# What could have been the motivation for the horrific massacres in Brabant, Belgium? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 21, 2018, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-have-been-the-motivation-for-the-horrific-massacres-in-brabant-belgium/818344 "2018-07-21T21:41:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-have-been-the-motivation-for-the-horrific-massacres-in-brabant-belgium/818344/21 "2018-07-26T20:16:57Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > As an aside, why would a right-wing terrorist organization call itself [The Westland New Post?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westland_New_Post) What the hell is that supposed to mean? The three words have individual meanings - sort of - “Westland” is apparently a part of the Netherlands, what does “New Post” mean? It sounds like some kind of newspaper. “post” in the sense of a military post, perhaps? The new [military post](https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/military%20post) of Westland? ---
**Author:** ![RayMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e495f1/32.png) [@RayMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RayMan)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-have-been-the-motivation-for-the-horrific-massacres-in-brabant-belgium/818344/22 "2018-07-26T22:22:26Z")
Perhaps you are aware of theories that the crimes may be attributable to the [Belgian stay-behind network](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_stay-behind_network) SDRA8, frequently though erroneously referred to as [Operation Gladio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio). The Wikipedia page for the Brabant Killers mentions it briefly. To summarize, the theory is that agents of SDRA8 acted as an extreme right wing terror organization in Belgium with the goal of . . . well, who really knows? It has been theorized that the goal was to destabilize the government so as to ensure authoritarian anti-leftist anti-communist policies were instituted. So far, no proof of this has ever been presented in a Belgian court, and I certainly don’t claim it’s true, I’m just mentioning the theory. There are a whole host of conspiracy theories about the various NATO stay behind networks in western Europe during the cold war. In Italy, Operation Gladio really did do some terrible things, and there have been court cases and convictions related to it. It’s a fascinating topic, in my opinion just as interesting as the Brabant Killers. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2018, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-have-been-the-motivation-for-the-horrific-massacres-in-brabant-belgium/818344/23 "2018-07-27T03:08:46Z")
Yeah, I’ve read about the stay-behind networks in the course of researching the Brabant case; it doesn’t necessarily seem like an inherently bad idea to have had those networks existing during the Cold War, but it’s really really hard to have proper coordination and oversight of a huge clandestine operation, so I’m not surprised that it went off the rails in some countries. I’ve seen many, many theories that the Brabant attacks were false flags. But a false flag still needs some kind of flag, and these attacks had none, which is why those theories made no sense to me. You’d think that if their intention was to encourage anti-communist authoritarian government, the attackers would have pretended to be a Communist organization of some sort, or left false evidence behind to suggest that they were affiliated with Communist groups or issued warnings or public statements to that effect. But no such thing ever happened. ---
**Author:** ![RayMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e495f1/32.png) [@RayMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RayMan)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2018, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-have-been-the-motivation-for-the-horrific-massacres-in-brabant-belgium/818344/24 "2018-07-27T05:42:47Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > I’ve seen many, many theories that the Brabant attacks were false flags. But a false flag still needs some kind of flag, and these attacks had none, which is why those theories made no sense to me. You’d think that if their intention was to encourage anti-communist authoritarian government, the attackers would have pretended to be a Communist organization of some sort, or left false evidence behind to suggest that they were affiliated with Communist groups or issued warnings or public statements to that effect. But no such thing ever happened. I agree with you there. If in fact the goal was to bring about political change, this seems like a truly bizarre (and inefficient, and dangerous) way to do so. It sounds like you’ve read up on this, **Lamoral** , so you likely already know what I’m about to write, but I thought I’d mention it for others reading this thread: This [Strategy of Tension](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_of_tension) of bringing about political change through terrorist acts actually has been employed in the past, perhaps most notably in Italy during the [Years of Lead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Years_of_Lead_(Italy)). Both far right-wing and far left-wing groups terrorized Italy for a couple of decades, sometimes with false flag actions, with political goals in mind. I alluded to this in my previous post. It has been speculated that NATO, through operation Gladio, was behind some of these actions. Admittedly, the actions of the Brabant Killers seem way more strange than what took place during the Years of Lead. Again, I’m not advocating for one theory or another. I don’t know what to believe. I just find the trail of conspiracy theories–some supported by evidence–tied to the Brabant Killers to be simultaneously fascinating and horrible, and I thought I’d pass them along. ---
**Author:** ![yellow\_sausage\_bandit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yellow_sausage_bandit/32/394_2.png) [@yellow\_sausage\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellow_sausage_bandit)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2018, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-have-been-the-motivation-for-the-horrific-massacres-in-brabant-belgium/818344/25 "2018-07-27T17:56:58Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > Is there anyone here from Belgium who remembers this on the news and followed the investigation? Is there anyone else at all who’s familiar with it? And does anyone have any theories? I’m Belgian, but I don’t remember anything before the 90’s 🙂 > [@Lamoral](#): > > As an aside, why would a right-wing terrorist organization call itself [The Westland New Post?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westland_New_Post) What the hell is that supposed to mean? The three words have individual meanings - sort of - “Westland” is apparently a part of the Netherlands, what does “New Post” mean? It sounds like some kind of newspaper. I found an answer to this with some googling though: New Post: the name of the pub in Brussels where they held their meetings Westland: the name of the nearby mall ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2018, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-have-been-the-motivation-for-the-horrific-massacres-in-brabant-belgium/818344/26 "2018-07-27T18:32:33Z")
> [@yellow\_sausage\_bandit](#): > > I found an answer to this with some googling though: > New Post: the name of the pub in Brussels where they held their meetings > Westland: the name of the nearby mall Wow, you could tell that they definitely wanted the name of their group to be a profound statement about their beliefs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-have-been-the-motivation-for-the-horrific-massacres-in-brabant-belgium/818344.md?page=1)