“…when the revolutionaries temporarily renounce the use of force �.US army intelligence must have the means of launching special operations which will convince Host Country Governments and public opinion of the reality of the insurgent danger��

That�s to say, if there wasn�t any terrorism to speak of, the secret armies were prepared to get some going.According to Ganser, the secret army was behind waves of attacks in Italy in the 1970s. In Spain, it worked with Franco and may have supported over a 1000 attacks. In Germany, it had standing plans to murder leaders of the Social Democrat party in case of a Soviet invasion. It carried out terrorist actions against President de Gaulle and the Algerian peace plan in France. It seems to have been involved in the assassination of Amilcar Cabral and Eduardo Mondlane, prominent leaders in African liberation in the Portugese colonies. It was involved in the coup against Greek Prime Minister Papandreou and fomented terrorism against the Kurds in Turkey. In the Netherlands, Luxemborg, Denmark, and Norway, however, the secret networks don�t seem to have been linked with terror.The secret armies were first outed in August 1990 when then Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti confirmed the existence of Gladio, Latin for sword, a super secret group squirreled away in the military secret service, that had been manipulating the public with terrorist acts that it blamed on the Italian left.NATO�s reaction to Andreotti�s revelation was first denial, then stone-walling, and finally a closed-doors admission to the ambassadors of the European countries. Since then, although a former CIA director William Colby has confirmed the creation of the stay-behind command centers and networks, NATO itself has withheld details. Asked about Gladio in Italy in 1990, former CIA director Stanford Turner angrily ripped off his microphone and shouted: “I said, no questions about Gladio!”Today, with the Pentagon�s �Salvador Option� on the table, it�s time to revisit this hidden history of European counter-terrorism. While the Washington press corps seems convinced that the main problem with the “Salvador Option” is that the Pentagon is taking over what�s always been the CIA�s turf, the story of NATO�s stay-behind armies suggests that whether the CIA or Pentagon runs it, the new program will be a very ugly business.As one of Gladio�s operatives said, �You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security.�Despite repeated requests from researchers, the CIA, like MI6, refuses to release its files on the subject. Before the government begins the new �Salvador Option,� though, isn’t it time for the world to learn about the very first one?Lila Rajiva (lrajiva@hotmail.com) is a free-lance analyst and writer. She is the author of “The Language of Empire: Abu Ghraib and the American Media” (Monthly Review Press, 2005)”