Thursday, January 27, 2011

News that are only hours old

Iran's Press TV has British bank account frozen: report

LONDON — Iran's state-run news channel Press TV has had its British bank account frozen, a report said on Thursday.

The English language channel, which is headquartered in Tehran but also has an office in London, has seen its main trading account at the National Westminster Bank suspended, Britain's Times newspaper reported.

The bank will shortly close the account, the paper reported. A spokesman for the bank declined to tell the paper why it was taking the action.

Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of former British prime minister Tony Blair who works for Press TV and recently converted to Islam, blasted the move as a "politically motivated act," in comments to the paper.

It was "intended to cripple a thriving British company whose programmes and news bulletins shed light on areas of policy which certain agencies would sooner keep in the dark," she said.

Matthew Richardson, Press TV's legal adviser, was cited as saying that NatWest had refused to explain why it had frozen the account. "They're not giving any reason why they've done it," he said.


========================


Russia calls for NATO probe into Iran cyber strike

BRUSSELS — Russia called on NATO on Wednesday to launch an investigation into the computer worm that targeted a Russian-built Iranian nuclear power plant, saying the incident could have triggered a new Chernobyl.

Russia's envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, said the Stuxnet virus caused centrifuges producing enriched uranium at the Bushehr plant to spin out of control, which could have sparked a new "Chernobyl tragedy," the 1986 nuclear meltdown in Ukraine.

"The operators saw on their screens that the centrifuges were working normally when in fact they were out of control," Rogozin told reporters after a regular meeting with ambassadors from the 28-nation Western alliance.

"NATO should get down to investigating this matter," he said, adding that he was interested to know if the German firm which built the centrifuges, Siemens, was probing the matter.

Russia is helping Iran build a nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr for civilian use.

Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency said last week that the Stuxnet attack did not affect the country's nuclear programme, including Bushehr.

"I don't think there will be problems in that area. The Bushehr nuclear power plant will be operational and there will not be a second Chernobyl," ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh said during a visit to Moscow.

The New York Times reported last week that US and Israeli intelligence services collaborated to develop the destructive computer worm in a bid to sabotage Iran's efforts to make a nuclear bomb.

US Deputy Defence Secretary William Lynn told reporters during a visit to Brussels this week that there were "ongoing forensics efforts to understand the issues" related to Stuxnet but refused to say more.

In November Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad admitted problems caused by malware, in an apparent reference to the computer virus Stuxnet, but said they had been resolved.


====================



NY Times details rocky relationship with WikiLeaks

WASHINGTON — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange resembles a character from a detective novel and is "elusive, manipulative and volatile," the executive editor of The New York Times says in an upcoming book.

"Open Secrets: WikiLeaks, War and American Diplomacy," a digital book featuring an introduction by Times executive editor Bill Keller and contributions from other Times reporters goes on sale Monday.

The Times described the e-book, which will cost $5.99 and be sold through online bookstores from Amazon, Apple and others, as the "definitive chronicle of the WikiLeaks documents' release and the controversy that ensued."

In his introduction, excerpts of which were posted online by the Times, Keller traces the start of the tumultuous relationship between the newspaper and Assange, the Australian-born founder of WikiLeaks.

Keller said it was Alan Rusbridger, editor of Britain's The Guardian, who convinced Assange in June last year to involve the Times in publication of the secret US military documents on Afghanistan and Iraq obtained by WikiLeaks.

"The adventure that ensued over the next six months combined the cloak-and-dagger intrigue of handling a vast secret archive with the more mundane feat of sorting, searching and understanding a mountain of data.

"As if that were not complicated enough, the project also entailed a source who was elusive, manipulative and volatile," he said, and "government officials who sometimes seemed as if they couldn't decide whether they wanted to engage us or arrest us."

the newspaper "was never asked to sign anything or to pay anything."

Keller said the reporters who worked with Assange on the documents came to think of him as "smart and well-educated, extremely adept technologically


Over time, the relationship with Assange went "from wary to hostile," Keller said, adding that the WikiLeaks founder particularly disliked a Times profile of Manning and one about himself.


Keller said Assange decided to cut the Times out of the release of the stash of US diplomatic cables but the Guardian turned them over anyway.

Ahead of the release, the Times held a meeting at the State Department with "unsmiling" officials from the White House, State Department, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, FBI and Pentagon, he said.

Daily conference calls were subsequently arranged, he said, and the Times "relayed the government's concerns, and our own decisions regarding them, to the other news outlets."

Keller also said he would oppose any attempt to prosecute Assange on First Amendment grounds.

"While I do not regard Assange as a partner, and I would hesitate to describe what WikiLeaks does as journalism, it is chilling to contemplate the possible government prosecution of WikiLeaks for making secrets public," he said.

Within hours of going online, Keller's article drew condemnation from WikiLeaks.

"NYTimes does another self-serving smear. Facts wrong, top to bottom. Dark day for US journalism," WikiLeaks said in a Twitter message.

=======================


Nissan turns new Leaf with all-electric car

YOKOSUKA, Japan — At first glance Nissan's Oppama plant looks like any other. But a closer look reveals workers inserting lithium-ion batteries and electric motors in every sixth vehicle on the production line.

Oppama is home to the production of Nissan's all-electric Leaf, key to the green ambitions of the Japanese auto giant and its French partner Renault, which have sunk four billion euros ($5.5 billion) into the project.

On a rolling conveyor belt, Leaf frames sit alongside conventional petrol models as workers alternate quickly between them, inserting battery packs and electric motors shuttled to them in an automatic cart.

After 16 hours on the production line, the frames have been fitted with their own exhaust-free chassis and electric power units and are ready for rigorous testing.

"We can produce both types of models at the same time as the assembly process is not that different between the two engine types," says plant manager Seiji Honda on the sidelines of a press tour of the facility.

But Nissan hopes that the automobile -- whose name is an acronym for Leading Environmentally-friendly Affordable Family car -- will be a milestone in the industry's efforts to move on from its petrol-reliant past.

Billed as the first mass-produced electric vehicle available globally, 6,000 Leafs had been pre-ordered in Japan and 20,000 in the United States before the car's official launch last month.

The Leaf is selling for 2.98 million yen (36,350 dollars) in Japan and about 25,280 dollars in the United States, once government tax breaks designed to promote green cars are taken into account.

The car is also on sale in Portugal, with deliveries scheduled to begin in select European markets in the coming months.

It can be charged in eight hours at home on a standard plug, or in 30 minutes at a dedicated quick-charging station, for a range of roughly 200 kilometres (125 miles), according to Nissan.

The Leaf emits none of the tailpipe pollutants that have covered city skies in smog and is touted as a step forward from petrol-electric hybrids produced by the likes of Toyota, which makes the best-selling Prius.

However, the pace of production for Nissan's environmental flagship has been slow.

Japanese media reported that only 60 Leafs had been delivered by Nissan in Japan as of January 14, far short of the 6,000 orders it has promised to fulfil by the end of March.

Nissan has denied any delay and says it is simply taking a cautious approach to ensure quality control and will eventually ramp up production to meet its delivery deadline.

"We are working hard to eventually produce 50,000 units per year," said Nissan vice president Toshiharu Sakai.

The plant has already made a total of about 3,000 Leaf cars since starting production in late October, plant manager Honda said.

"We have trained our assembly line employees on how to put the Leaf together and have just hired a score of extra workers on the site" where approximately 2,100 people are employed, says Honda.

Oppama will be solely responsible for global Leaf production until a new plant in Smyrna, in the US state of Tennessee, opens in 2012 with a maximum capacity estimated at 150,000 units per year.

The automaker also aims to start production at Sunderland, northeast England, from 2013 with a capacity for 50,000 vehicles annually.

Battery modules and other precision parts specific to the Leaf are assembled in automated factories nearby "in order to reduce logistics costs", said Sakai.

By relying on cheaper robots to produce parts such as the Leaf battery, Nissan says it is mitigating the impact of a strong yen, which has prompted companies to consider moving production overseas to remain competitive.

And against cheaper competition, Nissan's Leaf project faces various challenges according to analysts who say the vehicle's production cost means it is unlikely to give an initial boost to the automaker's earnings.

The company has nevertheless gambled that its electric car will take off globally and help drive a fledgling market.

Toyota aims to launch its own electric car by 2012 but has put its immediate focus on new hybrid models, to build on its success with the Prius.


============



US must accept blame for financial crisis: panel

WASHINGTON — The United States as a nation must accept blame for causing the financial crisis that engulfed the global economy and cost millions of jobs, a US government-appointed panel reported Thursday.

After 18 months spent reviewing millions of pages of documents, interviewing more than 700 witnesses, and holding 19 days of public hearings, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission concluded bankers, lawmakers and regulators all contributed to the ethical and professional failings that plunged the world into financial panic.

But, it said, the American public, which over decades had saddled itself with unserviceable debt, was also at fault.

"As a nation, we must also accept responsibility," the report read. "Collectively, but certainly not unanimously, we acquiesced to or embraced a system, a set of policies and actions, that gave rise to our predicament."

"This financial crisis was avoidable. The crisis was the result of human action and inaction, not Mother Nature or computer models gone haywire," the report concluded.

Heaping blame on protagonists on Wall Street and in Washington who "ignored warnings, and failed to question, understand and manage the evolving risks within the system," the commission, tasked by Congress and President Barack Obama, said "theirs was a big miss, not a stumble."

The report catalogs, in more than 400 pages, how the mortgage bubble grew, burst and came to infect banks' balance sheets thanks to the magnifying effect of complex financial derivatives.

"Trillions of dollars in risky mortgages had become embedded throughout the financial system."

The report concluded big-name banks -- from Citigroup to Lehman Brothers -- as well as lenders like AIG and Fannie Mae, "acted recklessly, taking on too much risk, with too little capital."

The panel painted a bleak picture of corporate culture that placed "risk justification" before "risk management" and where bonuses encouraged quick deals for short-term gains, without regard for the consequences.

The report also lambasted the "Federal Reserve's pivotal failure to stem the flow of toxic mortgages" through its policies of low interest rates and failure to set adequate standards for lending.

Government regulators, they said, "were not at their posts," instead depending on a misplaced faith that markets would "self-correct" and financial institutions would police themselves.

"We do not accept the view that regulators lacked the power to protect the financial system."

But the panel's conclusions were not reached unanimously. The six Democrat-appointed members of the panel endorsed the final text and four Republicans dissented.

That partisan backing is likely to blunt the impact of the report, which comes after US lawmakers have moved to overhaul Wall Street and a host of books and autobiographies have chronicled events in detail.

But its authors said they hoped the study would help people understand how the crisis could have been avoided.

"The greatest tragedy would be to accept the refrain that no one could have seen this coming and thus nothing could have been done. If we accept this notion it will happen again."




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posted by u2r2h at 10:16 AM 0 comments

Sunday, January 23, 2011

TURKEY - Ergenekon - GLADIO in fiction and reality

Sometimes trying to follow the news in Turkey is just as confusing as
reading a John le Carré spy thriller or watching an action packed
movie set during the Cold War.


With names like Sledgehammer and Ergenekon and an alleged cast of
thousands ranging from retired top military generals to newspaper
editors, the plots being investigated are incredibly complex. Just
when you think you have sorted out who is who, and have got straight
in your mind what they are supposed to have done, there are further
revelations that make the whole thing muddy again.

It seems that with each passing week it is getting harder and harder
to sort out who are the good guys and who are the bad. Listen to one
side and the army are defenders of freedom and democracy. Listen to
the other and the army is subverting democracy by plotting to
overthrow an elected government. Listen to one side and three
Christians in Malatya were brutally murdered by a few young
nationalistic men who lost their grip on reality. Listen to the other
and these killings were part of a series of assassinations of
Christians in Turkey designed to undermine the government in Western
eyes.

Who to believe? What to believe? Can you take people at face value?
This is not a new problem, and certainly not one exclusive to Turkey.
One of the most famous spy webs in British history starred names like
Philby, Burgess and Maclean. The first deception was them posing in
ordinary positions whilst spying for Britain. However they were double
agents, passing secrets to Moscow. Stalin, however, for a period
suspected Philby of being a triple agent and distrusted information
received from him until a number of tests showed he was genuine.

A triple agent is one set up by their original spymasters as a
deliberate plant posing to the other side as a double agent,
pretending to be treacherous to their home country when they aren't
really. Confused? If like me you prefer to live in a world where
everyone tells the truth and you can take what they say at face value,
then you definitely will be.

Of course we have to recognize that they are only famous because they
were found out, so maybe they weren't quite so successful after all.
But, it seems that all of the really great names in the UK spy world
had a Turkey connection. In the Cold War Turkey was an essential ally
-- the last bastion in southeastern Europe before the Black Sea and
the Soviet threat. The stakes were high in the poker game to keep
Turkey from falling to the Communists too and making the Black Sea
into a Soviet lake. Now Turkey is similarly important due to the drugs
and terrorist threats from neighbors slightly further east.

Philby and Burgess were both posted in İstanbul in the 1940s and
famously became really drunk together one night at the Moda Yacht
Club, which is still a trendy spot near Kadıköy on the Asian side of
the city.

This is an age fictionally brought to life in part two of Jeremy Duns'
engrossing Paul Dark spy series. Peppered with undercover agents
cleverly disguised as ordinary citizens -- "he looked more like a bank
clerk on his day off than the infiltrator of a terrorist cell" --
"Free Country" tells the story of a spy who has gone bad, acting as a
double agent for Moscow, but is fleeing for his life as both sides
want him dead.

Two chiefs of MI6 have been murdered in two months. Our hero is not
entirely innocent in this. Russian agents, his previous clandestine
friends, are now tailing him with the aim of silencing him forever.
The tale leaps and twists and turns from St Paul's Cathedral, to dark
tunnels in the London Underground network. A connection with Italian
red terrorists moves the action to Rome, then via Sicily to St Peter's
in the Vatican City and then a chase across Italy to Turin, the home
of the Shroud.

The final unraveling of the plot to reveal Italian authorities in the
1960s being behind the attacks on civilians and blaming this on red
brigade terrorist groups to keep public opinion anti-Communist
resonates with some of the news items in Turkey in the 2010s.

Before we reach this climax, though, our hero has a flashback to the
1950s to an incident that had taken place when he was stationed in
Pera House in İstanbul. The city had been crawling with spies since
the war, and Dark had stumbled upon the Stay Behind operation.

He had discovered a large-scale fold-out map of Turkey with 30 circles
on it. In the dead of night exploring the nearest one, just outside
İzmit, he finds a tunnel with a stash of rifles, pistols, binoculars,
a radio set and commando daggers. This was an arms dump for
sleeper-cell resistance forces: Men who knew where the bases were and
who had been trained in guerilla warfare. These cells could be
triggered into immediate action in the event that Russia invaded.

I guess the piece of land belonging to the İstek Vakfı in Poyrazköy
wasn't on the map that our fictional anti-hero Dark found in the
1960s, but it sounds familiar doesn't it?

In his novel, Duns explains that the Americans built on the
foundations the British laid and made the organization into Gladio.
Some cells were for intelligence gathering, some for sabotage, others
for propaganda, escape and guerilla warfare.

What was the inspiration for the name Gladio? It was named after a
small stabbing knife used by the gladiators; this knife would produce
a superficial wound with a lot of blood. It would not finish off the
opponent quickly, and thus finish the contest, but it would terrify
and prolong the entertainment for the crowds. A spymaster explains it
to Dark: "They are not interested in killing many innocent people --
but they want to terrify many people, with a superficial but
spectacularly bloody wound."

In preparation for his novel Duns read through pages and pages of
classified documents now released under the time-lapse rules. Sadly
his research on İstanbul is less accurate: he has our hero driving a
jeep across the Galata Bridge from Pera and continuing on by land to
İzmit. Even if he had accurately identified the Bosporus Bridge as
connecting the two continents, that wasn't built until some 20 years
after the action took place.

This does no more than put a small dent in an otherwise well
researched and documented set of guesses. In the notes at the end of
the novel, Duns points out that "the existence of British stay-behind
network and their offshoots had been publicized prior to Andreotti's
statement" -- here referring to an admission by the Italian prime
minister in 1990 that Gladio was part of a secret NATO operation.

He continues: "The CIA established the Turkish arm of the network in
1952, but I have speculated that the British had already done some
work along these lines a year earlier. This is based in part on a
paragraph in Kim Philby's memoirs in which he stated that the
Directorate of War Planning was busy setting up 'centers of
resistance' and guerilla bases in Turkey to counter a possible Soviet
invasion while he was stationed there in the late 1940s."

From these facts he has woven a gripping thriller, "not a few spooks
idly plotting and placing a bomb here and there, but a highly trained
army ready to do their dirty work." The prosecutors in today's
Ergenekon trials would say that truth really is stranger than fiction.
"Free Country" by Jeremy Duns, published by Simon & Schuster Ltd.
(2010), 19.99 pounds in hardcover ISBN: 978-1847374448

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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

insurgency - defending the corrupt rulers


Frank Kitson, Low intensity operations: subversion, insurgency, peacekeeping (1971)

Reviewed by Dale Wharton, Montreal <40@dale.cam.org>, 11 January 1966

Low intensity operations: subversion, insurgency, peacekeeping, by Frank Kitson, 1926-. Harrisburg PA: Stackpole Books, 1971. 208 pp, bibliography, index. SBN 0-8117-0957-4, LC call number U 240.K53 1971

Riots broke out in 100 US cities in 1967. (It was the year before Martin Luther King Jr died.) Inner cities have since decayed. The poor have sunk even deeper. Yet North America's underclass has not risen. How could a ruling group keep the lid on civil unrest?

The circle near Her Britannic Majesty does it--and fends off social change--using warriors like Frank Kitson. The author fought subversion and insurgency (S&I) and tried peacekeeping in Kenya 1953-5, Malaya 1957, Cyprus 1962-4, and Northern Ireland 1970-2. He explains that traditional methods may fail against S&I. Gradually the more intelligent officers find themselves developing a new...deviousness, patience, and...determination to outwit their opponents by all means ... (p 200). Their two main means: stealth and fraud.

The foe, S&I, aims ...to overthrow those governing the country...or to force them to do things which they do not want to do. [S&I] can involve the use of political and economic pressure, strikes, protest marches, and propaganda, and...the use of small-scale violence for the purpose of coercing...members of the population into giving support (p 3). Subversives stop with harassment, insurgents take up arms.

Growth in S&I--that is, in modern warfare--may stem from the new ways of getting people to think and to act. Literacy, radio, and television are now widespread. S&I can use them to aggravate social discontent, racial ferment, nationalism, contempt for authority, etc. (High order conflict, on the other hand, has lost favour since refinement in weapons of mass destruction.) Kitson argues that S&I has three phases.

PHASE I. Preparing to protest, ...the enemy [a section of the country's people] is likely to be occupied in spreading his cause... (p 71). Set agents to work now! In normal times, and in the very early stages of subversion, the intelligence organisation has got to be able to penetrate small...highly secure targets (p 72). It may have to invent new ways to do it. (At a Rand Corporation symposium in 1962 the author found a consensus: field officers prefer lots of low grade information to a small amount of higher quality.)

Next, the army should help with psyops (psychological operations-- propaganda, PR). Psyops can offset the popular appeal of S&I's cause and enhance the government's story. Experts develop policy; technicians put the policy into films, programmes, articles, leaflets; machines spread the results by broadcast, print, and projection. At this early stage, the army may even counterorganize. It can build controls over the civil community and frustrate any efforts by S&I to do so. The method adds to psyops with good deeds. It sends out persons whose tasks are ...doing work [to] help remove sources of grievances and at the same time making contact with the people. The...jobs... range from teaching to the setting up of clinics, advising on simple construction works, and working on agricultural projects (p 79).

PHASE II. Nonviolent disorder--mass meetings, marches, strikes-- requires persuading multitudes to do something. This phase focuses on crowds, usually in cities. Kitson suggests a ...judicious promise of concessions [to split the many from S&I leaders, while] imposing ...calm by the use of government forces [then announcing] that most of the concessions can only be implemented once...life...returns to normal (p 87). Civilians must look upon troops with ...respect and awe.... If an impression can be built that although [they] have used little force so far, they might at any moment use a great deal more, the people will be wary and...fewer men will be needed (p 90).

PHASE III. Open insurgency erupts. The army's job is first to find armed groups and their supporters, then to smash them. It collects and studies background information, developing it to enable contact with the opponent. Kitson tells how to fish for information and to snuff out ...very small groups...in large urban rabbit warrens... (p 127). An example of a simple Special Operation would be the cordonning of a [community] and the examination of occupants by...informers concealed in hoods... (p 100). Technology helps. Suppose a central computer kept watch lists--data on S&I throughout the country. If a remote interrogator could search them by wireless, he might ...get the information he needs to break down a prisoner without delay (p 142).

Then a brigadier, Frank Kitson wrote this as UK forces steadily shrank. He dwells on controlling costs. The book casts 11 chapters into three parts: trends and background, the army's contribution, and preparation required. There are four organisation charts. Two maps illustrate a scenario of S&I. A lawyer in the US says LOW INTENSITY OPERATIONS is the leading treatise on nonstop spying and deceit.* The author seems selective with charges of terrorism, but he respects sensibilities: he omits details of interrogation and wetwork (torture and disposal of captives). Kitson's other books are GANGS AND COUNTERGANGS (Barrie and Rockliff, 1960), BUNCH OF FIVE (Faber, 1977), WARFARE AS A WHOLE (Faber, 1987), DIRECTING OPERATIONS (Faber, 1989), and (editor) PRINCE RUPERT: portrait of a soldier (Constable, 1994).

WHO'S WHO 1995 sums up the career of General Sir Frank Edward Kitson. He rose to Commander in Chief, United Kingdom Land Forces 1982-5 and Aide-de-Camp General to the Queen 1983-5. In 1985 he became Knight Grand Cross, Order of the British Empire. Address: c/o Lloyds Bank, Farnham, Surrey... Club: Boodle's (p 1086).

* Glick, Brian, WAR AT HOME: covert action against US activists and what we can do about it (South End Press, 1989), p 37. Glick includes an FBI memo of 3/4/68--some goals of COINTELPRO: Prevent the rise of a `messiah' who could unify...the militant black nationalist movement .... You must discredit these groups and individuals (p 78f). #

%A Frank Kitson, 1926-
%C Harrisburg PA
%D 1971
%G SBN 0-8117-0957-4, LC accession number 72-162452 \
ISBN 0-5710-9801-0 (London: Faber, 1971)
%I Stackpole Books
%K combat guerilla insurgent subversive urban warfare
%P xi, 208 pp
%T Low intensity operations : subversion, insurgency, peacekeeping

THE STRATEGY OF TENSION
Despite the failure of Plan Solo, the CIA and the Italian right had largely succeeded in creating the clandestine structures envisioned in Operation Demagnetize. Now the plotters turned their attention to a renewed offensive against the left.

To win intellectual support, the secret services set up a conference in Rome at the luxurious Parco dei Principi hotel in May 1965, for a ``study'' of ``revolutionary war.'' The choice of words was inadvertently revealing, since the conveners and invited participants were planning a real revolution, not just warning of an imaginary communist takeover. The meeting was essentially a reunion of fascists, right-wing journalists, and military personnel. ``The strategy of tension'' that emerged was designed to disrupt normality with terror attacks in order to create chaos and provoke a frightened public into accepting still more authoritarian government. 20

Several ``graduates'' of this exercise had long records of anticommunist actions and would later be implicated in some of Italy's worst massacres. One was journalist and secret agent Guido Giannettini. Four years earlier, he had conducted a seminar at the U.S. Naval Academy on ``The Techniques and Prospects of a Coup d'Etat in Europe.'' Another was notorious fascist Stefano Delle Chiaie, who had reportedly been recruited as a secret agent in 1960. He had organized his own armed band known as Avanguardia Nationale (AN), whose members had begun training in terror tactics in preparation for Plan Solo. 21

General De Lorenzo, whose SIFAR had now become SID, soon enlisted these and other confidants in a new Gladio project. They planned to create a secret parallel force alongside sensitive government offices to neutralize subversive elements not yet ``purified.'' Known as the Parallel SID, its tentacles reached into nearly every key institution of the Italian state. Gen.Vito Miceli, who later headed SID, said he set up the separate structure ``at the request of the Americans and NATO.'' 22


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FRATERNAL BONDS
Two ancient, mysterious, international fraternities kept the loosely-linked Gladio programs from flying apart. The Knights of Malta played a formative role after the war (see box), but the order of Freemasonry and its most notorious lodge in Italy, known as Propaganda Due (pronounced ``doo-ay'' ), or P-2, was far more influential. In the late 1960s, its ``Most Venerable Master'' was Licio Gelli, a Knight of Malta who fought for Franco with Mussolini's Black Shirts. At the end of World War II, Gelli faced execution by Italian partisans for his Nazi collaboration, but escaped by joining the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps. 23 In the 1950s, he was recruited by SIFAR.

After some years of self-imposed exile in Argentine fascist circles,24 he saw his calling in Italy as a Mason. Quickly rising to its top post, he began fraternizing in 1969 with Gen. Alexander Haig, then assistant to Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's national security chief. Gelli became the main intermediary between the CIA and SID's De Lorenzo, also a Mason and Knight. Gelli's first order from the White House was reportedly to recruit 400 more top Italian and NATO officials. 25

To help ferret out dissidents, Gelli and De Lorenzo began compiling personal dossiers on thousands of people, including legislators and clerics. 26 Within a few years, scandal erupted when an inquiry found 157,000 such files in SID, all available to the Ministers of Defense and Interior. 27 Parliament ordered 34,000 files burned, but by then the CIA had obtained duplicates for its archives. 28

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Provocateurs on the Right
In 1968, the Americans started formal commando training for the gladiators at the clandestine Sardinian ``NATO'' base. Within a few years, 4,000 graduates had been placed in strategic posts. At least 139 arms caches, including some at carabinieri barracks, were at their disposal. 29 To induce young men to join such a risky venture, the CIA paid high salaries and promised that if they were killed, their children would be educated at U.S. expense. 30

Tensions began to reach critical mass that same year. While dissidents took to the streets all over the world, in Italy, takeovers of universities and strikes for higher wages and pensions were overshadowed by a series of bloody political crimes. The number of terrorist acts reached 147 in 1968, rising to 398 the next year, and to an incredible peak of 2,498 in 1978 before tapering off, largely because of a new law encouraging informers ( penitenti ). 31 Until 1974, the indiscriminate bombers of the right constituted the main force behind political violence.

The first major explosion occurred in 1969 in Milan's Piazza Fontana; it killed 18 people and injured 90. In this and numerous other massacres, anarchists proved handy scapegoats for fascist provocateurs seeking to blame the left. Responding to a phone tip after the Milan massacre, police arrested 150 alleged anarchists and even put some on trial. But two years later, new evidence led to the indictment of several neofascists and SID officers. Three innocent anarchists were convicted, but later absolved, while those responsible for the attack emerged unpunished by Italian justice. 32

Conclusive Gladio links to political violence were found after a plane exploded in flight near Venice in November 1973. Venetian judge Carlo Mastelloni determined that the Argo-16 aircraft was used to shuttle trainees and munitions between the U.S. base in Sardinia and Gladio sites in northeast Italy.33 The apogee of right-wing terror came in 1974 with two massacres. One, a bombing at an antifascist rally in Brescia, killed eight and injured 102. The other was an explosion on the Italicus train near Bologna, killing 12 and wounding 105. At this point, President Giovanni Leone, with little exaggeration, summed up the situation: "With 10,000 armed civilians running around, as usual, I'm president of shit." 34

At Brescia, the initial call to police also blamed anarchists, but the malefactor later turned out to be a secret agent in the Parallel SID. 35 A similar connection was also alleged in the Italicus case. Two fascists who were eventually convicted were members of a clandestine police group called the Black Dragons, according to the left-wing paper, Lotta Continua. 36 Their sentences were also overturned. Although in these and other cases, many leftists were arrested and tried, fascists or neofascists were often the culprits, in league with Gladio groups and the Italian secret services. Reflecting the degree to which these forces controlled the government through the Parallel SID, nearly all the rightists implicated in these atrocities were later freed.

By 1974, right-wing terror began to be answered by the armed left, which favored carefully targeted hit-and-run attacks over the right's indiscriminate bombings. For the next six years, leftist militants, especially the Red Brigades, responded with a vengeance, accounting for far more acts of political violence than the right. 37 For several years, Italy plunged into a virtual civil war.


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PLOTTING COUPS D'ETAT
Meanwhile, groups of right-wingers were busy planning more takeovers of the elected government, with the active encouragement of U.S. officials. A seminal document was the 1970 132-page order on ``stability operations'' in ``host'' countries, published as Supplement B of the U.S. Army's Field Manual 30-31. Taking its cue from earlier NSC and CIA papers, the manual explained that if a country is not sufficiently anticommunist, ``serious attention must be given to possible modifications of the structure.'' If that country does not react with adequate ``vigor,'' the document continues, ``groups acting under U.S. Army intelligence control should be used to launch violent or nonviolent actions according to the nature of the case.'' 38

With such incendiary suggestions and thousands of U.S.-trained guerrillas ready, the fascists again attempted to take over the government by force in 1970. This time, the instigator was the ``Black Prince'' Borghese. Fifty men under the command of Stefano Delle Chiaie seized the Interior Ministry in Rome after being let in at night by an aide to political police head Federico D'Amato. But the operation was aborted when Borghese received a mysterious phone call later attributed to General Vito Miceli, the military intelligence chief. The plotters were not arrested; instead, they left with 180 stolen machine guns. 39

News of the attack remained secret until an informer tipped the press three months later. By then, the culprits had escaped to Spain. Although the ringleaders were convicted in 1975, the verdict was overturned on appeal. All but one of the machine guns were returned earlier. 40

It was in this atmosphere that the U.S. decided to make another all-out effort to block the communists from gaining strength in the 1972 elections. According to the Pike Report, the CIA disbursed $10 million to 21 candidates, mostly Christian Democrats. 41 That amount did not include $800,000 that Ambassador Graham Martin, going around the CIA, obtained through Henry Kissinger at the White House for General Miceli. 42 Miceli would later face charges for the Borghese coup attempt but, fitting the pattern, he was cleared.

Police foiled another attempted coup that same year. They found hit lists and other documents exposing some 20 subversive groups forming the Parallel SID structure. Roberto Cavallaro, a fascist trade unionist, was implicated, as were highly placed generals, who said they got approval from NATO and U.S. officials. In later testimony, Cavallaro said the group was set up to restore order after any trouble arose. ``When these troubles do not erupt [by themselves],'' he said, ``they are contrived by the far right.'' Gen. Miceli was arrested, but the courts eventually freed him, declaring that there had been no insurrection. 43

Still another right-wing attempt to overthrow the government was set for 1974, reportedly with the imprimatur of both the CIA and NATO. Its leader was Edgardo Sogno, one of Italy's most decorated resistance fighters, who had formed a Gladio-style group after the war. Sogno, who had gained many influential American friends while working at the Italian embassy in Washington during the 1960s, was later arrested, but he, too, was eventually cleared. 44


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GLADIO UNRAVELS
A triple murder at Peteano near Venice in May 1972 turned out to be pivotal in exposing Gladio. The crime occurred when three carabinieri, in response to an anonymous phone call, went to check out a suspicious car. When one of them opened the hood, all three were blown to bits by a boobytrap bomb. 45 An anonymous call two days later implicated the Red Brigades, the most active of the left's revolutionary groups. The police immediately rounded up 200 alleged communists, thieves and pimps for questioning, but no charges were brought. Ten years later, a courageous Venetian magistrate, Felice Casson, reopened the long-dormant case only to learn that there had been no police investigation at the scene. Despite receiving a false analysis from a secret service bomb expert and confronting numerous obstructions and delays, the judge traced the explosives to a militant outfit called New Order and to one of its active members, Vincenzo Vinciguerra. He promptly confessed and was sentenced to life, the only right-wing bomber ever locked up. 46

Vinciguerra refused to implicate others, but described the coverup:

"The carabinieri, the Ministry of Interior, the Customs and Excise police, the civilian and military secret services all knew the truth behind the attack, that I was responsible and all this within 20 days. So they decided, for totally political reasons, to cover it up. 47"

As for his motive, the fascist true believer Vinciguerra said his misdeed was ``an act of revolt against the manipulation'' of neofascism since 1945 by the whole Gladio-based parallel structure. 48

Casson eventually found enough incriminating evidence to implicate the highest officials of the land. In what was the first such request to an Italian president, Casson demanded explanations from President Francesco Cossiga. But Casson didn't stop there; he also demanded that other officials come clean. In October 1990, under pressure from Casson, Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti ended 30 years of denials and described Gladio in detail. He added that all prime ministers had been aware of Gladio, though some later denied it. 49

Suddenly, Italians saw clues to many mysteries, including the unexplained death of Pope John Paul I in 1978. Author David Yallop lists Gelli as a suspect in that case, saying that he, ``for all practical purposes, ran Italy at the time.'' 50

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MEMENTO MORO
Perhaps the most shocking political crime of the 1970s was the kidnapping and murder of Prime Minister Aldo Moro and five of his aides in 1978. The abduction occurred as Moro was on his way to submit a plan to strengthen Italian political stability by bringing communists into the government.

Earlier versions of the plan had sent U.S. officials into a tizzy. Four years before his death, on a visit to the U.S. as foreign minister, Moro was reportedly read the riot act by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and later by an unnamed intelligence official. In testimony during the inquiry into his murder, Moro's widow summed up their ominous words: ``You must abandon your policy of bringing all the political forces in your country into direct collaboration...or you will pay dearly for it.'' 51

Moro was so shaken by the threats, according to an aide, that he became ill the next day and cut short his U.S. visit, saying he was through with politics. 52 But U.S. pressure continued; Senator Henry Jackson (D-Wash.) issued a similar warning two years later in an interview in Italy. 53 Shortly before his kidnapping, Moro wrote an article replying to his U.S. critics, but decided not to publish it. 54

While being held captive for 55 days, Moro pleaded repeatedly with his fellow Christian Democrats to accept a ransom offer to exchange imprisoned Red Brigade members for his freedom. But they refused, to the delight of Allied officials who wanted the Italians to play hardball. In a letter found later, Moro predicted: ``My death will fall like a curse on all Christian Democrats, and it will initiate a disastrous and unstoppable collapse of all the party apparatus.'' 55

During Moro's captivity, police unbelievably claimed to have questioned millions of people and searched thousands of dwellings. But the initial judge investigating the case, Luciano Infelisi, said he had no police at his disposal. ``I ran the investigation with a single typist, without even a telephone in the room.'' He added that he received no useful information from the secret services during the time. 56 Other investigating magistrates suggested in 1985 that one reason for the inaction was that all the key officers involved were members of P-2 and were therefore acting at the behest of Gelli and the CIA. 57

Although the government eventually arrested and convicted several Red Brigade members, many in the press and parliament continue to ask whether SID arranged the kidnapping after receiving orders from higher up. Suspicions naturally turned toward the U.S., particularly Henry Kissinger, though he denied any role in the crime. In Gladio and the Mafia, Washington had the perfect apparatus for doing such a deed without leaving a trace.

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PENETRATING THE RED BRIGADES
That the Red Brigades had been thoroughly infiltrated for years by both the CIA and the Italian secret services is no longer contested. The purpose of the operation was to encourage violence from extremist sectors of the left in order to discredit the left as a whole. The Red Brigades were a perfect foil. With unflinching radicalism, they considered the Italian Communist Party too moderate and Moro's opening too compromising.

The Red Brigades worked closely with the Hyperion Language School in Paris, with some members not realizing it had CIA ties. The school had been founded by three pseudo-revolutionary Italians, one of whom, Corrado Simioni, had worked for the CIA at Radio Free Europe. 58 Another, Duccio Berio, has admitted passing information about Italian leftist groups to SID. 59 Hyperion opened an office in Italy shortly before the kidnapping and closed it a few months later. An Italian police report said Hyperion may be ``the most important CIA office in Europe.'' 60 Mario Moretti, one of those who handled arms deals and the Paris connection for the Red Brigades, managed to avoid arrest in the Moro case for three years even though he personally handled the kidnapping. 61

Venice magistrate Carlo Mastelloni concluded in 1984 that the Red Brigades had for years received arms from the PLO. 62 Mastelloni wrote that ``the de facto secret service level accord between the USA and the PLO was considered relevant to the present investigation into the ... relationship between the Red Brigades organization and the PLO.'' 63 One Gladio scholar, Phillip Willan, concludes that ``the arms deal between the PLO and the Red Brigades formed part of the secret accord between the PLO and the CIA.'' 64 His research indicates that the alleged deal between the CIA and the PLO occurred in 1976, a year after the U.S. promised Israel that it would have no political contacts with the PLO.

At the time of the Moro kidnapping, several leaders of the Brigades were in prison, having been turned in by a double agent after they kidnapped a judge. According to journalist Gianni Cipriani, one of those arrested was carrying phone numbers and personal notes leading to a high official of SID, who had boasted openly of having agents inside the Red Brigades. Other intriguing finds included the discovery in the Brigade offices of a printing press which had previously belonged to SID and ballistics tests showing more than half of the 92 bullets at the kidnapping scene were similar to those in Gladio stocks. 65

Several people have noted the unlikelihood of the Red Brigades pulling off such a smooth, military-style kidnapping in the center of Rome. Alberto Franceschini, a jailed member of the Brigades, said, ``I never thought my comrades outside had the capacity to carry out a complex military operation. ... We remembered ourselves as an organization formed by inexperienced young lads.'' 66 Two days after the crime, one secret service officer told the press that the perpetrators appeared to have had special commando training. 67

When letters written by Moro were found later in a Red Brigades site in Milan, investigators hoped they would reveal key evidence. But Francesco Biscioni, who studied Moro's responses to his captors' questions, concluded that important sections had been excised when they were transcribed. Nonetheless, in one uncensored passage, Moro worried about how Andreotti's ``smooth relationships with his colleagues of the CIA'' would affect his fate. 68

The two people with the most knowledge of Moro's letters were murdered. The Carabiniere general in charge of anti-terrorism, Carlo Alberto Della Chiesa, was transferred to Sicily and killed Mafia-style in 1982, a few months after raising questions about the missing letters. 69 Maverick journalist Mino Pecorelli was assassinated on a Rome street in 1979 just a month after reporting that he had obtained a list of 56 fascists betrayed to the police by Gelli. 70 Thomas Buscetta, a Mafia informer under witness protection in the U.S., accused Andreotti of ordering both killings for fear of being exposed. 71 But an inquiry by his political peers last year found no reason to prosecute the prime minister.

Della Chiesa and Pecorelli were only two of numerous witnesses and potential witnesses murdered before they could be questioned by judges untainted by links to Gladio. 72 President Cossiga, the interior minister when Moro died, told BBC: ``Aldo Moro's death still weighs heavily on the Christian Democrats as does the decision I came to, which turned my hair white, to practically sacrifice Moro to save the Republic.'' 73

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THE BOLOGNA TRAIN STATION BOMBING
A huge explosion at the Bologna train station two years after Moro's death may have whitened the hair of many Italians - not just for the grisly toll of 85 killed and more than 200 injured - but for the official inaction that followed. Although the investigating magistrates suspected neofascists, they were unable to issue credible arrest warrants for more than two years because of false data from the secret services. By that time, all but one of the five chief suspects, two of whom had ties to SID, had skipped the country. 74 The T4 explosive found at the scene matched the Gladio material used in Brescia, Peteano and other bombings, according to expert testimony before Judge Mastelloni. 75

In the trial, the judges cited the ``strategy of tension and its ties to `foreign powers.''' They also found the secret military and civilian structure tied into neofascist groups, P-2, and the secret services. 76 In short, they found the CIA and Gladio.

But their efforts to exact justice for the Bologna bombing came to nothing when, in 1990, the court of appeals acquitted all the alleged ``brains.'' P-2 head Gelli went free, as did two secret service chiefs whose perjury convictions were overturned. Four gladiators convicted of participating in an armed group also won appeals. That left Peteano as the only major bombing case with a conviction of the actual bomber, thanks to Vinciguerra's confession.

The sorry judicial record in these monstrous crimes showed how completely the Gladio network enveloped the army, police, secret services and the top courts. Thanks to P-2, with its 963 well-placed brothers, 77 the collusion also extended into the top levels of media and business.

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FRUITS OF GLADIO
By the early 1980s, however, court data revealed enough CIA fingerprints to provoke strong anti-U.S. sentiment. In 1981, the offices of three U.S. firms in Rome were bombed. In 1982, the Red Brigades kidnapped James L. Dozier, a U.S. general attached to NATO, calling him a ``Yankee hangman.'' 78 He was freed after five weeks by police commandos, reportedly with the help of the CIA's Mafia connections. 79 But damage to the U.S. image has been remarkably constrained considering what the U.S. did to Italian society and government for 50 years in the name of anticommunism.

Moro's final prediction came true. Instead of bolstering the center parties, Gladio, helped by the corruption scandals, destroyed them. Instead of destroying the leftists, Gladio revelations helped them win control of major cities while retaining one-third of parliament. By the early 1980s, the Red Brigades were wiped out, but the major sources of right-wing terrorism - the Mafia and the neofascists - remained active.80

The end results lead some to question the whole rationale of U.S. involvement in Italy, particularly in regard to the ``communist menace.'' According to Phillip Willan, who wrote the definitive book on Italian terrorism:


"The U.S. has consistently refused to recognize the Italian Communist Party's

increasingly wholehearted commitment to the principles of Western democracy and

its validity as an alternative to the generally corrupt and incompetent political

parties that have governed Italy since the war. Had it done so, much of the

bloodshed resulting from the strategy of tension might have been avoided. 81"
Willan goes on to ask ``whether U.S. and Italian intelligence officials may have deliberately over-emphasized the communist threat in order to give themselves greater power and greater leeway for their own maneuvers.'' 82

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posted by u2r2h at 2:18 AM 0 comments

Monday, January 17, 2011

Fwd: GLADIO never existed (US government statement)





This webpage does no longer exist... I rescued it...


Misinformation about "Gladio/Stay Behind" Networks Resurfaces

Thirty Year-Old Soviet Forgery Cited by Researchers

In December 2005, misinformation resurfaced in Greece claiming, falsely, that a secret "stay behind" network, which the Greek government had set up with CIA assistance, had committed acts of terrorism.  During the Cold War, West European countries set up clandestine "stay behind" networks, which were designed to form the nucleus of resistance movements if the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Western Europe. 

The Greek writer making the claim – and a Swiss researcher who wrote a 2005 book on the "stay behind" networks – both give credence to a Soviet forgery from the 1970s, which has long been publicly identified as a phony document.

"Gladio," which means "sword" in Italian, was the name the Italian government chose for the "stay behind" network it established in the early days of the Cold War.  Other West European governments formed similar networks. 

During World War II, anti-Nazi resistance movements had sprung up throughout Europe, but supplying them by airdrops and other risky measures had been difficult and uncertain.  The "stay behind" networks sought to avoid such problems by stockpiling weapons in secret caches ahead of time, and recruiting volunteers who would form the core of resistance movements, if needed.  The program remained one of the Cold War's best-kept secrets until it was revealed in late 1990, first in Italy and then in other West European countries.

Soon after the "stay behind" networks were revealed, some media accounts accused them of misdeeds, including domestic acts of terrorism.  In April 1992, some 18 months after Gladio's disclosure, journalist Jonathan Kwitny wrote in The Nation that, "evidence so far hasn't supported initial allegations that the secret armies used their hidden C.I.A.-supplied caches of weapons and explosives to carry out political violence that killed civilians." 

Nevertheless, such claims resurfaced on December 18, 2005, in To Proto Thema, Greece's best-selling investigative/sensationalist Sunday newspaper, which ran a full two-page story by Kleanthis Grivas, headlined, "Terrorism in Post-War Europe."  Grivas accused Greece's "stay behind" network of several assassinations and bombings.

Some of the claims are clearly absurd.  Grivas accused Greece's "stay behind" network, known as "Sheepskin" or "Red Sheepskin," which he says was "organized by Greek special forces and the CIA," of assassinating CIA station chief Richard Welch in Athens in 1975.  Thus, Grivas bizarrely accuses the CIA of playing a role in the assassination of one of its own senior officials. 

Grivas also accused "Sheepskin" of the assassination in Athens of British military attaché Stephen Saunders in 2000, despite the fact that the Greek government stated it dismantled the "stay behind" network in 1988.  In reality, the Greek terrorist organization "17 November" was responsible for both assassinations.

Thirty Year-Old Soviet Forgery Cited by Researchers

Grivas and other prominent "stay behind" researchers appear to have been influenced by a bogus text that first surfaced in 1976, a Soviet forgery purporting to be Supplement B to the U.S. Army's Field Manual 30-31.

The U.S. Army did have a Field Manual (FM) 30-31 in the 1970s, and a "Supplement A" to it existed, but not a "Supplement B."  The purported "Supplement B" was a forgery apparently concocted by the Soviet disinformation service. 

Field Manual 30-31B, also known as the "Westmoreland Manual" because it was purportedly signed by General William Westmoreland, was exposed as a "total fabrication" in February 1980 hearings before the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  The Committee hearings state:

In February 1976, a photocopy of the bogus FM 30-31B was left on the bulletin board of the Embassy of the Philippines in Bangkok, Thailand with a cover note from an anonymous "concerned citizen."  This is a typical Soviet bloc practice.  Surfacing attracted little attention.  FM 30-31B reappeared in 1978 when it was reprinted in two Spanish publications, El Pais (18 September) and El Triunfo (23 September).  This was the work of a Spanish communist and a Cuban intelligence officer.  Since September 1978, the manual and/or articles concerning it have appeared in the world press in more than 20 countries, including the United States. [Source: Soviet Covert Action (The Forgery Offensive), Hearings before the Subcommittee on Oversight of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, House of Representatives, 96th Congress, Second Session, February 6, 19, 1980, p. 86.]

The hearings added that, "in summer 1979, the Soviets prepared Portuguese-language copies of the forgery and covertly circulated them among military officers in Lisbon."  (p. 87)

The forgery was written so that it appeared to offer "proof" that the United States was the secret sponsor of terrorist acts in foreign countries, stating, in a section on "Agents in Special Operations:"

There may be times when HC [Host Country] governments show passivity or indecision in the face of Communist or Communist-inspired subversion, and react with inadequate vigor to intelligence estimates transmitted by U.S. agencies.  Such situations are particularly likely to arise when the insurgency seeks to achieve tactical advantage by temporarily refraining from violence, thus lulling HC authorities into a state of false security.  In such cases, U.S. Army intelligence must have the means of launching special operations which will convince the HC governments and public opinion of the reality of the insurgent danger and of the necessity of counteraction.

To this end, U.S. Army intelligence should seek to penetrate the insurgency by means of agents on special assignment, with the task of forming special action groups among the more radical elements of the insurgency.  When the kind of situation envisaged above arises, these groups, acting under U.S. Army intelligence control, should be used to launch violent or nonviolent actions according to the nature of the case.  Such actions could include those described in FM 30-31 as characterizing Phase II and III of insurgency.

In cases where the infiltration of such agents into the insurgent leadership has not been effectively implemented, it may help towards the achievement of the above ends to utilize ultra-leftist organizations.  [Source: Soviet Covert Action (The Forgery Offensive), p. 184.]

A poor quality copy of the forgery and a declassified cover note describing how it surfaced can be viewed on the Internet.

Grivas and other "stay behind" researchers have treated the Soviet forgery as if it were a real document. 

In Grivas' book, Terrorism: a Privileged Means of Policy Making, he reportedly treats FM 30-31B as if it were authentic.  An August 4, 2002 article in the Greek communist weekly Rizospatsis, which stated that it obtained its information from Grivas' book, saw FM 30-31B as evidence that the United States had been behind the upsurge of radical leftist terrorism in Western Europe in the mid-1970s.  It stated:

It is worth noting that the implementation of the Manual coincided with a surge in terrorist activity, such as the RAF [Red Army Faction] in West Germany and the Red Brigades in Italy.  It is also worth noting that the activities of 17N [17 November] in Greece began in 1975.  It was a critical time that had all the characteristics included in the Manual.

Swiss researcher Daniele Ganser, who works at Zurich's Center for Security Studies, has also been fooled by the forgery.  Ganser treats the forgery as if it was a genuine document in his 2005 book on "stay behind" networks, Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe and includes it as a key document on his Web site on the book.  Ganser writes, "FM 30-31B is maybe the most important Pentagon document with regard to the stay-behind armies."  He goes on to speculate that the bogus document may provide the blueprint for terrorist acts that occurred during the Cold War in Western Europe.

Former CIA Director Describes Setting Up "Stay Behind" Networks

Former CIA director William Colby wrote about his role in setting up "stay behind" networks in Scandinavia in his 1978 memoir Honorable Men:

One of the main fields of the OPC's [Office of Policy Coordination, the unit in the CIA responsible for paramilitary activities] work then [in 1951] was planning for the not unlikely possibility of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.  And, in the event the Russians succeeded in taking over any or all of the countries of the Continent ... the OPC wanted to be in a position to activate well-armed and well-organized partisan uprisings against the occupiers.  But this time, unlike ... similar OSS paramilitary teams that went in to help the French maquis and other resistance movements during World War II, the OPC didn't want to have to arm and organize those partisans after the occupation, using such dangerous and fallible operations as night flights, supply drops, and parachute infiltrations behind enemy lines.  No, this time ... we intended to have that resistance capability in place before the occupation, indeed even before an invasion; we were determined to organize and supply it now, while we still had the time in which to do it right and at the minimum of risk.  Thus, the OPC had undertaken a major program of building, throughout those Western European countries that seemed likely targets for Soviet attack, what in the parlance of the intelligence trade were known as "stay-behind nets," clandestine infrastructures of leaders and equipment trained and ready to be called into action as sabotage and espionage forces when the time came.  (pp. 81-82)

Colby makes it clear that the NATO allies with whom he worked in Scandinavia were full partners in such plans:

            … the governments themselves would build their own stay-behind nets, counting on activating them from exile to carry on the struggle.  These nets had to be coordinated with NATO's plans, their radios had to be hooked to a future exile location, and the specialized equipment had to be secured from CIA and secretly cached in snowy hideouts for later use.  (p. 82)

Conclusion

A thirty year-old Soviet forgery has been cited as one of the central pieces of "evidence" for the false notion that West European "stay-behind" networks engaged in terrorism, allegedly at U.S. instigation.  This is not true, and those researching the "stay behind" networks need to be more discriminating in evaluating the trustworthiness of their source material. 


Created: 20 Jan 2006 Updated: 20 Jan 2006

webpage by STATE DEPARTMENT
the original address was
http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2006/Jan/20-127177.html



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posted by u2r2h at 11:06 PM 0 comments

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Sri Lanka newspager - USA illegal wars


The writer sadly believes that the mass killing of Tamils was justified.

Sri Lanka is ruled by DEEP STATE military system, who use FALSE FLAG terror
against their own people.  The author would deny this, but there is proof.
The journalist WICKRAMATUNGA was murdered by the State, and
wrote about ii!!!!

http://u2r2h-documents.blogspot.com/2009/01/bbc-censors-deep-state-example.html

http://tangibleinfo.blogspot.com/2009/02/sri-lanka-routinely-to-bomb-its-own.html

http://tangibleinfo.blogspot.com/2009/01/help-massacre-in-progress-do-something.html

http://u2r2h.blogspot.com/2009/08/sri-lanka-war-crimes-told-you-so.html

United States operates paramilitary forces in foreign nations to thwart democracy

Daya Gamage – US National Correspondent Asian Tribune

Washington, D.C. 15 January (Asiantribune.com):

The United States which took a hard line against paramilitaries operated in Sri Lanka during the counter-terrorism operation against the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) and went to the extent of even threatening the Sri Lankan political leadership of military and economic sanctions of it does not dismantle them is itself has been engaged in creating, training, funding, directing and operating paramilitary forces in many Third World nations, Asian Tribune research/investigations reveal.

A document prepared by a U.S. Army Colonel attached to the U.S. War College dated 30 March 2009 as a Strategy Research Project which goes to 26 pages titled 'Different World: Unacknowledged Special Operations and Covert Actions' gives the whole story of how the United States conducts its covert actions traditionally divided into three categories: propaganda, paramilitary operations, and political action.

The Asian Tribune will reveal in this account how the funds have been authorized by the United States Congress connecting the 'paramilitary operations' to the President, Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Pentagon. The funds were initially allocated under a special defense authorization act in 2005, and have been extended to 2013 with enhanced fund allocation.

In the light of WikiLeaks revelations of Colombo's American Embassy classified cables to Washington State Department prepared by the embassy's political division and scrutinized and signed by Ambassador Robert O. Blake (now the assistant secretary for south and central Asian affairs) carried in full by Asian Tribune , this report gives the readers and the authorities in Sri Lanka the naked double standards of the United States to halt Sri Lanka's serious military offensive against a ruthless terrorist movement that has its tentacles all over the globe including the US State Department and the European Union.

The Asian Tribune will present the exact method the United States is using to give birth to paramilitary units in other countries that the U.S. has national security interests based on the US War College document it managed to unearth, and what it endeavors to achieve in its global counter-terrorism operations.

The objective of sending a diplomatic cable to Washington by Robert Blake and his political section implicating the LTTE-breakaway group TMVP (or Karuna Group) to abductions, rape, prostitutions and extra-judicial killings related by nebulous embassy contacts can be presumed as an effort to thwart the Sri Lanka's offensive against the Tamil Tigers in removing the Karuna-Douglas Devananda-strategic forces that were helpful to the military to defeat the Tigers.

The story here is how the United States is using the same tactic to defeat terrorism in other parts of the world. In Sri Lanka's case the U.S. painted the Karuna-Devananda group as 'killer group' to make it an international issue (which it made), tarnish the military operation, and re-direct the resolve of Sri Lanka to prevent the total annihilation of the Tamil Tigers but to maintain as a pressure group to influence the Sri Lanka polity.

"The ability for the United States to employ special operations forces in denied areas, on secret, unacknowledged missions, is critical to our success in the current war and in future conflict. In the area of covert operations, there is an ongoing debate about the blurred operational lines between DoD-led "Title 10 operations" versus CIA-led "Title 50 operations," was the understanding of Colonel Richard C. Gross of the U.S. Army War College when he wrote a strategic research paper 'Different Worlds: Unacknowledged Special Operations and Covert Action' for the Department of National Security and Strategy of the War College dated 30 March 2009.

Colonel Gross' paper examines the statutory and doctrinal definitions of covert action, to include the "traditional military activities" exception to the law; the legal requirements for using covert action as defined in law; and the policy issues surrounding the use of covert action. Special operations forces conducting missions where the role of the U.S. is unacknowledged are not conducting "covert action" within the meaning of the law, as long as those missions are under the command and control of a military commander in support of ongoing or anticipated hostilities.

"These operations would not rise to the statutory level of "covert action" and thus would not require the Presidential finding and Congressional notification," the paper says.

For the Asian Tribune readers knowledge the Defining "Covert Action" relates: Under federal law, "covert action" is defined as "an activity or activities of the United States Government to influence political, economic, or military conditions abroad, where it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly…."8 Covert action is another means of exercising national power in pursuit of national interests; however, unlike "soft power" or overt military action, covert action is used in those situations where the United States does not wish its exercise of power to be known. Covert action is a third option when "soft" exercises of national power, such as diplomacy, economic sanctions, or informational power, are ineffective in influencing conditions abroad on one hand, while the use of overt military force is undesirable or not feasible on the other.

And, covert action is traditionally divided into three categories: propaganda, paramilitary operations, and political action.

Our interest here is paramilitary action.

Colonel Gloss' US Army War College paper that describes the Irregular Warfare and Paramilitary Operations projects a very clear idea how the United States was/is involved in the creation, nurturing, directing and operating the paramilitary groups in other countries in its global war against terrorism.

(Quote) Nowhere is the need for clarity more important than in the area of paramilitary operations, a subset of irregular warfare. Irregular warfare is gaining prominence within the Department of Defense (DoD); in fact, new DoD policy makes irregular warfare "as strategically important as traditional warfare."

Irregular warfare is defined as:

'A violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant population(s). Irregular warfare favors indirect and asymmetric approaches, though it may employ the full range of military and other capacities, in order to erode an adversary's power, influence, and will'.

"In order to be successful in irregular warfare, DoD intends to "extend U.S. reach into denied areas and uncertain environments by operating with and through indigenous foreign forces." Such warfare is a separate mission from training and advising a country's own military forces in order for that country to protect its own sovereignty.

"Operating through indigenous forces to extend U.S. reach essentially involves the use of surrogate or paramilitary forces to achieve U.S. national interests in areas where U.S. military cannot go easily (or at all). In order to accomplish this, US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) must "develop [special operations forces] capabilities for extending U.S. reach into denied areas and uncertain environments by operating with and through indigenous foreign forces or by conducting low visibility operations."

"For example, unconventional warfare, a subset of irregular warfare, involves the use of indigenous or surrogate forces, to include paramilitary forces, to conduct guerrilla warfare, subversion, sabotage, intelligence activities, and unconventional assisted recovery. The Army field manual on UW states that the "conceptual core" of unconventional warfare is "working by, with, or through irregular surrogates in a clandestine and/or covert manner against opposing actors." These unconventional warfare operations, if conducted by the CIA, would be considered special activities and/or covert action. However, if conducted by a combatant command using special operations forces, under the command of a military commander, these operations would not rise to the level of covert action as defined in statute, even if the role of the U.S. was unacknowledged.

"The CIA has conducted paramilitary operations since its creation in 1947, to include the failed Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba in 1961, efforts in Laos during the Vietnam War, and recent operations in Afghanistan in 2001". (End Quote)

This US Army War College document clearly gives what is not defined as 'covert action', something very educational. And that's how the U.S. operates.

(Begin Quote) Covert action is sometimes referred to as the "third option" of American policy, allowing the government to influence other nations, whether friendly or enemy, in areas of national interest, without overtly revealing its hand or resorting to military action. The "plausible deniability" inherent in covert action allows the United States to pursue national interests in areas otherwise denied to a U.S. presence. Additionally, the use of covert action may allow the U.S. to influence a peer or near-peer competitor without the risk of escalation or military conflict.

"Although secret by definition, federal law requires Presidential approval and significant executive and legislative oversight (by members of both political parties) of covert action, which reduces the risk of "rogue" programs.

"The first statutory definition of "covert action" was enacted in 1991 in an amendment to the National Security Act of 1947. Federal law defines covert action as "an activity or activities of the United States Government to influence political, economic, or military conditions abroad, where it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly…."

"The following activities are not defined as covert and they are outside the definition of covert:

(1) activities the primary purpose of which is to acquire intelligence, traditional counterintelligence activities, traditional activities to improve or maintain the operational security of United States Government programs, or administrative activities;

(2) traditional diplomatic or military activities or routine support to such activities;

(3) traditional law enforcement activities conducted by United States
Government law enforcement agencies or routine support to such activities; or

(4) activities to provide routine support to the overt activities (other than activities described in paragraph (1), (2), or (3)) of other United States Government agencies abroad. (End Quote)

The US Army War College document authored by Col. Gloss gives the Law Promoting Paramilitary Operations:

(Begin Quote) Congress has recently increased the capability of Department of Defense (DoD) to conduct paramilitary operations by creating a new paramilitary funding mechanism for US Special Operations Command USSOCOM. The Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005, Section 1208, permitted U.S. special operations forces to pay and equip foreign forces or groups supporting the U.S. in combating terrorism.

Previously, DoD forces had to go to the CIA for this funding. Referring to Section 1208 funds in his 2008 USSOCOM Posture Statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Admiral Eric Olson, commander of USSOCOM, stated that "a most important tool in our ability to build the capacity of partner nations to conduct counterterrorism or stability operations is our continued authority to train and equip foreign military forces."54 Admiral Olson added that these authorities "have made a big difference in developing carefully selected counterpart forces."

"Paramilitary operations are a critical tool in the war on terrorism, and the role of special operations forces will continue to grow in this area. It is likely that as it does, USSOCOM will find it necessary to deny the role of U.S. forces in sensitive or denied areas, particularly in the case of UW. In those cases, as long as the special operations forces remain under a military commander, these paramilitary operations will not be "covert" within the legal meaning of the phrase". (End Quote)

The Law Funding Paramilitary Operations

Section 1208 of the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 provided authority for the Secretary of Defense to support foreign forces, irregular forces, groups, or individuals, totaling $25 million annually through 2007, when such recipients are facilitating or acting in support of operations conducted by U.S. Special Operations Forces.

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 extended this authority to 2010 and made a number of changes in regard to required reporting requirements.

This proposal would expand upon that language for fiscal year 2009 by increasing the annual threshold to $35 million. This section provides authority only; there is no associated funding or appropriation line. The Secretary of Defense will exercise this authority and operations will be funded through the U.S. Special Operations Command with Operations and Maintenance funds in accordance with the procedures established by the Secretary of Defense on March 29, 2005.

Specific changes to Section 1208 include: (1) changing the heading to reflect that the section is for Special Operations support; (2) changing the authority threshold from $25 million to $35 million; (3) changing the notification from "not less than" 48 hours to "within" 48 hours; (4) removing the prohibition on delegation by striking subsection (d); (5) amending subsection (g) to allow for all costs to be charged to Operations and Maintenance; and (6) making this authority permanent.
This has now been extended up to 2013.
Here is the full text of the law ratified by the United States Congress:

SEC. 1208 SUPPORT OF MILITARY OPERATIONS TO COMBAT TERRORISM.

(a) AUTHORITY.—The Secretary of Defense may expend up to
$25,000,000 during any fiscal year during which this subsection is
in effect to provide support to foreign forces, irregular forces, groups,
or individuals engaged in supporting or facilitating ongoing military
operations by United States special operations forces to combat
terrorism.

(b) PROCEDURES.—The Secretary of Defense shall establish procedures
for the exercise of the authority under subsection (a). The
Secretary shall notify the congressional defense committees of those
procedures before any exercise of that authority.

(c) NOTIFICATION.—Upon using the authority provided in subsection
(a) to make funds available for support of an approved military
operation, the Secretary of Defense shall notify the congressional
defense committees expeditiously, and in any event in not less
than 48 hours, of the use of such authority with respect to that operation.
Such a notification need be provided only once with respect
to any such operation. Any such notification shall be in writing.

(d) LIMITATION ON DELEGATION.—The authority of the Secretary
of Defense to make funds available under subsection (a) for
support of a military operation may not be delegated.

(e) INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES.—This section does not constitute
authority to conduct a covert action, as such term is defined in section
503(e) of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 413b(e)).

(f) ANNUAL REPORT.—Not later than 30 days after the close of
each fiscal year during which subsection (a) is in effect, the Secretary
of Defense shall submit to the congressional defense committees
a report on support provided under that subsection during that
fiscal year. Each such report shall describe the support provided, including
a statement of the recipient of the support and the amount
obligated to provide the support.

(g) FISCAL YEAR 2005 LIMITATION.—Support may be provided
under subsection (a) during fiscal year 2005 only from funds made
available for operations and maintenance pursuant to title XV of
this Act.

(h) PERIOD OF AUTHORITY.—The authority under subsection (a)
is in effect during each of fiscal years 2005 through 2007.
The period of authority has now been extended to the year 2013 with enhanced funding.

Conclusion

The WikiLeaks-released classified cables from the American embassy, Colombo, Sri Lanka to Washington State Department on the issue of the GSL using Karuna-Devananda paramilitary groups using ambiguous information from the embassy's 'valued contacts' was to tarnish the GSL operation against a ruthless terrorist movement that the State Department officials did not want annihilated.

The diplomatic cables, one could see, have created war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity call against Sri Lanka. To justify the removal of the Karuna-Devananda group using ambiguous information from the 'valued contacts' the message of the State Department Colombo diplomats to Washington was very clear: to bring international pressure on GSL to dissociate itself totally with those groups that have been strategically important to defeat the Tigers.

It was no doubt that the U.S. considered the Tamil Tigers as ruthless terrorist group but wanted it controlled short of annihilation to maintain it as a pressure group to check the GSL which is according to American diplomats is a regime dominated by the Sinhalese, and in their opinion a Sinhalese chauvinist administration that gives no space for Tamil grievances.

In fact, the United States used the same tactic used by Sri Lanka but the difference here is Sri Lanka did not create the Karuna-Devananda groups but made use of them for intelligence operations and the US creates them in Third World nations in its global war on terrorism.

Not only the creation, the US Congress, as we have presented to the reader, appropriated funds to create, direct, operate and train paramilitaries. To give the whole operation some legitimacy the Congressional Act says: "The Secretary of Defense shall establish procedures for the exercise of the authority under subsection (a). The Secretary shall notify the congressional defense committees of those procedures before any exercise of that authority".

And, what does subsection (a) say: "The Secretary of Defense may expend up to $25,000,000 during any fiscal year during which this subsection is in effect to provide support to foreign forces, irregular forces, groups, or individuals engaged in supporting or facilitating ongoing military operations by United States special operations forces to combat terrorism".

In a September 22 (2010) dispatch the Associated Press reported:

(Begin Quote) The CIA has trained and bankrolled a well-paid force of elite Afghan paramilitaries for nearly eight years to hunt al-Qaida and the Taliban for the CIA, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Modeled after U.S. Special Forces, the Counterterrorist Pursuit Team was set up in the months following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2002 to penetrate territory controlled by the Taliban and al-Qaida and target militants for interrogations by CIA officials.

The 3,000-strong Afghan teams are used for surveillance and long-range reconnaissance missions and some have trained at CIA facilities in the United States. The force has operated in Kabul and some of Afghanistan's most violence-wracked provinces including Kandahar, Khost, Paktia and Paktika, according to a security professional familiar with the program.

The security official and former intelligence officials spoke about the Afghan force on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive information.

The secret Afghan force has emerged as a new component of ramped-up American counter-terror operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan and against al-Qaida and allies over the mountainous border in Pakistan. The U.S. military, including special operations forces, has been working with the CIA in an intensified crackdown against militants on both sides of the border. (End Quote)

- Asian Tribune -





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posted by u2r2h at 12:09 PM 0 comments

Friday, January 14, 2011

CHEMTRAILS = TRAILS CON -- TOTAL CRAP - debunked as phantasy

chemtrails are crap...

there is nothing to know.

... cirrocumulus cloud and a single spreading contrail,' he declared after inspecting one photo for a full minute. Then he flipped to the next. 'Nothing weird about that. Cirrostratus cloud...' And the next. 'The criss-cross pattern is a consequence of planes flying criss-cross patterns....' And the next. 'I've seen many situations like this one....' Contrail formation, Day explained, depends on the relative humidity of the atmosphere-- he ratio of what is to what could be at a particular temperature. When relative humidity is low, contrails dissipate within seconds. But when relative humidity is high, especially at the subzero temperatures of the upper atmosphere, the addition of even a tiny amount of water vapor acts as a catalyst. Under these conditions, contrails may linger and spread to cover the whole sky.

[He] extracted from his bookshelf a well-thumbed edition of Peterson's Field Guide to Clouds and Weather, which he co-authored in 1991 (a good 10 years before chemtrails became widely discussed), turned to the section on contrails, and pointed to a photograph of a thick, white plume--a plume that looked for all the world like a chemtrail..."


CONTRAIL ANALYSIS

by Ian Williams Goddard

Since Environmental News Service published claims that military aircraft are spraying "contrails" that make people sick, [1] there has been an explosion of such claims. While there are known cases of military experimental spraying over American cities, [2] it was unclear to me whether these recent claims of a causal connection between contrails and illness are accurate or post hoc fallacies. [3]

The central premise of the claim that contrails are sprayed chemicals is that "normal contrails" dissipate within seconds. Therefore, contrails that persist or expand and blend with others into a haze are not mere water-vapor condensation but are instead composed of some kind of nonevaporating substance. I had the fortune to witnesses such contrail phenomena myself and took many photographs. It is my conclusion that what I observed seen in the following photos was the result of atmospheric conditions, and furthermore, I believe these phenomena may account for the majority of "spray-trail" reports I've heard.

Here are two composite images of four photographs I took:


Each side-by-side photo was taken within seconds of the other at one of two locations in Rockville Maryland, on February 11, 1999. It was an unusually warm day for February, reaching around 65 degrees Fahrenheit. While the surface air was dry, there was a haze starting several thousand feet above. All the contrails slowly spread out into this haze, exactly like accounts of "spray-trails" around the country. But I believe the contrails did not form the haze, rather, the humidity of a natural haze preserved the contrails.

[Here's a satellite image taken on the same day. Notice how the contrail proliferation over centeral-to-Eastern Maryland follows the north-to-south formation of the cloud mass and thus humidity as per the thesis I advance here.]

This contrail proliferation appeared to have been caused by a bubble, or pocket, of dry and unusually warm air hugging the land above which there was very cold air. In an area between these two thermal regions -- an area containing a few thousand vertical feet of atmosphere -- condensation would naturally form. The high humidity in that area would naturally preserve contrails simply because nothing is evaporating in that area.

The next photograph taken on another day demonstrates that contrails hang and expand in a humid area and evaporate outside that area:

The photo shows three contrails persisting only within the clouds. The contrails had long-since evaporated in the area outside the clouds where they once existed. I observed this occur and predicted that it would as I watched the first jet approaching the clouds. This confirms to my satisfaction that natural humidity sustains contrails and that it is an error to assume that "normal" contrails do not hang and expand.

It might also appear that a fluffy substance is falling off an expanding contrail. Here's another photo I took on Feb. 11, notice that it could appear that the lower and most expanded contrail is dropping something fluffy (cobwebs?).

The structure of that fluffy "fall off" was consistent with a subtle natural fluffy texture appearing within the haze overhead. This photo shows a natural thin cloud structure intersecting with a large expanded contrail.

Notice the similarity of expanded-contrail structure and the natrual cloud structure. That fluffy structure manifested itself naturally in the haze layer. The contrails simply provided "grist for the mill," and as such, were inducted into the unique cloud-formation mechanics of that day. There was no epidemic of illness that I could detect after February 11, and these contrails were right over where I live.

[1] Environmental News Service: (a) Contrails Mystify, Sicken Americans. William Thomas, January 8, 1999. (b) Mystery Contrails May Be Modifying Weather. William Thomas, January 12, 1999.
[2] United States Senate Testimony: Open Air Testing with Simulated Biological and Chemical Warfare Agents. Leonard A. Cole, PhD, May 6, 1994.
[3] The post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy



CONTRAIL ANALYSIS II

(c) Ian Williams Goddard

In my previous contrail analysis we observed that contrail persistence, or non-evaporation, is a function of relative humidity. However, the fallacy that contrail persistence is abnormal persists and is the primary basis of claims that persistent contrails are actually poison being sprayed on civilians by military jets. Since the military has sprayed experimental substances on U.S. populations in the past, claims to that effect deserve careful analysis. Such analysis reveals that contrail persistence is absolutely normal and is not evidence of spraying.

All the photographs below were taken by me on March 5, 1999. They show unique ice-cloud formations and provide further confirmation that contrail-persistance patterns are a function of natual atmospheric conditions. The first image captures what are known as fall streaks coming off a contrail.

A contrail is a linear cloud of condensation formed as hot air streaming from a jet engine mixes with cold air. Like a naturally occurring cloud of condensation, a contrail may evaporate or grow depending upon atmospheric conditions such as relative humidity.

The next photo taken while looking straight up shows a significantly expanded contrail running across the photo from which hair-like streams of crystallized condensation are being spread horizontally by the wind. This contrail with a "gray beard" is much older than the contrail running across the lower-left corner of the photo.

The following photographs reveal that naturally-occurring-condensation clouds also had a hair-like structure on that windy and cold winter day.

All these photographs show natural clouds not far from the contrails seen above.

Seeing an identical hair-like fall-streak structures in natural clouds verifies that the persistence patterns of the contrails in the first two photos are consistent with the effects natural atmospheric conditions were having that day on any frozen condensation, whether from a contrail or a natural cloud.
So if natural clouds can persist, contrails can too.

Ice content of the clouds was confirmed by frequent bright and slightly rainbow-colored solar reflections off them toward sunset. In the first photo of this pair, a solar reflection exists on a cloud in the upper right-side quadrant. In the second photo, a smaller solar reflection is visible just touching the left side of the large contrail.

Broken contrails: notice that the large persistent contrail in the first photo is broken. Some claim that a broken contrail means it's not condensation but a substance that was intermittently sprayed. Actually this phenomenon has been shown to be the result of the fact that the atmosphere is not a uniform medium, but is instead a turbulent patchwork of intermingling pockets, layers, and strata containing air with different temperatures, wind speeds, and levels of humidity. The contrail above initially existed in all locations but quickly dispersed only in those pockets of atmosphere the jet passed through that were not conducive to contrail persistence.

Different strata: notice that slightly above center in the second photo there is a new and fast-evaporating contrail that looks like a small comet. The jet was much higher than the thin cloud cover through which it is seen. Some argue that this phenomena means the persistent contrail seen below those clouds in the same photo must be spray, since another contrail "in the area" is evaporating.

That argument is only as plausible as the atmosphere is uniform, which it is not. The persistent contrail is near clouds in an area largely favorable to condensation. The evaporating contrail is in a higher and obviously drier atmospheric strata. In all these photos, there is only evidence of predictable atmospheric physics.

More identical structures: the following photo shows the fading remnants of a persistent and expanded contrail, which runs across the lower half of the photo:

Notice that the structure of the natural cloud formation above the expanded and fading contrail is basically identical to the structure of the contrail. In my previous contrail analysis we observed examples of similarities between contrails and surrounding natural clouds not only once but twice. In this analysis we have two more examples. So we have four examples in all of contrails being integrated into the natural cloud dynamics of the day.

CONCLUSION: both my previous contrail analysis and this follow-up present photographic verification that contrails do the same things that the natural clouds of condensation around them do; which demonstrates that what a contrail does -- whether it evaporates quickly or slowly expands into one of many patterns -- is a function of the natural atmospheric conditions in which it was formed. This is no new revelation, just as contrail persistence is neither a mysterious phenomenon nor evidence of spraying.


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posted by u2r2h at 6:11 PM 0 comments