Prompted by the events and outcome of the Korea War, the US Central Intelligence Agency operating under the aegis of NATO and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) coordinated with Western European intelligence agencies to raise a secret “stay-behind” paramilitary force, whose sleeper cells were to be activated in the event of a Soviet invasion to bolster a resistance movement.
The existence and scope of these units remained unknown until October of 1990, just weeks after the reunification of Germany and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, with the revelation of the prime minister of Italy and admission of a project under the codename Operation Gladio (from the Latin gladius, a short double-edged sword and standard issue for Legionnaires). Although involvement in the political turmoil and terrorism that characterized Italy’s civic landscape from the 1960s through the mid-1980s (called the Years of Lead for the bombings) was quickly downplayed and then ruled-out completely, as the international reach and collusion of the organizations became known—it went by different handles in each country where it was based but the Italian guise, Operation Gladio, became convenient short-hand for similarly vetted groups, and particularly because the social unrest and left-wing violence was especially tumultuous in Italy—attention turned back to the potential for governmental manipulation and intimidation. Other alleged undertakings seemed only for engendering chaos, a pact of panic to justify those security measures, suspicions and misgivings long since become a habit. Never deployed in response to an invasion nor ever the subject of deep political scrutiny even after the disclosure, there was of course the incentive to turn a defensive stance into an offensive posture and keep certain elements, socialist or left-leaning, out of European politics. Such Machiavellian mission drift is a common occurrence, and the US has remained evasive on the clandestine ventures that went on for decades. The fact that the tactics that the operatives reputedly employed comes from a playbook, a field manual, that was a supposed hoax leaked by the Soviets to members of the press willing to bite that outlines the strategic tensors of propaganda and terror is a just a rehashing of previous disinformation campaigns, the US maintains, does not mean that there is not something beneath this recursiveness and divestment. The legacy of Operation Gladio is poorly defined and often forgotten—indeed most referenced as an analogy—but does appear in reporting from time to time.
Monday 15 September 2014
anni di piombo or cloak and dagger
catagories: ๐ท๐บ, ๐บ๐ธ, ๐, ๐ง , foreign policy, revolution
Sunday 14 September 2014
it happened on the way to the forum: dynasty or i quote in elegiacs all the crimes of heliogabalus
After Julius Caesar claimed autocracy and posthumously set the precedent of dynastic rule, it was in essence just a generation that separated the empire from the relative beneficence of Caesar's heir, Octavian called Julius Augustus whose long reign, political networks and civil reforms were just revolutionary enough to endure and to weather future crises, from the absolutely corruption yielded by absolute power and inheritance. Octavian groomed his successors with great care in hopes of ensuring a smooth transition of power and keeping Rome's political model, social services and borders in Octavian's image—plus all in the family. His heirs-apparent, however, did not live to see through Octavian's dominion, both his natural sons who had been educated, trained and primed for leadership, and in the end, Octavian was compelled to rewrite his will to name his step-son, Tiberius—ancestor of Nero and daughter of Livia by her first marriage, as his successor. Interestingly, though Octavian himself warned against harbouring creatures of the court that held illegitimate or behind-the-scenes authority, Octavian also adopted his widowed wife Livia as his daughter, so that she might retain some of the unofficial powers that she wielded, becoming known in all circles as simply the Augusta.
The public was made to endure a long succession of madness, precocity and wantonness with only the very briefest of respites and naรฏve honeymoon periods after new families killed each other off. In the spirit of “the king is deal; long live the king” statues erected erected to certain regimes throughout the empire, on the streets and in temples, were often without thought for the historic record beheaded and replaced with the likeness of the new emperor—which is why archaeologists find a lot of disembodied busts and unofficially treated to purge the career of their predecessors. There was even a legislative mechanism for erasing the past, called damnatio memoriae, but this statue seemed to have been enacted only sparingly—at least as far as we know, since if it did work according to the letter of law, we would never know about it. This striking from the record was imposed on the assassins of Julius Caesar, to include the proscription on the pain of death that no one from his clan ever be called Marc Antony—although later pardoned and rescinded. After the horrors of Tiberius, Caligula (who bankrupted the empire, among other things), Nero (who is reported to have burned down Rome in order to make space for the palace he wanted to construct for himself and burned Christians for candlelit dining), the first emperor whose memory was to be condemned to oblivion was a man from Emesa (Homs) in the province of Syria called Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus. Domitian came first but as his condemnation was spearheaded by a Senate bitter for being completely bypassed by someone who refused to recognise the charade of democracy, and this selective memory was even less potent than usual.
He was given the regnal name of Elagabalus—or Heliogabalus to make the Persia name of the sun deity sound a bit more solar to Greco-Roman ears), after his service as a priest to that order in his homeland, who venerated a meteorite which was sent to Earth from the Conquering Sun, and tried to introduce this religion to Rome. For someone who historians tried to toss down the memory-hole, there are surely some other lascivious details about his emperorship aside from his proselytising, including his male-lovers and the grace-and-favour postings they received, his desire to “mate” with the Vestal Virgins to produce “godlike offspring,” and reputedly making a brothel of his palace. Although any and all of the claims cannot be elevated above the suspicion of embellishment, maybe the act that besmirched his reputation the most, aside from being a foreigner and as gender-/role-challenged as Cleopatra, was allowing his grandmother and mother to participate directly in the Roman Senate. After Elagablus' reign was cut short, his religious trappings were sent back to Syria, women were barred from the Senate and his existence erased. Though extant there's only the strain of his name sung in the Major-General's Song in the Pirates of Penzance and a Gilded Age cult following for his decadent parties, damnatio memoriae, de facto or sanctioned, seems to leave a lot of blanks to fill in.
this day in pfrc history
One year ago: Bavarians are going to the polls on the opening day of Oktoberfest. Some perennial events always take place in pairs.
Two years ago: H and I share a round-up of Frankonian churches. Conservative estimates place the property value of the land that the Church owns in Germany at around two hundred thirty billion euro.
Three years ago: Germany is undergoing a brain-drain, with recruiting and keeping talented individuals. Immigration policy reforms are geared towards attracting professionals but there are many challenges in the practical execution of these plans.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ฌ๐ท, ✝️, ๐, holidays and observances, labour, networking and blogging
Thursday 11 September 2014
it happened on the way to the forum: diomedes or totem and taboo
The modern-day Brindisi in in Apulia on the heel of Italy, facing the Adriatic, is mentioned quite often—like when the Senate, fleeing from Julius Caesar after he crossed the Rubicon, abandoned the capital for Greece and generally as a destination for jaunting off in order to embark for the eastern lands. I discovered, however, this city at the terminus of the Via Appia, has a very rich history and mythic endowment as well. As the Matter of Rome itself has foundations in Trojan refugees, Brundisium too was established by a hero of the Iliad—one Diomedes, an Achaean warrior counted in the pantheon of the best along with Odysseus and Ajax for his strategic and physical skills, and the only mortal with the distinction to having fought alongside the goddess Athena and wounding an immortal, Ares. After this battle, Diomedes is bound to the Goddess of Wisdom for all eternity, but the divine the connection to southern Italy and greater Rome, one has to go back further to Athena’s birth and upbringing. Having emerged fully formed from the forehead of Zeus, Athena, though radiant and wise, did sort of miss out on social development, and in order to imbue her with some graces, she was raised by human foster parents alongside their own daughter, Pallas. One day Athena and Pallas were playing a bit rough, and not realising her own strength—or her foster-sister’s fraility, and the goddess accidentally killed the mortal girl. Athena was devastated and took the name Pallas Athena evermore and fashioned a wooden statue of her, the Palladium, which later fell from the sky and was taken as the omen to found the City of Troy. The icon was said to protect the city and it was revered as a symbol of state and Troy could not be taken so long as it remained within the city walls. Diomedes (who got several warnings from Athena about being too rough and about not killing or maiming any of the central characters) and Odysseus snuck into the city and wrested the Palladium away from Debbie-Downer Cassandra (Ajax was instrumental in seizing the statue but was punished with a divine madness later for having violated the altar where it was displayed), who was the only other person who knew that the relic ensured the safety of Troy but no one listened to her.
After the war and the Greeks dispersed, Diomedes migrated to the Italian coast, having been unseated as king of Argos during his decade absense, and as the talisman, a monkey's paw, was bringing him no great fortune (probably due to the unsavoury though preordained manner in which it was purloined), Diomedes surrendered it to his enemy, Aeneas, as the keystone of his new settlement, Rome. This treasure appears in official manifests for well of seven-hundred years of documented history, but it was perhaps lost to the ages with the sack of Rome by the Visigoth hordes in 410 AD. Some believe, however, during the waning years of the Western Empire that Constantine, an avid collector, smuggled the Palladium to Constantinople, as a blessing for the Eastern capital and it is buried under his column, still standing in modern-day ฤฐstanbul.
Wednesday 10 September 2014
kriegsbilder oder epimetheus
The State Ar- chives is hosting a small exhibit of the ephemeral—periodicals, political cartoons, caricatures and patriotic posters gathered from all corners of Europe, highlighting the works of graphic artists Max Beckmann, Ernst Barlach, Kรคthe Kollwitz and Max Liebermann from 1914 to 1918—which are important moments, the scattered sibylline leaves of yesterday's unwanted newspapers, to reflect on.
History, with is its causes and effects removed from witness though we all live with the aftermath, can seem a bit academic and arbitrary, but seeing that the same surety and detracting prescience was in circulation back then too makes the past breathily close and a-pace with usual tumult of commentary and the media echo-chamber.
The proximity of that target of acquaintanceship and familiarity can always be set just a little further back.