Operation Gladio | Did a Top Secret CIA Program Lead to Terror Attacks in Europe?

Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website, to marketing, to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into. Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com slash special offer. Traditional home security only alerts you after a break-in, and that's too late. SimpliSafe is changing that. Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way. We don't just alert. We help stop crime before it starts. Plans starting around $1 a day. Right now, get 60% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com slash Spotify. SimpliSafe. Ahead of crime in real time. Outdoor deterrence plans start at $49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com slash licenses for alarm license information. From the 1960s through the 1980s, Italy was a political no-man's land. The far right and the far left were in a constant state of intense battle, with murders, kidnappings and bombings seemingly happening everywhere. In the throes of the Cold War, no one suspected that the constant upheaval could be an inside job. But was it Italy's own government with the help of the CIA causing this political turmoil? Or was it a coincidence? Or an incidental bystander? Today, we're investigating Operation Gladio. This is Red Web. Welcome back, Task Force, to another episode of Red Web, the podcast all about unsolved mysteries, true crime, and the unknown. I am your resident mystery enthusiast, Trevor Collins, and joining me hearing this case for the very first time, Alfredo Diaz. Alfredo Diaz. I think it's going to be like a tinfoil hat that's really squeezing my head on this one. I'd hate to think of the number of things that have happened politically that we think has been done because of another country or opposing enemy or whatever the sort. Just all of the theatrics for our own government doing to us to get what they want us to do and what they want us to think. Oh, yeah. And so I hate the thought of that. But I feel like that's kind of where this might be. Again, that's I'm going to start. Now I start thinking about our government or even just corporations or whatnot. It just spirals. See, the tinfoil hat's getting tighter and tighter. Yeah. Is that your brain growing or is that the hat shrinking? I'll never tell. But, dude, that's the wild part when you. Oh, my God. There's so many just air quotes operations that have either been declassified. And you're like, has no one else read this? This is most mildly. Mildly to severely perturbing. There are so many false flag attacks or secret ops that are happening internationally. And you're totally right. It makes you wonder what what what does that mean today? You know, we talked about that version of like through aircraft. OK, you know, back in the day we talked about UFOs and maybe it was this stealth aircraft or this new program. And nowadays we probably have extremely advanced stealth aircraft and things we don't even know yet. But then you think about. The the the black ops that are happening under the surface and it really makes you wonder it could be a country. It could be a secret cabal like this group of people that isn't even declassified. Could be a corporation, as you pointed out, which is like becoming realer by the day. Mm hmm. It's it's wild. And this one, man, I got to be honest, this was submitted, by the way, by a task force member girder. So thank you so much for making our absolute head spin, because this one is wild. OK, this is a real ice. So I'm going to say this. There are conspiracy theories that follow Operation Gladio and they're complex with a mixture of truth that we know for a fact and a mixture of the unknown. The period in time we're about to dive into is wrought with turmoil and violence. And ultimately, the question we're going to be exploring here is, was this a secret international government operation? Was this responsible for many of the infamous massacres during this very same era or was it tangentially related? Basically. We're talking about an operation that actually existed. We're talking about their hands that were in many pies, but they also kind of do they become the scapegoat for other violence happening elsewhere? That's the question. Mm hmm. OK, but it reminds me of things like MK Ultra when those things get declassified, how they're testing on innocent people or maybe less innocent people or what have you, trying to see, like, can we put acid into these people and see if they can read minds or gain powers? Like, is there it really puts the government or whatever entity is behind the operation into a bad seat because then they're like, OK, now you're the forever boogeyman because I can't unknow that you were doing that to people. That's wild. It's a very good that's a very good point. It's like, how do you build that trust back? You know, what other things have you not told us you told us because it had to be declassified? Mm hmm. Yeah. Are there other things that need to be declassified? Oh, and what hasn't been and hasn't been yet because you haven't been caught or forced to. Got to be. Got to be. But see, there you go. The trust is already breaking apart, right? Because it's like, oh, there's got to be this too, because this happened. Oh, man. So it gets wild. So we're going to break down the overview, the history of Operation Gladio, what it is, what it's a code name for. And then we're going to move into what's called the strategy of tension. I'm going to break down what that is and then we get into a realm of of the years in Italy called the years of lead. And I break that down, what that is, what it consisted of. And there are like over twelve thousand attacks. So this is going to be, again, one of those tips of the iceberg. And on the back end of this task force, I encourage you to once again get onto the computers and start doing some research if you want to know more about it, because we could honestly hold a TED talk about this for like weeks on end because of how many incidents, massacres, accident. Or what have you at attacks all happened within the confines of what could be Operation Gladio. But before we dove in, of course, sensitive topics are in the description. But today I will say Task Force, if you are a Patreon member, today is the last day you can get the July exclusive merch. We extended the window of merch both early and late for you as direct supporters of us. Go to store.redwebpod.com or check the post on Patreon if you want to find the hidden links to that hidden merch. Otherwise, this Friday, you can look forward to a movie club episode. We just recorded it and it's on companion. We're kind of on a spree here. Fredo Christian on some like like relationship type horror. Yeah. Which makes you like my mind want to go into more relationship type horror stuff. Like what else is out there that was like really wild. So there's all I don't know. We just get into these little eras or we're trying to do is maybe shift into some like terrible movies that are fun to watch because we've been having a good track record with movies lately being a lot of good ones and a lot of more recent ones. Yes, that's true. I don't know if we're going to do it or not, not to promise it. But at the end of this episode, we talk very much about like, do we do 2002's Resident Evil? So we we go back to where it began. God, it's like it's like seven or eight of those movies we're talking about. We're going to have to you know, we did enter the Matrix. I'm gonna have to find a pun for Resident Evil and going through the seven of those films leading up to Zack Krager's new one, which will have nothing to do with them, I'm sure. But no, absolutely not. No, that might make Christian even more upset that it doesn't. Mila Jovovich shows up and she's actually the 16 armed monster and she's and it is connected. Oh, my God. Yeah. Final cutscene reveal. All right. Lots to unpack here with Operation Gladio. I'm curious where your instincts will guide this. So Operation Gladio is the codename for an operation created in Western Europe following World War Two. And this was during the early 1950s. There were early agreements reportedly back to 1951, but they were formalized in Italy in 1956. And we do have the first image today is the front page of that document from the Italian Secret Service. And this is formalizing again this agreement called Operation Gladio. Oh, this looks like an official document. Yeah, very Italian. Very Italian. Servizio Informazione del Forze, something else. Italian as hell. That's so Italian. So Italian. Yeah, like formatted like a like a very important document and everything. Mm hmm. Might I call this a dossier or something? Maybe a memo even. But yes, as you can see, it's very much that 1950s style typewriter file and the action was a top secret network of stay behind armed resistance groups. They were created with the intention of organizing resistance efforts if the Soviets or other communist countries in the Warsaw Pact invaded Western Europe. Basically, if the Cold War were to go hot, this contingency plan of secret cells across Europe would be ready to spring into action. They would see it. It feels very much like a spy movie, but in real life, you know, and the Warsaw Pact just for completion of it. It was a military alliance between Soviet Union and seven other nations, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, Romania, and Hungary. So Operation Gladio itself was created by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, famously known as the CIA, in partnership with NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Now, some sources say, and I can't believe that this is kind of here nor there, I don't know why it's ambiguous, but some list the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service, the SIS, is having a role in its creation as well. They don't really pop up elsewhere in this conversation, but it's always kind of interesting when you're talking about a declassified element, like what is still up in the air as an unknown. Right. But at this point in time, the Cold War is in full swing, and Western Europe was fearful of the communist invasion, and thus Operation Gladio is born. And these stay-behind networks were created in places like Belgium, France, Greece, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, maybe more. But according to reports, it had expanded to all Western Europe by 1959, even including Sweden and Switzerland, which are famously neutral. And while it's unclear exactly how many soldiers were part of this tremendous effort, Operation Gladio, it's suspected that thousands trained in secret in remote areas. It has been since determined that Italy had somewhere between 600 and 900 agents, and per an excerpt, an ex-member who was also recruited when he was just 19 years old. These agents ranged from trained military recruits and personnel to civilians that had to be recruited and sworn into secrecy. I was really curious about who this operation would target, what skill sets they were after. Yeah, and it just seems like they kind of just have a range. Mm-hmm. Man, to be a civilian just kind of looking for a job and to be swept up into. So many, by the way, so many mouths to keep quiet. I wonder what the agreements were. Was it money? Was it more sinister? How does this not slip? Yeah, like, did they, like, twist their arm for these agreements? Or was there like, I know where your family lives, I'm the government? You know, I don't know. Or, who knows? Maybe they just find the people of the right temperament that would be loyal to a program like this. You know? Yeah. Probably people of the same mind, right? Probably people more right-leaning, hoping to avoid the left-leaning ideology. Both extremists from coming in. That's true. I mean, you just, I mean, like a cult, right? You know? Have them buy into the idea of it. And then, even then, you can kind of fish out people that are more primed or susceptible to, like, manipulation. It's kind of gross. Honestly, that makes sense to me now. You know? If they're primed to, like, kind of go along with it. Or if they feel strongly about. You know what? This is a good thing to hold on to. Because I think that this is what helps spur on. So many of the conspiracy theories. Is that they probably did want to hire a lot of people that were super like-minded. That would be, like, well, if you tell anything about this, it could undermine the whole thing. And the extreme left could move in. Et cetera. So, these new recruits were trained in espionage, guerrilla tactics, and clandestine warfare. While Operation Gladio was the codename for the entire network of stay-behind groups. Each, I think, country had its own referenced name. For example, Gladio means sword. And it was the name for the Italian group. We'll talk a little bit more on. Because initially, I'm like, well, why are we focused so much on Italy and the Italian name? And we'll talk about it here in a second. But Italy was the one who kind of spilled the beans on the whole thing. There were other groups named. Like Norway, for example, was called the ROC. Roe Campbell is what it stood for. Which was a fictional hero. Denmark had a group that was called the Absalon. Which was the founder of Copenhagen. So, all of these names were kind of equivalent. They had their. Their own operational names. But because Gladio had the spotlight for a time. It kind of became the. The name for all of them. Right. Yep. Now that we know how they recruited. What countries were involved. We know a little bit more about the agents here. Let's talk about the munitions. Because stockpiles of weapons and explosives were hidden throughout these countries. For use by these clandestine groups. Which is incredibly wild to think about. But I guess you kind of have to, you know? You can't be like. Tear your living room wall down and get ready to grow. You just have, I guess. Bunkers hidden throughout your country just in case. Which is just a wild thing. But like, yeah, I mean, why would you have everything in one area? Or are you just going to sit there in that one area forever and. Wait for something to happen? Right. Or you go about your life and you just have different designated spots and areas that you can react off of. Just like when you're a kid, you stash your dollars and pennies across your room. You never know when your sister's going to come to play and she might stumble into. You know, you don't want to put all your eggs in one literal basket. Is that what you did? I don't remember ever doing that, but, you know. Listen, I might have had various vessels and containers and, you know, fake balms that I could hollow out. And empty cans of cola that I never drank because, I don't know, I wasn't a soda guy. But they littered the room. And there were dollars in each of them. Precious coins. It seemed like it came in like a. Like just a storm. But yeah, I don't know. You know, like, imagine you had one stockpile and then Russia comes barreling through and that's where they happen to land. And you're like, "We can't, sir, we can't get to our dollars and coins." So, Italy, you know, it's not a huge country, but it's got a sprawl to it. And across Italy alone, there were 139 of these stashes to be found. And these caches were called nascos. Derived from the Italian word nascosto, meaning hidden or hidden place. Now, what's most impressive about Operation Gladio is that it. Managed to stay hidden from the public for decades. Again, not a one of these guys went and spilled the beans and talked about it. And maybe if they did, no one believed them. But they were sitting there for decades, waiting for an invasion they hoped would never arrive. And in fact, never did. But it wasn't until the twilight days of the Cold War that Operation Gladio was first publicly acknowledged by then Italian Prime Minister, Giulio Andreotti, on October 24th, 1990. I do have an image of him right here. He's an Italian man of his era. Italian man. Mm-hmm. This guy's a little Macy's, like, uh, headshot going on here. I was gonna say, Macy's? Okay. Yeah, you could go and do, like, little couples photos in high school. Yeah, I do. I like the idea of the Prime Minister being so fiscally conservative that he goes, I'm going down to Macy's to get my professional headshot. And you know what? If it works, it works. I know that backdrop. Yeah. That's my third grade backdrop. Right there. That's true. You know what I mean? Yeah, they didn't really change things up too much. No. But you can go and get photos. That cloudy blue. I mean, look, we're looking at it now, so that's the time. But yeah, that is an Italian man, suited up, glasses, head full of hair. All right. Head full of hair, head full of teeth. But we, you know, he's not smiling with them, but I assume they're in there. Anyway, so October 24th, 1990. Now, there are different dates put out there by various sources, which is, again, mind-blowing to me. It's 1990. It's not like it's the Stone Age, but, you know, different sources acknowledge that he announced it publicly as far back as November 8th, 1990, as early as August of 1990. Either way, okay, he reveals that there were hidden caches of weapons throughout Italy. And while the operation had indeed been scaled down, nearly 600 people remain on the payroll of Operation Gladio. Damn. Yeah. What's interesting, and this kind of reminds me of The Dark Knight. The guy, Mr. Reese, if you remember this scene, he comes through. He stumbles into something. So, the interesting fact here is that he was almost forced to admit the existence of this secret group after a magistrate, a man named Felice Casson. We'll talk about him later. He is investigating a terrorist attack, a neo-fascist terrorist attack that took place 18 years earlier. And he stumbles across evidence of a group and this weapons cache. And so, because he's stumbling into this, you know, in the investigation, he's looking into. The source of explosives, and we'll talk more about this terrorist attack, actually. It was a car bombing. And because of this and tracking down where this explosive came from, he stumbles into this cache of explosives. And so, suddenly, it has now cracked the realm of secrecy. And so, he goes, fine, to get ahead of it, so there's no spin, I'm just going to say it. It is a thing. It exists. And this opens the door for several suspicions that the operatives of Operation Gladio. Operation Gladio had actually committed acts of terrorism in recent decades, and suddenly, the dominoes are falling. Conspiratorial dominoes are going, and this whole idea, these suspicions, would become known as the strategy of tension, which I'll break down in a second. Interesting. Strategy of tension. Is it like just a chaos strategy, or are you just. Can chaos be substituted in there, where it's just like, just let people give them a little bit, they'll go crazy, and they'll think this and that, and just causing confusion? Yeah, I see what you're after. Yeah, so, it's interesting to look at this in hindsight, because he's like, all right, well, this judge kind of found out about it. It's going to become public knowledge, so let me go ahead and do it. But that almost brings the Barbra Streisand effect, and so now everyone's going, well, the past couple decades have actually kind of sucked. Did this have anything to do with this top-secret underground operation? Okay, so, the strategy of tension. I think you're very much onto something. It's the idea. that the agents in Operation Gladio were actually carrying out terrorist attacks and false flag attacks in order to isolate left-wing extremists. Basically, the idea here was that by recruiting potentially extreme right-wing activists and civilians and military recruits, they weren't passively waiting for a left-wing invasion. Instead, they said, well, let's go on the offensive and let's like initiate false flag attacks and terrorist attacks to instill fear in the extreme left wing. Oh, man. Yeah. See, this is the type of manipulation stuff I don't like. Dude, I hate this. You have just a bunch of people in a room planning it out and going through like scenario one through 50 and tweaking and charts and graphs and percentages and just swaying things in the way that they want to be swayed or have the best odds of it happening and dominoes falling where they want it to fall. And it's just. It's sinister, bro. Oh, man. The string's being pulled without you even knowing or thinking. And there goes the tinfoil hat. It's getting even tighter. Yeah, but it's not so tinfoil, dude. It's sitting right in front of us. And we'll talk about. That's true. We're going to talk about. I'm getting a little too excited or passionate, I should say. We're going to talk about some operations and some massacres, some accidents, various classifications. We're going to talk about some that factually were part of Operation Gladio, which only continued the domino effect. Okay, well, if one is a fact and two is a pattern, what about this and that and that and this and that? And so then you start to see, yes, the conspiracy starts to unwind because, like, once one is, you know, implicated and attached to Operation Gladio, how do you stop that? Because there were so many attacks throughout this time period, famously, and a little bit more conspiratorially, but you and I covered the case in Belgium. The Brabant Killers, where I think it was seven, maybe nine individuals would stake, like, military raids on grocery stores, killing innocents, gunning down innocents, not really stealing any money. It almost just seemed to be pure terrorism. And this one, we'll talk more about it at the end, but this one is one of the conspiracy theories, is that, was that one a non-Italian kind of, like, knock-on effect of this Operation Gladio? We don't know. Because we don't know who perpetrated that crime. Again, we did a whole episode on it, Task Force, go check it out, because it is interesting as it is sinister, but you can see how it would connect to this as we start to get into the cases here. This episode of Red Web is sponsored by Factor. Has your routine taken a hit these past couple of months, and do you need to get back into eating real food? Well, Factor is here to make it easy. Factor makes chef-crafted, dietician-designed, ready-to-eat meals. So you don't have to choose between real food and convenience. Factor meals are ready in two minutes and require no prep and no clean-up. So even on the days where your schedule is completely out of control, eating well is still achievable. And what's great is that every week you're going to find 100 nutrient-dense menu items to choose from, and new options like salmon burgers, shredded pork, collard greens, and more. Plus, you're going to have add-ons that you'll crave, like pumpkin-flavored cheesecakes and protein shakes to fit your custom diet. I love Factor. I could be considerate. A picky eater. And I've never missed when I go to Factor. I'm looking to get my protein, my fiber, my vegetables, I want to get my micronutrient game on. And honestly, I just love the convenience. I get healthy, convenient lunches every single week, and it's wonderful. So let's eat real. Head to factormeals.com/redweb50off and then use code redweb50off to get 50% off and one free breakfast item per box for one year, while supplies last until October 31st, 2026. That's [email protected]. Once again, [email protected]. See website for more details. From designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com/specialoffer. The real cost of a break-in isn't your valuables, it's the feeling that your home stopped being safe. SimpliSafe keeps danger away from your family with three layers of protection. One, smart AI cameras and live US-based agents help stop intruders before they break in. Two, we sound the alarm at points of entry. Three, our agents request emergency response. Plans starting around a dollar a day. Right now, get 60% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com/spotify. Visit simplisafe.com/licenses for alarm license information. For the sake of being thorough and covering our tracks here, false flag attacks might be an obvious definition for some of us, but they're essentially framing attacks as incidents where it was made to look as though somebody else committed the act rather than the perpetrator, right? It seems obvious. But, hey, we're not going to be doing this. We're going to be doing this. We're going to hear a lot more about them coming in future incidents here, but the Red Brigades simply were a communist terrorist group that used hostage tactics and assassinations to attempt to sway Italy to a more left-leaning territory. Again, both of these sides seemingly fighting fire with fire or using fear as a fuel to motivate and lean people. I mean that's what terrorism literally is. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe uh, I don't know, maybe don't? Maybe let's talk about it? Yeah, I know, right? Maybe just don't. I don't know. Yeah. It's wild. And honestly, I think about it even to this day, and I start to zoom out, you know, like we see time through eras and periods, you know, middle ages, the dark ages, the, you know, bronze age, and then you start to go further back and whatever. But I'm like, recent memory, we start to get down to like decades. Yeah. Or months or whatever. And I'm like, I don't know, when we really zoom up out of where we are now, like we're still very much in the midst of all, this is very recent memory, dude. It's kind of, it makes it scarier to be honest. Yeah. It's a bit terrifying for sure. Yeah. So of course, as a result of this, the police cracked down on communist groups and ultimately arrested 200 communists. To the public, the case was mostly closed, right? As the red brigades had been implicated in this crime. And for more than a decade. That was the general belief. Now things would change in 1984 when a young judge Casson would reopen the case. This was the magistrate who discovered the link to operation Gladio. Now it's unclear why he reopened the case in the first place, but honestly, in hindsight, maybe it's, maybe it's for the best that he reopened this case because something didn't sit right with him because while investigating, he noticed several mistakes and fabrications surrounding the attack. Ultimately, he found no investigation was conducted by police at the scene, which is a huge red flag to start off with. I don't understand how you just don't have people go there and at least try and fake it. Right. If you're gonna fake it, whole ass the fake. Yeah. Grab the rookie, grab the person that, I don't know, someone, someone is wanting to do this. Heck, put them on a coffee run a block from the area or something. I don't know. Just something low effort. But to just. Just have nobody is, is very alarming. Unless you're one who orchestrates false flag attacks, in which case you did it perfectly continue to fake it terribly and no one will look closer and then they stopped listening to the podcast because that was the end for them. Uh, okay. So, so he's looking at this and he's like, okay, why did no police investigate the crime scene? Because what, what makes that interesting beside the obvious is that there was a report that stated. The explosive used at the scene was typical of those used by the red brigades. And how would you know that if you didn't get on scene to look at the residue, to look at the impact? All right. Ultimately, he discovered that the report was a forgery top to bottom, and it turns out that the misleading statements were created by a man named Marco Maureen, an officer who claimed to be an explosives expert. He had intentionally provided false expertise to implicate the red brigades and Maureen then revealed. That he was a member of the Red Brigade. And that he was a member of the Red Brigade. into committing these crimes, Freyda stated, this, quote, the life of everyone is manipulated by those with more power, end quote. A terrifying and true statement, to be sure. History is controlled by the victors, you know, the powerful only want you to see what they want you to see. It gets a little, hmm. And so you can start to see that despite having factual grounds here, where some of these false flag attacks are proven and have possible, if not plausible or likely, attachments to Operation Gladio, it starts to go like, okay, well then where does it stop? And that's where it really starts to roll away. Now, unfortunately, these two incidents are just a small part of a much larger period of turmoil in Italy. Like I kind of said at the very top, from the late 1960s in through, I want to say the early 80s, if not into the mid and late 80s, terrorism from both the far left and the far right sides of the Italian people caused intense political upheaval and terror and confusion. And this era would become known as the years of lead. But over this time, dude, over 12,000 attacks occurred across the country, culminating in a devastating 1980 Bologna station bombing. It killed 85 people. This devastating attack features the very familiar pattern that we've discussed. And again, not doing this, this whole moment justice, the initial blame, went to left-wing extremists, only to later be proven that this heinous attack was committed by neo-fascists with high-ranking members of the Italian military secret service facing conviction. Members who could have very well had direct ties to Operation Gladio, but that little gap of the unknown is where we sit with Operation Gladio. Was it an intentional thing? Was it accidentally supporting this? Did they just happen to recruit extreme right-wingers? So they said, decided to go on the offensive? Or were they just innocent bystanders that happened to look very much the part? It could be a multitude of things. And the thing is like, I think you can have so many different avenues of solid theories. We know a little bit. We just, we don't know nearly enough and nothing that we could plant our feet on. That's for sure. I think that's one of the big issues. It's like, we did have some, some stuff declassified. There are some things that we could look at and it looked kind of shady whatnot, but we're not getting anything more than that, you know? And so it's like, are we getting what they want us to get? I was like, it's just so much control, so much power. And just like, there's so many different levels of manipulation and ownership of things. And I mean, just look at food in general, right? Right. How many monopolies like certain food places have, and then make all the different little products and you have a product and you go, Oh, that's like a pink product. It's like, it's not. They're both on, it's all Cisco. It's all Cisco top to bottom. Exactly. And so just like they run it, they do what they want and they, they, you know, you'll think what they want you to think. It's so difficult. Yeah. Well, speaking of, I mean, I'm going to stay with this cause it's less violent and more just like kind of related, but I think Cisco recently, I don't want to misspeak purchased. Did they purchase the Michelin star program or like whatever that is to, to basically help curate that list? There's some involvement there. I, are you serious? Yeah. Yeah. Cause there was, there was a whole new list that again, getting into, I'm kind of speaking out of my pocket here, task force, but like it was a list of like sustainable chefs. They cooked in sustainable ways, but also made incredible meals. Apparently that whole list disappeared as soon as Cisco got involved. And so like now you as a public, you don't have an informed list of who those chefs might be. And yes, it's very niche here. I get it, but it is an. Example to your point, Fredo of how you can control what people know and don't know. And by controlling what you do and don't know, you can guide how one thinks very Orwellian, you know, if I define truth from five to 10 and you don't know anything about zero to four, you know what I mean? Yep. I control your math. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess coming back to it here though, you know, but regarding these 12,000 plus attacks, while affiliates of operation Gladio were not present at all of these incidents, by any means, they definitely were not taking any action to help the situation. So they might factually be involved with the handful, but that leaves you thousands that we just don't know. In fact, when Italian prime minister Aldo Moro was kidnapped in 1978, by the red brigade, this did in fact happen because of the now public knowledge of this operation. There was a lot of suspicion. That Italian officials and agents within operation Gladio might've actually known about this kid. might have known where he was being held and simply did nothing that they would hope okay red brigade did something bad let's oh we don't know what's going on they won't tell us anything we can't figure it out okay let's hope maybe they kill moro because this would ultimately serve their anti-leftist views yep yeah you gotta think about that too right like i mean governments in general how many times do governments let bad things happen because it serves their interests or step in because a lot dude because like they need to bolster aside to service their interests backdoor deals of just i mean the government governments in general right or it's like oh yeah we know that that operation over there is highly legal not good but we let it happen because we benefit from it yes and there's lots of things that we can do to help people and we can do a lot of things to help people and we can do a lot of things to help people things that have come out that have been like discovered about these types of like ways of doing business and and it's just like you just think like the government just like you know there's not necessarily just the u.s it could be all kinds of other governance governments they're serving their best interests and a handful of times it also does come at the cost of like civilian lives or you know it's like if you think a war between two countries isn't being backfunded by other nations and countries oh yeah own benefit like it's the enemy of my enemy thing dude yeah i completely believe there's like just let it happen because you know maybe well you know they'll do some stuff for us that we want and like we kind of like it's more beneficial if we let it happen as opposed like stepping in like crazy yeah dude i'm telling you man it's just this rabbit hole here i was like i knew this one was gonna be a rabbit hole it's a rabbit hole and and again it's like where do you stop where does conspiracy start where truth ends that line moves it's really hard to pin down for this case and unfortunately i did just close the loop there aldemaro was in fact murdered by the red brigade during that captivity and we'll never know if there was feigned ignorance that led to his death or if they truly didn't know where he was being held and therefore couldn't rescue him we'll never know but now trust as you've seen has been shattered this episode of red web is sponsored by quince august always feels like the perfect time to reset your routine after a long time after the busy summer and one of the easiest places to start your bed quince brings that comfortable hotel-like feeling home with beautifully made bedding so the place that you end every single day feels a little more calming comfortable and luxurious whether you're refreshing your entire bed or simply upgrading a few everyday essentials quince makes it easy to create a space that you'll look forward to at the end of every day their 100 european linen bedding is woven with premium flax and it gets softer with every wash and it has that relaxed lived-in feel to it and it's a great place to sleep and it's a great place to sleep and it's a great place to go for a walk and it's a great place to sleep and it's a great place to go for a walk and just so you know everything at quince is priced 50 to 80 percent less than similar brands quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts down on the middlemen so you are paying for quality not that silly brand markup and let me tell you how i know it's because my entire bedding at this point is now quince from the pillow to the duvet to the insert and everything the sheets it is a wonderful and comfortable experience and honestly when you're ending your day in your bed and you're spending a third of your life there make sure it's comfortable and quince is hitting every single time i can't recommend them enough and it's not just bedding quince makes elevated essentials across apparel home cookware and more making it easy to bring that same thoughtful quality into every part of your everyday life upgrade your every day download the quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash red web get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in canada and the uk too that's q u i n c e dot com slash red web quince.com slash red web this episode of red web is sponsored by better help you've heard me talk about better help for a long time but i don't know that we've ever actually talked about how many people love this service when they use it you can check it out for yourself at betterhelp.com slash reviews to see amazing customer reviews in real time the reviews are updated every day with hundreds of people saying how much they love better help and how helpful it's been for them more than 60% of the time they've been using better help for a long time six million people have used better help globally the consistent feedback from real users makes it easy to see why so many people continue to use better help better help therapists have at least three years and a thousand hours of hands-on experience so they hold all the required education training and certifications across a range of mental health specialties and better help makes it easy to get started answer a few questions get matched with a therapist based on your needs and switch therapists at any time if it's not the right fit i've said this before but i really appreciate better help as that great starting point for your therapy journey i know a lot of people including myself didn't know where to start and so this is a wonderful tool to help you get started to find that person that's right for your needs and open up the book that is therapy Because therapy does offer a lot of amazing tools depending on what you're looking for. See the reviews, what stands out, and see if BetterHelp is right for you. Visit BetterHelp.com slash RedWeb. That's BetterHelp.com slash RedWeb. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task. Unless you have a partner like Shopify. Now, nearing the end of the years of lead, it's 1984. Vinci Guerra is testifying over the car bombing that we discussed earlier, the Petiano Massacre. And again, he's the one who's guilty. He turns himself in, he's giving these insights about this underground kind of group that's helping him escape, right? In his testimony, he finally alludes to Operation Gladio, without giving any information away. So he says this, quote, There exists in Italy a secret force, parallel to the armed forces, composed of civilians and military men, in an anti-Soviet capacity, to organize a resistance on Italian soil against a Russian army. Lacking a Soviet. Military invasion, which might not happen, they took up the task, on NATO's behalf, of preventing a slip to the left in the political balance of this country. This they did with the assistance of the official secret services and the political and military forces. So he now, as somebody who was part of a proven false flag attack, is now kind of saying what everyone was kind of fearing. And this is why so many of these cases, in retrospect, have been. Seen through a different lens entirely. And you cannot. It's Pandora's box. You can't put it back. No, you really can't. It's. Yeah, it's open. It's open. And what's wild, and I think affirming, if not straight up terrifying, though, his testimony would be corroborated by other Italian officials, including members of the military secret service. Damn. Yeah. Damn, it's backed up. It's all backed up. And yeah, anyone can say anything, right? We always say that. That's. Yeah, that's true. I mean, people lie under. Under oath, you know? Yeah. But, like, but this guy, I don't know if it's, like, the guilty conscience or what have you, but he's like, I did this thing. And this is the network that made it happen, that tried to help me, that got me out. And I'm coming back to say, like, you know, not to say that he's a good person and he did what he did, but it's at least bringing truth to light, you know? Yeah. So, while some of these testimonies explicitly named the CIA as a supporter, approver, and organizer, of course, the CIA has denied direct involvement with Operation Gladio in Italy, specifically. They're kind of like, well, when it comes to Italy, that's their own thing. We might, may or may not, have involvement with other operations, but we'll never say. We may or may not. It's just like, okay. So, I mean, what am I left to say, but cynically say, you do, then? Right. Because then you just outward would be like, no. Right. You would say no, but then, but then by saying no, does your count, does your enemy know this? Just leave. Yeah. Just leave. Putting it in the gray, so then that way, you know, if you do get caught or discovered, things come out, you'd be like, well, we never say that we didn't. Right. I don't know. And again, I'll come back to something a little bit more innocent, but it's the same thing with like UAPs and UFOs. I'm like, you keep saying this, like, I don't know, but I won't say, like, I'm not saying yes, but I'm also not saying no. So many people want to then say like, okay, well then that's a clear yes. But I'm also like, yeah, but if you're playing like six dimensional chess, and you have these very complicated international like relationships with enemies and alliances and what you're not saying, what you are saying all really matters. Like, I can also understand why you would, even if you're innocent, still not say that. Like, I don't know what I don't know behind the scenes. So, man, listen, I am not the CIA. I don't want to be a representative of the CIA or FBI. I don't think that's enviable at all. Nope. But when you're looking at it as a citizen, you go like, yeah, that sucks. All of it, top to bottom. Absolutely. None of it's good. It's all a damn mess. Yeah. In fact, to kind of build on that CIA claim, of course, they would just be like, we don't know. There was a U.S. official quoted in the Washington Post. There was an article on Operation Gladio. And in that they say it was, quote, solely an Italian operation. We have no control over it whatsoever. End quote. And I'm like, man, I want to read between those lines like we didn't have control over. But we had influence. You know, we could nudge. We could arm. But we could stop. But we didn't. I didn't control. You know, it's like, come on. So and it's so on the gray, dude. Exactly. No, I mean, but then, like, who can really hold them accountable? Is like, I don't know. We don't really have you think it'd be something like the U.N. to hold people accountable and everyone comes together. But everyone's all backdooring each other and side deals. And it's just like, oh, man, what a like absolute mess. What an absolute mess. And I don't again, I'm speaking out of pocket here. I don't even think the U.N. as a kid, you kind of think like, cool, this is where all the nations kind of come to agree. And so maybe there can be some level of authority or understood mutual law or something. But and there are international laws and things. And then there's things like Interpol, which I don't fully understand. But like, ultimately, am I wrong to say that the U.N. is mostly focused on relations? And like trade agreements and less so about I mean, like, yeah, there's also like nuclear agreements and things that are overseen by the U.N. But again, I'm flexing my ignorance here. Yeah, I mean, again, I'm completely ignorant on the fact, too. But yeah, I think they oversee certain like a lot of different stuff. I don't know. I don't know too much, but it just seems like, I don't know, maybe we start with them in terms of like giving them more power to hold them accountable. I don't know if it's a good thing, bad thing, how they've handled situations that that are their responsibilities. No idea. But I mean, again, it's like they don't have anyone to hold anyone accountable. And and so everyone just kind of does these things. And you just it just seems like everyone pushes each other to the board. Like, all right, I'm going to back off. I don't want to choose sending nukes my way or whatever. Right. And then it's like, oh, now we're pushing us a little bit and we push back a little bit. And everyone just kind of like teeters the line right on like poking at each other, but not pissing each other off. Right. It's this huge, dangerous standoff. And honestly, what I do know about the U.N. is that. It's essentially a post-World War like two situation of like, all right, well, we never want to have wars like this again. We do need a body that can look over certain international law and yes, relationships and but like but yes, you're right. No country is held accountable. But you do hope that this very complicated global community that we have can be accountable to itself in a way, because as you're saying, you either go too far and then people start pulling triggers or you go so far as to like, you know, economic weapons start to be hoisted. Where now there's sanctions or like lack of trade, which then harms your economy. Like there are other mechanisms that can be pulled on to kind of hope that people stay in line. But man, I don't know. The world's so complicated. It's it's a tough role to be in, as I know. I imagine. Yeah. So, OK, back to the CIA super in the gray, much like a lawyer, they're pleading the fifth. And again, whether they're involved or not makes a whole lot of sense. A following Prime Minister Andriotti is acknowledged. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but this is the first time in the history of the CIA that there's been an acknowledgment of Operation Gladio and the fall of the Soviet Union, which was in nineteen ninety one, the stay behind groups were swiftly dismantled, specifically Italy and Belgium dismantled the groups in nineteen ninety and by nineteen ninety two, all groups were no longer operational. Now, here's just like a kind of some various elements of fallout. In 2005, there was a Swiss conspiracy theorist named Daniela Ganser, who was the head of the CIA's intelligence agency. And in 2006, he was the head of the CIA's intelligence agency. Westmoreland Field Manual. They said that that was forged, which reportedly explicitly formulated a strategy of tension. So basically saying that like, okay, the Soviets are using elements and ingredients of truth to paint a picture that's wrong. And that's where you're, that's where you're getting all of this. And you fell prey to that propaganda is kind of the idea. Now in 2015, a man named Paul L. Williams published a book named Operation Gladio, The Unholy Alliance Between the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia. This is where we firmly start to get into the realm of conspiracy theory, but you can see some plausibility in it because when the governments are involved, you can always kind of see the plausibility of it, right? Right. Yeah. And again, there are many conspiracy theories. This is just one of the bigger ones here, but in it, he alleges that the Vatican saw communism as a threat to the church and decided to take action, the Vatican as an entity. Reportedly, this led Vatican leaders to cooperate with the CIA and other intelligence agencies. He then alleges that the church also donated money to anti-communist movements. And even that the Vatican bank was used to secretly move money between political organizations in order to kind of curry some of that sway. He also notes in his book that the church helped agents escape using rat lines, which were a network. I had no idea about this, by the way. Yeah. Rat lines. Okay. Yeah. They were a network of secret escape routes created to help high-ranking Nazis escape to South America, during World War II. Interesting. We don't like that. Now, of course, while the Vatican maintained an outwardly neutral stance during World War II, it has been proven that certain individuals in the church did aid in the escape of high-ranking members. However, it's important to note that Williams's claims were received with much controversy as historians noted that his evidence highly relied on conspiracy theories, that he's not really pulling facts together as much as he's pulling together, and that he is very likely to have done so in order to prove that he's not in the wrong. It's that whole kind of like, well, it's common sense. It makes sense when you just think about it on paper. But yeah, when the information comes to play, though, some of these things might be real, but when you put them all together, it's painting the wrong picture. Right. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. Garlic can be used for a great pasta or an evil dish. Doesn't belong in a PBJ. Yeah. I mean, that's how it goes, man. That's those are the logs, the manipulations. It's just terrible, but it's also not surprising. So, like, are we desensitized? Like, maybe. And maybe that's part of it. Maybe that's the whole idea is apathy is that you're so blown over by conspiracy theories that when the actual truth, which is to say the conspiracy theory is real, you go, yeah, I know. Old news. Let's move on. But you're like, oh, hold on. Let's stop. Let's hold people accountable. Let's let's start to blow our own minds and say, holy crap, it was real this whole time. There are secret government cabals doing wild stuff. But then but then you also feel helpless. And then you go, well, if they can do that for decades, what am I supposed to do? Yep. I guess I'll just keep working, paying taxes and die. Seriously. Sorry to end on that nihilist bombshell. It's true, though. What do you do? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But I mean, that it's maybe it's maybe this is the wrong term learned helplessness, but maybe that helplessness is part of the equation. Right. Like I said, I didn't really have this in my notes, but I do know, especially because Gerder, thank you again for submitting this this topic. They mentioned it when they submitted this coming back to the idea of the Brabant killers. This happened in the Belgian province of Brabant. It was between 1982 and 1985. And a total of 28 people died. 22 people were injured. Again, we did a whole episode on this case, breaking down all of the details. But ultimately, no one was found or held accountable for these. And so I wanted to talk about that as a broad strokes like it's pseudo conspiracy, but it would make sense being part of this conversation. But we don't have the facts to connect it. And there are many such attacks like that that people have pointed to. Again, once once the Pandora's box has been opened on what the government's capable of, you just kind of can't go back. Right. Can't unsee it. I agree. But this has been the mind numbing. Absolutely. Like labyrinth head twisting kind of operation that is Operation Gladio. What are your thoughts on this as we kind of like come to an end here? It's frustrating because I just feel like so much of it's like right in her face and they're just getting slapped around with it at face value. It just furthermore demonstrates how much I hate politics and how corrupt like governments can be and stuff like that. It just makes you feel defeated when it's just like, oh, they kind of just do what they want. Live in the gray, manipulate all that kind of stuff and take and you kind of just hope you're not in the way of what they're doing because what do you do to do about it? You know, sometimes it's just blatantly out in front of you and and you just feel like you're in this weird nightmare. We're just like it's no one else seeing the obvious here. Right. The manipulation or you know, they're just like outwardly saying that we did this terrible thing and everyone's like, yeah, all right. Yeah, it is what it is. I'm like, I don't know what you mean. It is what it is. Like, why are we sitting here? You know, and you hear like, well, be like politics and like, like the government, like hearings and stuff like that and just hear like, oh, you know, you're the right side just ran in and just started causing chaos in the courtroom. Like, what do you mean? We just what? What? What? Like what? Yeah, they just ran in and caused chaos. And then they just ran in and caused chaos. Like, they just didn't have the important hearing. Like, what? How do we how do you let that? Oh, we're just OK with that. OK, that's that's just where we're at now. We're just OK with it. And they just we just let people be children and kick and scream. And there's no one holding anyone accountable. And there's no rules or just rules are just made up. Right. Rules to control you to manipulate for me. It's easy to spiral. It's easy to spiral. I know. I know. I knew that I knew this was going to be the path that we get set on. And I was like, yeah, yeah. I'm going to think about the World Cup and how everyone is so happy that they came to visit. And it's not as terrible as everyone says it was. America's not as terrible as other people say it was just visiting. I will say just like as someone who really and just honestly, transparently, I don't keep up with soccer football until the FIFA World Cup comes around. But every time it does, it really draws me back in. I have to say the England Mexico match was something to behold. Incredible sportsmanship on both sides, but also just hearing how the fans were before, during and after is incredibly heartwarming. Mexico put up an incredible fight. The fans were tremendous to like just the energy from it was like phenomenal. But England was just like an impenetrable wall at a certain point. Again, we're going to date this episode, but that was a wild matchup. Just talking about FIFA coming off with a positive feeling here. Anarchist nihilism that maybe this episode could leave you feeling. It's been, yeah, it's been some wild games for sure. Yeah, we'll end with a positive. U.S. We don't need to. Going to U.S. and Belgium. I kicked the floor. Oh, no. I've seen too many times. We had as good of a run as we could have had. That was a great run. There was a great run better than we could have expected. But man, there are some really good lineups today. Anyway, this is super of the date, like the cups way long ended. Everyone's like, so it's so one and we don't know yet. We don't know. Well, that said, well, no, hold on. Shout outs. I can't forget. We're just like, let's just, let's just bail. Let's get out of here. Let's bail. I'm feeling down. Thank you so much to Kayla Jean Boatwright for being the newest task force member over at redwebpod.com. You get all those goodies we talked about before and everything else we've got going on. So enjoy. Scott Deacon, you're the buff scientist of the week. Thank you so much for bringing that that gourd like head to the new region with your sippy cup of tea. We welcome you. And then, of course, the squonks this week are Broman, Clint from PS3 and Tucker did it just to name a few. You guys are wonderful. And Fredo, I'll see you right back here next Monday for yet another mystery. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business from designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond. Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz and Allbirds continue to trust and use them with Shopify on your side. Turn your big business idea into sign up for your one dollar per month trial at Shopify dot com slash. offer.