Greece launches inquiry into claims Golden Dawn trained by armed forces
Source: The Guardian
The Greek authorities have launched an inquiry into allegations that members of the country's armed forces have helped to train hit squads formed by the far-right Golden Dawn party.
The defence minister, Dimitris Avramopoulos, ordered the investigation as Greece's governing coalition exhibited new resolve to clamp down on the "criminal organisation" after a Greek musician was stabbed to death by one of the group's supporters.
. . .
The public order ministry said five senior police officers – the heads of the special forces, internal security, organised crime, firearms and explosives, and a rapid-response motorcycle division – had been moved to other posts pending investigations, Associated Press reported. The regional police commanders of southern and central Greece resigned, citing personal reasons.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/23/greece-inquiry-golden-dawn-armed-forces
Well, that's kind of alarming.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Remember these were "Stay behind" units, units that were to stay still while the Soviet Red Army took over their part of Europe, and then and only then go into action.
To do so, they had to be small, but have a large access to weapons, communication equipment and ammunition (and to a degree food, Weapons Communication Equipment, ammunition and food are hereafter referred to as "Supplies"
.
If I was setting these up, I would set up cache of equipment under the control of no more then four men (two preferred). These Cells would then have contact with other people who would do the actual guerrilla activities.
Notice I would have two groups, one in control of the Supplies, the other doing the actual operations. Thus if the people doing the operations are captured, they can NOT reveal where the supplies are for they would not know. In fact it might be better only to have the group that controls the supplies, they then recruit actual fighters from their friends in the local area.
Thus who to pick to control the Supplies? The answer is someone who can recruit people and that means someone who can fit in with people who will support such guerrilla activities. Moderates who would wait to see what happens and try to work out a compromise are out. You want someone who will FIGHT, someone who NOT only oppose the invaders but are willing to do guerrilla activities against them.
Since the left wing would be assumed to be pro-Soviet, the CIA had to rely on anti-Communists (i.e. unreconstructed Nazis). Worse these will be older men, to old to be active in the Military of these nations when that nation would be invaded by the Soviet Red Army. They will be use to looking for recruits for they cause. The will know where to look for young men willing to fight in a guerrilla war.
I suspect the CIA (I am using the CIA as the group that set up these stay behind groups but it could be another agency all together) did what I would have done, recruited older men, in their 40s and 50s to store these weapons. These men would be active in right wing politics, thus known NOT to be lefties or moderates. Because they would be active, they would see young recruits into those right wing groups (most would be introduced into these right wing groups by they fathers).
To make sure the Communists do not find out about where these weapons caches are, the exact location would be left up to the these teams of men who are to stay behind. Thus they are no records of where these supplies are, the CIA does not know for it did NOT want to know (If you do not know, you can not reveal where it is).
Now, this also opens up these supply caches to abuse by these same right wing groups. Furthermore since the teams would be secret, and the location of the cache of supplies only known to the team, as the team ages, it will slowly replace its members by younger members, who would often to unknown to the CIA.
Side note: The late Senator Moniyhan of New York in a speech once made a comment that NATO was NOT set up to fight the Soviet Red Army, but to control the streets of Paris. These "Stay behind units" would have had a second role from day one, to be an iron fist against left wingers in Western Europe. Thus we can assume the CIA assumed these weapons would be used against lefties, which gave the CIA even more incentive NOT to have knowledge where these supplies were, no knowledge the CIA could then claim ignorance
Thus if these "Stay Behind Units" were organized in the late 1940s and into the 1950s (as they appear to have been), by the 1970s the men controlling these supplies would have been in their 60s (assuming they were in their 40s in the 1940s), thus looking to give these supplies to the next generation, and the men these men picked from the new generations of the 1960s would be people like them who rejected communism with a passion (Thus the massive right wing violence in the 1960s and 1970s, when the left was also doing some violence activities, but the left wing radicals were NOT getting their supplies from these "Stay Behind Groups" .
Do to the violence of the 1960s and 1970s I would NOT be surprised if the CIA resupplied these "Stay Behind Groups" as part of the plan to cause unrest of one of the members of NATO elected a Communist Government. New, supplies to old teams and to new teams. Both set of teams tied in with the right wing of their host European country.
When the right wing "Radicals" of 1960s and 1970s started to hit their 60s, they looked to a new generation to replace them. These arms caches then changed hands again. Worse, with Reagan seeing an attack by the Soviet Union a real threat, I see the CIA still supplying these teams with weapons into the 1980s and the 1990s (For we all knew the withdraw of the Soviet Union and its subsequent collapse was a secret communist plot to get Western Europe to disarm and thus made a easier target for a massive Red Army assault).
Yes, the Red Scare was active in the US in the 1990s, Europe's extreme right wing was almost as bad Through the Right Wing parties that did win in Europe were no where near as nutty).
We have to remember who the CIA recruited for these "Stay behind Teams" it tended to be far right wingers, much like members of the Tea Party (but more reluctant to bring out the weapons they control, for most are illegal in those countries). I suspect the extreme right wing members of Europe are way less then in the US, but it still a solid percentage of the population and I suspect these groups still have access to these supplies. The Supplies are sitting they, under the control of 2-4 people (Some may be woman today) ready to be used if someone on the right decides it is "time" to do something.
The Classic example of this is the Mafia. The Mafia appears to have started out as a Sicilian anti-Moslem (and late Anti-non Sicilian Government) groups that arose in Sicily in the Renaissance (may be earlier). Over time these groups realized they needed money to fight, look to way to raise money, smuggling, robbing, loan shocking, "Protection" Rackets all have elements seen in most guerrilla groups (they need for money to fun the war, overcome their objections to criminal activities). Over many generations the object of WHY the Mafia ended up doing Criminal Activities was forgotten, and the object of the Mafia became these Criminal Activities. It took several generations AND even today the Mafia in Sicily retains some of its resistance activities (Through very few) but I bring it up to show such small groups can last for generations AFTER their formation. They may change, but some change as society changes, but they still exists and they exist around a common concept that is slow to change (the case of the Mafia the change took centuries).
You see this again in Northern Ireland. During the 1960s and 1970s the Provisional IRA was a true guerrilla army (yes it was also a Terrorist Army). During that time period it looked around for cash and ended up into most illegal criminal activities in Northern Ireland. By the time of the 1990s and it was clear that the guerrilla war had been a failure (but a Political deal was possible, which in some ways shows the guerrilla had been successful, through put down) those part of the IRA that had embraced these Criminal Activities did not want to give them out, they liked the profits, even through the profits were no longer needed to fund the war. It took the Leaders of the Provisional IRA a long time to get their members to call it quit. You were into the third generations of fighters by then, and the third generations of people using criminal activities to fund those fighters. If the leadership HAD not made an effort to stop these activities, the Provisional IRA was in danger of going down the same road as the Mafia had gone down,
That road can be tempting for an Army that is still capable of fighting. In 1919, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck had lead his African Soldiers all through East Africa, from Kenya to Mozambique and back and then into the Congo. Undefeated and still ready and willing to fight. Then he received word that under the terms of the Armistice of 1918 all German Forces outside of Europe (which applied only his army) had to surrender as soon as possible. When told about this when to took a Belgium Congo Town he accepted it (he had captured news over the previous six months showing German withdraws and defeats in the summer and fall of 1918 and he suspected Germany was on its last legs, thus when informed of the surrendered and its terms he complied without waiting for confirmation from Germany, something that would have taken weeks given he had no communications with Germany since 1915). At the Surrender he asked the British and their allies to at least pay his African Soldiers, they refused. This upset the Officers and the men who demanded that he lead them out of the Camp and continue the War. He told them NO, for they were Soldiers and if he did as they requested what was the Political purpose for it? How did it help Germany? How did it really help the Troops? They would be heading down that same road as the Mafia (and later the Provisional IRA) ended up on, a road Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck wanted to avoid.
When he arrived home a Hero, he asked the German Weimer Republic to pay his African Troops, they refused. When Hitler took power, he asked Hitler, he refused. He asked the Post WWII German Government to pay them, they refused. He died in 1964 and in his Will his only regret was NOT seeing that his men had been paid. At that point that provision of his will was published in the West German Newspapers. Since he had no connections with Nazis (except to ask Hitler to pay his old troops but see below) but a military hero the German Government was embarrassed. They could agree (for it was right) to compensate the victims of the Holocaust, to pay the debts related to the Versailles treaty of 1919, but not to pay Native Africans who had fought for Germany. Only 350 were left, they were finally paid, only 46 years late.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_von_Lettow-Vorbeck
Hitler and Vorbeck:
Between May 1928 and July 1930, the former General served as a Reichstag deputy for the monarchist German National People's Party. He intensely "distrusted Hitler and his movement,"and approached his relative Hans-Jürgen von Blumenthal with an idea to form a coalition with the Stahlhelm against the Nazis. This resulted in the Vorbeck-Blumenthal Pact. Later, when Hitler offered him the ambassadorship to the Court of St. James's in 1935, he "declined with frigid hauteur."[46] During the 1960s, Charles Miller asked the nephew of a Schutztruppe officer, "I understand that von Lettow told Hitler to go fuck himself." The nephew responded, "That's right, except that I don't think he put it that politely
What a Jump, from Guido and their weapons stash, to Tea Parties and their Weapon Stash to Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and his interaction with Hitler (a Right winger from the old Nobility, telling a Right Winger paid and bought for by the 1% to go to hell). Just to point out these Soldiers had been waiting 46 years to be paid. Today in 2013, 46 years ago was only 1967, the height of the Cold War and the height of left wing movement in Western Europe.
Thousands of Greeks have taken to the streets to denounce the murder of a rap musician stabbed to death by a member of the far-right Golden Dawn as a government inquiry presented evidence of the widespread infiltration of security forces by the party.
The ultra-nationalist group has denied any involvement in the killing of Pavlos Fyssas and the party's leader Nikos Michaloliakos, warned that what he described as mud-slinging and slander "would open the gates of hell".
The organisation, whose emblem resembles the Swastika, said the media was behind a dirty war to annihilate it and singled out the Guardian – "the newspaper of capitalists in the City" – for inciting violence against the group. "
All of which) proves, exactly, the role of certain embassies in the entire operation to dismantle (Golden Dawn)," it said.
Members have spoken of collusion with the police – who in one video are seen giving cover to Golden Dawn supporters during street battles against anti-fascists – and special forces from whom they have claimed to have received training in clandestine camps.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/25/golden-dawn-pavlos-fyssas-murder