Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.

For The Record  

FTR #595 European Vacation

Record­ed April 22, 2007
MP3 One seg­ment
REALAUDIO
NB: This stream con­tains both FTRs 594 and 595 in sequence. Each is a 30 minute broad­cast.

Intro­duc­tion: Amer­i­can polit­i­cal intel­lec­tu­als have tra­di­tion­al­ly looked to Europe as a source of enlight­en­ment. Mr. Emory, on the oth­er hand, looks upon Europe—not Africa—as the real “dark con­ti­nent.” As the Old World reju­ve­nates from cen­turies of dev­as­tat­ing reli­gious and polit­i­cal war­fare, Euro­pean polit­i­cal insti­tu­tions are man­i­fest­ing their old char­ac­ter. Begin­ning our Euro­pean trav­el­ogue in sun­ny Italy, the broad­cast high­lights the for­ma­tion of a pri­va­tized, coun­tert­er­ror sub­group of the Sis­mi intel­li­gence service—the DSSA. Close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the resid­ua of Mussolini’s fascisti, the Sis­mi has his­tor­i­cal­ly man­i­fest­ed a fas­cist polit­i­cal ori­en­ta­tion. Observers in Italy fear that the DSSA may well be reca­pit­u­lat­ing the “Strat­e­gy of Ten­sion” and the “Years of Lead” provo­ca­tions cov­ered by Mr. Emory in AFA#’s 17–21; avail­able from Spit­fire. After our sojourn in sun­ny Italy, we trav­el next to the vital, polit­i­cal­ly reborn “new” Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many, where Ger­man sol­diers in train­ing are being drilled to shoot African Amer­i­cans. After expe­ri­enc­ing the vital­i­ty and free­dom of expres­sion puls­ing through the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many, we jour­ney next to Mer­ry Old Eng­land, where the British jour­nal­ists’ union passed a res­o­lu­tion con­demn­ing Israel and call­ing for a boy­cott of Israeli goods. This res­o­lu­tion was passed at the same time as anoth­er res­o­lu­tion call­ing for the Pales­tin­ian Author­i­ty to secure the release of a BBC reporter kid­napped by Pales­tin­ian ter­ror­ists. [“Those damned Israelis!”]. Con­clud­ing our vaca­tion in the ancient land of Per­sia, we wrap up our tour by expe­ri­enc­ing some of the quaint local cus­toms of Iran­ian Mus­lim fun­da­men­tal­ists: the Iran­ian Supreme Court exon­er­at­ed a num­ber of Islam­ic Basi­ji mili­tia mem­bers who mur­dered peo­ple in the name of Islam. Among their vic­tims were a young cou­ple who were engaged to be mar­ried. Their “crime against Islam?” They were seen walk­ing togeth­er! Shame on them!!

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Review of the re-insti­tu­tion of Nazi ele­ments in the Ger­man armed forces after World War II; Iranin­ian Pres­i­dent Ahmadinejad’s back­ground in the mur­der­ous Basi­ji mili­tia; review of the links between the P‑2/DSSA/Sismi milieu and the Islam­o­fas­cist milieu of the Bank Al Taqwa; the role of the DSSA/Sismi milieu in a num­ber of inci­dents that have dis­graced the Unit­ed States, such as the Niger/Yellowcake dis­in­for­ma­tion and the ren­di­tion of an Islam­ic cler­ic [for which 13 CIA offices have been indict­ed]; review of the British media bias against Israel, as evi­denced dur­ing the 2006 Lebanon War.

1. The pro­gram begins by revis­it­ing a sub­ject researched by Mr. Emory for almost a quar­ter of a century—the tan­gled web of renascent Ital­ian fas­cism, the resid­ua of the infa­mous P‑2 Lodge and the myr­i­ad con­spir­a­cies sur­round­ing the Sis­mi Ital­ian intel­li­gence ser­vice. (For more about the Sis­mi and its “Super Sis­mi” con­spir­a­to­r­i­al sub­group, see—among oth­er pro­grams—AFA#’s 17–21 and M49 (avail­able from Spit­fire. Inter­est­ed lis­ten­ers should also use the search func­tion on this web­site [at the top of this page], doing key word search­es for “P‑2” and “Glad­io.”) A sub­group of the Ital­ian intel­li­gence ser­vice [Sis­mi] is under inves­ti­ga­tion for oper­at­ing as a “par­al­lel intel­li­gence ser­vice.” Osten­si­bly formed to com­bat ter­ror­ism, the group oper­at­ed as a pri­vate com­pa­ny, but using offi­cial gov­ern­ment resources and per­son­nel to do its work. There are reports that the DSSA over­lapped Oper­a­tion Glad­io, a coun­tert­er­ror oper­a­tion under­tak­en by NATO and the CIA. As dis­cussed in FTR#44, Glad­io stemmed from a plan devised by for­mer Nazi intel­li­gence chief Rein­hard Gehlen. Uti­liz­ing fas­cist ele­ments dat­ing to the World War II peri­od, Glad­io evolved in Italy into a ter­ror and provo­ca­tion cam­paign that was named the “Strat­e­gy of Ten­sion.” “Ital­ian police have launched a big inquiry into a ‘par­al­lel’ intel­li­gence agency, say Ital­ian news reports. The Depart­ment of Anti-ter­ror­ism Strate­gic Stud­ies (DSSA) was report­ed­ly cre­at­ed after the 2004 Madrid bomb­ings to com­bat Islam­ic extrem­ism. Genoa-based inves­ti­ga­tors car­ry­ing out a probe into the DSSA have arrest­ed two peo­ple and placed more than two dozen oth­ers under inves­ti­ga­tion. Anti-ter­ror squads have also car­ried out raids in nine Ital­ian regions. Many of those under inves­ti­ga­tion are said to be employed by reg­u­lar law-enforce­ment bod­ies. Pros­e­cu­tors believe that DSSA ‘employ­ees’ were some­times using offi­cial police badges and oth­er equip­ment to car­ry out their own inves­ti­ga­tions. The alleged par­al­lel force is also accused of ille­gal­ly using the Inte­ri­or Min­istry data­base for its own pur­pos­es. Ital­ian state radio Rai lat­er report­ed that the two arrest­ed men may have had links with Glad­io, the Ital­ian branch of a secret para­mil­i­tary net­work set up in post-war Europe with the back­ing of the CIA. There are also reports of a pos­si­ble con­nec­tion with a far-right polit­i­cal group. . . .”
(“Italy Probes ‘Par­al­lel Police’”; BBC NEWS; 7/1/2005.)

2. The DSSA was angling for the con­tract to pro­vide secu­ri­ty for the Pope. As dis­cussed in AFA#’s 17–21—available from Spitfire—the polit­i­cal forces of the Ital­ian far right and cor­re­spond­ing ele­ments from oth­er coun­tries asso­ci­at­ed with the Gladio/P‑2 milieu were involved with shoot­ing Pope John Paul II. That the DSSA (with its P‑2/Italian fas­cist links) was formed to pro­tect against Islam­ic ter­ror­ism is inter­est­ing. As dis­cussed in FTR#’s 456, 535, the milieu of the P‑2 and the Allian­za Nazionale also inter­faces direct­ly with the Bank Al Taqwa and the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. It is also inter­est­ing to note that, as dis­cussed in FTR#’s 535, 592 the Sis­mi (close­ly con­nect­ed to the DSSA) was appar­ent­ly involved with the Niger/Yellowcake forg­eries. As can be seen from the bal­ance of this arti­cle [and the one pre­ced­ing it], the CIA ren­di­tions that have been the source of so much con­tro­ver­sy also track back to the Sis­mi milieu. (These ren­di­tions have led to the indict­ment of 13 CIA offi­cers in Italy.) “Up to 200 police offi­cers and for­mer intel­li­gence oper­a­tives are being inves­ti­gat­ed by Ital­ian mag­is­trates on charges of orga­niz­ing an ille­gal ‘par­al­lel’ police force to com­bat ter­ror­ism. The shad­owy group appears to have set itself up as a pri­vate secu­ri­ty firm, offer­ing pro­tec­tion to senior fig­ures, and illic­it­ly using offi­cial police resources. Its lead­ers have been accused of ‘usurp­ing’ pub­lic func­tions and ille­gal use of clas­si­fied data. Judge Francesco Lal­la, Genoa’s chief pros­e­cu­tor, said the self-styled ‘Depart­ment for Anti-ter­ror­ist Strate­gic Stud­ies,’ (Dssa) main­tained an arse­nal of weapon­ry, stored by its accused com­man­ders Gae­tano Saya and Ric­car­do Sin­da­co, both with links with the Ital­ian far right. The rev­e­la­tions have height­ened many Ital­ians’ unease about the strate­gies of the gov­ern­ment of Sil­vio Berlus­coni, the Prime Min­is­ter, against Islamist ter­ror­ism. Judi­cial sources said the Dssa recruit­ed from police, para­mil­i­tary cara­binieri, finance police and the armed ser­vices and pre­sent­ed itself to Ital­ian insti­tu­tions as well as poten­tial recruits as an elite body spe­cial­iz­ing in fight­ing Islam­ic and Marx­ist ter­ror­ism. Mr Saya, now under house arrest, had applied for €32m (£21.6m) in Euro­pean Union finance and had alleged­ly sought con­tact with the Vat­i­can to try to obtain a con­tract to pro­tect of Pope Bene­dict against ter­ror­ist attack. . . .”
(“Up to 200 Ital­ian Police ‘Ran Par­al­lel Anti-Ter­ror Force’” by John Philips; The Inde­pen­dent; 7/5/2005.)

3. Pro­ceed­ing from sun­ny Italy to the “new” Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many, the pro­gram relates a racist video of marks­man­ship train­ing by Ger­man sol­diers, who were prac­tic­ing killing African Amer­i­cans in the Bronx! As dis­cussed in FTR#50, as well as AFA#37 (avail­able from Spit­fire), the Ger­man mil­i­tary was nev­er effec­tive­ly de-Naz­i­fied. The first head of the Ger­man mil­i­tary was Adolf Heusinger, who planned every Nazi mil­i­tary cam­paign from 1940 on, includ­ing the inva­sion of the Sovi­et Union, one of the most bru­tal, mur­der­ous mil­i­tary oper­a­tions in his­to­ry. In the ear­ly 1990’s, Heusinger’s suc­ces­sor, Klaus Nau­mann, gave a farewell address to his staff offi­cers in which he enjoined them to roll back the val­ues of the French rev­o­lu­tion and the enlight­en­ment, as well as the results of World War II. This from the Ger­man equiv­a­lent of the Chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff! A video aired on Ger­man TV has shown an army recruit on fir­ing prac­tice being ordered to pre­tend he was in New York’s Bronx fac­ing hos­tile African Amer­i­cans. In the grainy 90-sec­ond video, the instruc­tor tells the sol­dier to swear as he fires his gun. . . . Dur­ing the filmed train­ing ses­sion, an instruc­tor tells the sol­dier: ‘You’re in the Bronx, a black van pulls up in front of you and three African-Amer­i­cans get out and start real­ly insult­ing your moth­er... act!’ The sol­dier then fires his gun sev­er­al times and shouts obscen­i­ties in Eng­lish, as the instruc­tor encour­ages him to curse even loud­er. . . .”
(“Ger­man Army in ‘Racist Video’ Row”; BBC; 4/17/2007.)

4. Con­tin­u­ing our tour in the Unit­ed King­dom, we observe the British jour­nal­ists’ union con­demn­ing Israel and call­ing for a boy­cott of Israeli goods. No doubt, we will con­tin­ue to see thor­ough­ly objec­tive cov­er­age of the Israeli/Arab con­flict from this quar­ter! (For more infor­ma­tion about the slant­ed British cov­er­age of Israel and Mid­dle East pol­i­tics, see FTR#’s 564, 566.) “Britain’s Nation­al Union of Jour­nal­ists denounced Israel on Fri­day for its ‘mil­i­tary adven­tures’ in Gaza and Lebanon, called on the gov­ern­ment to impose sanc­tions and urged a boy­cott of Israeli goods. By a vote of 66 to 54, the annu­al del­e­gate’s meet­ing of Britain’s largest trade union for jour­nal­ists called for ‘a boy­cott of Israeli goods sim­i­lar to those boy­cotts in the strug­gles against apartheid South Africa led by trade unions, and [for] the [Trades Union Con­gress] to demand sanc­tions be imposed on Israel by the British gov­ern­ment.’ Some of the union’s 40,000 mem­bers decried its ‘trendy lefty’ agen­da. Oth­er motions before the four-day meet­ing in Birm­ing­ham, which ends Sun­day, includ­ed con­dem­na­tions of the US deten­tion cen­ter in Guan­tanamo Bay, Cuba, and sup­port for Venezue­lan strong­man Hugo Chavez. The boy­cott motion was the third clause of a larg­er anti-Israel res­o­lu­tion pro­posed by the union’s South York­shire branch that con­demned Israel’s ‘sav­age, pre-planned attack on Lebanon’ last sum­mer and the ‘slaugh­ter of civil­ians in Gaza’ in recent years. . . .”
(“UK Reporters Union to Boy­cott Israel” by George Con­ger; The Jerusalem Post; 4/14/2007.)

5. There is an old expres­sion that says, “life imi­tates art.” One can almost envi­sion Mon­ty Python pre­sent­ing what fol­lows. In a relat­ed res­o­lu­tion to the one cov­ered in the pre­ced­ing para­graph, the inter­na­tion­al jour­nal­ists’ union called on the Pales­tin­ian Author­i­ty to secure the free­dom of a BBC jour­nal­ist who was kid­napped by Pales­tin­ian ter­ror­ists! “ . . . On the same day the Nation­al Union of Jour­nal­ists con­demned Israel, the orga­ni­za­tion’s inter­na­tion­al affil­i­ate, the Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, called on the Pales­tin­ian Author­i­ty to secure the release of BBC cor­re­spon­dent Alan John­ston, who was kid­napped five weeks ago by Pales­tin­ian gun­men in Gaza. IFJ gen­er­al-sec­re­tary Aidan White urged the ‘Pales­tin­ian gov­ern­ment to do every­thing in its pow­er to make sure [John­ston] is released imme­di­ate­ly.’ . . .” (Idem.)

6. Detour­ing from our Euro­pean sojourn, the pro­gram fin­ish­es off in Iran, where the Supreme Court has over­turned the mur­der con­vic­tions of mem­bers of a pres­ti­gious state mili­tia to which pres­i­dent Ahmadine­jad belonged. Over­turn­ing the con­vic­tions because the group killed in the name of Islam, the court exon­er­at­ed mili­tia mem­bers who mur­dered a cou­ple who were seen walk­ing togeth­er in pub­lic. They were engaged to be mar­ried! This is the regime that is devel­op­ing nuclear weapons! “The Iran­ian Supreme Court has over­turned the mur­der con­vic­tions of six mem­bers of a pres­ti­gious state mili­tia who killed five peo­ple they con­sid­ered ‘moral­ly cor­rupt.’ The rever­sal, in an infa­mous five-year-old case from Ker­man, in cen­tral Iran, has pro­duced anger and con­tro­ver­sy, with lawyers call­ing it cor­rupt and news­pa­pers giv­ing it promi­nence. . . Accord­ing to the Supreme Court’s ear­li­er deci­sion, the killers, who are mem­bers of the Basi­ji Force, vol­un­teer vig­i­lantes favored by the country’s supreme leader, Aya­tol­lah Ali Khamenei, and Pres­i­dent Mah­moud Ahmadine­jad, con­sid­ered their vic­tims moral­ly cor­rupt and, accord­ing to Islam­ic teach­ings and Iran’s Islam­ic penal code, their blood could there­fore be shed. The last vic­tims, for exam­ple, were a young cou­ple engaged to be mar­ried who the killers claimed were walk­ing togeth­er in pub­lic. [Empha­sis added.] Mem­bers of the Basi­ji Force are known for attack­ing reformist politi­cians and pro-democ­ra­cy meet­ings. Pres­i­dent Ahmadine­jad was a mem­ber of the force. . . .”
(“Iran Exon­er­ates Six Who Killed in Islam’s Name” by Nazi­la Fathi; The New York Times; 4/19/2007.)

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