How the Intelligence Community operates

Time and again I here that conspiracy theories can't be real because they are so often contradictory and far too complex and involve groups and individuals who would never work together, so here, for you delectation, is an example of just what a tangled web the global network of intelligence agencies can weave. Lets start with post World War II Europe. In the weeks and months of late 1944 and early 1945 when it became clear that the defeat of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany was inevitable it also became clear that the allied powers in a post war World would be in a position of ideological opposition. The Western European forces and America knew that the next threat they would face would be the expansionist plans of the Communist forces of Russia under Joseph Stalin. Following the defeat of Germany, the race between these opposing forces to take control of Germany and its intellectual and industrial assets highlighted this conflict and set the stage for the cold war through the 1950's '60's and '70's and the American response to this is what I will be focusing on. Across Europe as each nation returned to some semblance of normality after the war and rebuilding began there was a secret operation taking place that remained hidden until the 1990's.

In each country, groups of key figures within political life, the military and intellectual institutions were recruited, brought together and funded by American security operatives ostensibly operating as a branch of the CIA. These groups operated as sleeper cells and were concealed within semi-secret societies such as the masonic P2 lodge in Italy, the terror gangs of Germany and France such as the Baader Meinhof, the Neo-Nazi paramilitary groups in the UK such as Column 88 and Combat 18 and both sides of the paramilitary groups in Ireland particularly the IRA and the UDF. Following one of these areas gives some insight into exactly how this policy was implemented and what purpose it served. In Italy the P2 masonic lodge was established by a combination of Vatican bankers, Mafia criminal families and politicians who had been active in the Italian Fascist movement. It was funded by the profits of crime and by access to gold reserves amassed by the German Nazis through the death camps and held in secret bank accounts in Switzerland. Now, you would think that a criminal/religious/fascist organisation of this type would be anathema to security services given that by the nature of its members it would be engaged in activities that run counter to security, yet the groups members were trained by CIA and MOSSAD agents in counter insurgency and terror tactics, and were provided with opportunities to procure weapons, ammunition and explosives. The P2 lodge and its members have been implicated in a number of false flag operations including car bombings, assassinations and hijackings.

Similar examples are found in each of the groups established in this era of European uncertainty under the ideal that these groups would operate as agent provocateur in the event of Communist Russian invasion of Europe and the groups were consider as “Stay behind” assets. The principles for this type of operation came out of the work of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) established by Winston Churchill to provide support for resistance movements in occupied Europe, and despite the strange, not to say almost impossible combination of ideologies within these groups and their controllers, for example former Nazi officers operating with Jewish Israeli security agents, the principle of “My enemys enemy is my friend” was paramount and overcame these obstacles.

This may sound like the ultimate conspiracy fiction, but this comes from revelations by the former president of Italy as part of a project called Gladio. Far from being conspiracy nonsense, this is being actively investigated by several European countries and by the European Union. It is also a conspiracy that, in spite of stories to the contrary, is still ongoing. The only difference between the Gladio network of the 1970's and the network that operates today is the nature of the opposition. Will the collapse of the USSR and the democratisation of former Soviet states a new target emerged in the form of expansionist Islam. The rules change, but the game remains the same. Of course, it is interesting to note that the CIA has also been funding, training and arming Islamic groups in counter Communist operations, those same groups who are now the targets of the European groups. Choose to believe any of this or not, the way in which security agencies operate is a perfect example of why anyone who says that a conspiracy can't be real because it is too complex or too sinister couldn't be more wrong. Truth really is stranger than fiction.