Ghost Dog

Ghost Dog's Journal

March 1, 2016

The CIA rigged the 1948 Italian elections

...during WWII (1939 – 1945) the Special Operations Executive (the British branch of this secret effort) was operating behind enemy lines and trying to fight the Germans with unorthodox warfare, while the Office of Strategic Services (the OSS, the American branch) was pretty much doing the same thing. For instance, in Italy they were co-operating with the communists because they wanted them to grow stronger so as to defeat Mussolini (the WWII Italian dictator). But as the war came to an end, the OSS realised that if they continued to support the Italian communist resistance, then Italian communists would end up in power at the end of the war, and they didn't want that at all.

So they had to do two things. First, the SOE and OSS stopped arming and co-operating with this resistance network. Second, the CIA rigged the 1948 Italian elections. (That was the very first thing the CIA did. Today we talk about CIA torture and other issues, but people forget about the past.) Their job was to make sure that no communist gained a dominant position in the Italian Parliament, otherwise Italy could not have become a member of NATO in 1949. So, first there was the vote, and then it was rigged, manipulated. And it worked! In '49, Italy was brought into NATO, but the CIA and MI6 made sure that through this network of stay-behind soldiers they maintained secret control of all NATO countries... - op. cit.

February 17, 2016

"Sinn Fein government in Ireland inevitable"

Gerry Adams said that anger over Ireland's uneven recovery would hand his Sinn Fein party a breakthrough in elections this month, paving the way in coming years for an "inevitable" entry into government for the former political wing of the IRA.

The nationalist group has already seen a near doubling of support since the last vote, according to opinion polls, leaving it jostling with centre-right Fianna Fail for the position of second largest party.

Opposition to austerity measures imposed under Ireland's 2010 EU-IMF bailout had given way to anger at a recovery that helped the rich more than the poor, ushering in a new political era, Adams told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.

"People have been politicised, radicalised by policies of austerity. You see it in (British opposition leader) Jeremy Corbyn ... you see it in Portugal, you see it in Greece and you see it here in Ireland," he said...

/... http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-ireland-election-sinnfein-idUKKCN0VQ1P8

(... And you see it in Spain... )

February 15, 2016

Turkey denies troops entered Syria and 'has no plans to deploy'

Source: BBC

Turkey has denied reports that some of its soldiers have entered Syria, the state-run Anadolu news agency says.

Defence Minister Ismet Yilmaz also told a parliamentary commission it was not considering deploying troops there.

In letters of complaint to the UN, Syria had earlier accused Turkey of allowing about 100 "Turkish soldiers or mercenaries" - to cross into Syria.

It urged the UN to take action against Turkish shelling in northern Syria, calling it a violation of sovereignty...

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35576458

Arms trade: West's military advantage is being eroded, IISS warns

...Britain is trying to stay ahead of the curve by developing the Zephyr high-altitude “pseudo-satellite”, a solar-powered surveillance drone operating at the edge of space, while the US is developing “swarming UAVs” combining cheap structures with sophisticated electronics, the survey notes.

The Pentagon is looking to the private sector for help, setting up a “Defence Information Unit-Experimental” to help it “leverage best lessons from Silicon Valley on issues like big data, analytics, autonomy and robotics”, says the IISS.

These technologies are seen as having uses “across the full spectrum of conflict, able as much … to trawl social media posts by a terrorist group … or produce systems to better enable concepts like prompt global strike”.

Prompt global strike, or PGS, would deliver a precision-guided conventional weapon anywhere in the world within an hour. It has been condemned by Russia and criticised by some independent analysts because of the potential danger of mistaking the missile for a nuclear weapon...

/... http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/09/wests-military-advantage-is-being-eroded-survey-warns

Profile Information

Gender: Do not display
Hometown: Canary Islands Archipelago
Home country: Spain
Member since: Wed Apr 19, 2006, 01:59 PM
Number of posts: 16,881

About Ghost Dog

A Brit many years in Spain, Catalunya, Baleares, Canarias. Cooperative member. Geography. Ecology. Cartography. Software. Sound Recording. Music Production. Languages & Literature. History.