Operation Gladio: Invisible Armies and The Secret War

At the close of WWII, US allies created secret, "stay-behind" armies, designed to protect the population in the event of a Communist invasion. So why are they linked with terrorist groups? What were these secret armies actually doing, and - perhaps more importantly - did they ever stop?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups. History is
wortled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello,
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt and
I am Ben. We're here with our super producer Null.

(00:22):
Put your foot down, Brown, that's right, he's just the
one glass pain away. Or maybe it's two. I think
it's double pained. Ye, so dude, Yes, sir, We're in
this new office. It's pretty swank, pretty sweet. I'm loving it.
I don't know about you. I think you're enjoying yourself here, right.
You know, it's a it's a nice place, you know.

(00:44):
One of the things that is here is a fairly
open break room area that is between where you guys
sit and where when I say you guys, I mean writers, editors, podcasters,
you guys are all over there, and then all of
the video team is back here in this kind of
cordoned off dark room area. Why don't you just say

(01:06):
you people to people are over there and in between us?
Is this no man's land with a giant question mark
table and all of the coffee and and sometimes I
don't know if this happens to you. But when I'm
over in that area, I will over here something that
maybe I wasn't supposed to hear um because somebody will

(01:28):
be having a conversation, but the office is so open
that it's you know, you just hear things. And it
made me think about this week's topic, just because sometimes
there's information that people don't want you to hear. But
we don't live in a vacuum. Well, met, you're here,
knowl's here. I'm here, listeners, You're the most important part

(01:51):
of the show. You're here, and I guess on behalf
of the listeners, i'd have to ask, Uh, what where
are you going with this? What are you talking about? So, Ben,
what I'm talking about is a trial in an Italian
court in there's this guy who's considered a right wing
terrorist named Vincenzo vin Siagia working for a right wing

(02:13):
terrorist group whose name translates to a new Order. Yes, precisely, well,
this group. He stated that his group participated in what
they would say is a false flag terrorist attack, uh,
several of them, which were meant to discredit communists in
the region. Now, he also said, Ben that this these

(02:38):
acts that they were taking part in and his group
was a part of something called Operation Gladiol and that
ladies and gentlemen, is the subject of our episode today,
Operation Claudio. In this moment in four in this Italian court,
when this when this guy who is a terrorist, Vincenzo,

(03:00):
when he says that he uh, when he says that
his group was there to discredit the communists. That's because
this was originally blamed by the mass media of the
time and the government of the time on a group
called um the Red Brigades, which were supposed to be

(03:21):
a you know, there were a communist affiliated group of activists.
But he said, not only did they do a false
attack to discredit this communist group which hadn't bombed anything,
but they have bombed other things as well, and they
did this on the orders of their leaders and Operation Claudio.

(03:42):
And here's the weird thing there. Uh. Their leaders, he alleges,
are not you know, ideological crazy skinheads or super fascists. Uh,
they are someone higher, much much more official. This makes
a Venetian judge named Police Cassan uh very curious. He

(04:06):
sees anomalies in the reporting of this case, which was
I believe originally was the Petrono bombing. So this judge police,
he goes to the archives of the Italian military secret service,
where he discovers documents confirming the existence of Operation Gladio,
forcing the Prime Minister at the time, Giulio Andreati, to
confirm the existence of this international program. This is the

(04:30):
first time a government official has confirmed it. A lot
of people think Operations Gladiol went public in n but
that's not true. It's eighty four, as you said. But
then we keep saying the name Operation Gladiol, and I'm
sure our listeners are just going, what the hell is that. Well,
here's the basic idea of what it is. It's a

(04:52):
state sponsored stay behind program for armies like these standing
stay behind armies for aces in mostly Western Europe after
World War Two, in order to basically stamp out in
a lot of these places too. I guess, act, act
and do things that armies and official you know, military

(05:16):
could not do. And a lot of times they were
really bad things, like we said, carrying out terrorist attacks, um,
and these were these groups were sponsored through Gladiol. Gladiol
by intelligence agencies and even NATO. Right. Uh. One important
distinction for us to make here is that when these

(05:37):
stay behind armies were started, we'll walk through the timeline here.
When they stayed behind armies were created. Their purpose was
not to do offensive actions, you know, like to perform operations.
Their their purpose what it was, you know, if they
were a box of cereal, what what said on the box,
what it's said on the box exactly, was that they

(05:58):
would be, uh, they would be waiting in secret in
the event of an invasion from the from the communist side,
an emergency situation thing right specifically though not non emergency
situation like an earthquake or something like that, but an

(06:19):
emergency situation uh, defined specifically by communist powers from the
USS are attempting to invade, you know, like other West Germany,
other countries that were on the border. So these guys
originally weren't supposed to do anything but wait because at
the time Western Europe and the United States were convinced

(06:41):
that World War three was going to happen very soon
and it would be between essentially between capitalism and communism.
So they all got together in secret and built these
invisible armies for this coming secret war in countries just
throughout the area, part of countries that were part of NATO,
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and countries that were not.

(07:03):
We have a list of them too, right, Yeah, let's
just go through Finland, Oh, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Turkey, Cyprus,
and possibly even more. I would say, probably, we don't know. Yeah.

(07:23):
So these groups that were hired, these were often like
far right activists so imagine, uh, separatist militias imagine. And
this was the case in Germany, former s S soldiers. Uh. Yeah,
they were supported by the local governments. There were no
big arrest or prosecutions. When things did start getting pear

(07:46):
shaped for a while, a lot of times they were dropped, right,
The charges against these groups were just dropped mysteriously too. Yeah.
And they depended on secret caches of weapons that were
distributed all over Europe. Like think of finding an abandoned
mine with just create after Creative C four is that

(08:08):
kind of so crazy? It reminds me of some of
the spy video games I've played, where there's like a
specifically hit Man, where there's a weapon cash somewhere on
the level they just had to seek out and find it.
I played one hit Man is the guy who's bald, right,
he's got the gas? I think I played one version
of hit Man, and I quickly just got waxed because

(08:31):
you're supposed to be sneaky and I didn't. I didn't
get that at first. No, I ran through, and yeah,
I was terrible at it. I'm glad one of us
is good at it. You're the expert on hit Man
from now on. But here's the million dollar question, right, Matt,
did Gladiol Armies ever cross the line from being a

(08:52):
ready defense force to active domestic terrorism, which is not
what they were supposed to be doing. Well, you know,
from the first thing we Stay did on this podcast,
it seems like maybe they have. But let's learn more.
Here's where it gets crazy. So to begin this story,
we're going to have to start way back in time

(09:14):
in nineteen forty, when Prime Minister Winston Churchill creates the
Secret Stay Behind Army UH, the Special Operations Executive to
assist resistance movements and carry out subversive operations in enemy
held territory. Now, this, you'll notice, is a little bit
different because this group he starts already is in enemy territory.

(09:36):
It's not like a um right, yeah, that's a great
way to say it. There behind the lines. So they
are actively doing stuff. But at the end of World
War two, when their new armies created there based off
the experiences and strategies of this s O group and
their former officers. Right, so if we if we fast

(09:59):
for a word, we see that there's already trouble brewing
by the end of the war. Yeah. Then in nineteen
in Finland, the Communist interior Minister, he exposes a secret
stay behind which is currently at that time being closed down.
Which is interesting because that's one of the first times

(10:19):
you hear, oh wait, this guy is officially closing this
secret thing that nobody knew about, right yeah, And some
people say, just like a communist. And just a few
years later in ninety seven, this is a big date
for every US resident and probably for most people in
the world. Then President Harry Truman creates the National Security

(10:40):
Council and the Central Intelligence Agency. They also have a
special branch of the CIA at this time it's called
the Office of Policy Coordination, and that is what sets
up these armies that stay behind in Western Europe. These
invisible militias. And I just got a point out that,
regardless of how you feel about this policy, it's so

(11:03):
strange that so many covert and technically I guess illegal
things that governments do fall under such vague names. Oh absolutely,
that sounds nice, Like that's okay. Office of Policy Coordination.
That's really good. They're getting in between the different you
know groups, and they're just like, hey, this is the

(11:24):
policy guys, right, yeah, what could go wrong? Then in
nineteen in France, the Interior Minister reveals the existence of
another secret stay behind army code named Plan Blue b
L e U. Yes, yeah, so there's one. Then in
in France, there's something in Finland. In Austria, same year,

(11:47):
forty seven, another stay behind armies exposed, but this has
been set up by right wing extremists and they were
named Susse and Ross and a chancellor at the time
named Corner Pardons the accused under say it with me, Matt,
mysterious circumstances. Oh, here you go. In nineteen forty nine,

(12:11):
really important year, another one. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization
is founded and the European headquarters is officially established in France.
That's NATO. Yeah, NATO, that's the one that you hear
of Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama name dropping all the time. Right. So,
in nineteen fifty one, just a few years later, a
CIA agent who may be familiar to some of you

(12:33):
out there named William Kolby is in Sweden training these
stay behind armies. Uh, in both that country, Sweden, and
train a new one for Finland, and in the NATO
members Norway and Denmark. It's crazy, it's proof that the

(12:54):
CIA was involved with this. Yeah, in nineteen fifty one.
Then next year, in nineteen fifty two, in Germany, a
former s S officer Hans Auto, which you may have
heard before, that name, he reveals to the criminal police
in Frankfort the existence of another, this time fascist Germans
stay behind army and uh. The arrested right wing extremists

(13:16):
guess what, they're found not guilty under mysterious circumstances. Right sold.
Just one more time, or maybe a couple more times.
In Sweden, the police arrest a right wing guy named
Otto Hallberg in three and that is how they discovered
the stay behind army that is in Sweden. Hallberg walks

(13:39):
away free because the charges against him are dropped under
mysterious circumstances. Man, these circumstances, they sure work in mysterious ways,
don't right, Yeah, you gotta. Uh So, Okay, now we
get to the point where it starts to seem as
though the stay behind Armies might be doing more than

(14:02):
protecting operatives, right, but they might actually be affecting the
government in which they reside. In nineteen sixty in Turkey,
the military, supported by secret armies, they stage a coupata
and they kill Prime Minister A Don Mendarius. Yeah. And
so in sixty four in Italy, uh, the Stay behind

(14:26):
Army that Gladiol instituted is involved in a coup with
with the Italian military general Giovanni de Lorenzo in Operation Solo,
makes the socialist ministers of Italy leave the government. And
then they called it a silent coup um just I

(14:47):
guess a reorganization of power. Yeah, yeah, that's what it
was in the Office of reorganizations of right. Yeah. So
in nineteen sixty nine in Italy, the Piazza funt On
a massacre which you may have heard of in it's
in Milano. It kills sixteen injurs and maims eighty, it's
blamed on the left. Then, thirty years later, during a

(15:10):
trial of right wing wing extremists, General g Gia Delio Maletti,
he's the former head of the Italian counter intelligence anyway,
he claims that the massacre had been carried out by
the Italian Stay behind Army and right wing terrorists on
the orders of the U S Secret Service and Central
Intelligence Agency, and they did it in order to discredit

(15:33):
the Italian communists. In Turkey and seventy one, there's another coup,
the military takes power. Uh. These are where we see
allegations that the stay behind Army from Gladiol is waging
domestic terror and killing civilians. Next year, nineteen seventy two

(15:53):
in Italy, a bomb explodes in a car near the
village of Petiano, killing three police officers. The or this
act is first blamed on the left, and then it's
a later trace back to the right wing terrorist Vincenzo
vincey Guira. Isn't that interesting who we mentioned at the
beginning of the podcast. Yeah, and the Italian stay behind
code named Gladio, and this takes us Let's let's fast

(16:16):
forward because when he's finally in trial as we mentioned,
and he uh Vincey Gheta reveals the involvement of NATO
Stay Behind Army and these acts of terrorism to discredit communists.
He gets sentenced to life. Some would say that's big. Well,

(16:36):
clearly he did it. People think he did it. But
other people were saying that he was not protected by
the organization because he started talking about it. So the
he's a young magistrate judge at the time. Felice, as
we mentioned earlier, Felice Cassan forces the Prime Minister to
acknowledge the existence of Gladiol at least in Italy. But

(17:00):
we start seeing more mysterious stuff because once this watershed,
you know, it's like a damn. Once there's a fracture,
a leak in a damn, that the entire structure begins
to compromise. People start getting nervous about their own involvement,
and you know, like where where are the legal lines here?
It's it's tough to know exactly where they are. So

(17:23):
then in nineteen nine and Switzerland, former commander of the
Swiss Secret Stay behind Army p. Two six, in a
confidential letter to the Defense Department, declared that he's willing
to reveal quote the whole truth unquote. Thereafter he's found
at his house stabbed with his own military banditt. So
let's go forward to later in the same year in Belgium, UH,

(17:49):
NATO denies. No. NATO is based in Belgium, and Belgium
NATO denies these allegations of the Italian Prime minister and
this idea of secret war in Western Europe. UH. The
next day though, right after that, so it's like November five,
they say that. November six, they come back and they say, UH,

(18:10):
that denial have been false. We will not answer any
further questions. So yeah, hey, look, we lied to you,
but we can't talk about it. Okay, well, let's not
say we we lied. That's just saying we were wrong. Yeah,
we were wrong. That's not accurate. We didn't. Maybe we
didn't have the information at the time. Now we do,

(18:30):
but we still should talk about and then lastly for
this timeline or we've got a couple more here. But
in the US, the National Security Archive at the George
Washington University in Washington, they file an fo I a
a Freedom of Information Act request concerning the secret stay
behind Armies with the CIA in the interests. So they're

(18:53):
going to the CIA trying to request these documents, and
they're trying to get them with the interest of public
information and science the research. That's for the reason they're
trying to get them. Now the CIA rejects the request
with their standard reply that we have we've heard before
in movies and in television. Ben quote, the CIA can

(19:13):
neither confirm nor deny the existence or non existence of
records responsive to your request. Gosh, that is so polite
and just shadowy. There was a great article about the
man who originally made that statement. I can't remember if
it pertained two JFK or something like that, but we'll

(19:36):
we'll find that out and we'll put it up on
our social media if we haven't already, So go visit
us at Facebook and Twitter where we are conspiracy stuff.
It really is perfect language for not for not really
saying anything, but very cordially. Yeah, it reminds me of
Joseph Heller and Catch twenty two. For anyone who's a
fan of that book. The there seems to be an

(19:59):
inherent and absurdity. But you got to check out that
article we found because that will explain in depth. Uh,
just how carefully worded that kind of stuff had to be.
So we've got that timeline, and we see some trends
in some of these cases. We see an initial act
of terrorism, a furious, sudden accusation of left wing groups,
and then later information seems to often reveal a connection

(20:25):
between the state and these groups. So at at this point, Matt,
having looked over this timeline, and thank you for walking
through that with us listeners, at this point, we're seeing
something that we see often when we talk about shadowy
organizations or UH government operations, and that is that there

(20:45):
there's some stuff that has proven and is is crazy
and is illegal and has proven after the fact UH.
And then there's a much larger category of stuff that's
unproven but alleged. We're going to see that stuff for
the end of course, but we can start at least
with the things that have already been proven. Well, one

(21:07):
thing that we do know is that these groups that
are supported by Operation Gladioli, they did some of them
at least did commit some sort of acts of terror
or terrorism we would call terrorism now in century. Bombings, yes,
bombings in particular. They say that this was at least

(21:28):
these groups say it was on the order of NATO
and or m I six and or the CIA. But
those organized organizations, they just straight out deny any of
their involvement and they prefer to paint the terror as
acts of unimal, unilateral decisions made by these unrelated groups.
And you know, hey, look guys, we had nothing to

(21:49):
do with this, right And uh, in Italy we know that,
at least in Italy and probably in other places, these
Gladioli groups were associated with criminal elements or corruption or
what is often called the deep state. So specifically, these
guys are working with one of your favorite organizations conspiracy wise,

(22:13):
which is a Masonic lodge or arguably a pseudo Masonic
lodge named Propaganda Do. Yeah, that group is is fascinating.
I think we've briefly covered them a couple of times
in video, but yeah, it is worth your time to
do a little further research on P two Propaganda do right. Yeah,

(22:33):
they have a they often referred to as a state
within a state or shadow government. Uh. This this is
a strange thing to read about, especially if you are
interested in corruption cases. They had journalists members parliament, the
equivalent of the big businessmen the military leaders. So think

(22:54):
of it. If you're listening to this in the United States,
think of this as a club where Um Glenn Greenwald,
Cole and Powell, every President, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Oprah,
everybody who has a lot of influence goes to hang

(23:14):
out here. Kind of does freemason stuff, which I guess
would mean that they wouldn't have Oprah in that organization.
But they, you know, they do freemason stuff. And then
they say, here's how we're secretly going to run the country,
and I don't part of that. I just have to
believe that he would not be a part of that. Well,

(23:36):
I I don't. I don't think that they're they're definitely
not members of p P two S which was later
supposedly disbanded. But now so we have that stuff proven
acts of terrorism right, possibly some some other stuff and
and cooperation with crime, cooperation with international until aligence networks.

(24:01):
But we have a lot more unproven stuff and one
of them, I guess the woman can just jump into.
Is is pretty frightening if it's true. Yes, it's this
thing called the strategy of tension, which is pretty interesting.
And the the idea here is that the constant constant
terrorist attacks create this fear amongst the populace. It encourages

(24:25):
this atmosphere in which there's hostility in the public against
these uh left wing groups. So basically, basically what it
will do is or what they're hoping it will do,
is create that tension so that the public in general
will start clamoring for more control, more security from either

(24:48):
the government or right wing groups or both, and you know,
kind of give them even more power over the state
in general and the economy. Yeah, as the operative Vincenzo
Vincigena said during that famous trial in you had to
attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown, people

(25:12):
far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple.
They were supposed to force these people to turn to
the state to ask for greater security. Yesh right. And
then there's there's more. That's what. That's one accusation, which
is which is frightening if it's true. Um, But then

(25:34):
there's also these accusations or allegations of assassinations. That's right.
In nineteen seventy eight, there's an investigative journalist named Mino Pecarelli,
and he thought the Prime Minister Aldo Moro's kidnapping an
assassination by the Red Brigades had actually been masterminded by
somebody else, by this what he called a lucid superpower,

(25:56):
and was since he was inspired by the logic of
Yalta uh or who he thought it was. He thought
the attack an assassination was inspired by the logic of
Ylta and uh. There was something that Aldo Moro was
doing during that time, right before his kidnapping an assassination. Yeah, yeah,
he was. He was looking into this thing and negotiating

(26:18):
this thing called the Historic Compromise, which would have allowed
the Communist Party for the first time since the expulsion
in nineteen seven, to re enter the government. And that
would have been a big change that a lot of
people would not have liked to have seen. So let
me get this straight. And I'm not saying it's true.
I'm not saying it's been proven, but let me get

(26:40):
the official story straight. So the guy who was making
moves to get the Communist Party back into you know,
a legitimate party status was kidnapped and assassinated by Communist activists.
That's the story. Okay, Well, you know, at a different

(27:01):
time maybe uh. Also NATO, you know, we talked about
these the possibility of these NATO sanctioned coups. We're walking
through the timeline, but let's get to perhaps the most
important question that But by the way, that's a huge thing.
NATO sanctioned coups. Oh yeah, yeah, Well, cous are a
part of geopolitical policymaking process, and we had talked about

(27:26):
the possibility that NATO have been sponsoring coups as well
when we were walking through the timeline, right, yes, and
you know we I guess we kind of glazed over
him as we're going through the timeline. But the idea
of a kudata in any country is a huge deal,
and it's sponsored by anybody. It doesn't matter. That probably
shouldn't happen. Um. And you know, even even if there

(27:49):
is a brutal dictator or something like that, creating a
coup is a big deal, no matter which side you
lay on, right, if you think it's a good thing
or a bad thing for a country as a whole. Oh,
I see what you're saying. Having a third party come
through and influence a turnover of government, that's a big deal.
Well yeah, and that's that. I'm glad you say it.

(28:10):
That way, Matt, because that's a big point. A lot
of people who um first hear of, you know, the
founding of a nation or the change in the government,
can get misled when when you read in a in
a history book or something that the people decided to
make a change, because as you look, often not all

(28:33):
the time, of course, but often, uh, these people are
these internal groups that are leading the charge are being
bankrolled or motivated by some third party, often another country
so or somehow affiliated with it, sometimes another sometimes just
a large company. But uh, but yeah, so do be

(28:54):
cautious when you when you hear that sort of stuff.
Are we saying that there is are proof that everyone
admits that NATO, you know, orchestrated cuse we can't, we can't.
The U. S. State Department certainly does not agree with that,
or with most of the ideas about most of the

(29:15):
ideas about the Operation Gladio incidents. However, there's one really
big one that I'm sure they would miss entirely as
a conspiracy theory and as the last the last of
the unproven allegations that we have to mention today, but
chilling if they are true, and it comes to us
from a lady named Sybil Edmonds, a former FBI translator

(29:39):
turned whistleblower. Yes, she alleged is that Gladiol continues today
and that it's called a pro a very similar named
program Claudio b Okay in a burst of creativity. Right,
So what what this is, according to the account of
Sybil Edmonds, is a cooperation or a cooperative enterprise between

(30:04):
US intelligence agencies, the Pentagon, and al Qaeda or other
uh mujadem forces to the point where they said that
I'm in al Zahawei met with the members of U
S Intelligence at an embassy in Azerbaijan starting in seven
and continuing all the way to two thousand and one.

(30:25):
Now that is oh, that is a tough piece of information.
That isn't solid information. This is something that is alleged
sure by hemans. However, that is a tough piece of
information to swallow for anybody who believes some of the
theories UH specifically behind the tax of September eleven. Right, Yeah,

(30:47):
and that isn't to say that you know, we just
I guess we just have to push pretty hard that
those I can't even I can't emphasize enough that that
this is alleged However, it is alleged by somebody who
was working from the FBI who spoke a lot of
different languages yeah and four languages, yeah, and was paying

(31:08):
attention to things so interesting, one of which is a
clear uh so this this idea that she's talking about
in gladiol B, she says, what's happening is that uh
NATO wasn't just meeting with these people. They were taking
some of these groups to Central Asia and to the
Balkans to help with destabilization efforts because you know, one

(31:30):
of the questions is GEO politically is a stable Central
Asia and the best interest of outside powers. So she
said that people were flown to Turkey on US orders
to train and participate in these destabilization operations that were
going to be coordinated false flag efforts that they were

(31:50):
gonna steal nuclear weapons secrets. Um and it's just a
dirty game. So she she even reported that some of
the hijacker that were you know, a part of nine
eleven were being trained in these facilities. Ah yes, yeah,
at least some of them. And there's there's an interesting
thing that occurs here because a paper of note in

(32:13):
the United Kingdom, the Sunday Times speaks to some anonymous
m I six and Pentagon forces and they say that
the operation of gladiol B is real. It's it's not
just real, it's not past tense, it's currently happening. And
apparently there was pressure from outside and not all of

(32:38):
this report was ever published. Well yeah, and she ended
up going to court right because she there. Oh man,
I was going through some of the official FBI response
to their investigations of Sybil Evans and just the reports
that the FBI put out even internally. It is interesting, man, Yeah,

(32:59):
and it's so vague because they can't mention a lot
of the stuff, right, especially considering and this is something
you can see in our video on whistleblowers that aren't
Edward Snowden, which came out this past week as we
record this. What's interesting is the concept of retroactive classification. Yeah,
which would be super handy in a relationship. Right when

(33:22):
you break up retroactively, everything I told you is classified. Oh, well,
how are you going to enforce that? I don't know, man,
I guess I better call NATO. But yeah, that's I
guess that's what you would have to do. Just a
quick note everybody, Uh, noll if we could have some
advice music that is not and should not be confused

(33:43):
with relationship advice. That than that no agencyally what am
myself trained life coaches or relationship experts. He's right now
getting back to Operation gladiol B. Um, I guess we can.
Can we go over a couple of these little quotes here,
because this is really interesting to me. According to Edmunds

(34:05):
nine eleven September eleventh attacks, they were a gladiol B operation,
and she states that the objective of gladiol B is quote,
projecting US power in the former Soviet sphere of influence
to access previously untapped strategic energy and mineral reserves for
the US and European communities, pushing back Russian and Chinese power,

(34:29):
and expanding the scope of lucrative criminal activities, particularly illegal
arms and drugs trafficking. That's a that's a great way
to make some side money, you know. So currently Sybil
Edmonds is not allowed to talk about this stuff. She's
under a state secrets privilege or gag orders. The thing

(34:51):
that I focused on specifically was looking at her allegations
about this activity in Eurasia, because one thing that you
and I have found over the course of doing different
episodes on the show are on this region, is that
since the days of Empire, way like, way way before

(35:11):
even the modern era, uh, the the great game of
who owns Eurasia has has continued almost unabated, you know,
like the Mongol empires. Uh, China's venturing out into that area,

(35:32):
the thing that was called the great Game between various
Western powers in the time. You know, Ridary Kipling not
the best person, but he has a great book about
it called kim It's about voice by but but it's
pretty interesting. I enjoyed it, and uh, it's strange that
this continues today. You can also read a book called

(35:54):
The Grand Chessboard by a guy named Meg new Braznetsky,
which I cannot believe I pronounced correctly. Fascinating dude, and book.
Yeah yeah. And what this means is that these destabilization
efforts could be plausible. You know. Uh, it's and there
has to be something there because why was stuff retroactively classified?

(36:16):
Apparently a lot of the stuff that Edmonds originally brought
up about this alleged claudio b was public record technically
because it was in the Congressional record. The biggest thing
for me, Ben after researching this is how is if
that is true, that stuff, that information is true, how

(36:36):
is she still alive? Man? And and I don't mean
to be to blunder scary, you know, scary about it. It
It just seems that that information, if true, is so explosive. Yeah,
it's I can't even fathom if that stuff was just known, right, Yeah,
that's the question. But then another question would be, well,

(36:59):
would the death of someone who revealed this information be
just more confirmation? You know what I mean? I mean
that it's just scary because people have been dying mysteriously
for a long time now we're connected to things like this. Sure,
and it's it's really creepy. Man. And I don't understand

(37:23):
like she she's still writing a lot, and well I
was reading some of her stuff today, right, Yeah, it's
strange because this story which Daniel Ellsberg, who the guy
leaked the Pentagon papers, he said it was this was
more explosive than the Pentagon papers. But it's something that
a lot of people are not aware of. And then

(37:44):
also it's something that a lot of people would say, well,
war is an ugly business, and this is part of
why it's such an ugly thing that these that ultimately
these sorts of actions are at the very least let
us bad than what would happen if they weren't. They argue,

(38:04):
it's necessary. Man. So this is where we have to conclude,
because we don't have all the information we'd love to
hear from. You. Do you think that Operation Gladiol B
is real the or that Operation gladiol continues today? This stuff, um,
that was once treated as a conspiracy theory a few

(38:27):
decades ago, is now largely confirmed. Not not all of it,
Not all of the connections or are written out there, um.
And there are people drawing some dotted lines, which might
be a leap of logic, but in large part, yeah,
it's it's moved to a conspiracy fact. So what what
do you think? Do you think that these kind of

(38:50):
destabilization efforts continue today? The Great Game, by the way, um,
which we talked about, I think in our look at
Soviet Russia and the UK, the Great Game was about
spheres of influence, trade, economy, and resources. And I've been
pretty clear with my opinion about this stuff as well,

(39:10):
Like I don't I don't buy the idea of wars
for ideology, often at least wars of invasion or aggression
for ideology. I think it's a nice window dressing to
put on a resource grab. I think they I think
those have happened in the past. But you have to
have a very special person. When I say special, I
mean a charismatic leader. Oh well, a leader that believes

(39:32):
in himself, in his I'm gonna say b s enough
that makes it ideological kind of Merlin and King Arthur's Court,
right or Connecticut Yankee. Yeah, not just a regular Merlin.
And also, if you want to write to us and
let us know some stuff that we should cover in
the future, our best ideas come from you. Will give

(39:54):
you our email at the very end of the show.
But first it's time to do something that we haven't
done in a while. We're gonna read a little piece
of listener mail. Then I'm going to read a quick
or I'm I guess I'm going to read parts of
this message we got from Kelsey. Kelsey says, hey, guys,

(40:17):
I was just thinking about the final question you posed
at the end of Who Runs the Internet? Dealing with
the future of the Internet. I watched a YouTube video
from verge or the The Verge where Bill Gates talks
about how the Internet and technology is going to help
with education and lower income countries, and Kelsey says, when
you combine this with your YouTube videos about historical revisionism

(40:38):
and what if the Middle Ages never happened, things that
start start to get interesting. Kelsey says, here's where it
gets crazy. What if the US government is just helping
the Third world quote to get free internet in education
so they could be the ones who are teaching them
the way they want to. That is really interesting. Um
basically saying that they would sway that part of the

(41:00):
world to be more aligned with Western ideology. At least
that's what I would do if I were them in
this situation that Kelsey says, anyways, just an idea of
the show. Keep up the good work. Well, thanks, Kelsey,
that's a that's a massive compliment, but also that that's
a great question. You and I met. We did a
piece on something similar when we talked about textbooks, which

(41:22):
are which are a huge deal and completely different depending
upon where you go in the world, you know, and
it's it's strange because I'm sure that, of course an
Arab textbook will differ widely from an Israeli textbook, just
as a Japanese or Chinese textbook will also differ, especially

(41:43):
about World War two and things like Manchuria. Right, depends
on the consensus of you know, which side you're on
and stuff went down. Yeah, And I think I think
it's completely plausible, Kelsey, that some some entity would say,
will let me, let me inculcate a certain type of

(42:05):
belief structure by not really showing you any other possibilities. Right, Yeah,
it's a it's a good point. I think it's something
that would be possible to prove if we could find it.
But you know this, this is a a battle that
takes place within countries, especially in a country like the

(42:28):
United States, where every state is on some level autonomous,
right with certain things. And we've seen, at least you
and I have met, uh, the battles over what should
and shouldn't go into a textbook, sex education, evolution, how
historical events are portrayed, you know, yeah, history of the

(42:52):
United States, just overall history during slavery, right, yeah, Or
how nobody teaches or at least nobody in the South,
uh teaches Martin Luther King's other speeches, the ones about
class equality, right, because that's that's a little bit too socialist.
I think, um, you know, I don't know how it

(43:14):
is in other states, but that that's a that is
fantastic food for thought, and we've got to start digging
on that exactly. Thank you so much, Kelsey and everybody else.
Please write to us. We want to hear from you
all the things we said earlier about your awesome ideas.
We love it, and just if you want to write
to us, you can do it right now. All you
have to do open up that browser or your phone,

(43:36):
whatever you whatever you're using. Maybe it's your watch, who knows,
maybe it's a weisia board. Oh if you got a
weisia board and you contact us, I don't know, I'm
gonna have a party for you. You can always contact us.
We are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com from

(43:56):
one on this topic and how they're unexplained phenomenon at
YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get
in touch on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff.