Ukraine 2014: The Tipping Point of Terror

1. Soft power: Provide weaponized aid, development, humanitarian assistance and media to win public opinion, ideology and culture.
2. Political co-opting: Co-opt and unite opposition, ideally including military leaders.
3. Political grooming: Train and fund a new generation of overt agents of change, the future political leaders (e.g., the World Economic Forum’s “Young Global Leaders” program).
4. Covert Action/Black operations: Train and fund covert agents of change (often fascist or extremist) to do the dirty work of insurgency and counterinsurgency.
5. Narrative control: Develop a sympathetic media.
6. Economic warfare: Diplomatic isolation, sanctions and sabotage to “make the economy scream.”^[21]
7. Mobilization: Organize mass protests and PR with media control, while also warning that “there will be blood.”
8. Provocateurism: Goons and dragoons of power engineer provocation, confrontation, outrage and chaos and the soft arm controls the media analysis through immediate (social media), short (mainstream news) and long term (NGO reports and books).
9. Assassination of key political leader or false flag targeting opposition leader or public citizens.
10. Denial and cover-up via censorship, propaganda and narrative bias. It helps if you built the whole mediasphere.

Approximate stages of regime-change tactics.[Source: Courtesy of the author]

Dominique Fonvielle, who spent 15 years as an analyst with France’s foreign secret service, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), described the following steps of regime change to German filmmaker Susanne Brandstaetter in 2003:^[22]

1. Identify opposition forces to destabilize ruling regime (need to be credible and influential)
2. Effective propaganda to smear the ruling regime
3. Prepare (convincing) future head of state and staff
4. Create revolutionary milieu
5. Spark a revolution/coup.

The methods of covert action for taking power with insurgency or securing power with counterinsurgency are ultimately the same: targeting a group of people to neutralize them by getting information, ruining their reputation and disrupting their function.

The U.S. foreign policy machinery is entirely geared to grind down countries that resist its drive for political and economic domination. Coups are planned well in advance and cost a lot of money.

A key mid-level operator of the Ukraine 2014 coup, Victoria Nuland, estimated that the U.S. had spent $5 billon on civic, political and media projects in Ukraine from 1991 to the end of 2013, and I presume this does not include astronomical budgets for military, paramilitary or covert actions; private oligarch NGOs like those of Soros, Omidyar, Gates and Thiel; nor does it include behind-the-scenes deals or the carrot-and-stick use of IMF and World Bank loans and diplomatic pressure on NATO allies that, regardless, aim to drive neo-liberal economic reform and the looting of public resources and infrastructure.

Nuland announced her figure proudly at a U.S.-Ukraine Foundation meeting in 2013, with a large Chevron sign next to her. Did Ukrainians on the street not see this? Or did they not see it for what it was?

The Americans have moreover completely deceived the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian government with regard to the completely unrealistic victory of Ukraine in this war, in my opinion, because in any case the big loser in this war is Ukrainian population itself and also as a consequence Europe with all the crisis in which it was engulfed by the will of the politicians. — Pierre de Gaulle, grandson of Charles de Gaulle, December 2022^[23]

Like most regime-change operations, the 2014 coup involved a two-edged (Gladio) sword approach: one side soft, neo-liberal, political and “diplomatic”; the other side hard, dirty, bloody and fascist. The former co-opts the public’s genuine liberal aims and grievances against economic conditions, authoritarian tendencies and corruption. The latter is covert action; generally outsourced to local extremists and non-local private mercenaries, training and hiring extremists to do the dirty work when needed.

In Ukraine’s case, it is clear fascist extremists were involved by the prominent position as “Maidan security” provoking violence and in the post-coup government positions they were rewarded with after the coup. The far-right Svoboda (originally the “Socialist-Nationalist Party”), Right Sector, Azov Battalion and C14. The Azov Battalion, dismissed by NATO media as a minor aberration, post-coup became an official branch of the Ukraine Army numbering tens of thousands.

It is also clear fascists were involved in escalating the violence, and are proud of the muscle they flexed—C14 head Yevhen Karas recently proclaimed that the 2014 “Revolution of Dignity” would have been a “gay parade” if not for the instrumental role of neo-Nazis. The moderates and many liberal-progressive activists considered groups like Svoboda as the only party of action, making a deal with the devil, and some insisted at the time, such as the EuroMaidan Press (funded by Soros’s IRF) that the Nationalist fascists such as Dmytro Yarosh are needed to protect citizens from the state violence of leaders like Yanukovych; “Someone who is ready to risk his life so I can live in freedom and peace—can`t be a bad guy. It’s that simple.”^[24]

Strange bedfellows (and tragic naïveté), indeed.

The fascist psychos and ultra-nationalist ideology also became emboldened as the “anti-terrorist operation” evolved into the Donbas war. The initial wave of regular Ukrainian soldiers lacked a desire, when it came to it, to kill their siblings and cousins in the east in 2014. And so, later in the year, Azov, et al., took over and the ideology was spread in parallel to the de-Russianizing of Ukrainian identity.^[25]

Ultimately, for imperial advance, the nationalist extremists ready to die serve as a destabilization grenade, exploited by local and foreign oligarchs as henchmen to protect their interests and to destroy and bleed their enemies, who are conveniently many in form. For the foreign elite, if this chaos and terror also destroys the local population and country, so be it. As long as access to energy and other valuable resources at least does not fall into enemy hands, the military industry oligarchs can make billions off the endless war. Should peace come after all is destroyed, so be it; there are also billions to be made in rebuilding projects along with excellent PR opportunities.

False-Flag Attacks

There are many documented and admitted examples of false-flag attacks,^[26] where an atrocity is used to provoke increased authority and loss of civil liberties, a military intervention or regime change. The basic profile is:^[27]

1. Highly emotive event: Spectacular and traumatic
2. Media bonanza: Instant media saturation with widespread coverage
3. Sham investigation: Case is quickly closed, with a scapegoat/patsy identified with group being demonized; and cover-up
4. Political reaction: Dramatic government/group reaction:
   • a) Erosion of rights/civil liberties for “safety”
   • b) Military action or invasion
   • c) Regime change—fake revolution masqueraded as a democratic uprising.

As they are black operations ordered and sanctioned by powerful groups, with the media on their side, and strict compartmentalization and plausible deniability, evidence is hard to come by unless there are whistleblowers. Even then, such dark actors are easy to discredit, or can be silenced with threats, blackmail or assassination. It pays to look for:

1. The desired intent before the event
2. The reaction after the event
3. Who wanted this?
4. Who benefited? Which government, group, company or organization?

“Unknown Snipers”: False-Flag Crowd Assassination Precedents

If not enough people die, if not enough blood flows, the people will never stand up for themselves. —Gheorghe Ratiu, head of domestic intelligence in Romania’s Departamentul Securității Statului “Securitate” 1986-1989^[28]

There are many types of “big shock” atrocity that can provoke the reaction needed for a coup or military intervention, ranging from those that occur with no foreign manipulation other than the white propaganda that makes it well known, to false-flag black operations that create the event(s) and control the media interpretation. The effect is magnified by use of controlled media—the propaganda multiplier. Where there is no incident that can be publicized or propagandized to provoke outrage, the most effective provocation is a false flag, laying blame on the target government.

Whether or not instigated by an insurgent, opposition or external agent, poisonings, such as the Yuschenko poisoning and the “Orange Revolution”; assassinations, such as that of Rafic Hariri and the “Cedar Revolution” in Lebanon; bombings, such as Israel’s Lavon affair in Egypt, 1954; chemical attacks (e.g., Douma, Syria, April 2018); and other provocations and atrocities are used to achieve public and political momentum for regime change.

Protest provocation can be used by or against a host government, i.e., for counterinsurgency or insurgency, respectively. Regime-change (i.e., insurgent) protests are increased by soft-power means and PR, but uglier methods of agent provocateurs and paramilitaries are used to bring serious conflict, outrage and a sense of chaos and illegitimacy of the target government that can only be quenched by a volte-face or military intervention. However, to frame the atrocity in favor of insurgency/the opposition, the (majority) media must be under control, to fan the flames of justice or revenge and to manage a cover-up. This requires co-ordination of social media campaigns, local news networks and amiable/compliant international media, NGOs, commentators, foreign governments and academia to form a propaganda multiplier, which takes years of investment and development by the imperial government. We will discuss the Ukraine imperial mediasphere later.

But let’s first look at some historical events with similarities to what happened in February 2014 in Kyiv: paramilitaries, terrorists or mercenaries randomly firing on crowds to provoke insurgency.

Syria 1982

Hama uprising, February 3, 1982: After years of terror campaigns and brutal reprisals, Muslim Brotherhood snipers ambushed a government soldier’s patrol and their commander, Abu Bakr (Umar Jawwad), declared Jihad against the Ba’athist Assad regime. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) estimated a few months later that 2,000 died over the three-week battle, including soldiers, jihadists and civilians. ^[29] Many subsequently suggest much higher numbers, particularly of civilians. The jihadists, desiring an Islamic state, were well-funded and well-armed, with U.S. weapons, communications equipment and the backing of U.S.-allied Jordanians, Christian Lebanese and Iraqis. ^[30]

Although not firing on a protest and not obviously a false flag, it was a foreign-funded insurrection, and the foreign media blamed the Syrian government almost exclusively for the bloodshed, ignoring the opposition violence (a common theme). As the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA; if you haven’t heard of them, the largest of intelligence agencies, it is because they are better at their job than the others) report stated in 1982: “Even if the plan were not successful the Hama rebellion could become a symbolic rallying point for future anti-government activities.” As in many other interventions before and since, extremists are used as a “battering ram” or “chaos agents” to foment regime change, and the association is either denied or whitewashed by the control of the media.

Romania 1989

Possibly along with the use of snipers in Moscow in 1993, Romania—December 1989—appears to be a rare example of a co-U.S. and Soviet black operation involving “unknown snipers” to get rid of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s regime blocking European reunification. Remember this was when team USA was negotiating “fixing” the Soviet economy and both sides viewed Ceaușescu as the main barrier to progress. It is telling that this was the most violent of the initial post-communist transitions.

More than 1,000 people died around late December 1989, most by random shootings including those by snipers, across the country, the vast majority after the Ceaușescus were arrested on December 22, 1989. The murderous chaos distracted from the coup itself and led to a desperate desire for stability and authority and quick international validation of and, ironically, sympathy for Ion Iliescu’s new National Salvation Front government.

The snipers were called “unknown terrorists” for years but the repeated recent prosecutions against the Consiliul Frontului Salvării Naționale (Council of the National Salvation Front, CFSN) regime that took power after the Romanian coup of 1989 indicate the local coup plotters had substantial support from Moscow, Budapest and Washington. Ion Iliescu (who became president), Gelu Voican Voiculescu, Iosif Rus and Emil (Cico) Dumitrescu have been repeatedly indicted for crimes against humanity for provoking the “psychosis” that led to the killings—a strangely evasive and medieval way to describe intentional massacre.^[31]

A more accurate charge would be complicity (along with the U.S., Hungary and Soviets) in being psychos that ordered mass random assassinations, distributed weapons to anyone with a trigger finger and pumped the country full of fear-inducing propaganda in order to provoke more psychosis, i.e., false-flag state terrorism.

During the brief mock trial that preceded the Christmas Day 1989 executions of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu—which were simply accepted as an inevitable and natural course of events in the global media—there are interesting statements by an unidentified military “judge” and the “defendants” themselves about the identity of the “terrorists” still causing chaos around the country:^[32]

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Mr. President, I would like to know something: The accused should tell us who the mercenaries are. Who pays them? And who brought them into the country?

PROSECUTOR: Yes. Accused, answer.

CEAUSESCU: I will not say anything more. I will only speak at the Grand National Assembly.

And, later:

CEAUSESCU: You as officers should know that the government cannot give the order to shoot. But those who shot at the young people were the security men, the terrorists.

ELENA CEAUSESCU: The terrorists are from Securitate.

PROSECUTOR: The terrorists are from Securitate?

ELENA CEAUSESCU: Yes.

The Ceaușescus are obviously not incriminating themselves in stating the terrorists are members of Securitate. Rather, coup plotters included members of the government, army and Securitate.

The new regime was promoted before and after the coup in Western media—particularly, of course, by Radio Free Europe—and CIA reports from 1982 and 1985 make it clear that Ion Iliescu was their chosen replacement for Ceaușescu years before the coup.^[33]

And so—anointed by the interventionist god of free-market consumerism—he immediately took power on December 22^nd, with his first statement that same day clearly stating the country’s new position as completely supportive of U.S./NATO and Soviet agendas, i.e., pro-free-market reform and European reunification.^[34] Roadblock cleared. Although, just to keep the path completely clear, the terrorist destruction continued for another week.

On December 24, U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock met with Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Ivan Aboimov. They agreed they were both in favor of supporting the “new leadership of Romania”—only two days old and (one would imagine) ill-defined to them unless they are privy to magical foresight or privileged information.

Matlock’s main priority in the conversation was to know if the Soviets would intervene to support the new regime, in humanitarian or military aid, to which Aboimov replies in the affirmative. Matlock then asks if they would consider intervening militarily, to which he replied in the negative, stating that the Soviets gladly henceforth hand over Brezhnev’s policy of eastern sphere intervention to the Americans.^[35]

This last point is focused on almost as a distraction in the literature as if it were a profound wisecrack, referring both to the shift to a unipolar world and a barb at the U.S. invasion of Panama. But more to the point is that it is clear from the transcript that they are completely on the same page regarding getting rid of Ceaușescu and bringing in the coup plotters, which means they must at least know who these people are, what they are planning and that they unreservedly approve of them. Matlock is likely focused on the intervention policy as it is a contingency of the strategy of insurgency tension to provoke international intervention. As it turns out, this was not required, perhaps as the horrendous chaos subdued any dissent or counterrevolution.

Susanne Brandstaetter’s excellent 2003 documentary, Checkmate: Strategy of a Revolution, exposes Western intelligence and U.S. State Department involvement in Romania 1989, with direct interviews with protesters, CIA agents, Romanian intelligence, CIA and French DGSE officers, as well as a revealing interview with Miklós Németh, Hungarian prime minister at the time. No wonder many Romanians have always suspected large foreign complicity.^[36]

In it, Dominique Fonvielle says that paramilitaries were trained in Hungary and Germany, and were smuggled into the country in small groups to be ready for provocation of protests and “paramilitary actions” (presumably including sniper attacks).^[37] There were also reports of Russian “tourists” entering in larger numbers in the days before the protests.^[38]

Also in the film, Németh—somewhat coy and sheepish, yet also clearly enjoying the reminiscing and salacious topic—confirms there were paramilitary training camps with U.S. personnel in Austria, Germany and Hungary. More precisely, the ex-head of domestic Securitate, Gheorghe Ratiu states that they were U.S.-led camps providing training in provocateurism and guerrilla operations in Traiskirchen, Austria; Zirndorf, Germany [presumably the Pinder Barracks]; and Bicske and Budapest, Hungary. Most likely there were others.

Ratiu also claims in Checkmate that, from early in the protests in Bucharest, a faction of the army simply started handing out weapons to the general public, leading to many fear-induced shootings and killings between civilians, the army and Securitate. As with snipers, the purpose was to maintain fear and insecurity until the new authority of Ion Iliescu’s new US- and NATO-approved National Salvation Front government was in place. Pushing chaos on the public creates a pushback for authority. Although this chaos is often blamed on a “power vacuum,” this is a myth as Iliescu picked up the reins immediately after Ceaușescu was deposed, according to his co-conspirator and army chief (who, conveniently for his Hungarian handlers, spoke Hungarian), General Victor Stanculescu.

This is all pretty convincing. But if, like me, you prefer straight-talking witnesses and whistleblowers over mealy-mouthed diplomats and spooks—especially the brutal and perhaps not very bright militarist ones that do not even see what is wrong with violent imperialist intervention—we can look to Major Craisor-Constantin Ionita’s 2001 thesis submitted for a master’s degree in Military Studies at the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College in Quantico, Virginia.^[39]

Titled “The Influence of International Law Upon Military Operation on Urbanized Terrain (MOUT) During Romanian Revolution, December 1989,” it is an unexpected description of the revolution as a foreign-sparked coup by NATO, Hungary and (perhaps under a sense of naïve obligation to the U.S. as the new dictators of its mafia-neo-liberal future) Russia. Notably, he states that it was GRU Military Intelligence, not the KGB, that was involved in the Russian arm, which aligns with diplomatic cables of the time indicating that the KGB had (or would only give) terrible intelligence for Gorbachev during the “coup-volution.”^[40]

Ionita, now a researcher at the National Defence University of Romania, contends that:

• Large numbers of “tourists” came into Timisoara from Hungary and Yugoslavia just before the beginning of the revolution. They were former refugees who had received training for “diversionary operations.”
• Gorbachev described his role in the Romanian Revolution and in the execution of the Ceaușescus in the media—particularly in the January-February 1990 issue of Europemagazine (Bruxelles).
• “After the Gorbachev-Bush meeting at Malta (the beginning of December 1989), professional people from the GRU (Soviet Military Intelligence), were prepared to start a revolution in Romania’s principal cities. Their role was only as a spark to start the revolutionary fire, already existent in cities. The strategic objective was to overthrow [Ceaușescu]. The operational objectives were the Communist Party buildings in Romania’s principal cities.” “Only as a spark” is an interesting and ambiguous qualifier that I do not believe would stand up in any court of law.
• International media played a key role, especially American Freedom Europe and Voice of America, and the British BBC with “a vigilant campaign against [Ceaușescu], carefully observing psychological and moral influence of Romanians living in cities.” Amplified by Hungarian media, they “tried to create a hostile mood against the communist regime, to encourage dissidents and to incite a revolt within cities.”
• The CIA set up the “Trust Organization” in early December to encourage and support dissident movements in Eastern Europe, and destabilize the communist regimes in these countries, including Romania.
• Meanwhile, NATO countries increased their embargo against those countries that did not implement democratic reform.
• “At the same time of [Ceaușescu]’s attempted escape, three ‘dissident persons,’ selected by Moscow to replace him, were helped by ‘professionals’ to occupy T.V. and Radio central stations”—Ion Iliescu, a Gorbachev friend and future President, Nicolae Militaru, a GRU agent and future Minister of National Defense, and Petre Roman, future Prime Minister.
• The terrorists’ plan was to sow confusion and get the military fighting the Securitate necessitating Warsaw Pact intervention. They also successfully disabled the air defense system.
• Finally:

At the beginning of [the] revolution it was thought that foreign agents and spy agencies, who wanted to destroy the communist ideals, started and supported the people revolt in Timisoara. That assessment led to the right of the military personnel to use deadly force in self-defense, their unit’s defense and defense of buildings under protection against any hostile act. In the midst of crowd there were some 300-400 revolutionary professionals trained by foreign countries (USSR, Hungary, NATO countries) to increase the popular revolt. If the civilians used rocks, “Molotov cocktail” (incendiary bottles), chains, and metallic balls to seize administrative and political buildings, these professionals handled white and fire armament.^[41] Due to their actions, soldiers were killed and soldiers opened fire against civilians.

On the contrary, CIA-friendly commentators still suggest it was fiercely loyal Securitate groups—particularly the Unitatea Specială de Luptă Antiteroristă (USLA) anti-terror squad—perhaps with the help of (always convenient) “Arab Terrorists,” who terrorized Bucharest for days, including attacks on embassies.^[42] The main evidence supporting this is from UK, U.S. and Canadian embassy cables during the period and some declassified CIA reports that identify the terrorists as loyalists aiming for a Ceaușescu counterrevolution, despite his being deposed politically on December 22 and mortally on December 25. How this also squares with the strictly “need to know” basis of black operations, as well as the clear benefit of attacking prominent westerners in provoking and validating a crisis, is unclear.

Lastly, one wonders if the Hungarian-Bolivian terrorist, jackal, murderer, intelligence agent and ex-BBC journalist Eduardo Rózsa-Flores was involved in Romania 1989 as he was involved in false flags and murders, fighting for Croatia in the Yugoslavian civil war only a couple of years later. According to leaked Hungarian secret service files, the KGB and Hungarian secret service trained Rózsa-Flores was doing provocateurist work in Budapest in September 1989, and was planning a Romanian trip with anti-communist activist and director Roland Antoniewicz, who claims he was unaware of Rózsa-Flores’s undercover role.^[43]

Venezuela 2002

Caracas April 11, 2002. Nineteen killed and scores injured, with a key part played by snipers (and some police loyal to Caracas mayor and U.S. puppet Alfredo Peña) firing at pro-government and opposition protesters as well as, at some points, police. This was a plan in the failed coup of military leaders, supported by the U.S., Venezuelan elite and anti-Chávez media [see Angel Palacio’s 2004 documentary Llaguno Bridge: Keys to a Massacre for more].^[44]

That the violence was planned is apparently evidenced by the practice run recording for CNN’s Otto Neustaldt, where the generals denounced the violence that was yet to occur. Later that month, Venezuelan Congressman Roger Rondon accused Ambassador Charles Shapiro and two U.S. military attachés of involvement and stated that two foreign gunmen, one American and the other Salvadorean, were detained by security police but were “given some kind of safe conduct” and disappeared.^[45]

Many other suspects were released during the short reign of the de facto government, including seven suspected snipers arrested in the Hotel Ausonia – and more than 60 pro-Chávez supporters were killed in the protests for his release, which received very little outcry in the mainstream and foreign press.

Thailand 2010

April 10, 2010: “Red shirt”/United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship protesters, supporters of Dubai-based, U.S.-backed billionaire ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, convened at Bangkok’s “Democracy Monument.” Mysterious gunmen embedded with the protesters used sniper fire and grenades to create chaos and kill six soldiers and a colonel. Thai troops returned fire: 25 died and 840 were injured.

CNN initially did not report that protesters were armed, then conceded two months later that there were “men in black firing automatic weapons on April 10.”^[46] The international spokesman for the redshirts admitted in a Reuters interview about the recent “vibrant”(!) protests, that the men armed with AK47s and M16s in black were ”a secret unit within the army that disagrees with what’s going on.”^[47]

And he continues, apparently without irony, “Without them, the black-clad men, there would have been a whole lot more deaths and injuries.” Although these violent and soft “change agents” appear local, the insurgent opposition movement is U.S.-backed as Thailand is too close to China for Washington’s liking. It will take a leak to discover exactly how but there are countless examples from which to extrapolate.

Syria 2011

March 17-18, 2011: The violence in Syria started in a small town near the Jordanian border, Daraa, with a series of demonstrations and reports of snipers killing both demonstrators and security forces. The vast majority of Western media (CNN, NYT, Al Jazeera, AP, etc.) ignored the police/security force deaths and reported most all deaths as civilian. In fact, as reported by Israeli, Lebanese and Indian news sites, most of the initial deaths were police, and multiple government buildings and the SyriaTel phone company building were also torched.

This bias set the tone for the rest of the reporting on Syria that followed, continuing to deny that there was an Islamist armed insurrection, let alone that they were supporting it with the aim of weakening Assad ^[48] and instead blaming provocateurism on “secret police” trying to foment a reaction to allow a larger crackdown. Similar events followed over the next month, with snipers firing on crowds “in the coastal cities of Banias, Jabla and Lattakia, in the central industrial city of Homs and in towns close to Damascus, Harasta, Daraya and Duma.” The effect described by one witness was that “Anger is rising, the street is boiling.”

An Al Jazeera correspondent reported at one incident in Douma in April 2011 that “it was an incredibly chaotic scene, and it seems as though pretty much everyone down here in the southern part of the country is now carrying weapons. It is unclear who was firing at whom, that’s part of the confusion.^[49] Yet no media were acknowledging that there was an armed insurrection occurring, who they were, where the weapons came from or where their bullets were going.

Was it foreign-backed armed terrorists or “government snipers” killing soldiers and civilians? Or both? The fact that the DIA stated in a 2012 Department of Defense Information Report that their intent was to destabilize Syria and install an Islamic state in eastern Syria—and hence why they continue to fund, arm and train Islamist extremists to this day—suggests the snipers were most likely a U.S. strategy of regime change, escalating the ongoing conflict that has so far caused half a million deaths, millions injured and more than six million refugees.

Yemen 2011

March 18, 2011 (the same day as the violence in Daraa, Syria), 53 protesters were killed in Sanaa, Yemen, and hundreds injured, by rooftop snipers.^[50] Did President Saleh al-Ahmar think his U.S.-Saudi backing would allow him to get away with such an insane “crackdown” on protests? Or were these insurrectionist snipers? Why such a complete non-reaction from the U.S. and West, when the same month they declared war on Libya, to “protect [Libyan] civilians and meet their basic needs”? Such is the difference between a client and non-client state. It is always telling where the media projects its amnesic newsfeed gaze.

One “Western official” quoted in the UK’s Telegraph in 2011 said, “It is not in the West’s best interests to see this degenerate into a Libya-style conflict that would play into the hands of Islamist militants, which is why it would be better for Saleh to go sooner rather than later.” Well, Saleh indeed soon went, but the degeneration occurred regardless, to cause a war and a humanitarian disaster as the Houthis rose to power.

Nicaragua 2018

Nicaragua has been a focus of U.S. ire ever since the Sandinistas came to power in 1979. The U.S. tried to push things again in 2018, in an extremely volent but failed coup attempt, also backed by the Catholic Church and local elite trade groups, focusing on youth groups, social media and the “propaganda multiplier” and some provocative protesting, sabotage and terror involving paid delinquents. There are also accusations of police violence and Sandinista thuggery, though it seems the deaths were near equal in terms of pro- and anti-government members of the public and at least 20 police were killed in 2018.

Opposition groups, for example, used criminal goons to man the hundreds of tranque checkpoints that besieged towns, abducted, tortured and murdered Sandinistas, set large fires, attempted to blow up stolen fuel tank trucks in towns and—like the CIA-organized trucker strike in Chile in the early 1970s that “made the economy scream”^[51]—cut off trade for months.

Riding a wave of soft-power foreign-funded NGOs and anti-government media, the violence escalated quickly, starting with student protests on April 18^th sparked—somewhat obscurely—by changes in social security reforms: “a 1% rise in worker contributions, the 3.5% rise in employer contributions (over time) and a 5% cut in the benefit which was also a trade-off for expanded medical coverage.”^[52]

Snipers were certainly involved. As lleana Lacayo told Amnesty International: “Most of the deaths that occurred in the country…are carefully aimed shots, a single shot fired with precision at the head or jugular or chest, they are shots that aim to kill and they are fired by professionals.”^[53]

The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH) reported in May that 36 people died of gunshot wounds between April 19 and May 2, and 22 of these were by head, neck or chest shots. Opposition media reported that, between April 19 and July 3, there were 309 deaths, and 127 (41.5%) of these deaths were due to direct, single shots to the head, neck and chest.^[54] And, as Barbara Moore states in the LA Progressive:

Specific, eye-witness accounts of sniper use by the opposition have been shared with me and according to the same source even the government has withheld some information for the sake of relations with neighboring countries [namely, El Salvador]. That transnational gang members were involved in the attempt to destabilize the country was confirmed in June, but the extent to which that was the case is not yet known.^[55]

There are other reports of snipers targeting police. For example, on July 8, two police officers—Faber López Vivas and Hilario de Jesús Ortiz Zavala—were killed and two others wounded by sniper fire in Jinotepe. ^[56] A U.S. resident reported to Barbara Larcom of the Alliance for Global Justice:

Our neighbor here…,whom we have known for years, is a member of the antiriot police. He told us that the day the roadblocks/barricades were removed … he was one of [a number] who were the first to step outside the police station. There was only one way out. When they stepped out, there was a sniper on top of [named] building who was waiting for them and began picking them off, one by one. He was the only one who wasn’t shot and had to try and drag his friends out of harm’s way. One was killed, and the others luckily survived but with major injuries…. After the fighting they were able to capture several people. He said many of them were foreign gang members, mostly from El Salvador.….He also said that early on in the protesting they would be receiving fire from protesters and meanwhile, they could see someone firing on the protesters from behind.^[57]

The vast majority of the violence by local and mainstream international media was blamed on Nicaraguan police, claiming they fired indiscriminately into crowds and that they armed pro-government mobs. Amnesty International claimed in its May 2018 report that the government had “a strategy of indiscriminate repression with intent to kill not only in order to completely smash the protests, but also to punish those who participated in them.”^[58] Yet there is ample evidence of extreme violence and murder committed by the protesters that was ignored by even “progressive” international media.

Opposition protester at tranque in Masaya. [Source: thegrayzone.com]

A key event, very similar to the events in Venezuela in 2002, was the pro- and anti-government marches with separate routes in Managua on Mother’s Day, May 30. Before the marches, as in Caracas 2002, opposition leaders repeatedly stated in the media that violence and deaths would occur. Only after the marches, when a group of opposition protesters ventured off route toward the Sandinista post-march concert, did violence occur. Setting up a roadblock near Dennis Martínez National Stadium, they encountered police and gunfire began. Eight died, including two Sandinistas.

One report on this day by a collaboration among the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), and the Organization of American States (OAS) involved a model with forensic and acoustic analysis of social media by the spooky New York Times-friendly SITU Research consultancy—whose involvement in official narrative Maidan massacre research we will discuss in Part III.

In tandem with many NGOs and “independent experts”—if you are bored, try a game where you search each expert in this report and see if you can find one without a direct link to USGOs or NGOs—SITU concluded, despite the lack of evidence identifying the shooters,^[59] that police snipers were responsible for the death of three of the protesters during the clashes and that this was “part of the systematic repression of civilian demonstrations.”^[60]

This analysis omitted any media incriminating opposition protesters, despite the mass of such media and other evidence of protester violence. It also ignores shooting at Sandinistas and the well-reported presence of opposition protester weapons and guns as well as the possibility of a false flag as in Caracas 2002.

One has to dig into the middle of the full (500-page) GIEI report to read, “Lastly, these scenes show the presence of four armed individuals among the protesters, but the National Police and the pro-government media did not report any attacks perpetrated by protesters during these initial moments.”^[61] It is worth noting that the report, which discusses violence from April 18 to May 30, 2018, mentions multiple instances of witnesses reporting unidentified snipers.

Other “Unknown Snipers”

Other examples include Lithuania 1992; Russia 1993, when Yeltsin’s counterrevolution made use of snipers; Iran 2009; Kyrgyzstan June 2010; Tunisia January 2011; and Egypt and Libya, also in 2011.^[62]

During the siege of Sarajevo 1992-1996, there were multiple false-flag attacks, including cease-fire shelling, bombing and sniper fire. Recently declassified Canadian UN cables, for example, state that Bosniak and foreign Mujahadeen fighters (flown in by the United States) were “not above firing on their own people or UN areas.”^[63] In a very different context, although only one person died, the still “unsolved” case of the murder of British police officer Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan Embassy in London in 1984 also appears to fit the prototype of an intelligence-linked false-flag murder during protests by an “unknown sniper.” Around the same time, the Operation Gladio-linked Brabant random murders in supermarkets in Belgium in 1982-1985 appear to be state false-flag terrorism that killed dozens.

State Terror, Imperialism and Control

All events personal and political can be understood as a dynamic of power. The problem is—as we have discussed and as the above examples of state terror make clear—power hides itself masterfully, not least as it protects itself in counterinsurgency and projects itself in insurgency.

What it hides most are its most effective tools: covert action including propaganda, terrorism, assassination and sexual blackmail; and its sole purpose, the amoral pursuit of elite greed. In the face of such barbaric political reality, one has to consider case-by-case whether a terrorist attack, mass killing or shooting—whether the weapon is a bomb, gun, knife, poison, vehicle or saboteur’s wrench—serves a directly or indirectly useful political purpose, not least for imperial propaganda. As ex-Securitate domestic chief Gheorghe Ratiu said, if there is a political desire for regime change, there must be sufficient blood and outrage for the public to want it.^[64] If there is not, it must be created, in reality or in the minds of the public via the media. Blood that is the sacrificial fuel for Martin Luther’s “wheels of history”; blood that shocks, paralyzes and traumatizes, creating the martyrs of progress, progress toward the manipulative, threatening but comforting arms of elite power.

Reviewing the above cases, some patterns emerge. Lots of effort, time and money is needed both to nurture the network of dissidents and opposition prior to a push for regime change and to ensure the media coverage is controlled during and after the event. The imperial strategy for regime-change insurgency (“revolution,” if you believe them) is essentially the same as the strategy for counterinsurgency, i.e., it centers on soft-power networks, political training, propaganda and control of media, galvanized by a strategy of tension precipitated by provocateurs and paramilitary guerrilla tactics such as random snipers. We can call them the strategies of insurgent and counterinsurgent tension.

Inside the client-states of the empire, atrocity—including torture, assassination and random terror and fear—is used for counterinsurgency and control. This has been well documented in the U.S.-installed, trained and controlled Latin American and Asian military regimes as well as in the client-states of Europe since the Second World War. Italy’s “years of lead” of the 1970s and 1980s have been well-documented as a part of U.S.-controlled counterinsurgency via NATO-CIA’s Operation Gladio, also involving elements of other elite supranational networks such as Le Cercle and local elite networks like the Masonic Propaganda 2 group.^[65]

Hundreds were killed in bombings and shootings, the socialist left was neutralized, marginalized, co-opted and vilified and Aldo Moro was assassinated as he tried to bridge social democrat and democratic socialist parties, all to push the politics to the center right, within the supranational neo-liberal empire under U.S. control through the CIA and NATO (with some history of MI6 and DIA involvement). Anyone who suggests there was any national sovereignty motivating these machinations is delusional or deceptive.

Similar Gladio/“stay-behind” operations are known in all NATO countries, for example, the “strategy of tension” random Brabant killings of Belgium in 1982-1985 and the horrific Baron Benoit de Bonvoisin, Michel Nihoul, Paul Vanden Boeynants and Marc Dutroux pedophile-murder-blackmail network both appear linked to the Belgian Gladio network.

Although the latter involved the largest national scandal in modern Belgian history, culminating in the White March of more than 300,000 grieving and outraged citizens in Brussels on October 20, 1996, the elite criminals completely squashed any investigation, via typical counterinsurgency measures of media control, co-optation, smearing, obstruction, distraction, threats and murder. On this scale, one can only sense that the price is the Belgian soul.

If Gladio is new to you, I recommend starting with Arthur Rowse’s 1994 article in CovertAction Quarterly (No. 49) entitled “Gladio: The Secret U.S. War to Subvert Italian Democracy”; Philip Willan’s Puppetmasters: The Political Use of Terrorism in Italy (1991/2002); Allan Francovich’s stunning 1992 three-part BBC documentary; and Daniele Ganser’s pivotal 1995 book NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe; and exploring other elements on the Wikispooks website and elsewhere (with a caution for limited hangouts).

More recently, continuous with the near ubiquitous links to intelligence seen in “terror attacks,” the former commissioner of Spanish Police, José Manuel Villarejo, stated in the country’s high court in 2021 that the vehicle attacks of Barcelona in summer 2017, which killed 13 and wounded 130, were intended by the National Intelligence Center (CNI), to give Catalonia “a little scare” before their independence referendum.^[66]

We will not explore the common debate of state terror as to whether the elite’s political-military-intelligence apparatus made it happen or let it happen on purpose, or as blowback (unintended consequences) or errors of surveillance in anti-terror infiltration operations (i.e., a “sting-gone-wrong”). In this case and in many others, it seems the terror is intentional and has many political benefits, not least a fearful and divided populace, leaving us mere pawns on the devil’s chessboard.

The ultimate dark lessons of the above examples are that state terrorism is a real and powerful tool of imperial insurgency and counterinsurgency; it has been used in many countries (including inside the U.S.) for many years; and, although the empire has supranational elements, even wealthy client-states of the U.S. have ultimately been at the behest of their Atlantic master, largely via networks of the military and intelligence. Regime change and strategy of tension counterinsurgency operations involve countless examples of well-documented state terrorism.

They require atrocity, the ultimate psyop of control; provocation to desperate pleas for external or internal justice and protection from or by authority depending on who the perceived threat is.

Whether or not an atrocity is a false-flag provocateurist covert action, the cause and details, as far as much of the public is concerned, are effectively irrelevant next to the control of the media by those in power, who prescribe or sanction the acceptable analysis.

As this is amplified in the emotive moments after an atrocity, and forges in the public’s psychic framework, it then enters legacy and is lost to imperialist amnesia, even where vague lingering doubt remains. Any subsequent critical analysis is then fighting against fixed or disappearing neural (and digital) networks and suffocating in the mounting layers of silt from the dirty, rich and ceaseless river of propaganda.

See Part II here.

*

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Jim Cole is an editor and researcher. He can be reached at [email protected].

Notes

1. Volodymyr Ishchenko, “Towards the Abyss,” New Left Review, no. 133/134 (April 13, 2022): 1–1. 

2. “CIA AND THE ORIGINS OF THE BND, 1949-56, VOL. 1,” vol. 1, 3 vols. (National Clandestine Service: Central Intelligence Agency, 2006), https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA%20AND%20THE%20ORIGINS%20OF%20THE%20BND,%201949-56%20%20%20VOL.%201_0001.pdf. 
3. Kevin Ruffner, “Cold War Allies: The Origins of CIA’s Relationship with Ukrainian Nationalists” (Central Intelligence Agency, 1998), https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/STUDIES%20IN%20INTELLIGENCE%20NAZI%20-%20RELATED%20ARTICLES_0015.pdf. 
4. Klaus Gietinger, The Murder of Rosa Luxemburg, trans. Loren Balhorn (London: Verso, 2019). 
5. Stephen Kinzer, The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire (Henry Holt and Company, 2017). 
6. Arthur E Rowse, “Gladio: The Secret U.S. War To Subvert Italian Democracy,” CovertAction Quarterly, no. 49 (Summer 1994), https://archive.org/details/rowse-gladio-the-secret-u. 
7. Mike Davis, Buda’s Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb (London: Verso, 2007), P 27. [Available at: https://archive.org/details/budaswagonbriefh00davi.] 
8. Christof Lehmann, “ISIS Unveiled: The Identity of The Insurgency in Syria and Iraq,” nsnbc, June 19, 2014, https://web.archive.org/web/20140619052302/http://nsnbc.me/2014/06/15/isis-unveiled-identity-insurgency-syria-iraq/. 
9. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories(Lanham, MD: Regnery Publishing, 1997), p. 71. [Available at: https://archive.org/details/secretlifeofbill00ambr.] 
10. David Brown and Robert Merrill, Violent Persuasions: The Politics and Imagery of Terrorism (Seattle : Bay Press, 1993), p. 149. [Available at: http://archive.org/details/violentpersuasio0000unse.] 
11. Paul H. Rosenberg and Foreign Policy In Focus, “Seven Decades of Nazi Collaboration: America’s Dirty Little Ukraine Secret,” The Nation, March 28, 2014, https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/seven-decades-nazi-collaboration-americas-dirty-little-ukraine-secret/. 
12. David Stern, “Svoboda: The Rise of Ukraine’s Ultra-Nationalists,” BBC News, December 22, 2012, sec. Magazine, https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20824693. 
13. Zoltan Grossman, “Ukraine: The Enemy of Your Enemy Is Not Always Your Friend,” CounterPunch, March 11, 2014, https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/11/ukraine-the-enemy-of-your-enemy-is-not-always-your-friend/. 
14. Kacper Rekawek, “Career Break or a New Career? Extremist Foreign Fighters in Ukraine” (Counter Extremism Project, April 2020), https://www.counterextremism.com/sites/default/files/CEP%20Report_Career%20Break%20or%20a%20New%20Career_Extremist%20Foreign%20Fighters%20in%20Ukraine_April%202020.pdf. 
15. Gladio, 3 vols., Timewatch (United Kingdom: BBC, 1992), https://archive.org/details/opgladio. 
16. “The CIA Is Using a European NATO Ally’s Spy Service to Conduct a Covert Sabotage Campaign inside Russia under the Agency’s Direction, According to Former U.S. Intelligence and Military Officials.,” Jack Murphy, December 24, 2022, https://jackmurphywrites.com/169/the-cias-sabotage-campaign-inside-russia/. 
17. Martin A Lee, The Beast Reawakens: Fascism’s Resurgence from Hitler’s Spymasters to Today’s Neo-Nazi Groups and Right-Wing Extremists, 2017, 309, http://www.vlebooks.com/vleweb/product/openreader?id=none&isbn=9781135281243. 
18. “PG INVESTIGATION | Shadowy money built steel empire—with bank’s help,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 22, 2022, https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2022/02/20/Ihor-Kolomoisky-US-banks-warren-ohio-steel-plant-ukraine/stories/202202200063. 
19. Ishchenko, “Towards the Abyss.” 
20. Carol Cina, “Social Science for Whom? A Structural History of Social Psychology” (State University of New York, Stony Brook, 1981), 307. 
21. “‘Extreme Option: Overthrow Allende,’” National Security Archive, September 14, 2020, https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2020-09-15/extreme-option-overthrow-allende. 
22. Checkmate: Strategy of a Revolution, Documentary (LOOKSfilm, 2003), https://archive.org/details/checkmate-strategy-of-a-revolution/Checkmate+Strategy+of+a+Revolution+Part+1+-+YouTube.mp4. 
23. Antoine Potier, “Urgentissime !!! Nouvelle Intervention de Pierre De Gaulle Sur Le Conflit En Ukraine et Sur l’avenir Des Relations Franco-Russes !,” Ciel de France, December 26, 2022, http://cieldefrance.eklablog.com/urgentissime-nouvelle-intervention-de-pierre-de-gaulle-sur-le-conflit–a213605651. 
24. “Euromaidan Press. “Maidan-As-It-Is: The Extreme Right Wing & EuroMaidan OR ‘Glory to Ukraine,’” EUROMAIDAN∙PRESS, February 10, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140623193017/http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/02/10/maidan-as-it-is-the-extreme-right-wing-euromaidan-or-glory-to-ukraine/.”
25. Shaun Walker, “Azov fighters are Ukraine’s greatest weapon and may be its greatest threat,” The Guardian, September 10, 2014, sec. World news, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/10/azov-far-right-fighters-ukraine-neo-nazis. 
26. Washington’s Blog. “53 ADMITTED False Flag Attacks,” February 23, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20190713101700/https://washingtonsblog.com/2015/02/x-admitted-false-flag-attacks.html. 
27. “The Age of False Flags.” False Flags. Gaia. Accessed September 4, 2021. https://www.gaia.com/series/false-flags. 
28. Checkmate: Strategy of a Revolution. 
29. “Syria: Muslim Brotherhood Pressure Intensifies” (Defense Intelligence Agency, May 1982), https://web.archive.org/web/20121224063537/http://www.foreignpolicy.com/files/fp_uploaded_documents/DIA-Syria-MuslimBrotherhoodPressureIntensifies.pdf. 
30. Patrick Seale with the assistance of Maureen McConville, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 335. 
31. “Ion Iliescu and Gelu Voican Voiculescu Were Indicted for Crimes against Humanity in the Case of the Revolution,” G4Media.ro, December 21, 2018, https://www.g4media.ro/ion-iliescu-si-gelu-voican-voiculescu-au-fost-inculpati-pentru-crime-contra-umanitatii-in-dosarul-revolutiei.html. 
32. “TRANSCRIPT OF THE CLOSED TRIAL OF NICOLAE AND ELENA CEAUSESCU,” Washington Post, December 29, 1989, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/12/29/transcript-of-the-closed-trial-of-nicolae-and-elena-ceausescu/8ae8f002-1f19-487c-a7aa-ed4334f74af6/; Livezeanu, Irina. “Item #690: Transcript of the Closed ‘Trial’ of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu, December, 1989.” Making the History of 1989, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History & New Media, George Mason University. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/690.html; “Transcript of the Trial of Nicolae and E. Ceausescu,” Ceausescu.org, accessed January 18, 2023, http://www.ceausescu.org/ceausescu_texts/revolution/trial-eng.htm. 
33. “Unrest in Romania: Causes and Implications” (Central Intelligence Agency, March 1982), https://web.archive.org/web/20170124132628/https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP83B00228R000100070004-7.pdf; “Romania: The Outlook for Ceausescu,” Special National Intelligence Estimate, Memorandum for Holders (Central Intelligence Agency, December 1985), https://web.archive.org/web/20170123131938/https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP87T00573R000300350007-6.pdf. 
34. Eduard Rudolf Roth, “The Romanian Revolution of 1989 and the Veracity of the External Subversion Theory,” Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 24, no. 1 (January 2, 2016): 37–50, https://doi.org/10.1080/0965156X.2015.1118816. 
35. Svetlana Savranskaya, Thomas S. Blanton, and V. M. Zubok, eds., “Document No. 116: Four Soviet Foreign Ministry Documents Regarding the Situation in Romania December 20–25, 1989,” in Masterpieces of History: The Peaceful End of the Cold War in Eastern Europe, 1989, National Security Archive Cold War Readers (Budapest ; New York: Central European University Press, 2010), 665–67, https://books.openedition.org/ceup/2752. 
36. “Most Romanians Feel They Don’t Know the Truth about the 1989 Revolution,” Romania Insider, December 22, 2014, https://www.romania-insider.com/most-romanians-feel-they-dont-know-the-truth-about-the-1989-revolution. 
37. Checkmate: Strategy of a Revolution. 
38. Richard Bassett, “Rising Linked to Russian Tourists,” The Times, March 2, 1990, The Times Digital Archive, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/IF0501806877/TTDA?sid=bookmark-TTDA&xid=8cbd3996. 
39. Craisor-Constantin Ionita, “DTIC ADA402205: The Influence of International Law Upon Military Operation on Urbanized Terrain (MOUT) During Romanian Revolution, December 1989” (MASTER OF MILITARY STUDIES, Quantico, Virginia, United States Marine Corps Command and Staff College Marine Corps University, 2001), http://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA402205. 
40. Svetlana Savranskaya, Thomas S. Blanton, and V. M. Zubok, eds., “Document No. 116: Four Soviet Foreign Ministry Documents Regarding the Situation in Romania December 20–25, 1989,” in Masterpieces of History: The Peaceful End of the Cold War in Eastern Europe, 1989, National Security Archive Cold War Readers (Budapest ; New York: Central European University Press, 2010), 665–67, https://books.openedition.org/ceup/2752. 
41. ‘White arms’ are non-explosive weapons such as: knives, daggers, swords, bayonets, clubs, axes, spears, slings, bows, and crossbows. 
42. romanianrevolutionofdecember1989, “The Romanian Revolution of December 1989 Declassified (CIA, US Department of State, British Foreign Office, Canadian External Affairs Department ),” Roland O. Thomasson, PHD (blog), February 23, 2020, https://rolandothomassonphd.home.blog/2020/02/23/the-romanian-revolution-of-december-1989-declassified-cia-us-department-of-state-british-foreign-office-caNadiyan-external-affairs-department/. 
43. “Dokumentumok: Rózsa-Flores Eduardo Kádárért Szervezett Tüntetést 1989 Nyarán; Ligacsovhoz, a KGB-Hez És a Securitatehez Készült,” Kuruc.info hírportál, accessed January 17, 2023, https://kuruc.info/r/10/39290/; Antoniewicz R. Antoniewicz Roland a Metepedia wikiből. Accessed January 17, 2023. http://antoniewiczrolandmetapediawiki.blogspot.com/. 
44. Angel Palacios, Llaguno Bridge: Keys to a Massacre, 2004, https://vimeo.com/40502430. Also available here: https://archive.org/details/llaguno-bridge-keys-to-a-massacre-complete-movie-424p. 
45. Duncan Campbell, “American Navy ‘Helped Venezuelan Coup,’” The Guardian, April 29, 2002, sec. World news, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/29/venezuela.duncancampbell. 
46. “CNN, BBC Correspondents Defend Coverage,” accessed April 15, 2022, https://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest+News/Asia/Story/A1Story20100612-221758.html. 
47. “Red Means Stop, and Anger, in Vibrant Thai Protest,” Reuters, April 21, 2010, sec. World News, https://www.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-47881220100421. 
48. “Department of Defense Information Report” (Defense Intelligence Agency, July 30, 2012), https://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf. 
49. “‘Nine Killed’ at Syria Funeral Processions – Middle East – Al Jazeera English,” May 13, 2011, https://web.archive.org/web/20110513130342/http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/04/20114231169587270.html. 
50. “Yemen Protests: Evidence Snipers Shot to Kill,” accessed April 15, 2022, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/yemen/8392796/Yemen-protests-Evidence-snipers-shot-to-kill.html. 
51. Seymour M. Hersh. “C.I.A. Is Linked to Strikes In Chile That Beset Allende,” The New York Times, September 20, 1974, sec. Archives. https://www.nytimes.com/1974/09/20/archives/cia-is-linked-to-strikes-in-chile-that-beset-allende-intelligence.html. 
52. “Letter From Nicaragua: A Catastrophic Well-Orchestrated Event Is Occurring,” PopularResistance.Org (blog), June 10, 2018, https://popularresistance.org/letter-from-nicaragua/. 
53. “Nicaragua: Shoot to Kill: Nicaragua’s Strategy to Repress Protest,” Amnesty International, May 29, 2018, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr43/8470/2018/en/. 
54. “Snipers Hunting Down Citizens In Nicaragua, Former Army Major Says,” TODAY NICARAGUA, July 11, 2018, https://todaynicaragua.com/snipers-hunting-down-citizens-in-nicaragua-former-army-major-says/. 
55. Barbara Moore, “The Story of a Coup,” LA Progressive, October 23, 2018, https://www.laprogressive.com/latin-america-2/nicaraguan-coup. 
56. “Dismissing the Truth,” Alliance for Global Justice and Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign Action Group, October 2018), p. 25. 
57. “Nicaragua 2018 – Myths and Facts,” in Live from Nicaragua, by Alex Anfruns et al. (Alliance for Global Justice, 2019), 39–59, https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.161/jwp.e46.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/live_from_nicaragua_june_2019.pdf. 
58. “Nicaragua: Shoot to Kill: Nicaragua’s Strategy to Repress Protest,” Amnesty International. 
59. John Perry, “Revisiting 2018 Mother’s March in Nicaragua: New Report Repeats Old Bias,” Council on Hemispheric Affairs, July 2, 2020, https://www.coha.org/revisiting-2018-mothers-march-in-nicaragua-new-report-repeats-old-bias/. 
60. “Marcha de Las Madres” (IACHR / SITU Research / Grupo Interdisciplinario de Expertos Independientes / Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF)), accessed January 11, 2023, http://marchadelasmadres.com/#/es ; Perry, John. “Revisiting 2018 Mother’s March in Nicaragua: New Report Repeats Old Bias.” 
61. “Report on the Violent Events That Took Place between April 18th and May 30th, 2018” (Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) Nicaragua, April 2019). 
62. Gearóid Ó Colmáin, “Unknown Snipers and Western Backed ‘Regime Change,’” Global Research, March 7, 2014, https://www.globalresearch.ca/unknown-snipers-and-western-backed-regime-change/27904. 
63. Secker, Tom, and Kit Klarenberg. “Declassified Intelligence Files Expose Inconvenient Truths of Bosnian War.” The Grayzone, December 30, 2022. https://thegrayzone.com/2022/12/30/declassified-intelligence-files-bosnian-war/. 
64. Checkmate: Strategy of a Revolution. 
65. Rowse “Gladio: The Secret U.S. War To Subvert Italian Democracy.” 

66. “Villarejo Says That the 17-A Attacks Were a ‘Mistake’ by the CNI That Wanted to Give ‘a Little Scare in Catalonia,’” 20 Minutos, accessed May 26, 2022, https://www-20minutos-es.translate.goog/noticia/4939230/0/villarejo-dice-atentados-17a-error-grave-cni-queria-dar-pequeno-susto-cataluna/?autoref=true&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB. 

Featured image: Anti-government protesters clash with police in Kyiv on February 20, 2014. [Source: nbcnews.com]