-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- ph@netcom.com wrote: p> In the late 1970s Germany was in a limited state of turmoil due to p> fears of "terrorist" (1) groups, particularly the Baader-Meinhoff p> gang. Around this time a curious incident occurred. The German p> government had had some success in apprehending some gang leaders. In p> response, the others hijacked a Lufthansa jet and demanded that the p> government release their friends. Four of the leaders of the gang p> then died in prison. The government declared these deaths to be p> suicides, but considerable doubt surrounds this claim. The government p> certainly wanted to discourage further hijacking experiments. The p> elimination of the gang leaders would certainly have sent a strong p> message. The logic is compelling. On the other hand, it is not p> inconceivable that the deaths were suicides intended to discredit the p> government. I lived in the Netherlands and West Germany in 1970 (working as a nightclub singer, no less!), also a time of terrorist activity and mysterious deaths. The persistent buzz was that West German intelligence set up the terrorists to be hit by elements of the US Army's CID. I do not know if this is true or not, though nothing would surprise me after having during the same period blundered into Kafkaesque personal conflicts with major US intelligence players who were quite literally insane. Proving the axiom that no plot device is to cheap for real life, fifteen years later I was working as a tech in exec/diplo security, frequently contracted to a huge - but low-profile - company whose name has been inextricably linked to the CIA for the past forty years or so. Much of my job was doing wirework in the various safehouses they maintained, some of which were enormous mansions kept to stash foreign dignitaries if the need arose. They maintained their own private security force that was tacitly authorized to undertake special ops in any of the 83 host countries in which they operate. They had their own EOD and hostage negotiation/rescue teams that were frequently "in the field." These were heavyweights recruited from some of the scariest outfits in the world. But, to get to the point of this shaggy-dog story, among the specific threats we were tasked with intercepting were elements of the Red Army Faction and Baader-Meinhof, both still considered to be dangerous as late as the mid-'80s, though they never showed up in my AO during my six years on the job (a Sikh separatist flap during the Golden Temple episode was as close as I came to real action and it was a false alarm, though pretty sphincter-tightening for about an hour as, due to a fuckup, I was the first and only one on site, with nothing to protect me but a digital multimeter and a farty little hip pocket .380 holding five rounds). What I wish to make clear in this discussion is that - to my direct personal knowledge as a participant - there are innumerable deniable assets that do the bidding of governments and corporate interests around the world in the field of anti-terrorism. These assets can _and do_ "handle" situations that the righteous citizen would assume to be the exclusive purview of the CIA, Mossad, etc. Though I had no direct knowledge of such executive actions I, do not doubt that these operations include "neutralization" of troublesome elements. Fascinating damn gig. Wish to hell I could write that book about it without "creating problems" for myself. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMoqjDeV+ehVeCu2JAQGSHgQAp+w9zObP9ZQk2M44ZRK6J2wTl4lPaluw p/QbBdtprzq2WTln4DS80rmpLTySgyLL3lG207H7Gm2PrkZzJExni4q4eRqzj4hS QlalQG1O7vT3w566Hso9u17XcxKzq1DKcF8Ej5v/YQzv66YbjpauiGMyxUOe6TdD Dwb5V2SD9Q4= =fV1l -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----