CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
According to Turkey's English-language Hürriyet Daily News, the CIA has warned that Greece is now in such extreme turmoil that a military coup is not unimaginable:
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency warned in a report that the tough austerity measures and the dire situation could escalate and even lead to a military coup, according to a report by Germany’s popular daily Bild.
According to he CIA report, ongoing street protests in crisis-hit Greece could turn into escalated violence and a rebellion and the Greek government could lose control, said Bild. The newspaper said the CIA report talks of a possible military coup if the situation becomes more serious and uncontrolled.
I don't read German, so I can't read the original source of this reporting. And I don't quite understand why Bild would have access to this CIA analysis, especially when it's being reported nowhere else. I'd also note that for obvious reasons, the prospect of a military coup in Greece would leave Turkish journalists giddy with Schadenfreude, so there may be some exaggeration going on here.
Still, this seems worthy of note. File it under "worth watching closely," "collapse of Europe," "one more damned problem to worry about," and "the wages of debt is death."
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Jan '11
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
Would a coup in Greece really be such a bad thing? Seriously; I have no idea.
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
The German doesn't give a source and Bild is notoriously tabloidy. They say:
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
All depends how much you actually believe in "democracy," I guess.
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
Bill Walsh: The German doesn't give a source and Bild is notoriously tabloidy. They say:
May 29 at 11:35pm
Thank you! How could I have forgotten that Ricochet has its own in-house translator of every known language?
Do you think they're tabloidy enough just to completely make that up out of thin air? Or might there be an actual report one could consult?
Mar '11
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
The Greek military has no stomach for a coup after the ignominious ending of it's previous intervention in 1967-1974. The situation is dire, not so much as a result of the austerity measures but because of the complete lack of consensus between the government and opposition parties that has made the austerity measures and other reforms demanded by the ECB and IMF as conditions for the bailout package difficult to implement. Most Greeks appear fed up with the current crop of political leaders but no viable alternative on the national level has presented itself. There is a Greek expression "He was asked to pull the snake out of its hole" fir situation when someone is given a dangerous, hopeless and thankless task. Given past history the military is not keen to stick its hand in the snake's hole.
Sep '10
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
Could someone on this thread explain why the US Embassy in Athens is such a large, large building? On my visit there (as part of an expeditionary force defending Jack Nicholson from an imminent invasion from Mars) I was stunned at the size of the embassy and assumed it was well stocked with spies.
Mar '11
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
At the height of the Cold War the US maintained several naval and air force bases in Greece as well as agents. Strategically the country was deemed critically important to US and NATO interests.
Mar '11
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
BTW, years ago. I heard an interesting story about the US embassy building in Athens. The building was designed by Walter Gropius but because, for security reasons, he was either not told where it would be built or because he was misled, he designed a building fit for northern climates, with huge windows. Athens has sunshine 330 days per year and it is warm. So the first summer the building was used it became ver, very hot. Drapes had to be installed everywhere, negating the desired effect of reflected sunlight, and the AC system upgraded to deal with this. I don't know if the story is true, a firmer employee of the embassy told it to me, but he srved there at least a decade after the building was first occupied.
Jan '11
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
Well, modern Hellenistic 'democracy' has driven their country straight into the ground; perhaps then need a little refresher course in any one of the various versions of un-democracy.
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that the US consulate here looks exactly the way a building would look if you gave a group of imaginative architecture students this brief: "Build your nightmare fantasy of an imperial American fortress, and make sure it has no connection whatsoever to the local culture, landscape, or architectural style. Make sure people hate and fear whatever's in it immediately on sight. It must confirm every negative stereotype about America."
I wish I could say that it made sense, at least, from a counter-terrorism point of view, but in fact the security there looks lousy to me. I'm not going to detail my reasons for saying that. I don't want to give anyone any ideas. But some well-known principles are ... not observed.
Jun '10
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
VDH writes frequently from the perspective of a frequent visitor about how Greece has changed over the decades. He paints a picture about the debauched morals of a populace too long under socialism. His accounts relate how those on the government payroll do their best to avoid work (unless it's of the black market variety) while those in the private sector do everything they can to cheat the government. Dr. Hanson's description supports my contention that socialism erodes the moral fiber of the citizenry and turns the populace into a nation of law-breakers. If Greece should fall to a military coup, the situation would prove my second contention, which is that the soft tyranny of socialism eventually mutates into a harder variety. Personal liberty is dependent on civic duty for its maintenance. California, can you hear me now?
Sep '10
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
That makes sense, as does the story about the idiotic window design.
Nov '10
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
It was a curious story so I chased it down; the design competition appears to have been quite public. I would hazard that Gropius, as well as whoever selected his design, simply went more for style than for function in this one, and didn't bother to take into account the full solar effect
May '10
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
Pseudodionysius
That makes sense, as does the story about the idiotic window design. · May 30 at 7:03am
Reminds me of Tom Wolfe's Bauhaus to Our House, where there was an ongoing war between the architects and the occupants of office buildings regarding the evil curtains.
"In the great corporate towers the office workers shoved filing cabinets, desks,... up against against the floor to ceiling sheets of glass, anything to build a barrier...
Above these jerry-built walls they strung up makeshift curtains that looked like laundry lines from the slums of Naples, anything to keep out that brain-boiling poached-eyed sunlight that came blazing in every afternoon. And by night the custodial staff Miesling police invaded and pulled down these pathetic barricades thrown up against the vision of the white gods.."
If you think embassy building is bad, visit the US Embassy in Grosvenor Sq. London.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0a/US_Embassy%2C_London.jpg
Edited on May 30, 2011 at 9:28amRe: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Do you think they're tabloidy enough just to completely make that up out of thin air? Or might there be an actual report one could consult? · May 30 at 2:22am
Hard to say. I haven't kept up with the German press as much as I used to. Probably depends upon how good their ties are to either the BND (German foreign intelligence) or some high-ranking politician (or their staffer) who would have been provided a CIA report (which itself would probably be a NOFORN redaction of a longer one). Or, conceivably, they could have a source in our embassy and be getting the real thing.
If I had to guess, I'd say they probably have something, but given their complete coyness about what it is, I don't know how authoritative or classified it necessarily is. They call it a Gutachten, which can mean “report,” “opinion,” or “assessment,” so it could even be an end-user briefing.
Oh, I forgot to translate the headline, which is characteristically subtle:
Secret Service Fears Uprising and Violence
Will the Crisis Shatter Greece?
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
Oh, and the Istanbul consulate is no exception. The firm of Corbu, Speer, Forbidding & Faceless seems to have a sole-source contract for U.S. diplomatic architecture.
Heck, they dropped the Kennedy Center into New Delhi…
Mar '11
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
Actually, the US Athens embassy, its cooling problems notwithstanding, is a rather attractive building, one of the better examples of Bauhaus architecture, I think. And the grounds are very nicely landscaped as well (ore were last time I was there, which was quite a few years ago). Unfortunately, in the 1970s the embassy was forced to erect an ugly heavy metal fence around the entire compound because of the frequent anti-US demonstrations that brought lots of people to the embassy and, inevitably, a group of radical left-winders would break through the police cordons and cause damage to the grounds and to the building. Now it looks like a fortress.
Mar '11
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
This is really a question of what will occur when Greece inevitably defaults on its' debt and exits the euro. Coup? Revolution? The only certain bet is massive civil disturbance, its' exact form is left to the imagination of the reader.
Mar '11
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
Unfortunately you are correct about the massive civil disturbance that will occur if (when) Greece defaults or leaves the Euro, causing a run on the banks. The speculation is that if the unrest threatens to get out of hand the government, possibly expanded to include one or two of the smaller opposition parties if the main opposition party continues to refuse to cooperate, will declare martial law and assume emergency powers in a manner more-or-less defined in the constitution for a fixed and relatively short period of time, followed by an election. At this point most serious commentators in Greece do not anticipate the army to make a move on its own, having been burned in the not too distant past.
Sep '10
Re: CIA Warns of Greek Military Coup?
I just want to go on record as absolutely *hating* Bauhaus architecture. Consider me to the right of Theodore Dalrymple and Tom Wolfe on that subject.
See The Architect as Totalitarian.