Gladio B and the Battle for Eurasia

TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES: http://www.corbettreport.com/?p=12947

‘Operation Gladio B’--the continuation of the old NATO Gladio program--covers a tangled web of covert operatives, billionaire Imams, drug running, prison breaks and terror strikes. Its goal: the destabilization of Central Asia and the Caucasus. In this presentation to Studium Generale in Groningen on November 19, 2014, James Corbett lifts the lid on this operation, its covert operatives, and the secret battle for the Eurasian heartland.

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(Prof. Tjeerd Andringa) All right, people:
welcome.

Welcome to this fourth lecture
in a series on resources.

Today we have a speaker
from Japan, James Corbett.

James Corbett is well-known
among some circles,

So I am actually a little bit interested
in who of you

already knew James Corbett
and his work before: before this.

OK, that is about... wow: that's
more than half, I would say.

OK, so the other half basically
comes for the topic,

instead of for James Corbett.

So, for those people, I think it's useful
that I explain a little bit

about what type of journalist
James Corbett is.

What he does: he calls himself an
open source journalist,

so basically he looks at all the available
information and then he synthesizes it.

But you could also call that
open source intelligence.

He is, basically, a one-man
intelligence agency

who integrates information
from pretty much any source

and then comes up with a narrative

that is usually a story
that is very easy to understand.

Well, not so easy to understand,

but it helps you to understand
how the world might be working.

So for me,

and for, I think, for many other people,

listening to his media
-- especially his podcasts --

is extremely empowering.

You learn things that you would
not normally learn

from the regular, mainstream media.

And that is kind of special,

and for that reason
we have invited him tonight here.

So I think I shouldn't talk too much,
and let James do the talking.

James, please.

(sustained applause, cheers)

(distant voice) All right.
(laughter) All right.

(James) OK. So, thank you very much.
Thank you very much.

First of all, thank you, Tjeerd
for the lovely introduction,

and thank you for
setting the ball in motion

for me to come here to Groningen.

I appreciate that.

And let me also thank Studium Generale
and their Dutch hospitality

that I've been shown so far on this trip.

I very much appreciate it.

And of course, lastly but not leastly,

thank you to all of you
for showing up tonight.

I really do appreciate you coming here
for this lecture.

And as you can see, of course,
this is a lecture entitled:

The Secret War:
Gladio and the Battle for Eurasia.

So why don't we start by talking about
what we're going to talk about,

namely: Central Asia is one of the regions
that we'll be talking about tonight.

And Central Asia is a vast
expanse of the map

whose defining characteristic is
its ability to defy characterization.

Stretching from the shores
of the Caspian Sea on the west side

to the border of China in the east,

and from Iran and Pakistan’s doorstep
in the south

to Russia’s in the north,

it encompasses everything
from the snow-capped slopes

of Victory Peak in Kyrgyzstan

to the remarkable “Door to Hell”
in Turkmenistan’s Karakum Desert...

-- which, if it is not on your list
of things to see before you die,

you should put it on that list --

to the sprawling grasslands
of the Kazakh Steppe.

And settled by migrants from the Persian,
Turkic, Chinese and Slavic civilizations,

its inhabitants speak Kyrgyz, Kazakh,
Russian, Tajik, Uzbek, Turkmen;

and include Muslims, Christians,
Buddhists, Hindus and assorted others.

The much smaller Caucasus region,

is a narrow land bridge sandwiched between
the Black and Caspian seas,

and is equally diverse.

In fact, the region contains
over 50 ethnic groups

and is home to three
local language families...

-- which is something
that linguists still puzzle over

and is very fascinating
in and of itself --

...and there are several dozen languages
spoken in the region,

from the obscure
Bohtan Neo-Aramaic tongue,

which has less than 500 native speakers,

to the more widely-spoken Azerbaijani
and Armenian languages.

But despite the rich culture
and the history of the region,

it is still completely off
the radar screens

of most of the general public.

“Tajikistan," “Abkhazia,"
and “Astrakhan Oblast"

are hardly names to conjure by
in the popular imagination, after all.

But the fact that those names
do not resonate with us

is perhaps something that is
part of a grander strategy

that we're going to talk about tonight.

And those names that do resonate with us

tend to be the names that we have seen

in various media stories in the West.

For example, Dagestan equates to
“The Boston Bombing"

in the minds of most Americans,

And Chechnya might be familiar
to Europeans

as “that place that Russia
is at war with.”

But just because these -stans,
and Oblasts,

and autonomous republics
and autonomous regions in this area

do not resonate with the general public,
for the most part,

does not mean that they are not important
squares on the global chessboard.

And just because they may not be
on the radar of the general public

does not mean they are not on the radar

of some of the most powerful players
in global geopolitics.

And as evidence of that,
I present to you

the United States-Azerbaijan
Chamber of Commerce,

which sounds about as important
to global geopolitics

as the Groningen Chamber of Commerce.
(laughter)

But when you actually look at some of
the current and former advisors,

directors, and board members
of this organization,

you encounter some of the richest and most
powerful players in global geopolitics.

For example, former Vice President
of the United States, Dick Cheney;

James Baker III, a Bush family advisor,

and his son, James Baker IV,
for those of you keeping track at home;

Henry Kissinger, of course;

Brent Scowcroft; Richard Armitage
of the US State Department,

and perennial Washington insider
and former National Security Advisor,

Zbigniew Brzezinski,

along with many, many others
that are, I think, worth checking into.

So, the question becomes:
What is it that these people...

-- some of the most influential people

in the field of global geopolitics
over the past 50 years --

...know about this region
that the general public doesn’t?

And I think there are
at least two answers to that question.

The first answer is
the old real estate adage:

"Location, location, location!"

The region’s key location in the backyard

of some of the key players and powers
of the Eurasian landmass,

Russia and China foremost amongst them,

has made it a geostrategic prize
stretching back thousands of years.

Dominated at different times
and in varying degrees

by Persian empires, Chinese dynasties,

Mongol invaders and Soviet forces,

the region has a rich history
of being acted upon

and a relatively short history as
a geopolitical actor in its own right.

Its position has long made it
a key transport route,

from the Han Dynasty’s Silk Road

connecting China to Persia
thousands of years ago

to the current attempt by Xi Jinping

to make a New Silk Road
of the 21st Century

that includes connecting China
to Turkey and beyond,

straight through the heart
of this region.

But more important even than
its location and strategic value

are the region’s vast,
largely untapped resources.

The oil and gas fields of the Caspian Sea
region are particularly sought-after,

containing the third-largest reserves
of any fields on the planet.

Azerbaijan in the Caucasus
and Kazakhstan in Central Asia

both have direct access
to Caspian Sea oil,

with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan
providing ample gas reserves.

The dream of a Trans-Caspian pipeline
has been in the works for years now

to transport Central Asian reserves
across the Southern Caucasus

and the so-called “BTC” pipeline

funneling the energy
through Azerbaijan and Georgia

to Turkey, and then off to Europe:

that has been equally prized as a way
for Europe to find an alternative

to Russia’s increasingly-threatening
stranglehold over energy

known as Gazprom.

The region also contains strategically
important deposits of uranium,

as well as industrially useful minerals

such as copper, manganese, tungsten,
zinc, et cetera.

And also gold: don't discount gold.

Another equally important
-- although seldom acknowledged --

resource in this region revolves

around the extensive opium trade,
especially in Afghanistan.

The Afghan opium trade is
estimated to bring in

as much as $200 billion annually,

accounting for as much as 92%
of the world supply.

As we shall see, control of this region

involves domination of the
especially lucrative business

and all of the attendant economic benefits
that result from from this connection.

The importance of a long-term
US presence in the region

to establish Western dominance
over this location and its resources

is no secret.

In fact, it has been written about

extensively and repeatedly,
time and again,

by the think tanks that typically
serve as the mouthpiece

for NATO’s foreign policy interests.

Case Exhibit Number One:

Take, for example a 1992 analysis
of the region

from RAND’s National Defense Research
Institute entitled,

Central Asia: The New Geopolitics,

which was written shortly after
the collapse of the Soviet Union

while the newly-independent
republics of the region

were still orienting themselves to
their new geopolitical reality.

And it was penned by Graham Fuller,
a former CIA station chief in Kabul

whose name will come up again
later in our study:

so keep that face and that name in mind.

He wrote: “It is primarily Central Asia’s
strategic geopolitical location

-- truly at the continent’s center --

and the broadly undesirable course
of events that could emerge

if the region were to drift
toward instability,

that constitute the primary American
interest (in the region).[…]

Thus, given the potential

for untoward developments in the region
for Western interests,

modest hands-on American influence
in the region is desirable.” .

Hmm

This “modest hands on American influence”
gained momentum, and by 2004,

we had an article published in the
Cambridge Review of International Affairs

called “The United States
and Central Asia: In the Steppes to Stay?”

Svante E. Cornell of the
Central Asia-Caucasus Institute

raising some of the key reasons for
increasing US involvement in the region:

“As US engagement in Central Asia
becomes more permanent,

it will increasingly become a factor
in both regional politics

and the domestic politics of
the several Central Asian countries.

That role raises a host of questions.

Chief among them is how regional powers
such as Russia and China

will react to the US presence.

A second concerns the implications

both for the political development
among the region’s states

and for the future of radical Islam.”

Also, in 2011, the Project 2049 Institute,

which includes Zbigniew Brzezinski’s
son on its Board of Directors,

published a document proclaiming

“An Agenda For the Future of
U.S. – Central Asia Relations”

which contains this interesting passage:

“U.S. policymakers have been careful
to avoid the metaphor

of a 'Great Game' in Central Asia.

Yet it has been often invoked by others,

not least by observers in Moscow, Beijing,
and other neighboring powers.

The U.S. must continue
to reject this metaphor,

for such notions are based
on flawed assumptions

and fraught with risks
for the United States."

Intereresting.

So what is this “Great Game”

that the think tanks
like the Project 2049 Institute

are so eager to avoid comparisons to?

The 'Great Game' refers
to the struggle for supremacy

between the British and the Russians
in the Central Asia region,

primarily in the 19th Century.

The Game broadly took place

from the signing of the
Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813

until the Anglo-Russian
convention of 1907,

but although the term was coined
in the early 19th century

it didn’t hit the popular imagination

until Rudyard Kipling’s Kim
was published in 1901.

It was three years after that, in 1904,

that The Geographical Journal
published an article

that articulated the reasons
these great powers

were engaged in the struggle
for this piece of the globe.

The article was called
“The Geographical Pivot of History,”

and it was written by
Sir Halford John Mackinder PC,

-- don't forget the PC.
"Privy Council:" very important! --

the Director of the
London School of Economics

that was founded by the Fabian Society

and folded into the heart
of the British establishment

in the University of London in 1900.

And just as an example of that,

the cornerstone of the Old Building
on Houghton Street

was laid by King George V himself,
interestingly.

Mackinder is considered the father
of the study of geopolitics,

and The Geographical Pivot of History
is the document

that is often said to be
the founding document of geopolitics,

and constitutes the first formulation

of what would come to be Mackinder's
"Heartland Theory."

This theory states that the division of
what Mackinder called the “World Island”

into inherently divided isolated areas

was the principle by which we could
understand the evolution of history

and the future of the world.

Each of these areas had
its own part to play

in the unfolding of that history,

with the area he called the “Heartland”
of the central Eurasian landmass

being the pivot point
from which a civilization

could derive the geopolitical
and economic leverage

with which to dominate
the world as a whole.

This was summarized in a famous dictum

from his 1919 work,
Democratic Ideals and Reality:

“Who rules East Europe
commands the Heartland;

Who rules the Heartland
commands the World-Island;

Who rules the World-Island
commands the World.”

Looking at the map of what Mackinder
had in mind for the Heartland,

it’s apparent that the “heart”
of this Heartland

is indeed the Central Asia-
Caucasus region.

This is what Russia and Britain were
so intent

on wresting from each other's control

in the 19th century Great Game:

control of the region from which

the building of a world empire
would be possible.

And this is why the Project 2049 Institute

and the other mouthpieces
for the Establishment in the US,

NATO, foreign policy interests,

want to downplay this idea.

They don’t under any circumstances
want you to think about the idea

that the US and its NATO allies
are building regional domination

in a part of the globe from which
they plan to project world dominance.

But fast-forward to 1997.

And in that year, our old friend
Zbigniew Brzezinski released his book,

The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy
and its Geostrategic Imperatives:

because, evidently,
Zbigniew Brzezinski was not so shy

about proclaiming the quest
for world domination.

He also did not mince his words
about the Eurasian Heartland

and how important it is
to America's “global primacy":

“For America,
the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia.

For half a millennium, world affairs were
dominated by Eurasian powers and peoples

who fought with one another
for regional domination

and reached out for global power.

Now a non-Eurasian power
is preeminent in Eurasia

-- and America’s global primacy
is directly dependent

on how long and how effectively

its preponderance
on the Eurasian continent is sustained."

He goes on to refine
Mackinder’s “Heartland” notion

down to a specific area that he calls
the Eurasian Balkans.

And this area is precisely the
Central Asia-Caucasus region.

He explains its importance thusly:

“The Eurasian Balkans,

astride the inevitably emerging
transportation network

meant to link more directly

Eurasia’s richest and most industrious
western and eastern extremities,

are also geopolitically significant.

Moreover, they are of importance

from the standpoint of security
and historical ambitions

to at least three of their most immediate
and more powerful neighbors,

namely, Russia, Turkey, and Iran,

with China also signaling an increasing
political interest in the region.

But the Eurasian Balkans are
infinitely more important

as a potential economic prize:

an enormous concentration
of natural gas and oil reserves

is located in the region,

in addition to important minerals,
including gold."

The use of the metaphor of the Balkans is
doubly evocative for students of history;

it represents not only the strife
and ethnic conflict

we saw in the “Balkanization”
of Yugoslavia

at the end of the 20th century,

but also the powder-keg of tensions
that ignited the First World War

at the beginning of the 20th century.

Subsequently, Brzezinski predicted that
the first great war of the 21st century

would take place
in this Eurasian Balkans region,

and lo and behold: four years after
The Grand Chessboard was published,

the first great war of the 21st Century
was being waged in Afghanistan

by the United States and its NATO allies.

Meet the New Great Game,
same as the Old Great Game.

This time, it's NATO against China, Russia,

and what might loosely be termed
a "resistance bloc,"

but the idea is almost the same:

dominate Central Asia-Caucasus

and use it as pivot point
to dominate the world.

The Old and the New Great Game
are similar in many ways.

The Old Great Game sprang
from the British fears

that Russian incursion into Central Asia
would threaten

to topple their hold over the crown jewel
of the British Empire: India.

The New Great Game springs from the fear

that Russian and/or Chinese dominance
over Central Asia and the Caucasus

would prevent NATO from achieving
its goal of “full spectrum dominance.”

The Old Great Game involved the
British invasion of Afghanistan in 1838

in attempt to install a puppet regime.

The New Great Game involved
the NATO invasion of Afghanistan in 2001

in attempt to install a puppet regime.

The Old Great Game relied heavily
on espionage, spycraft and subterfuge

to undermine Russia’s sway
over the Heartland;

and as we shall see, the New Great Game
also heavily relies on covert means

to undermine Russian and Chinese
influence in the region.

To understand the way that subterfuge is
being used in the New Great Game today,

we must first understand
an important clandestine operation

which is commonly known
as “Operation Gladio."

In very brief and rough terms,
“Operation Gladio" was a NATO plan

to use “stay-behind” paramilitary armies

to counter a potential Soviet invasion
of Europe.

Although this is the way
that “Operation Gladio”

is commonly understood
amongst the general public,

almost every piece of that description
is technically incorrect.

Firstly “Operation Gladio” was not
a name for the overall program,

which involved 12 NATO member nations

-- Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany,
Greece, Italy, Luxembourg,

The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
Spain and Turkey --

and four neutral countries

-- Austria, Finland, Sweden
and Switzerland --

but the program Operation Gladio
referred specifically

to its most famous incarnation in Italy.

In Belgium the operation
was codenamed “SDRA-8.”

Sweden had its “Projekt-26.”

In Greece it was...
-- apologies to Greek speakers --

"Lochos Oreinon Katadromon”
(Λόχος Ορεινών Καταδρομών)

and here in the Netherlands
it was “GIIIC” later rebranded as “G7.”

Thankfully, for those of us
who have problems

saying "I" three times in a row.

Secondly, the operation was not
inherently a NATO one.

It was first coordinated in 1948
by a trans-Atlantic body based in France

known as the “Western Union
Clandestine Committee.”

After the creation of NATO in 1949

the body was folded
into the organization’s

Supreme Headquarters
Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE)

and under the revised name of the
Clandestine Planning Committee.

The plan’s origins stretch back,
arguably, even further,

to the creation of MI6’s
“Section D” in Britain:

a ramshackle group of recruits
from England’s North Sea coast

that would commit sabotage
and guerrilla warfare

in the event of a Nazi invasion
of the British Isles.

The central role of the CIA’s
“Office of Policy Coordination”

and Special Operations Branch of MI6
in establishing the operation,

as well as the training
of stay-behind forces

alongside British SAS units
at Fort Monckton

and American Special Forces at
the infamous School of the Americas,

needs also to be stressed.

Thirdly, although the individual
stay-behind programs

were organized in Europe,

the scope of their operations
were not limited to Europe

and strayed far from any supposed mandate
to prepare for a Soviet invasion.

As we shall see, “Gladio” operations
included -- and include --

everything from drug running
and money laundering

to terror attacks
and political assassinations.

I won't get into the specifics

of how these stay-behind units operated
in the various countries

or the various incidents
that they participated in.

If any part of the “Gladio" story
is well-known,

-- and I hope it is --

but if any part is well known,
it is the operations in Europe

and their role the events
of Italy’s “Years of Lead.”

These topics have been covered
in great detail

by very capable writers, filmmakers,
historians, researchers, documentarians...

And I’ll refer you to some of the most
valuable English-language resources

on the overall program,

including Alan Francovich’s
groundbreaking documentary,

-- that you can't really see very well
in that picture --

Gladio: The Ring Masters;

Daniele Ganser’s seminal work,
NATO’s Secret Armies;

Richard Cottrell’s Gladio: NATO’s Dagger
at the Heart of Europe,

and the various resources available
at sites like Operation-Gladio.net.

What is important for our study today

is the strategic doctrine employed
by Gladio operatives

known as the “strategy of tension."

This doctrine involves the creation,
encouragement or exacerbation

of political, religious, ethnic
or other forms of conflict

in order to incite fear in a population
and manipulate public opinion.

An oft-cited example
of the strategy of tension

are the “Years of Lead” in Italy

that rocked that nation with
a wave of terrorist atrocities,

from the 1969 bombing
of the Piazza Fontana

to the Bologna railway station
bombing of 1980.

The story of the links
between NATO Gladio operations

and the various paramilitary groups

whose bombings, kidnappings and
assassinations terrorized a nation

is a fascinating one,
but far too detailed for today’s study.

The takeaway point is that
the national psychosis

caused by spectacular terror attacks

can be used to turn public opinion
against certain groups

and make actions that were formerly
politically inconceivable

virtually inevitable.

It isn't difficult to see how this strategy

could be used in some form in a region
as linguistically, ethnically,

culturally and religiously diverse
and divisive

as Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Indeed, as Brzezinski points out

in regards to his
“Eurasian Balkans” concept:

“Every one of
[the Eurasian Balkans] countries

suffers from serious
internal difficulties,

all of them have frontiers

that are either the object
of claims by neighbors

or are zones of ethnic resentment,

few are nationally homogeneous,

and some are already embroiled

in territorial, ethnic,
or religious violence.”

With regards to the Central Asia-Caucasus
region in particular,

Gladio operations in Turkey
are of primary importance.

Noting that the Turkish Gladio
operations

relied on cooperation with
the nationalistic,

racist, baldly expansionist
Pan-Turkism movement,

Daniele Ganser describes
the Turkish secret army

as “more violent than that of any other
stay-behind in Western Europe."

He describes the origin
of the Turkish stay-behind,

known as “Counter-Guerrilla,” thusly:

“Under the headline
‘The Origins of “Gladio” in Turkey’

the Paris-based Intelligence Newsletter

reported in 1990
that they had obtained

one of the recently declassified
original strategy documents

engendering the Western European
"stay-behind" or "Gladio" network:

US Army General Staff’s Top-Secret

March 28, 1949
Overall Strategic Concepts.’

In an adjoining document,
JSPC 891/6, section ‘Tab B,’

a specific reference is made to Turkey

highlighting how the Pan-Turkism movement

could be exploited strategically
by the United States.

Turkey, according to
the Pentagon document,

is an ‘extremely favourable territory
for the establishment

of both guerrilla units
and Secret Army Reserves.

Politically the Turks are strongly
nationalistic and anti-Communistic,

and the presence of the Red Army in Turks

will cause national feeling to run high.’

Intelligence Newsletter
thereafter correctly related

that the Turkish secret army
called Counter-Guerrilla

was run by the Special Warfare Department
and consisted of five branches:

‘Training Group, including interrogation
and psychological warfare techniques;

Special Unit, specialised since 1984
in anti-Kurd operations,

Special Section, special operations
in Cyprus;

Coordination Group, also called
the Third Bureau;

and Administrative Section.’"

The violent atrocities committed
by Counter-Guerrilla

are beyond the scope
of this investigation,

but they include a September 1955
‘false flag’ bombing

of a key Turkish target in Greece

which was blamed on the Greek police,

participation in three military coups
against Turkey’s own government,

the torture of political opponents
in the torture villa of Erenköy,

and assorted robberies, assassinations,
kidnappings, sabotage,

and other terrorist activities.

In the vicious Turkish
nationalist movement,

with its interest in uniting
all of the Turkish people

into one Pan-Turkic nation,

NATO found a convenient ally in its quest

to counter Soviet influence
in the Caucasus region

and to gain a toehold
in the Eurasian Balkans.

In order to understand
how this alliance operated,

let’s examine one particular person
who has been identified

as one of the top Turkish
“Gladiators”: Abdullah Çatlı.

Probably the single most famous
members of the Counter-Guerrilla,

Abdullah Çatlı’s remarkable
and highly improbable career

tells a story of assassinations,
terror attacks,

drug running,
daring prison escapes

and international intrigue
outrageous enough

to make even the most imaginative
Hollywood script writer blush.

Beginning as a petty street thug
with the nationalist movement,

Çatlı rose through the ranks
to become a brutal enforcer

for the dreaded Grey Wolves
“youth organization”

connected to the Turkish Gladio movement.

By 1978 he had become the second
in command of the organization

and a top Counter-Guerrilla operative,

implicated in multiple
high-profile assassinations,

including the murder of Abdi İpekçi

the country’s most well-known
newspaper editor.

Forced underground
by his growing notoriety,

Çatlı became an important
international Gladiator,

participating in the 1981
assassination attempt of the Pope.

He traveled with Italian Gladiator
Stefano Della Chiaie

to Latin America and Miami in 1982

and then headed to France
where he planned the bombing

of the Armenian Genocide Memorial
at Alfortville,

and the failed assassination attempt
against activist Ara Toranian.

In 1984 it seemed that
the long arm of the law

had finally caught up with him.

Paid by his Turkish intelligence
handlers in heroin,

Çatlı was arrested in Paris
for drug trafficking

and sentenced to seven
years imprisonment.

By 1988 he was sent to Switzerland,
where he also wanted for drug trafficking,

but in March 1990 he was
sprung from prison

in a nearly unbelievable prison break
that involved the use of a helicopter.

Le Monde Diplomatique, in an explosive
report in 1998 on the Turkish Deep State,

referred vaguely to the
“mysterious forces"

who helped him to escape,

but others have specifically identified
the escape helicopter

as a NATO vehicle.

In subsequent years,

while still an international fugitive
on INTERPOL’s “Most Wanted" list

and wanted by authorities of multiple
countries for a series of crimes,

Çatlı returned to Turkey

where he was recruited by the police
for “special missions"

and entered and exited the United Kingdom
and the United States

with complete impunity.

This is the character profile
of an Operation Gladio gladiator.

And I hope we can realize
that when we see

this type of remarkable, amazing,
unbelievable career

of someone who is consistently,
at every turn,

able to evade every type
of police authority,

every type of law of the land,

every type of Constitutional rule
wherever he travels,

and is always protected
and always busted out,

I think we understand that there is
a Deep State

that is working to lay the groundwork

and to prepare the way
for someone like this.

So, this is a confirmed Gladio operative
who had a really remarkable career.

So keep that in mind as we proceed
with our analysis tonight.

Returning to the question
of Gladio interference

in the Central Asia-Caucasus
area of operations,

one lowlight from Çatlı’s ignoble career
is particularly instructive.

In 1995 Çatlı participated
in a planned coup attempt

against Azerbaijani president
Helmar [sic: Heydar] Aliyev,

the father of the country’s
current president.

The planned assassination failed,

but Çatlı, as usual,
was not caught or brought to justice

for his participation in the scheme.

But while the assassination itself
did not result in the death of Aliyev,

it did have a desirable effect
for NATO’s designs on the South Caucasus.

From that point on, Azerbaijan began
to leave the diplomatic orbit

of its old Soviet-era Russian masters

and has since become a staunchly
Western-oriented nation

with an all-star roster of power players
on its US-Azerbaijani Chamber of Commerce

and ongoing relations with Chevron,
Texaco, BP, Pennzoil,

and every other major oil conglomerate
you can think of.

In fact, the country has been
a NATO partner

and prospective member of the alliance
for several years now,

a potentially important NATO ally
right in Russia’s backyard,

and one with access to the prized
Caspian oil and gas field reserves,

and the pipelines that will help
to transport that out of there.

But all careers, no matter how remarkable,
come to an end,

and the end of Abdullah Çatlı’s career

was, perhaps fittingly, almost as amazing
as his career itself.

At approximately 7:25 PM
on the evening of November 3, 1996,

a Mercedes 600 SEL crashed into a truck

near the Northwestern Turkish
town of Susurluk,

killing three of the four passengers.

But this was no ordinary car crash.

Among the dead: a senior police chief,
a former beauty queen, and Abdullah Çatlı.

The survivor: a Turkish MP who came away
with a fractured skull and a broken leg.

A 1998 LA Times report on the crash
described the scene this way:

“Strewn amid the roadside wreckage

was evidence of Çatlı’s collusion
with the Turkish secret service.

Along with several handguns, silencers,

a cache of narcotics and
a government-approved weapons permit,

Çatlı was carrying six photo ID cards,
each with a different name,

and special diplomatic credentials
issued by Turkish authorities."

The importance of this car crash
to the course of Turkish politics

is difficult to overstate.

For many, it conclusively confirmed
the “deep state" connections

between terrorists like Çatlı and
the upper reaches of government power

that many had long believed existed.

The resulting scandal led to a series
of investigations and reports,

as well as arrests, convictions,
resignations, reforms,

promotions, and the death
of several Susurluk investigators

in car crashes that mysteriously resembled
the Susurluk crash itself.

And according to at least one
FBI whistleblower,

Susurluk marks the beginning
of a transition

from the original Gladio operations
using ultranationalist operatives

to a Gladio “Plan B”
involving Islamic terrorism

as the conduit for
the strategy of tension.

The whistleblower in question
is Sibel Edmonds,

hired by the FBI to work as a translator
in the Washington Field Office

in the wake of 9/11.

She worked with agents
around the United States

helping to translate
intercepted communications

in a number of counterintelligence cases,

including Agent Joel Roberts
in the Chicago Field Office

whose targets included Abdullah Çatlı
and some of his Gladio associates.

While there, one of the translators
she was working with was Jan Dickerson,

who had worked for both
the American Turkish Council

and the Assembly of Turkish
American Associations,

organizations that the FBI
publicly confirmed

were targets of FBI
counterintelligence operations.

Her husband, Douglas Dickerson,
was a Major in the US Air Force

who had served in Ankara
working on weapons procurement

for the Pentagon in
the Central Asia region.

In December 2001, the Dickersons
visited Edmonds and her husband

at their home in Alexandria, Virginia,

and attempted to recruit them
into a Turkish spying ring

that had penetrated the FBI,
the Pentagon and the State Department.

She refused, and her complaints
about the Dickersons

and their involvement
with Turkish lobbying groups

eventually led to her firing.

After years of fighting this dismissal

and attempting to go on record
with her knowledge,

first through official FBI channels and
then through the court system,

the FBI was eventually forced to admit
that her claims had “some basis in fact,"

a judgment later bolstered

by a Department of Justice
Inspector General report

that concluded, "Many of Edmonds’s core
allegations relating to the co-workers

were supported by either documentary
evidence or witnesses other than Edmonds"

and noting that “the evidence clearly
corroborated Edmonds’s allegations"

about Jan Dickerson’s work problems.

Despite all of this, a little-known
evidentiary rule

known as the “State Secrets Privilege"

was invoked by the Justice Department
to remove her First Amendment rights

and prevent her from going on record
about many of the specifics of her case.

This led to her being labeled

“the most gagged person
in American history"

by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Edmonds paints the story of
the FBI’s counterintelligence operations

against a Gladio network that had contacts
and operatives in the United States

but protection from powerful
Washington players

like some of those on the board
of the US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce

and similar organizations.

After the turning point at Susurluk,

these operations started to focus
on Islamic terrorists and radicals,

who presumably could equally well be used
to maintain a strategy of tension

and help accomplish foreign policy goals
in Central Asia and the Caucasus region.

Again, it's important to look at
some of the careers of some of those

who have been identified as part
of this “Gladio B" plan,

in order to better understand
whether or not they are, in fact,

what has been claimed about them.

However, we have to note that,
unlike in the case of Abdullah Çatlı,

we have no official, independent
confirmations

of the existence of the Gladio B operation
or its various operatives.

Here we are relying on information
in the public record

which corroborates Edmonds' claims

and paints a vivid picture
of the intersection

between Muslim extremists, drug runners,
terrorists and money launderers

with the upper levels
of the US State Department,

Pentagon and NATO.

One such person is Fethullah Gülen,
a Turkish imam

who fled political prosecution in Turkey

for advocating that an Islamic state
replace the existing Turkish government.

Interestingly, he fled
to the United States,

eventually settling in Pennsylvania.

He then set up an educational foundation,
the “Gülen Movement"

and within four years
had opened up 350 madrasas

in the Central Asia-Caucasus region.

His network would go on to include
Islamic schools in over 140 countries,

with an estimated net worth
of over $20 billion.

In January 2001 a Turkish prosecutor,

citing an Ankara University report whose
author was subsequently assassinated,

claimed that “there is a link
between Gülen and the CIA"

which included Agency help
in securing passports

for the school’s English teachers
in the Central Asia-Caucasus region.

This claim was bolstered by former Turkish
Intelligence Chief Osman Nuri Gündeş,

whose memoirs revealed
that 130 of these “English teachers”

-- in Kygyzstan and Uzbekistan alone --

were actually CIA operatives,

issued special diplomatic passports

under a program codenamed
“Friendship Bridge."

Interestingly, the Washington Post
attempted to deny the allegations

by seeking comment from Graham Fuller,

who you might remember
as the author

of the Central Asia: The New Geopolitics
report that we referred to earlier.

Fuller was a former CIA
Station Chief in Kabul

who claimed that the idea of a
CIA-Gülen connection was “improbable”

despite admitting he has,

“absolutely no concrete personal knowledge
whatsoever about this." (laughs)

Even more interestingly...
-- talk about non-denial denials!

Even more interestingly, Fuller himself
wrote a letter of reference for Gülen

that was used in Gülen’s
ongoing legal battle

over his immigration status in the US.

The remarkable rise of this imam

with no particular background
or accomplishments

to become the head

of a multi-billion dollar
Islamic school network

operated from a secret compound
in Pennsylvania

that appears to be working with the CIA

in the highly sensitive
Central Asia-Caucasus region

appears to fit in line with what we know
about the “deep state” actors

in this covert battle for influence

in this highly prized square
of the chessboard.

Another extremely interesting figure
is Yasin al-Qadi.

He was an alleged financier
of Islamic terror

that was the subject of
an intensive investigation

by FBI Agent Robert Wright.

Wright’s investigation,
codenamed “Vulgar Betrayal,”

discovered evidence
that implicated Al-Qadi

in a terrorist financing ring
centered in Chicago

that linked to the 1998
African Embassy Bombings,

but when he proposed
a criminal investigation,

his supervisor flew into a rage,
yelling:

“You will not open
criminal investigations!

I forbid any of you!

You will not open criminal investigations

against any of these
intelligence subjects."

Wright was taken off the Vulgar Betrayal
investigation one year later

and the investigation itself
was shut down the following year.

In 1999 and 2000, the UN
placed sanctions on al-Qadi

who was identified
in UN Security Council resolutions

as a suspected associate of al-Qaeda.

At the same time, al-Qadi was also
a key investor

in a company called Ptech,

which marketed “enterprise
architecture software"

designed to provide complete
"god’s-eye view"

of an organization’s structure,

from transactions, systems and processes

to inventory, transactions and personnel.

And Ptech’s client list included

some of the most sensitive databases
in the United States,

including the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency, DARPA, in the Pentagon;

the FBI; the Secret Service;
the White House,

the Navy, the Air Force,

the FAA
-- the Federal Aviation Administration --

and NATO.

According to Ptech’s own business plan,

the company had a contract
to work on modeling the FAA’s:

“network management,
network security,

configuration management,
fault management,

performance management,
application administration,

network accounting management,
and user help desk operations"

that was operative on the morning of 9/11
-- and FAA's "failure."

After 9/11, Ptech’s offices were raided,

and the company’s CEO and CFO
were eventually indicted,

and Yasin al-Qadi was placed
on a special terrorist finance watchlist

by the US Treasury Department.

Despite being watchlisted
by both the UN Security Council

and US Treasury Department,

al-Qadi continued to operate
internationally with an Albanian passport,

spending time in Turkey.

He has since been revealed
to have engaged in numerous meetings

with then-Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

and the Turkish Intelligence Chief,

and earlier this year, the ex-Istanbul
police chief revealed

that Erdoğan had helped al-Qadi
to enter the country several times

despite being banned by the Cabinet.

And for those who are wondering, yes:
this is actual surveillance footage

of al-Qadi meeting with Erdoğan,

the Prime Minister of Turkey at the time,
in 2012

Another figure of importance

whose name comes up
in connection with this investigation

is Ayman Al-Zawahiri, formerly
Bin Laden’s right hand man

and the current nominal leader
of the al-Qaeda organization.

According to Edmonds,
he appeared as a figure

in several FBI counterterrorism
investigations in the 1990s,

turning up in Turkey, Albania,
Kosovo, and Azerbaijan.

He traveled to the Balkans
in the mid 1990s,

and that makes sense
given al-Qaeda involvement

in the so-called Yugoslav Wars,

but his involvement
in Turkey and Azerbaijan

is of particular relevance to this study.

Edmonds claims that he worked
with the Turkish arm of NATO

and NATO itself during this period,

meeting several times
with US military attachés

in Baku, Azerbaijan,
in the 1997-1998 window.

There are numerous such leads and clues
in this investigation

that point to... oh, sorry. One more:

Other tantalizing connections
present themselves

in figures like Hüseyin Baybaşin,

known as “Europe’s Pablo Escobar"
for his heroin operations

smuggling heroin to the UK.

After his imprisonment here
in The Netherlands for drug smuggling,

he contacted Edmonds with details
about Turkish NATO involvement

in the drug smuggling operations
he had been a part of.

There are numerous such leads, connections

and clues in this investigation

that point to a deep tie
between NATO and US covert operations

and this important area of the globe.

But what does it all mean?

It would be a satisfying conclusion
to this investigation

to present to you definitive
proof, documents or testimony

positively linking the increasingly deadly
terror attacks

and incidents taking place
in the Central Asia-Caucasus region

to a Gladio “Plan B" group
being directed by NATO and the Pentagon.

Everything that we have seen today
has demonstrated that:

A. There are vital strategic interests
for the US and its allies

in the Central Asia-Caucasus region

that make it a prime target
for covert operations;

B. Such “strategy of tension” operations
have been conducted in the past

by people we definitively know
were linked to NATO’s covert army; and

C. That there are a number
of influential people

operating in and around the region

and in close cooperation
with the Turkish deep state,

American intelligence,
the Pentagon, and NATO

who seem to be involved with
ongoing operations today

related to the fostering of
religious extremism in the region.

As I say, it would be satisfying
to conclude definitively

that A, B, or C persons
were connected to X, Y, or Z events,

but obviously that isn't possible
at this time.

The very nature of these
covert operations

means that, without
some explosive new evidence

or surprising new testimony
from other whistleblowers,

it is unlikely that Gladio B
will be revealed

in the way the original
Gladio operations were...

-- another fascinating story that we could
get into; but it would take too much time.

This does not mean, however,

that we are completely powerless
to identify these operations

or to counteract the psychological effects

that they are aimed at producing
in the public.

The characters, events and storyline
painted in this presentation

are almost completely available
in the public record

through news reports,
government investigations,

think tank documents,
court filings,

interviews, and
dozens of other sources.

Those parts of the story that
cannot be independently verified,

like some of Edmonds’ claims,

can be corroborated by the sources
in the public record.

The task of piecing these bits
of the puzzle together

is a nearly overwhelming one,

but it can be accomplished
by a concerted effort

by an informed and motivated public.

This is the principle
of “open source investigation"

which I am attempting to further
with my work at CorbettReport.com.

And next week this lecture will be
published to my website

along with a hyperlinked transcript

sourcing every single document
in this report

and other evidence used
in the creation of this presentation.

From that point, the public is encouraged
to use that source information

to begin investigating
other aspects of this case

and to see how this narrative
meshes or clashes

with other pieces of evidence
in the public record.

Members of the Corbett Report
community are, of course,

invited to participate
in this investigation

by logging on to the website

and posting their own comments,
analysis, links and replies

at the posting on CorbettReport.com.

This task is critical because,

in the quest to control the resources
of the Central Asia-Caucasus region,

a strategy of tension is being employed.

We see a nearly daily parade
of terror attacks

in the Northern Caucasus region
on Russia’s doorstep

and in the “New Silk Road” area
of Chinese interest.

Just this month, the head of the
Collective Security Treaty Organization

-- often seen as a counterbalance
organization to NATO --

claimed that instability in the region

was being deliberately
fostered by the West,

citing a disproportionate increase
in US Embassy staff

and influx of Western-backed NGOs
into the region.

“The West crudely interferes in
the internal affairs of other governments,

trying to manipulate public opinion,

economically and financially affecting the
government and population," he said.

If this is, indeed, the case,

then one of the key ways
to counteract this effect

is to simply retain our skepticism

when it comes to spectacular
terror attacks in the region.

With an increased awareness
of covert operations,

false flag attacks,

and other acknowledged instruments
of terror in the strategy of tension,

we thereby disarm the effectiveness
of these tools.

The psychological manipulation that
these geopolitical machinations rely on

is only possible if the public
is kept in fear and ignorance,

and the answer to that can only be
understanding and openness.

And with that,

I thank you for your time and attention
during this very detailed lecture,

and I look forward to your questions.
Thank you very much.

(applause)

Hello, friends. James Corbett here,
back in the sunny climes of Western Japan.

I hope you appreciated that presentation.

That was the culmination
of what has, so far,

been almost two years' worth
of investigation into Gladio B,

going back to early last year,
when we, of course, conducted

that original Gladio B interview series
with Sibel Edmonds.

If you haven't checked out that series yet,
and if you are interested in Gladio B,

of course, that interview series
is the gold mine

of information that you should check out.

And of course, the link will be in this video
so you can go check that out.

And the transcript of that
has recently been provided

by an anonymous Corbett Report user,

so thanks to that person, we now have
the transcript of that series.

An extremely valuable resource for those

who are looking to get more
into this information.

If you do realize how important
this information is,

and if you do realize that,

if this operation is
as it is being portrayed in this lecture,

it really is one of the most important
geopolitical operations

ongoing in the world today,

then you might realize how uncomfortable
it is for me to be in the position

of realizing that I am one of
only a handful of people in the world

who has ever talked about this

and who is investigating it
at the moment.

So I certainly hope
that you'll do your part

to help pitch in with that investigation.

As I say, we do need more people
posting links, vetting sources,

talking about this information,
analyzing it.

Of course, if you're a Corbett Report
member, please sign in to the website

and start leaving your comments
on this post.

But also, in any way you can,
to help spread this information:

of course, greatly appreciated.

Because the more people who are
thinking about this, talking about this,

the better it will be for everyone.

Trust me: you don't want to leave it
in the hands of a few people.

We want this information
to spread far and wide.

So once again, please start
helping out with that

in any way that you can help
spread this information.

And once again, obviously,
this entire investigation

and everything that I do
is brought to you by you guys.

So I do appreciate your...
all of your support:

whether that be moral support,

whether that be the support
of helping to spread the information,

whether that be monetary support
-- which of course, I also need.

And on that note,
since it is December of 2014

and we're approaching Christmas,

for the month of December,
I am doing a 20%-off DVD discount

for any DVD at the Corbett Report shop.

Once again, you can go there
and take a look at all of the DVDs:

the Data DVDs, the Video Archives,

Last Word DVDs, Century of Enslavement:

All DVDs 20% off.

Just enter the coupon code "XMAS"
at checkout,

and you'll get 20% off your DVD purchase.

It makes it even cheaper and easier
for you guys to get these DVDs,

give them out as gifts
or however you want to distribute them.

And of course, you are free
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and hand them out that way as well.

And let's get this information out
to as many people as possible.

Once again, I do thank you all
for your support,

and if you did enjoy this presentation,

I should note that there is going to be
a posting of the audio only:

the Q&A after the presentation.

I'll be posting the audio of that
up on the website

in the next couple of days.

I hope you'll stick around for that.

Thank you again for all your support.,

I'm looking forward to talking to you
again real soon.

[Subtitled by: "Adjuvant"]
[CC-BY 4.0]