trying to control the battle space and a future conflict in that capacity is there's outliers that are uncontrollers. That are uncontrovales. conventional in nature, okay, both in absolute terms as well as in, according to the rationale of, you know, 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 Benelux states to a elected degree in the Bundes Republic. Like, you couldn't just leave these kind of resurgent or, or um vestigial fascists and national socialist cadres you could 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 and then like while you're while you're fighting the soviet union
Starting point is 02:02:44 and wortso up act you know um the outcome of which probably would have been decided within like like 72 to 100 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 um that's something to keep in mind you know kind of like a very different initiative in terms of its underlying reasoning in terms of you know its application of force and in terms of its purpose. Like the Phoenix program.
Starting point is 02:03:25 I raised because people act like the Phoenix program was like this sinister thing. You know, there was nothing nice about it. It definitely blurred the line between, you know, civilian and combatant. And it pretty much flew in the face of what was at least
Starting point is 02:03:44 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 doctrines that develop incident two and then anticipation of armed hostilities. Okay, so there really, there wasn't some, like, sinister thing about surrounding Gladio.
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Starting point is 02:05:11 brought to you by Insurance Ireland. It wasn't some shadow government waiting in the wings because, oh, the 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 masquerading as extremists to kind of try and get an understanding 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
Starting point is 02:05:46 agree with it on ethical or doctrinal terms or not, that was essential. And one of the ways NATO survived, especially after France bowed, despite continuing to participate in a lot of
Starting point is 02:06:03 command post-exercise for NATO, you know, was the nuclear question changed things, obviously, but it was one of the main thing that that changed was that a NATO kind of developed into one of the reasons that's obsolete today among many but NATO kind of developed into by about 1980 like late very late 70s early 80s it kind of morphed into this sort of forum to integrate and and optimize assets of the several members
Starting point is 02:06:44 states. And in so doing also kind of marshalling, mobilizing and optimizing assets that were just like intrinsic to the battle space, like literally natural features of Europe, you know, within the territories that constitute the alliance, as well as within spaces that were undoubtedly going to be, you know, the setting for future engagements of a critical nature. you know, so everything from, you know, setting up logistical infrastructure to facilitate rapid reinforcement, you know, in terms of, you know, homogenizing the gauge of railroad tracking, to, you know, making sure that the properly paved roads were, you know, abutted the essential, uh, like the essential choke points as it were where you know NATO was likely to be able to hold
Starting point is 02:07:50 opt for you know for at least you know 48 hours or so um you know it it it um an aspect of this too was they utilizing the terrain um a lot of a lot of theater based nuclear weapons were actually based on on farmland you know and and getting um 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.
Starting point is 02:08:25 But, you know, the human aspect of ecologies, discrete ecologies within defined territorial spaces, I mean, not only are they an important
Starting point is 02:08:40 answer to that, they may be the most important aspect, okay? So people likely to become partisans in event of Warsaw-upact 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, a kind of counterinsurgent cadre, structure that that only tracked with like the overall disposition of what constituted preparedness and what constituted adequate force structures, you know, to survive if not actually defeat Warsaw Pact in a general war, conventional or otherwise. You know, so these, uh, these guys in the Italian social movement, you know, these, these national socials guys who, you know, already had kind of a self-structure their own, you know, these, these guys who were affiliated with non-traditional conservative elements, but, like, we're very much, you know, engaged in the Cold War.
Starting point is 02:10:19 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, like both the Axis and the Allies, you know, you're talking about OSS or the, the obver, the latter, which had all kinds of problems and was shot through with, um, with, uh, with some out and out traitors, but there's a, also some, you know, there's some aspects of it, particularly, I don't know how intelligence agencies like break down what would be the equivalent of an order at battle, but there were,
Starting point is 02:11:04 there were company level elements, if that's a proper way to conceptualize it, who had no truck with Canaris, had no 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 Chetniks that you know we're not just fighting the partisans but no we're also fighting other factions of Chetniks and basically found themselves you know adjacent to the axis powers in theater and what they want to accomplish you know and um and these guys are brought in the fold okay um America obviously OSS and British secret intelligence
Starting point is 02:11:49 they were constantly trying to they were constantly trying to identify you know French resistant types who they could insist you know were not actually communist and they were failing at that in terms of ideological bonafides but that's not the reason why like de Gaul became such an important frontman to them it's not that these it's not these like partisan stay behind
Starting point is 02:12:10 elements in France like just like love Charles de Gaul 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 people would accept, you know, and when the reality of, when the reality of, of the elements that, you know, supposedly he inspired and upon his, you know, state, return to France, he'd be the commander of it. I mean, often these people had, like, no truck with them whatsoever,
Starting point is 02:12:40 but, you know, it's the, it's the appearance that matters and the ability to, you know, finesse, that people will basically accept it. In 1947, that was kind of a critical year, in my opinion, in terms of like the first real kind of like integrated NATO war planning, what became NATO, this kind of like integrated operational, structure sort of like emerged.
Starting point is 02:13:25 You know, it was 1947 in France, the United Kingdom, the Belalux states, they had commissioned, what came to be known as the quote, Western Union clandestine committee,
Starting point is 02:13:47 which technically was just kind of like this academic forum of like military officers and conflict specialist 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 post-war Europe. And one of the first things they did was create,
Starting point is 02:14:18 at least formally, was create a joint, policy on stay behind elements you know um and this was uh what was presented by the europeans in in 1951 after you know nato had formerly come to existence that this whole this format this clandestine committee it it was basically formally assimilated into into in nato around 951-52 okay um
Starting point is 02:14:51 and that's when supreme allied commander Europe you know um in other words you know the Americans they um
Starting point is 02:15:02 they established uh their own kind of assimily of it which was also like you know had jurisdiction over earlier incarnations
Starting point is 02:15:17 um such as the Western Union clandestine committee. They, she, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, branded this committee, the quote, clandestine planning committee. And it was housed at the Supreme Headquarters, allied powers in Europe.
Starting point is 02:15:43 So, I mean, this was taken very seriously. You know, and of course, America at that time was, was engaged in Korea in a very brutal war. You know, and not just was America engaged against, you know, the North Korean army, but, you know, they were engaged against the Chinese people of an army. Okay, this was a very critical time. The peacetime role, obviously, of the clandestine planning committee, you know,
Starting point is 02:16:17 would 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 Switzerland 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 real problems. Okay. So, Supreme Allied command, they were sending a message, like, look, you know, that's not happening what we just described. You're not, you're not all going to, like, develop your own policy on how this is coordinated. There's going to be one policy. It's going to be an
Starting point is 02:17:09 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 was two groups formed within this clandestine planning committee. One of which was pretty much exclusively focused on communications. you know, and homogenizing language fluency and familiarity with, you know, essentially the platforms, the weapons platforms, the command of control technologies, everything else, you know, that was agreed upon to be utilized. one of the weaknesses of Warsaw Pact was that, you know, German, like, National Volks Army
Starting point is 02:18:23 officers probably above the equivalent of captain. Like, most of them had at least some fluency in Russian. Like, most Russians did not speak German. You know, most of the Germans did not speak Polish. You know, the, you had the Baltic people, a lot of them spoke like neither Russian. North German You know So there was this This led to kind of like a house divided And at command and control level that's fatal
Starting point is 02:18:56 So NATO You know they integrated their rank structure You know there's like formal equivalents Of like like what like A3 is or like an O6 and everything Okay Um They
Starting point is 02:19:12 Uh They were you know They it was the size you know like in what command in many different commands like different languages would be favored like within that command based on you know the the the ethnic constitution of primary elements in theater but uh basically like fluency uh basic fluency in like german or english like was was essential you know um there 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
Starting point is 02:20:01 be part of a tank crew but it was comparatively like low tech compared to like we'd be used to but you know like they you know like American tank crews become familiar with you know like British tanks and vice versa and like both would air grid operator of Ireland's electricity grid is powering up the northwest we're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans our consultation closes on the 25th of November have your say online or in person so together we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.i. forward slash northwest. Inflation pushes up building costs, so it's important to review your home
Starting point is 02:20:51 insurance cover to make sure you have the right cover for your needs. Under-insurance happens where there's a difference between the value of your cover and the cost of repairing damage or replacing contents. It's a risk you can avoid. Review your home insurance policy regularly. For more, visit understandinginsurance. i.e. forward slash under insurance, brought to you by Insurance Ireland. You know, become familiar with, you know, like German panzers that were in heaviest deployment and things like that, you know. Um, so similarly, you know, um, the way this, the disposition towards stay behind elements and partisans, um, was, uh, was homogenized, you know, and brought into this homogenization process of command and control.
Starting point is 02:21:49 And in addition to that working group that, you know, focused on communication and networks and everything else, there was another working group, you know, or committee, if you will, called the special projects branch. and that basically it would war game different scenarios, okay? And I would try and determine, okay, like, what are the capabilities of these stay behind units?
Starting point is 02:22:20 Like, what can they actually do? You know, what's their mission orientation in concrete terms? You know, like, what are they trying to strike at? You know, like, 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 v.
Starting point is 02:22:45 Kong except on the right? Are they basically like a reserve element so that when, you know, mass casualties occur, like these guys can basically rush to the front and fill the roles of regulars? Like are they, is their function basically like partisan attacks and, terrorism, you know, against East German and Soviet and Czech who had occupiers
Starting point is 02:23:15 or whatever. And so the special project branched, you know, clarified this stuff. Okay. Eventually, this became integrated in in 1957. And I think that's really when
Starting point is 02:23:42 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 Pact basically out of Europe and their notion was well we can create our own collective security arrangement with the way quote 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
Starting point is 02:24:18 it would be a totally integrated structure and it wouldn't represent like any one of the reasons why the Bundesphere, like their uniforms seems so like dull and there's not even anything like about them that's like other than the fact that cuff titles
Starting point is 02:24:35 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 57 and um that was like deliberate because the idea was like okay this is like the army of
Starting point is 02:24:54 europe but we've also got to like make it clear that there's not any quote about like chauvinistic tendencies like a vathan s you know but where um you know where we're kind of just like this like european defense force and um in uh in parliamentary committees across the proposed member states like it gained some ground. But, you know, it proved basically unworkable, particularly after, you know, the
Starting point is 02:25:29 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, the, America had no more good faith credibility in the eyes of the Soviets.
Starting point is 02:25:50 The Soviets were never going to leave Germany, okay? And Berlin particularly wasn't just like the coveted sort of prize on the war map. But it was a thorn in the side of Warsaw Pact, just like Cuba was a huge thorn in the side of the United States. But that by like 1960, 61, nobody was talking about a European defense. committee anymore but um one of the things that uh one of the things that came out of kind of this experimental like military culture on the continent was um the establishment of a combined um the six powers lines committee it was the united states united kingdom france benelux countries you know, all of whom, again, had been involved in developing a war plan and doctrinal paradigm for the stay behind organizations.
Starting point is 02:27:07 But, you know, when this Six Powers Committee formally convened, which became the, quote, allied clandestine committee, and its final iteration of 1976, was the quote allied coordination committee um it literally is functions like the way people described it you know um i'm talking about you know top natal grass as well as you know um civilian elements you know like in the in the bunder's republic government who were like indexed with the NATO structure
Starting point is 02:27:47 um they uh they uh they they they they refer to it specifically you know um the technical committee to bring statewide organizations together um and clearly define like their mission mandate for structure and all of that okay um what was the authority of uh supreme allied command in europe i mean it was basically godlike within its dominion you know um that's one of the things i mean when you sign on for nato you signed on to go all in when warr i'd lorosa pact i mean you also agreed not just tacitly but in a very what would become a very active actively engaged um
Starting point is 02:28:56 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 of these munitions, you know, I mean, it's just like one example. I mean, the point somebody other day, like, when the, when the, um, when these intermediate range platforms, police missile platforms arrived in Europe, And when platforms like the Pershing 2, which people find odd these days, but was, you know, the army head was, it was an army weapons platform. Like at the folded gap, it was a Luftwaffe flood 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 war had to be married to their launch vehicles, but, I mean, obviously
Starting point is 02:30:01 it was, it was America who had the final say on these things, you know. But at the, this was pretty openly talked about, at least within NATO command
Starting point is 02:30:25 corridors. I mean, some of the language used 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 it's just kind of interesting and that's why like when what became to be colloquially and kind of flippantly known as you know like the years of lead in 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.
Starting point is 02:31:03 I mean, if you said, there's a whole other issue. We'd probably get into another episode. Like, what were the years of lead? Like, were these, were these self-described like fascist? Um, I mean,
Starting point is 02:31:16 they were, they were allied with the Red Army fraction, right army fraction, so. Yeah, some of them were, definitely. Some of them,
Starting point is 02:31:24 it's not clear who they were. And some of them, the guys they arrested, it doesn't really track. Airgrid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid, is powering up the Northwest. We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans. Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say, online or in-person.
Starting point is 02:31:50 So together we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.i.4 slash Northwest. This Black Friday, game stream and go full speed with one gig, Sky broadband. And watch unmissable shows like all her fault on Sky. These nice people killing each other. And Ballad of a Small Player starring Colin Farrell on Netflix. I've made some mistakes. Right, who hasn't?
Starting point is 02:32:15 Get one gig Sky Broadband, Essential TV and Netflix, all for just 44 euro a month for 12 months. Our lowest ever price. Availability subject location, new customers only, 12 month minimum terms, standard pricing thereafter. TV and broadband sold separately. Terms apply for more infoosies sky. beats. 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,
Starting point is 02:32:48 these are the stay behind organizations, you know, NATO, um, and these, you know, right-wing governments, they're directing these attacks to happen so as to procure a permanent emergency mandate to basically like militarize the country in perpetuity I mean that's not impossible but I mean
Starting point is 02:33:19 the late 70s early 80s when you had the Soviet Union from a few hundred kilometers away, you know, like, pointing, uh, pointing these, like, massive IRBMs at Western Europe, you know, that had, uh, 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,
Starting point is 02:34:04 at at scale such that it provides like a catalyst for martial law I mean you can you don't need to kill 80 people in a train station bombing in 1980 you can say that like well
Starting point is 02:34:23 the Soviets have targeted us for annihilation and obviously based on a deployment pattern like they now believe that that nuclear that first use of nuclear your weapons is perfectly acceptable as a means of accomplishing their goals by by mycestidal force of arms I mean you okay there you go you know like the
Starting point is 02:34:47 Soviets had to kill us all if we don't develop countermeasures and and mass arrest people who are are not willing to support you know the war effort when it comes like there's ways you can do it in epic or could have done it like you You don't need to, like, pull off a spectacular, you know, series of bombings or shootings and, like, kill a few hundred-year-owned 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 discussed very openly. at the US Army
Starting point is 02:35:39 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 um there was a there was a document
Starting point is 02:35:59 like a study put out by Supreme Allied Command Europe um that uh from the Supreme headquarters as allied powers in Europe. It was titled Supreme
Starting point is 02:36:16 Headquarters of Alli Powers in Europe Problems Outstanding with the quote Standing Group. There's a subheading number four titled quote special plans and quite literally
Starting point is 02:36:31 it was tailored to address like the delineation of responsibilities. of the quote clandestine services. And it went on to say, you know, quote, the delineation of responsibilities of Supreme Court of Clement Command Europe
Starting point is 02:36:57 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 want to go too far. field because this is already a dense topic. But you've got to understand the overall as the Soviets approach to nuclear parity and arguably
Starting point is 02:37:26 you know shot past NATO and specifically the United States in terms of its strategic nuclear capability um yeah like America developing countermeasures that you know
Starting point is 02:37:48 characterized by deep parodies you know arguably that kind of neutralized so he'd advantages only to smarter and higher tech but like regardless so the nuclear weapons are off the table or not even of horizontal escalation was
Starting point is 02:38:07 like an inevitability and you could prove that World War III was going to start with a conventional like combined arms fight across a massive front and casualties were going to be utterly horrifying. One of the reasons the tankers on the North German plane, which was mostly a British Army area of operation, conscious of the folded gap,
Starting point is 02:38:38 which was patrolled by 11th and only calorie, you know black horse is like the lead element um these guys were totally known uncertain terms you know they were issued amphetamines on the regular you know you're gonna you're gonna have our job is to hold for 72 hours and you're not going to survive this but we will hold for 72 hours without sleep um you know and kill as many kill as many of ivan's tanks as we can before we get overrun and we will get overrun you know and the thought was it was a 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 um within six to seven days Warsaw Pact that had reached the
Starting point is 02:39:40 Rhine. And around 92-93, when the old Soviet archives that brief period where they were basically open, you know, to Western historian, including Mr. Irving,
Starting point is 02:39:56 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
Starting point is 02:40:19 you know the soviet dominance of europe so it was um even like a best case scenario you're you know you're looking at being overrun okay um 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 is literally on the ground, you know, in a way that 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 occupier to manage. okay um 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 um of war doctrine you know um since clandestine uh the allied clandestine courting committee um it created what was also known as the several quote allied
Starting point is 02:41:49 clandestine coordinating groups. And these guys would, they, they liaise on the personnel front with the NATO command elements down to like, at least battalion level and probably
Starting point is 02:42:07 comedy level. These coordinating groups were almost exclusively, staffed by, you know, men from Supreme headquarters, you know, allied forces in Europe. The idea was, you know, again, it created kind of
Starting point is 02:42:42 homogeneity of thought and orientation, you know, towards the formal mission statement. while 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 the way people viewed like the way people viewed like the eastern and the Russian has differed. You know, it was, there was political, there was anthropological, there was, you know, sociological aspects to how these decisions were running. Now, in event of World War III, Supreme Allied Command Europe absolutely intended and was meant to and was structured the exercise operational control. over pretty much every aspect of the member state for the reason without like micromanaging or trying to micromanage you know like unit oriented tactics because it's self-defeating but um so in terms of like overall um in terms of like overall strategic orientation there wasn't enforced homogeneity but uh to coordinate activities such that we're talking about across like all different
Starting point is 02:44:28 demands an event of wartime, particularly where you're racing the clock, because you basically have, you know, 72 hours to hold the Soviet Union at bay on the mainland resistance that's folded on the North German plane. You're not going to be able to just, like, splendidly, like,
Starting point is 02:44:46 incorporate this structure into, in a pre-existing community areas. I mean, you're going to have to abide for those differences and for those discreet, you know, kind of sensitivity to various things that might seem totally innocuous or ridiculous or whatever.
Starting point is 02:45:10 You know, so I'm not suggesting this with some like well-oiled machine, but it was basically I mean, that's kind of the best you can do if this is if this is the mission orientation. You know, like the, you get the world as the world is, not, you know, like the, not a Tolaric utopia where everybody is everybody privileges reason over passion and man it's basically
Starting point is 02:45:36 malleable and i mean it's that's not the way things are you know um i believe and this takes us back some years to um it was after you know the supreme allied command elements we're already devising ideas on how to incorporate state behinds into the order of battle and the war planning structure. Again, that kind of research began in
Starting point is 02:46:14 earnest around 957. As NATO kind of evolved and again, like as nuclear forces came off the table as, you know, both the primary deterrent and the primary kind of assault platform,
Starting point is 02:46:35 you know, Again, conventional forces and political warfare took on and outside significance. And in 1972, a man named Vincenzo Vincuera, he's the man who was blamed and continues to be for the Patiano Massacre. On May 31st, 1972, Petiano is a suburb of Sagittado in Italy. Apparently, some anonymous call came in, you know, this is like provisional IRA style, to the local police. Airgrid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid is powering up the northwest. We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area and your input and local knowledge are vital
Starting point is 02:47:45 in shaping these plans. Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say online or in person. So together we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.i.
Starting point is 02:48:01 4.6 Northwest. This Black Friday game stream and go full speed with one gig Sky broadband. And watch unmissable shows like all her fault on Sky. These nice people. you, John. And Ballad of a Small Player
Starting point is 02:48:15 starring Colin Farrell on Netflix. I've made some mistakes. Right, who hasn't? Get one gig Sky Broadband, essential TV and Netflix, all for just 44 euro a month for 12 months. Our lowest ever price. Availability subject location,
Starting point is 02:48:28 new customers only, 12 month minimum terms, standard pricing thereafter, TV and broadband sold separately. Terms apply for more infoosies sky.a slash speeds. The... Katabini, I think they're called. Telling them to check this car.
Starting point is 02:48:43 this abandoned car. The car itself turned out to be an explosive. Like, the whole thing was wired with, like, I think, plastic. So, when these coppers investigated it, you know, when they, like, Jimmy did door open, like, it exploded and, you know, killed a... I think it killed three of the five cops and, like, the others were maimed. But, you know, it begs, there is more severe attacks subsequent, some of which were bona fide mass casualty events.
Starting point is 02:49:30 But it does beg the question, like, why, and it's not just people like Howard Zinn and with crank ideas. You see, like, fascists under their bed. it's reasonably serious historians who claim that like see like this is this is the fruits of operation in Ladiote it's like okay but like why was the motive of these guys doing this you know I mean I like
Starting point is 02:49:56 I said like their claim is that oh well it was just part of attention strategy but again like you you don't need that when Warsaw Pact as as 23,000 nuclear weapons and thousands of them are pointed at
Starting point is 02:50:14 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-Qaeda did it to like pass the Patriot Act
Starting point is 02:50:30 you know what that's not that's not how things work you know I mean it's like look at the COVID nonsense and the government like murder 10 million people to pretend COVID was like this deadly virus like no I mean like it's it's it's uh it's not really a propaganda works and um people generally go along with it you know like it at face value you know and again especially during the cold war there was peculiar exigencies
Starting point is 02:51:02 due to history of history will know like Julius Avola when he was arrested and indicted and he was acquitted. It was events surrounding these years of light attacks. And the claim was that Evela was some kind of like guru figure to like this cult of like young fascist partisans. And so in some like
Starting point is 02:51:28 in Chote way like he was conspiring to kill people with these like terrorists, which made no sense whatsoever. And it basically got laughed out of court. but the perpetrators of the Petiano Massacre is alleged to be Vincenzo Vincuera a guy named Carlo Cichituni and a guy named Ivano Bacacchino All these guys were members of the New Order
Starting point is 02:52:11 was Cloverly called the New Order. The full name of it was the New Order Scholarship Center. Okay, which was basically it was basically like a kind of a kind of like neo-fascist
Starting point is 02:52:33 cell, like intellectual type guys who were also into like paramilitary stuff and things. They were big on like Julius Evelyn stuff. You know, but like I said, it doesn't really, like it doesn't really track. You know, Boca Chino was, in fact, he, he himself was involved in some of these events. He later was killed, like, 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 asset. That is possible.
Starting point is 02:53:13 or maybe he was just like a nut okay um Vinceiguerre and Sitchatini they were both sentenced to life in prison
Starting point is 02:53:27 um for years uh Cichitini uh he fled to Spain like when the indictment came down with the informational complaint
Starting point is 02:53:39 I don't know if in Europe like they actually indict people or they afford people to process at least in a loose sense like but they i think their protocol is different but um he uh he was finally pinched in like you know 1998 and then uh about a decade later like when his health was failing like they they just they just like cut him loose for compassionate release and it's like really man like you this guy's just like demented terrorist according to you when you're, you're, like, cutting them loose for ill health. I mean, like, the whole, the whole thing was strange.
Starting point is 02:54:19 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, if I don't think about it like that. Um, these guys were, uh, they were born out of the, the Italian social movement, which was a mean, it was an openly, like, neo-fascist party, but it was a main, stream party, you know, uh, like Mussolini's granddaughter, you know, like she was,
Starting point is 02:54:48 uh, she was like a public face of it, you know, um, and in their traditional strongholds like people, people like openly, like, celebrated and rep and rep that, you know. Um, like
Starting point is 02:55:04 the new order was, um, something of a schismatic break off from that. um from the Italian social movement um like I said what I liken it to what I liken it to it's an imperfect example but you know like it like the National Front schism that uh led like you know the flag group which was you know the uh the 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,
Starting point is 02:55:44 especially for, you know, the, the, the, the downwardly mobile, kind of like white working class, whose communities really were devastated by, you know, the UK's sort of suicidal merceristic globalism. But, you know, the, and like I said, the Italian social movement itself is, is evil and like sensibility. The newer order was very much more on like a national socialist tip. If that
Starting point is 02:56:21 I don't know if that makes any different people or not, but again, like I don't, this whole narrative doesn't really add up. But, you know, the, it's also too, like I don't I mean, how much the regime basically speaking out of like both sides of its mouth. It's like, okay, like these stay behind organizations, I'm not going to as far as to say that like, well, you know, like, natal created
Starting point is 02:56:53 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 sort of radical like neo-fascist cadre as a statement. Like it's how life works. You know, these tendencies develop very organically. they solidify and harden and become, in some people's cases, like extreme, only to, like, you know, personal influences within their orbit who kind of feed on these people's, like, youthful energy that tends to outshine their capacity for reflection. But it's, you know, but at the same time, at the same time, the fact that these guys were,
Starting point is 02:57:44 for decades by the time that 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 opening fire. They're ripping through full auto, like,
Starting point is 02:58:07 at train stations and killing old ladies and everybody else who happens to be downrange their fire. Like that doesn't really make sense, man. Okay? You know, it just doesn't. And not everything is a... Not everything's a science experiment and, you know, not everything is a... Not everything lends itself to quotable inputs where you can, you know, probably like a concrete answer on.
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Starting point is 02:59:02 sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.com. forward slash Northwest. This Black Friday, game stream and go full speed with one gig, sky broadband. And watch unmissable shows like all her fault on Sky. These nice people, killing you, John.
Starting point is 02:59:19 And Ballad of a Small Player starring Colin Farrell on Netflix. I've made some mistakes. Right, who hasn't? Get one gig Sky Broadband, essential TV and Netflix, all for just 44 euro a month for 12 months. Our lowest ever price. Availability subject location,
Starting point is 02:59:33 new customers only, 12 month minimum term, standard pricing thereafter, TV and broadband sold separate. terms apply for more infoise skydada slash speeds the human condition and you know war and peace and stuff like that um I uh so when I think that that's um 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 i mean like the men who were really instrumental these activities are long dead you know it's like you could say well this might like embarrass the government
Starting point is 03:00:07 It's like, okay, if you want to take the government seriously anymore. If they did, it's like, oh, okay, I mean, there's, there's a, there's a laundry list of, like, assinine grievances, like, people hang on, you know, like the government. You know, it's like, what's one more? You know, I don't, I don't really understand the discussion around. I mean, I understand intellectually. What I mean is I continue to kind of stupefying me that people don't see a, uh, Like to see through how like fucking uh transparent uh this is um oh wow we've been going for out an hour haven't we yeah let's get to the years of lead next man if i if i start that now we're going to be here like
Starting point is 03:00:53 another hour yeah no problem at all is that agreeable i don't want to fuck with the program sounds good to me okay great yeah thanks me plus i want to crash soon because i got frankly i got a big day tomorrow oh yeah you do but uh yeah do plugs real quick Yes, sir. You can always find me on my website. It's Thomas 777.com, number 7-h-M-A-S-777.com. I'm on Twitter. I've got a pretty active timeline.
Starting point is 03:01:28 It's real, capital, R-E-A-L-U-N-S-M-A-S-7-777. I'm on Tgram, I'm on Instagram. My substack is the best place hit me up. I got a lot of video. That's my podcast. There's 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.
Starting point is 03:01:56 That's Real Thomas 777.7.7.com. If you peek could include some of my plugs in the video description, That would be great, man. You'd had my gratitude. Of course. Yeah, I have your, and I have your, the, uh, the merch, the new merch you have and everything included there. No, that's awesome.
Starting point is 03:02:17 Yeah, thanks so much. Yeah, I'm very blessed that our, our buddy, Eric Krieg, uh, I have no idea how to mock that stuff up, man, and he's got real ability, you know, um, yeah. I'm, I'm very glad. It looks good, too. It looks really good. Yeah. It looks really good.
Starting point is 03:02:32 It looks quality. Yeah, yeah. No, it's, um, People really like it and it makes me happy, man. We can deliver stuff that people like and actually want to like wear on their body, you know? And you actually got retweeted by Candace Owens yesterday. Yeah, I know. That's why there's been like a deluge of, it's weird, man.
Starting point is 03:02:51 It's, I, it's weird being like internet famous in some small way. Like, I mean, it's, okay, I'm fine. I don't really mess with their content or anything. Whatever. I mean, if she wants to retweet me, that's fine. but yeah it's kind of nutty all right thomas thank you very much yeah thank you buddy
Starting point is 03:03:12 want to welcome everyone back to the Pekignano show Thomas is back and I think this is the gonna conclude gladio today right it's long time coming you're muted yeah I'm sorry yeah I'm just call up my outline here real quick
Starting point is 03:03:31 no problem yeah no I think oh yeah here we go I already got it up Um, yeah, like I said, man, um, 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, um, as we get into the topic. gladio created an interesting ideological culture that is relevant to what we do today
Starting point is 03:04:11 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 that. You know, like I said, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. But, you know, ground zero for Gladia was really idly. Airgrid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid, is powering up the Northwest. We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area,
Starting point is 03:04:50 and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans. Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say, online or in person. So together, we can create a more alive. reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.i.4.n. Northwest. On the many days of Christmas, the Guinness Storehouse brings to thee, a visit filled with festivity.
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Starting point is 03:05:40 Visit drinkaware.a.e. Okay. And Italy absolutely lost the war like all of Europe did. You know, the Vatican was hit incredibly hard, like figuratively and literally. You know, like Vatican 2 was basically like the Catholic leadership hierarchy. reinventing itself to be agreeable to, you know, to American hegemic and like that, and the NERM or World War, okay? And the rest of Italy, Italy was a key, I mean, Italy was like the fifth largest economy,
Starting point is 03:06:18 I think, into the 70s on this planet. And Italy, Italy and the Benelux countries, they were, they were like NATO's literal flanks. Okay, I mean, obviously like the Bundes Republic, the Bundes Republic, the Bundes you know, the U.S. Army, you know, specifically the armored cab and fuel artillery. The British Army on the North German plane. They were the Schwerpunk of like the mainline of resistance in the German border. But the Italian army, you know, in the South and the Benelux military elements, in the north, they were just as essential.
Starting point is 03:07:03 So there was this weird situation with Italy because it wasn't occupied like the Bundes Republic was. It was part of NATO. But there was also this like overtly fascist 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 going to do?
Starting point is 03:07:22 It's like they had a pro, they had a cold warrior government. They had like a permanent incumbency. you know they were they hated the communists they were like 110% finding the Cold War it was kind of like something they it was kind of something like Washington had to tolerate
Starting point is 03:07:38 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 really like the core of gladio you know there's obviously gladio elements in in the Belalux countries
Starting point is 03:07:54 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 glad you elements of a sort like in the Bundes Republic
Starting point is 03:08:08 that was like a tricky thing you know and it was weirdly handled but Italy like the core of these guys was Italy and also you know like the Italians the Italians have an they contribute like an outsized
Starting point is 03:08:22 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 Muslim March on Rome that was a huge development
Starting point is 03:08:37 you know it was this right wing revolutionary tendency that was basically like returning to serve like the bolster of revolution and weird as it may seem to Americans like art and like artistic endeavors
Starting point is 03:08:52 and aesthetical things that has this that has like an outsized cachet in Europe, like to this day. You wouldn't think of America, some painter, or even like a novelist or a filmmaker. Like, you wouldn't think of, you wouldn't think of him, like,
Starting point is 03:09:09 putting something in the stream of a cultural commerce, and it, like a movement developing around it, or it coming to, like, symbolize some kind of movement. But in Italy, that's very much the case. It was, and it is. You know, and the Cold War was no exception. So you had
Starting point is 03:09:25 these guys in Italy running around who constantly you're kind of like the core gladio and like some of them were very compromised they were basically like NATO agents and that's like just what they were
Starting point is 03:09:37 and they didn't really give a fuck like about what the interleague was beyond you know cold war imperatives but you also had these guys who were you know who were basically like accolaced Julius Evela or who in the early
Starting point is 03:09:52 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
Starting point is 03:10:06 or you know whatever their kind of core issues were and they got swept up you know by like Italian Carboneri or political police and I'm like okay look like why do you make yourself useful like this is what you're wanting to do
Starting point is 03:10:21 you know so that that's that's kind of like the that's 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 refresh my recollection but I um if I'm repeating myself call me on it but what kind of brought gladio to people's awareness I'm talking in terms of like the general public was uh was the Pediano massacre I can't remember we got into this last time or not. But basically,
Starting point is 03:11:00 on May 31st, 972, there was what characterized as a neo-fascist terror attack. There was an anonymous call placed to this Carbonary barracks in a suburb of
Starting point is 03:11:17 Cigrado. And the caller said, hey, check this car, check this abandoned car. you know it's an IED and when they did and it like it exploded it was like they were trying to investigate it
Starting point is 03:11:34 and it killed these three cops um the perpetrators or the guys who got brought up who got stuck with the charges on grounds of it they were a this guy named Vincenzo Vincueira
Starting point is 03:11:50 Carlo Sitchatini and this guy Ivano Buccuccino and all these guys are members of this of this group called New Order. The official name was the New Order Scholarship Center.
Starting point is 03:12:08 It was basically like a think tank and it wasn't a political party. It was kind of like Elin de Ben Loz Greece G-R-E-C-E or Gracie. You know, it was basically was what it appeared to be.
Starting point is 03:12:25 It was like a research proof, you know, and when, um, when, um, you know, what, where are they, who was funding them and where they were getting money from wasn't exactly clear, but there was a lot of, uh, 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, they considered and considered themselves to, uh, to be the direct descendants of the, uh, uh, a national. as this party, and they kind of are, like, it's not a cap. But the New Order Scholarship Center,
Starting point is 03:13:02 they came about based on, like, a schism in the Italian social movement. Which is interesting. Like, as the Italian social movement kind of approached mainstream respectability in, 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 not, like, France's Yaqui was, like, writing speeches for Joseph McCarthy, like, very unusual stuff was going on due to you know, what amounts to like an enduring emergency. You know, this was the era like the Berlin crises and things.
Starting point is 03:13:33 You know, people were convinced that cold war is going to be going to become hot. This was also in a bunch of guys with real trigger time. You know, like basically the entire first SS, like Leap Stenard, they were rotting in prison. Sep Dietrich had a life sentence. Yac and Piper had the death penalty. A bunch of these guys got released during this era. Like not because NATO wanted to be nice.
Starting point is 03:13:56 not because Washington decided they wanted to roll back, the precedent they'd established at Nuremberg, but they're like, you know, we're almost certainly going to fight World War III eminently, and we need, you know, we need officers and NCOs that we actually fought the Ivins, and we can't be going around arresting people for being right-wing. That's not going to work. So kind of the mainstream of the Italian social movement, Arturo Michelini, who was like their hanshe,
Starting point is 03:14:26 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 um these guys uh like bogachino and like vincetta and like cititini they were like uh-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
Starting point is 03:15:01 um, who were, uh, who were, uh, who were very much like, evolving acolytes. And they're like, that's bullshit. Like, you're not, you're not going to turn us into some like, some like regime approved, like, like part of the parliamentary apparatus.
Starting point is 03:15:16 You know, so these guys found a new order. Okay. Um, and there was a, uh, and this got, This was kind of formalized in 1956. There was this big meeting in Milan. That was the Italian social movement in Congress.
Starting point is 03:15:32 And this guy Pino Rowdy, who was the, he was like kind of the representative of what became like new order. He basically stood up and said like, you know, you're disgracing the honor like the men who died, like fighting the Americans and the Communists. You know, how dare you? Don't let foot pain or discomfort hold you back. At foot solutions, we specialize in high quality supportive footwear.
Starting point is 03:15:56 And use the latest scanning technology to custom-make orthotics designed for your unique feet. If you want to free your feet in joints from pain, improve balance or correct alignment, book a free foot assessment at footsolutions.i or pop-in store today. Foot Solutions, the first step towards pain-free feet. You know, you're trying to hijack us. You know, this is Jewish, you know, fuck you, basically. So, like, that was that. So these new order guys were kind of like
Starting point is 03:16:29 I remember everybody's shitless anyway. Like I'm not saying they didn't plant this bomb. Maybe they did or maybe they did. 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 those of people, but Italian justice is not exactly rigorous
Starting point is 03:16:48 or it's going to due process, you know, especially during that era. If you don't like the Italian government, wait five years, you'll get a new one. Yeah, that too. But that's kind of the context. And other right-wing movements in Europe, and this is a very different circumstance.
Starting point is 03:17:07 It wasn't like now there, you know, like I'm always talking about these literally mentally retarded people who like show for Zelensky and stuff because they're like too stupid to be alive, but somehow they are. They're like brain-eating amoeba or something. But, um... but in those you know like that nowadays there's there's literally like the regime there's globalism
Starting point is 03:17:32 and then there's people resisting it you know whether there's salafis who are not good guys nor 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's all these bizarre intrigues and everything was characterized by cold war um dynamics and phenomenon so like even if you didn't want to take a side you had to insinuate 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 um in the 50s and 60s and then post it's hot you know in the 1980s i mean basically if you were approached if you were if you were if you were a partisan whether
Starting point is 03:18:22 you're in italy or the or the benelux countries or the uk and you've got actual bodies in the street. You're going to approach by some intelligence guy or some NATO type. 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 order give me a lot of money or a lot of small arms and ammo or like a lot of drugs I can sell or something.
Starting point is 03:18:48 You know, and there was a limits to this, obviously, but, you know, it was a rarefied circumstance. You know, a new order also, there's stuff with disseminated throughout Europe, and in those good days, you know, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, you know, print media was the only thing, was the only game in town, you know, so, and what you could find, especially based on the censorship regime, not just in the Bundes 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'd be an English, you know, and sometimes it'd be an English, you know, sometimes it wouldn't sometimes it'd be like an English translation that was imprecise but a whole lot of this material um relevant to the right where relative to the old resistance in Europe was coming out of Italy and um you know Nord's publications they very much valorized the third right and um the kingdom of Italy and their war dead you know in the independent state of Croatia and like all the
Starting point is 03:19:53 Texas powers. They also had links with the Boer Republic and Rhodesia also. Like they had strong support there. You know, it was very anti-modernist. It was very Strasserite. You know, and despite what people think, Strasser had a, he had a very nuanced view of things.
Starting point is 03:20:13 I don't agree with his perspective. But it wasn't just, oh, he was a socialist, but he also didn't like Zionism. It was nothing like that. And he was not pro-Soviet. He said that, you know, Europe has to fight something to 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,
Starting point is 03:20:36 it was the hammer and sword. It wasn't just because it looks cool. You know, the stressor his whole point was, we've got to return to, like, medieval origins. That's, you know, not in some ridiculous way or not in some Luddite way. But he's like, you know, 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
Starting point is 03:21:02 just the name only. You know, like they, like down to down to 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 and peace, question of the basic security. like this, that's what the national community ossifies as one, but otherwise, you know, it exists in this totally like organic, kind of like spontaneous and devolved 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.
Starting point is 03:21:41 You know, John Bowden made that point, too. 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 a there was a Taffy and right wing position.
Starting point is 03:21:58 That was America first. We shouldn't be fighting the Cold War, but that's something totally different. And in the 21st century, you're just not a third position anywhere. Because there's not the binary paradigm. There's globalism and everybody opposing it.
Starting point is 03:22:13 That's it. And those people opposing it, they have different motives for opposing it. Some which are some of which you know are like rhyme with one another some which don't at all
Starting point is 03:22:27 but there's 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 like to contemplate and pontificate that
Starting point is 03:22:44 well people um people may I think sometimes people think that you say stuff like that just to upset them because it upsets them. They think they're a third positionist and they, in what way? You know, it's like talking about being right wing or left wing and you're talking about the early, you know, 20th century in Europe. It's not the same thing as in Europe as it is in the United States. There's a lot more nuance there.
Starting point is 03:23:16 Well, there's also the same guys who think that, like, they think that, they think that, they think that their right wing if they agree on foreign policy with Chuck Schumer, Ben Netanyahu, Joe Biden, and 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 Zionist for the purpose of dismantling Ukraine and Russia as discreet, ethnic, cultural entities, you're not right wing. You're some kind of fuckhead who's killing people for the globalist regime. Like the fact you wear like a little swastika or listen to black metal
Starting point is 03:23:55 or because you're like some like drony, Satanist 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 save the king. That doesn't make me a monarch is. It makes me a crackhead who robs liquor stores
Starting point is 03:24:12 and says weird things. You know, it's kind of the same thing, man. like if Nambola started like wearing swastika guys like Nambla's like so fucking beast 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 rant about that and get my blood pressure up
Starting point is 03:24:29 but um the uh but you know yeah I did I mean um but that was basically like the situation in Italy and again like uh the massacre these these Carbonetti like that these guys probably, I don't think they wanted to kill the police,
Starting point is 03:24:51 but I think they definitely were like guilty of the crime charge, despite whatever propaganda might have been milked out of it by the Italian government. Because 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 Roeth Army fraction did. They weren't properly trained in that stuff. But, you know, they were serious.
Starting point is 03:25:22 They were, like, willing to engage in direct action. But as time went on, they kind of... They became something of an elite organization. You know, they gave it very hard. They always held themselves out as a bandguardist tenancy. you know as time went on their kind of quasi paramilitary aspect became more
Starting point is 03:25:50 like high speed and incredible um you know at peak they had about 10,000 members and these guys this is only campaign for nuclear disarmament was a big thing in Europe which itself is like a cover not just for like
Starting point is 03:26:07 um you know like Soviet and wasn't like money was coming in to fund this stuff but it's also a cover for like real radicals, you know, and communists and anarchists of various stripes. Like New Order, 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 government in Rome to kind of like raise its eyebrow and go, 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 core of gladio, beyond like what I already suggest. just, it was, only just, only the peculiar conditions of Italy and,
Starting point is 03:26:45 and nuances they're in, but it's like, okay, these guys, these guys will get dirty, okay? You know, they're not afraid to do that. And they tend to be thirsty for action. You know, so they're not, we can be advised, especially if we, if we sent
Starting point is 03:27:02 some special operations forces types to kind of bring them up to 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 storm of stuff. But later on,
Starting point is 03:27:22 a substantial percentage of these guys rejoined the Italian social movement. But there remained kind of like, I think some of that too was them like hemorrhaging off people who like weren't. really up to
Starting point is 03:27:43 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, like Vanguardist types like us, like read this as like oh, there was a second schism. I don't think that's
Starting point is 03:27:59 true. But that's kind of complicated. In the time we got left, I don't want to go on that tangent deeply. But the and not coincidentally, the New Order's model was, our honor is called loyalty.
Starting point is 03:28:16 I'm not going to try and pronounce the Italian variant of that, but obviously that's you know, my history, my loyalty is my honor, which is the Vophanes-S model. The similar organization was a
Starting point is 03:28:34 double-headed axe. You know, like meaning like we look both right and left, but you know, the Ross, the, the, 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 scherpunkt of either if it advances you know the interests of the folk community um an important side note to this is what became with the british national front which today and um i i can't say for sure what the state of the London
Starting point is 03:29:13 street is or anything. I read the national, so if our English and Ulster friends, um, 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 Front, not to be confused
Starting point is 03:29:29 with the French organization, which is a lot more mainstream and regime approved. Um, I think the national front these days is basically a website. or like a social media it's got some social media
Starting point is 03:29:45 presence but like even there like nobody not even just probably like a couple hundred people to fuck with it and don't care about it but it was a big deal in the 70s and 80s they were the fourth largest party they were the largest party after the Lib Dems in the UK for a minute
Starting point is 03:30:01 okay they were founded by A.K. Chesterton who had been affiliated with Mosley he came from he came from the League of Empire Loyalists and the first British National Party and he was related to
Starting point is 03:30:22 he was related to G.K. Chesterton he'd been born in South Africa during the second war his family fled back to the UK but it this was during the
Starting point is 03:30:40 time when Anna Powell was really kind of carving out like a dissident tenancy in the UK too. But the national front, it really got clout when John Tyndall kind of came to the helm. And Tyndall was an interesting guy. I highly recommend his autobiography. It's really, it's good stuff. But, you know, Tyndall, uh, Kindle's big thing was, you know, stop non-white immigration. and he campaigned on a platform of repatriate these people now, which absolutely would have been possible at that time.
Starting point is 03:31:16 That wasn't, he wasn't just like talking shit. Like, we're going to build a wall, and it's going to stop all these Mexicans because it's a wall. It was like nothing like that. It was like, you could do this because the political will was there. You know, and this is when things are totally going to hell in Northern Ireland, and Northern Ireland is relevant to this gladio with third position. I'm not just on a crazy tangent.
Starting point is 03:31:35 But Tyndle was basically, basically like a main, he was a pretty mainstream, like white nationalist, empire loyalist type guy. He's like, why we pussy fighting 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 the Tories like talking a lot of shit? But we're basically getting state socialism and, and we're not, you know,
Starting point is 03:32:01 we're not even a competitive economy anymore. But something started happening with. than the National Front. And the NF2, they'd have these mass rallies in London and, you know, 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 Adair, who was an infamous guy and not an admirable guy, very much a gangster.
Starting point is 03:32:42 He was a national front skinhead, 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 teen and these guys, other than, other than the Mid-Elster UVF, which became the LVF under Billy Rice, rain. You know, people say, like, when I was an outlier, like, the far right and loyalists don't have any 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
Starting point is 03:33:23 position of schismatics in Italy, which in turn impacted the National Front, which in turn found an audience in Ulster, specifically Belfast. but what happened in the National Front was this schism happened between what was called the political soldier faction and what was the flag group because the National Front zine or newsletter was the flag okay um but essentially Tyndall leaves the National Front in identity too
Starting point is 03:33:57 and forms the British National Party which in turn became the BNP of the 90s where Nick Griffin was at the helm which is interesting because Griffin was part of the political soldier faction. But the National Front split during this time, approximately when Tyndall left, okay? And the official National Front, which was the political soldier faction, they started associating with this guy, Roberto Fiore.
Starting point is 03:34:30 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, a bunch of like right wing guys. It was more like their age hues, basically. But the official national front or the political soldier faction, they basically are like, 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 the prime leadership in Disraeli
Starting point is 03:35:07 and you know through like Edwardian days to you know basically probably like when Ramsey McDonald became PM it's like why is that like our model
Starting point is 03:35:17 you know he's like we got to start looking at ourselves as um as a as political soldiers you know we got to start viewing
Starting point is 03:35:28 you know America and its client regime in London our enemy, just as much of the communists are. They started making overtures to Gaddafi, because Gaddafi would, he'd support elements that he thought would advance the goals that, you know, Gaddafi was very much Warsaw Pact adjacent, like 110%. But he was an unusual guy.
Starting point is 03:35:56 And like my friend Big D, like in, you know, the first time I cut Con and whatever, I mean, there was no Rookin. And he was talking, you know, he got swept up in the indictments when, when Jeff Fort, you know, was, and the Rukans were taking him from Kadapi. Which Ford then talked, spent on dope to put on the street. And Gadhi's like, fuck this guy. He put a hit on him. But, you know, like Big D said, he's like, the, a lot of the Rukin leadership was all about that. But so were, like, these third-positioned guys in Europe.
Starting point is 03:36:25 Okay. And, and, of course, the, like, the flag group. you know, they were like, this is bullshit. You know, you don't, you don't, you don't associate with non-whites, without radicals, you know, all of that, okay.
Starting point is 03:36:42 But as the National Front was doing that, um, the, uh, you know, and, um, and this kind of strasserite stuff was, was being, like, widely disseminated, at least within, like, right-wing circles. Um,
Starting point is 03:36:59 You know, at this time, like in 1986, when the two weeks of the party formally split, it was probably about, they probably had about, like, 5,000, like, hardcore members, like, paid dues, and they were, like, on record and all that stuff. And about, uh, probably about 3,000 of them, like, like, stayed with, like, the mainstream national front, but 2000, like, clicked up with, you know, like the political soldier, like, official national front, um,
Starting point is 03:37:36 um, political soldier wing. But they had, you know, in the UK, I'm like here, like, if you got a former,
Starting point is 03:37:44 if you're going to court as 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,
Starting point is 03:37:56 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 if they were clashing you know with the
Starting point is 03:38:14 campaign for nuclear disarmament types 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 of the man this I realize London has changed dramatically since then and since I was there in the late 90s. But I'm sure it's kind of like Shytown. There is kind of like both a silent majority type element that gets mad when they see that
Starting point is 03:38:43 stuff and a lot of these non-white people, whether they should be there or not. It's a different question, but a lot of them don't like that shit either. But, you know, so and plus it's doing 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 tenancy um when it did uh that changed really after tindle left they decided they wanted to become
Starting point is 03:39:19 almost like a mainstream party in some ways you know like a mass membership organization this is one of the reasons for this schism i believe 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 the EU these days like in 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 trees or something like or it it wouldn't like just just by like sure of your value you would be
Starting point is 03:40:02 diluted into into becoming an effectual like regardless of the fact that you know there's not there's not real social capital between an organization like a million members or something but in any event and that was a big thing
Starting point is 03:40:18 the political soldier faction they refuse to stand for a contest contest elections but bringing it to bring it to um bringing it to the northern Ireland situation and kind of how gladio which in turn kind of create a rise in third position which in turn impact like an active conflict on the ground in ways unforeseen this guy named Andy Tiri he was born in Belfast you know some poor
Starting point is 03:40:50 family he sounded like an ex ex-British army soldier um you grew up in the loyalist heartland on Schengel Road. And his family and many others he moved to Bally Murphy and then knew Barnsley when his dad needed work
Starting point is 03:41:12 like, you know, because among other things in the late 60s, there was like a huge recession across the UK but I mean, Belfast was especially hit hard. And when the troubles kicked off in 69, the family they got ethnically cleansed.
Starting point is 03:41:28 Like, they got attacked. So they go back to the Shagull. Tierie is an ancient Scottish name. So I'm sure, like, the Tiri's are on the shit list of the provos, anybody else, like, when it first jumped off. Yet, um, his roots could be traced to the earliest days, the altar plantation. So, I mean, this guy had, like, loyalism in his DNA, okay? Um, I'm not saying that's good or bad. That's a fact.
Starting point is 03:41:56 I mean, it's just a fact. But, so Tiri clicks up with the, he first clicks up with the UVF. And they liked him because he was serious and tough. And he was literally from the Shankill Road. And his family had been attacked by either the provos or adjacent vigilantes. But Tiri looks at the UVF and he's like, you know, these guys are like the UVF's whole notion. First of all, I mean, it, you know, it was the second iteration, which came about in 65 and which Tierie joined. They were very, very selective. They looked at themselves this direct action element
Starting point is 03:42:34 whose 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 we're not a mass membership organization. We're not a vigilante grouping. You know, we're an elite element. We're a counterterrorist element. You know, we attack the provost and we kill them. You know, Terry's old thing is like, look, like my family, you know, But my family got murked and kicked out of our home. You know, we need somebody to protect Protestant areas from this kind of thing. You know, so the UVF said, you know what? That's not what we do.
Starting point is 03:43:10 So Tiri joins the UDA. Well, first he joined the Shankill 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 and like vigilantism
Starting point is 03:43:33 whether it's here in the American South or whether it's an Ulster that's just like what we do you know that's just what that's just what Ulster Scott does do okay as these defense organizations like started street fighting
Starting point is 03:43:49 with their Catholic neighbors and with the provos and and with other elements they started getting coalesced into a single element which became the Ulster Defense Association
Starting point is 03:44:05 which at peak I think had about 50,000 members and UDA's notion they weren't outlawed until 1992 because they incorporated above board and they said we're a defense organization and like in event Dublin intervenes we're going to go to the rifle and we're going to attack.
Starting point is 03:44:27 Or an event, you know, we get sold out by London. We're going to fight. You know, that was their whole deal. And UFF was the cover name for the direct-to-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.
Starting point is 03:44:47 And a lot of people on the provost 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 its thing. That's not the whole, it's, it's more murky than that. Okay. But Tiri, he developed the reputation for two things.
Starting point is 03:45:17 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 those who thought that he was kind of spinning off into crazy territory I said with all respect there's just a fact um he um teary kind of the zenith of this tendency
Starting point is 03:45:48 in may 974 there was the Ulster workers council strike and Tiri knew a bunch of these guys in like the in the belfast and Ulsterwide labor movement because he'd been like a shop steward back in his like days as like a factory laborer you know
Starting point is 03:46:11 so he was somewhat close to this guy Glenn Barr who was the strike leader so like the UDA in those days they had like a very socialist bank you know and like the the worst counsel strike like basically like shut down Belfast this was still when
Starting point is 03:46:32 you know, like the UK was an economy relying on a national industry. This like really, really foobarred things. So Tiri got this reputation. It's like this kind of like labor leader and like hero of the working man, like which he was. That wasn't cap. He was those things.
Starting point is 03:46:49 But he also was like this like rabid loyalist. So I like raised the UD's profile because like people there before had been like these guys are just like a much like Yahoo, vigilantes and killers and like sectarian wackos.
Starting point is 03:47:03 They're like, huh, maybe these guys are actually like serious people or, and whether we like them or not, they're going to have like a serious impact on how the crisis resolves in Northern Ireland. But Terry, he was a big strassarist. He was like reading the kind of content that, like, the new order was putting out. He was like reading like political soldier stuff that the National Front was putting out. He took out, he started putting out essays. and like the UDA magazine about, we got to push for an independent ulster.
Starting point is 03:47:38 Like, Ian Paisley's a bastard. Like, fuck these politicians who are trying to, like, piggyback on the fact we're fighting the war. You know, Tiri famously banned, like, Ian Paisley from, like, this one of UDA meeting. Like, physically is, like, you, like, push them back. Like, get the fuck out of here.
Starting point is 03:47:53 And that made a bunch of people really upset. They're like, you can't do that. He's, I can do what the fuck I want. You know, what are you going to do about it? know, so maybe he had more balls in 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 key conflict cycle. Okay.
Starting point is 03:48:19 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 stuff is like spinning off from what was a very manageable and constructive, you know, mission 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, um, during, um, during, uh, the, uh, the premiership of, um, of, uh, it was the Italian guy who, who, who likes the ladies and died his hair and all, like, broliscone, yeah, yeah, he, um, broliscone was part of this weird, like, quasi-Mason lodge that people, and, like, a bunch of these guys and, like, they're, like, 2000, like, oh, that's,
Starting point is 03:49:27 That's part of Gladio. So these kind of Infowars type guys and like other kind of people like that, they said Sturricular on something like Gladio. Like it's like a big conspiracy. Like not, and like a lot of the content they were dropping had come about in like the later 70s as people were kind of like saying like, Gladiotio is a terrorist tendency and here's why what was happening in Belfast. You know, look at these cops who got blown up.
Starting point is 03:49:57 Italy, like look at all these bad guys who are, you know, they're fascists, they, they got crazy ideas, they're sitting around reading, reading stracrestrous 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, um, I, this is actually important, you know, it's not, I realize I got, like, a strong research interest and things and, like, no in Ireland, but that, that it's significant forward talking about. You know, like I said, too, like as it later on,
Starting point is 03:50:41 after Tiri was killed, you know, this kind of third force in a 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 that camp, even though conditions were different by the time he became powerful on the street. But this guy, Tiri's buddy was this guy named Sammy Duddy.
Starting point is 03:51:20 And one of the, there's a conflict resolution outreach center in Belfast, like name for Duddy, which is interesting. but he was a guy he's a guy who reputation as like a thinker in the UDA 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
Starting point is 03:51:40 and like action-oriented guys. They were the kinds of guys who were prone to like discussing political theory with you. You know, but you know, teary and a duddy absolutely worth those kinds of guys as well as being, you know, very very very hard dudes um but that um the uh terry uh he was one of the guys who found the
Starting point is 03:52:09 the quote the new ulster political research group um they they became famous or within um conflict um study circles because uh they published this paper called uh beyond the beyond the the religious divide. And it reiterated the call for an independent ulster, or at least like a devolved, a truly devolved political structure to be implemented and finding some way
Starting point is 03:52:40 to make peace with the provos in some sort of like organic capacity, which was really, which was really, which was really interesting, I think.
Starting point is 03:52:55 But that, you know, he um this is this this really if you look if people want to know what like what the real world impact was of a 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 and in another i mean think playing with the idea of doing some content on like the big like conspiracy theories like the things that we the ones that at least think worth addressing.
Starting point is 03:53:33 You know, and aren't just, like, stupid. But, um, 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, um, just, I guess, an addendum or an epilogue, um, you know, this, um, people got to understand, too, you know, the, the original mandate of special operations forces, it wasn't to train Navy SEALs to be, like, direct action super commandos. you know, who deployed a landlocked countries
Starting point is 03:54:04 and get on target of individual guys who are thought to be, you know, Taliban 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 William Odom,
Starting point is 03:54:25 who was very much big army, but as he, you know, he was instrumental in NATO war planning, the way he envisioned their role in the force structure. It was when Warsaw Pactover runs us, we're going to parachute or glide in. You guys who look like the people in theater and talk their language are going to click up with these gladio guys on the ground, and you're going to train them on how to do things operationally,
Starting point is 03:54:55 and you're going to lead them, and you're basically going to play Red Dawn in occupied West Germany, or in Italy. Like, that was the idea. You know, it took time for this going to develop into a mainstream idea. And, like, by the late 80s,
Starting point is 03:55:10 like, yeah, 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 reasons green berets. Like, nowadays, like, the Scherapunk of the army of special operations
Starting point is 03:55:28 forces. until the 90s, people are the 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 light kernel problem. 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
Starting point is 03:55:51 this would actually develop. Because you never know when you have a novel concept, Don't be wrong. Like this idea of Special Oppers Forces was absolutely correct. That was a very forward-looking idea. And it was a very ballsy idea.
Starting point is 03:56:08 And it was absolutely the way Army Command Europe should have been looking at things. But it was not something that people felt comfortable with. And of course, there was a concern, too.
Starting point is 03:56:26 What if these guys like go native, which was entirely possible. Okay? But that's where a lot of this kind of strange stuff came from in terms of Cap about Gladio being this conspiracy. I mean, part of it was a typical typical
Starting point is 03:56:47 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 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
Starting point is 03:57:23 those guys who constituted that the core of these tendencies that came out of Gladio they are part of what we are I mean if you're somebody who you know is finds common cause with me
Starting point is 03:57:40 I mean I'm not I'm not speaking for anybody else you know when I say we but you know so that's you've got to know your own heritage not just in terms of the ethnos and your familial lore and your race and your nationality. You've got to know where are these ideas that you commit to where come from. And that's part of it.
Starting point is 03:58:05 I hope that wasn't due 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. Yeah, not a problem. I have two questions. Yeah. One, were you thinking of Mark Dutro?
Starting point is 03:58:20 when you talked about the serial killer? He's another one who's also affiliated with that. These guys in Belgium, they pulled these high incident robberies where they'd store them like a grocery store or something. Like not even like a party that made set. They'd say, this is a robbery
Starting point is 03:58:35 empty your pockets. Then they take like the manager and make them open the safe and they take like like you quote him like $300 or something. Then they'd kill everybody and witnesses and see them, like, loading into this van. And it was guys with, like,
Starting point is 03:58:54 Glock's and H&Ks and um, 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
Starting point is 03:59:12 to steal, like, a few hundred dollars. And they did this, like, six or seven times. Like, they were never identified, but guys doing, like, of stuff like got like like like three to six guys and show up in like military gear with like bala clobas or ski masks this is a robbery no one's going to get hurt but then they kill everybody and a lot of people like these guys were gladio operatives 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
Starting point is 03:59:42 this is martial law it was just like they were doing this and nobody knew why the government was being weird about it, definitely. So people are like, oh, no, they were just training for, you know, like, on target direct action mission. It's like, that's not how you train people. And if they're going to do that, you know what you do or what you would do? You'd say, this is a trap house. See if you guys can get in there, kill everybody and not die.
Starting point is 04:00:06 Like, that's how you do it. You wouldn't say, there's some pensioners and, like, women and kids shopping for groceries. Like, shoot them. Oh, and nobody has any weapons. Like, that doesn't make any sense. But I'm not feeling well, so I'm having some brain fog, but I'll, I'll, um, do chose another one, though. And that case also makes, like, no sense. But, um, all right.
Starting point is 04:00:28 Well, then I'll let you, um, I'll let you get going here. Um, yeah, just do quick plugs. Yeah, man, thank you, Pete. Um, I've got a lot of content in the can for my pod. And people like my homie, Jefferson Lee and like my friend Anthony, um, Romando, they've been, like, helping me with all this stuff. which is awesome. So there's a lot of fresh stuff on my substack.
Starting point is 04:00:53 That's where the podcast is and other good stuff. It's RealThomas-777.substack.com. I'm on social media at Real, capital, R-E-A-L-L- underscore, number seven, lowercase, H-O-M-A-S-7777. I'm on Tgram and Instagram My dear friend here at Krieg He puts out like branded merch that we make Because um
Starting point is 04:01:24 Just like stuff that I think is cool Because I'm kind of like a T-shirt guy And like a clothes guy Um If you'd include that like in the description Because I can never remember like What the um What the website is
Starting point is 04:01:37 But yeah that's where I'm at And I promise um I'll be better in a few days And um again forgive me if this wasn't up to this enough, man. No, this was all good. This was good. There was a lot there.
Starting point is 04:01:51 I'll include everything that you asked. All right. That's a great. Thank you, Pete. All right. Talk soon. Thanks.

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