<nettime> World Security Days - Transforming Peace

["Konrad Becker" <konrad@t0.or.at>]

It?s a New Security Culture! 
A message from Boris Beauregard celebrating the World Security Days: 
"Never before in the history of the world, there has been such a need to
respond effectively to critical events. In today?s complex world where the
solutions to your security concerns are no longer straightforward, it is
more difficult than ever to successfully protect interests against diverse
and intricate dangers." 

http://www.global-security-alliance.com/gsa/world-security-days/en

Below his keynote speech -

Stay Safe! ->K

"Transforming Peace"
The Future of European Cultural Stability 

The future of European stability will bring on new ways of omni-directional
peace missions defending elite interests through psychological operations
based on a security culture of privatization, internalization and
economization. To meet these challenges in transforming European peace
operations and to face the new strategic options and risk potentials of a
globalized world we have to learn from the grand maneuvers of the past.

In March 1961 JF Kennedy stated to US congress "The free world's security
can be endangered not only by nuclear attack, but by being nibbled away at
the periphery? by forces of subversion, infiltration intimidation, indirect
non-overt aggression, internal revolution, diplomatic blackmail, guerilla
warfare or a series of limited wars". While the game-theoretical drama of
nuclear MAD (mutually assured destruction) was at the forefront, it was the
hidden wars that truly signified the cold war era: the invisible battle
zones on both sides of the iron curtain. By the end of the Second World War
secret stay-behind armies are formed on the experiences and strategies of
special operations units and the Western Union Clandestine Committee (WUCC)
were created to coordinate secret unorthodox warfare. After the founding of
NATO it is integrated into the military alliance under the name 'Clandestine
Planning Committee' (CPC). By 1958 the NATO sets up the Allied Clandestine
Committee (ACC) to coordinate undisclosed warfare, later hidden within the
Belgian military secret service SGR with its headquarters next to NATO under
the code name SDRA11. Underground armies and black programs worked under
code-names like SDRA8 in Belgium, Absalon in Denmark, TD BDJ in Germany, LOK
in Greece, Gladio in Italy, I&O in the Netherlands, ROC in Norway, Aginter
in Portugal, P26 in Switzerland, Counter-Guerrilla in Turkey, and OWSGV in
Austria, jointly laying the foundations of a tradition of black sites and
outsourcing operations beyond national borders.

What was at first sold as a fall back option, when a country is overrun by
enemy forces, soon developed into invisible armies of internal subversion
against democratic forces and egalitarian politics. Strategies of tension
and a top-level campaign of political destabilization to stabilize power
structures were financed from highly discrete state agencies, private
sources and multinational firms. Based on hidden structures, training camps
were set up to instruct mercenaries in covert action techniques including
hands-on bomb campaigns, silent assassination, subversion and black
propaganda techniques, clandestine communication, infiltration and colonial
warfare. With the various elites of big business, landowners, church and
geopolitical interests on one side and the have nots on the other, the
battle lines were clearly drawn. Despite its undisputed successes over
several decades the concept of clandestine stability operations needs to be
adapted to a 21 Century setting of globalized information environments. Even
with top secrecy, highest order "need to know" compartmentalization and the
frequent physical neutralization of investigative journalists, judges or
others, a large percentage of missions did not remain covert. Even without
direct links to a state authority or military command structure, the beans
were bound to spill. Where traditional approaches come in conflict with the
principle of plausible deniability, privatization provides added layers of
operational security and the private sector emerges as the future of
invisible warfare and 21 century stability.

The historical achievements of the traditional secret forces in the European
past were nonetheless impressive. Large leftist demonstrations against
British interference in the post-war government in Athens are broken up by
LOK, a secret stay-behind army in Greece, with many dead or wounded.
Similarly secret operatives in Turkey and other European countries used
their skills to attack domestic opponents and spark violent disorder. Some
operations are intended to bring about right-wing military rule. The
clandestine Hellenic Raiding Force successfully take control over the Greek
Defence Ministry in 1967 and install a dictatorship, deep undercover armies
supported the Turkish military to stage a coup d'état in 1960 and execute
the Prime Minister. In 1971, the military takes power again and the
stay-behind army Counter-Guerrilla engages in domestic terror eliminating
hundreds. They open fire on a demonstration of 500,000 in Istanbul with 38
dead and countless wounded in1977, three years later the Counter-Guerrilla
commander General Kenan Evren seizes power in a coup. In the following years
the Counter-Guerrilla tortures and neutralizes thousands of Kurds, with the
Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) claiming more than 3,500 violent
transgressions covered up only with partial success. 

Italy's secret army code-named Gladio drives a silent coup d'etat in 1964
and forces a group of Socialist Ministers to leave the government. In a
trial thirty years later the Piazza Fontana incident 1969 in Milan with 16
casualties was exposed by General Giandelio Maletti, former head of Italian
counterintelligence, as a Gladio operation to discredit the Italian left. A
bomb killing three Carabinieri in 1972, again blamed on the left, is traced
back to fascist guerilla which leads to exposure of Gladio. Former Prime
Minister and DCI leader Aldo Moro, in 1978 about to form a coalition
government that includes the Italian Communist Party, is taken hostage in
Rome by a secret unit and executed after 55 days. Investigators trace a bomb
exploding at the Bologna railway station in 1980 with 85 dead to these
paramilitary networks and the P2 lodge. Official figures in a Gladio
investigation in the period between January 1969 and December 1987, claim
nearly 1500 acts of political violence in Italy's most recent history with
hundreds dead and many more injured. Documents on Gladio discovered by Judge
Felice Casson in the military secret service archives in Rome in 1990 force
Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti to confirm the secret army's existence.
After Andreotti's testimony, deep undercover armies are discovered all over
Europe. On November 5th 1990, NATO categorically denies allegations
concerning involvement in Operation Gladio and secret unorthodox warfare in
Europe. On the next day NATO had to explain that the denial of the previous
day had been false while refusing to answer any further questions in regard
to the existence of an underground parallel intelligence and armed
operations organization outside the law and without democratic controls.
Later in the month the invisible army was also discussed by the European
Union parliament. Various judicial inquiries evidenced serious cases of
terrorism and crime. Lamenting the fact that such networks have been set up
to interfere in the internal political affairs of Member States, Greek
parliamentarian Ephremidis addressed the EU: "It has operated clandestinely,
and we are entitled to attribute to it all the destabilization, all the
provocation and all the terrorism that have occurred in our countries over
these four decades." With independent arsenals and military resources at
their disposal the various "GLADIO" organizations have an indefinite strike
potential on countries in which they operate and an EU parliament resolution
sharply condemns the manipulation of European politics with the covert
armies. When the Senate commission researching Gladio and the assassination
of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro files a FOIA request with the CIA in 1995
it replies: "The CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or
non-existence of records responsive to your request." But the secret army
had already been exposed by former agent Philip Agee in his 1987 book "Dirty
Work: The CIA in Western Europe", where he revealed that paramilitary groups
linked to internal subversion operate throughout Europe. 

As in Italy, the Belgian left was discredited by well-planned false flag
operations carried out by Special Forces together with secret armies
targeting, classical capitalist symbols with explosives. Fighting a
psychological battle to keep motivation burning even at times of cold war
peaceful coexistence, operators had to be kept alert with the help of
imaginary dangers of a revolution circulating in the field. The alleged
Communist terror group CCC (Cellules Communistes Combattantes) responsible
for 27 attacks between October 1984 and fall 1985 had been set up by the
network to create the impression that laid back Belgium was on the brink of
a revolution. The secret army attacks and shoots shoppers randomly in the
Brabant County in 1985 with 28 dead and many wounded. Investigations soon
link it to the stay-behind SDRA8, the Belgian Gendarmerie SDRA6, the
right-wing group WNP and the DIA. When the criminal police in the city of
Frankfurt in Hessen unearth a German secret army BDJ-TD in 1952 the arrested
Nazis are found not guilty. Massive connected arsenals of 33 underground
arms caches discovered 1981 in the Luneburger Heide contained large amounts
of state of the art combat equipment. Next to automatic weapons, massive
chemical combat equipment, large amounts of munitions and artillery guns,
tons of explosives and explosive devices as well as truck loads of hand
grenades. An arsenal used in the previous year to carry out an attack on the
Munich Oktoberfest with a dozen casualties and wounding hundreds. In Austria
a first secret stay-behind by right-wing extremists is exposed in 1947 but
pardoned by Chancellor Koerner. Another secret army codenamed
Oesterreichischer Wander-Sport-und Geselligkeitsverein (OWSGV) was set up by
MI6, CIA with locals like Franz Olah involved. With a couple of thousand
people employed, and only a few in the know, he later confirmed that units
were trained in weapons and plastic explosives to fight against leftists in
the country. Police discover hidden stockpiles of arms in an old mine near
Windisch-Bleiberg in 1965 and force British authorities to hand over lists
of other locations. After more top secret arms caches had been brought to
light in early 1996, the Austrian Interior Ministry investigation under
Michael Sika declared in its final report in November 28 of the following
year "that there can be no absolute certainty about the arms caches and
their intended use". Commission member Oliver Rathkolb of Vienna University
placed a FOIA request to gain access to the relevant documents, but the CIA
declined under exemptions Bl and B3.

Fake insurgencies and assaults to trigger counter-insurgency methods or
maneuvers to influence public opinion continue to be highly successful until
this day. Some of the greatest success stories cannot be told without having
to kill the audience. But despite the obvious operational success a majority
of covert interventions have also created messy spillover effects and bad
publicity. Judicial and investigative researchers are on the trail of these
activities and make connections to recent European events. Even if theses
covert operations continue to mystify audiences in the European theater this
is clearly a drawback and the basic approach of such state sponsored
stability operations must be considered compromised. Clearly the privatized
business driven peacekeeping operations are at a double advantage both in
discretion and limited liability as well as efficiency and profitability.
Since contemporary economies do not produce products but foremost desires
which can then be set on a course to be fed with products, outsourced angst
creation is a extraordinary efficient business model. Desire for security
becomes a potentially endless market because there cannot ever be such a
thing as complete security. Structural discipline reduces the need of
prisons in the transformation of the welfare state to the security economy
but in environments of constantly high threat levels service contracts for
black operations need to go beyond simple procedures to terrorize
populations. Looking back at the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) or the
International Association for Cultural Freedom (IACF) we witness the
triumphant deployment of socio-cultural operations in the early cold war
theater. Even though modeled on a traditional top down command and control
structure they provided a successful blueprint for cultural asteroids of
cellular structured information dominance. Their congenial manipulation of
the cultural field provides a clear example of the pervasive power of soft
weapons of mass protection in the cognitive arena. With violence as a backup
only, new models of less-lethal containment and pacification techniques,
provide rich business opportunities in sustainable security economies. An
investment in truth projection, media consolidation and enduring
peacekeeping is not cheap but it grounds its risk management options firmly
into economic success. Strategic communications are an investment into
reality. 


Boris Beauregard, Vienna Mai 2008







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