I keep seeing this term, "False Flag," and not just from far-right nutcases.

[Archae]

Has there ever been an actual "false flag" incident here in the US, or created by US agents?

It sounds like something out of the TV show "24" or "X-Files."

[Dreamer Tatum]

1. Anything intellectually inconvenient is a false flag. Get with the times. nt

[MrBig]

14. Hahaha

I'm glad this was the first comment

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. There was one documented on DU just today.

Some nutbag RW 'patriot' planted pipe bombs in a park, along with a copy of the koran, apparently, to make people 'wake up' to the mooslim terra-rist threat.

So yeah, I'm sure there have been others.

[leveymg]

6. Here's the link to the thread that reports the incident in GA:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6408025

[PoliticAverse]

3. One that was proposed was: "operation northwoods"...

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

[villager]

4. You should do a little research on "Operation Northwoods"

Operation Northwoods was series of proposals for actions against the Cuban government, that originated within the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) of the United States government in 1962. The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or other US government operatives to commit acts of terrorism against American civilians and military targets, blaming it on the Cuban government, and using it to justify a war against Cuba. The proposals were rejected by the Kennedy administration.[2]

<snip>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

[jberryhill]

9. Lots of kooky ideas are ginned up in the DoD

Somewhere, I'm sure, is a contingency plan for invading Canada.

[villager]

10. And of course, we can trust the MIC to *never act on any of them!*"

Whew!

And to think I was ever worried about the lack of transparency, and the military's outsized influence!

[hack89]

12. It certainly be nice if there was actually any evidence that they did act on some of them.

"They can therefore they did" is pretty sloppy thinking yet there are some here that throw that out as ironclad proof that some pet CT actually happened.

[villager]

15. Because of course such things would be thoroughly, vigorously investigated by corporate media!

n/t

[hack89]

19. You have built the perfect self licking ice cream cone

"the lack of evidence is proof that it actually happened because the government lies." The perfect, unassailable "logic" at the heart of every CT.

[villager]

25. So to be clear: In your world, we have the complete, absolute truth about everything our miliary

..and intelligence operations have ever been up to?

There is no reason, ever, to question "official stories".... about anything?

[hack89]

33. No. But I will provide actual evidence if I was ever to allege such a thing

not "they did it in the past and they lie so it is true."

There is a middle ground between believing everything the government says and believing that everything they do is a lie. Rational thought and seeking out actual evidence is part of it.

[villager]

36. You should take on some of the specific examples posted downthread

Gulf of Tonkin, the bombings in Iran, etc...

[hack89]

40. Gulf of Tonkin did not happen like the government said. It was also not a false flag

the first attack on the 2nd of August actually involved North Vietnamese forces, the second did not - it was jittery sailors firing on phantom contacts. There is no doubt that the government had no interest in the truth and took advantage of it for political purposes.

I accept the Iran bombs as a false flag because there is actual evidence. Thanks for making my point.

[villager]

41. And thank you for making mine. False Flags actually happen.

n/t

[hack89]

43. I never said they didn't

I just stated I had a higher standard of evidence for accepting an event as a false flag.

[villager]

44. That's fine. But the fact that they *do* happen -- on our side -- is very problematic

...for the furtherance of "democracy."

The kind of institutional thinking that conceives of false flags is the same kind that, inexorably, undermines democracy itself. And we're seeing its unchecked corrosion.

[jberryhill]

28. Raising a dismissed plan, among the many they have, does not advance your argument

Operation Northwoods is not an example of a false flag attack. It is an example of a masturbatory session among planners that never went anywhere.

[villager]

29. You are free to think that an organization that conceived of "Northwoods" entirely reformed itself

...and never, ever ever did a bad thing, ever again.

[jberryhill]

32. What do you mean by "did... again"?

They didn't "do" that one.

[villager]

38. The point being -- we don't even know the full extent of contemporaneous plans during *that* era

...let alone what such a culture, which could conceive of "Northwoods," actually may have done in the decades following.

[stevenleser]

5. I'm not a conspiracy theory fan. But the Gulf of Tonkin incident may qualify.

On edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident

[Rex]

21. Yep, that is one of the best examples I can think of. nt

nt.

[hack89]

42. How was it a false flag?

there were actually North Vietnamese forces involved in the first attack.

Gulf of Tokin is better characterized as ignoring the truth to take political advantage of an unexpected event.

[old guy]

56. That's the first one that came to mind.

[NYC_SKP]

7. Several False Flag operations have been documented. Actually, 9-11 is a sort of example.

Even if it wasn't MIHOP or LIHOP, the events of that day were used as an excuse just as a False Flag operation would have run.

Do they happen, they must.

Of course, they're only very rarely admitted to, so their incidence seems less frequent than reality might reveal them to be.

To me, it's seems a matter of course that governments would use this.

[hack89]

16. Taking political advantage of an unanticipated event is nowhere close to being a false flag

it stretches the definition so far as to be meaningless.

[NYC_SKP]

22. Except that we don't really know what happened on that day.

IF we want to accept the official version of events then yes, this was not a false flag event.

And we'll just leave that there.

OT: I have a flight attendant friend who told me yesterday about the events on 9-11 and one flight that, like so many others that were grounded and had to deplane all passengers, had four middle-eastern passengers, one near each exit of the plane, who refused to deplane.

The unpublished scuttlebutt among those in the business is that 11 flights saw similar problems, suggesting that had the terrorists had their way there would have been a lot more carnage and horror.

Interesting tidbit, no?

[hack89]

24. And the unpublished scuttlebutt was the Jews were warned to leave their offices in the WTC

Interesting tidbit, no?



The 911 Truth movement has spewed out so many lies, myths and fantasies that those looking for a false flag or a particular villain can certainly find it. Doesn't mean it is true.

[NYC_SKP]

26. So you want to be like that? Sheesh.

Here, I have documentation since I rather expected an unkind reply.

That was a terrible day. Official transcripts indicate two incidents, one with 2 Arabs and another with 3, who refused to deplane.

What does that have to do with your Jewish weird reference?

Check the timeline at 1120 and 1125 am. The rest of the read is frightening, but truthful... Horrific events that day.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/16762154/T7-B20-Timelines-9-11-1-of-2-Fdr-Eastern-Region-Operations-Center-Log-Chronological-Events-as-of-1-2-02

Now cheer up!

[hack89]

30. I just have little patience with Truthers or Birthers.

I am sorry I bothered to engage on the subject - I should know better by now.

[GoneFishin]

58. "What does that have to do with ... ?". Nothing. But worshippers of only officially government

sanctioned versions of events will try to conflate your citation with a sasquatch sighting if they think it will shut you up.

[snooper2]

31. just happened to tell you yesterday?

[NYC_SKP]

35. Yes.

New friend. It came up in conversation about TSA and such.

I guess it's been a known fact for some time that there were problems that day with deplaning passengers.

I haven't seen anything on the web about it until today when I checked. Nothing about 11 flights, but I did find reference to Arab passengers refusing to deplane.

[SheilaT]

47. A known fact?

While I'm not at all an expert on all that happened that day, this is the first time I ever heard anything about problems with deplaning passengers that day.

[NYC_SKP]

59. Not sure about "11 planes", but records clear that 2 planes had passengers unwilling to leave. LINK:

Not a conspiracy theory, it's not a theory that people conspired to bring down planes on 9-11.
What's at issue is if there were more than four planes involved.

From the National Archives and Records Administration - NARA
Link to source: http://media.nara.gov/dc-metro/rg-237/7419198-9-11-faa/2.%20UAL%2093/%28e%29%20Other/2%20AEA%202057%20DOCUMENT--%20CHRONOLOGICAL%20TIME%20EVENTS%20OF%209-11-01.pdf

See last entry on last page (3).

See also:http://data.911workinggroup.org/foia/911%20COMMISSION%20REPORT%20DATA%20%28redact%29/5%20AWA%20212%20Chronology%20W-4009p%20AEA%20Operations%20Center%20Log.pdf

Especially entries for 1120 and 1125, which indicate two planes with Arab passengers unwilling to deplane.

Now, maybe they just didn't want to get off or some other reasonable explanation.

Other entries in these logs are very moving, there were strange threatening phone calls and other suspected highjacking and I'm actually impressed that all of this was handled as well as it was.

[GoneFishin]

8. If you realize that some humans in the world will lie, cheat, steal, kill, and commit others crimes

to obtain money or power it does not require much thought to realize that liars, cheaters, thieves, and murderers may sometimes find it fantastically gainful to frame someone else for their crimes.

[closeupready]

11. And GoneFishin wins the internet today!

To make a related argument, read Michael Crichton's "The Great Train Robbery" - an old book about ancient history, but a main feature of the entire story (or the Pink Panther films, Ocean's 11, etc.) is how elaborate security features have to be in guarding valuables because thieves will constantly outwit others in their pursuit of wealth. Or read about Enron, or BCCI ... the list is endless.

[GoneFishin]

48. You hit on what is really the underlying point which is that dishonest people can concoct extremely

elaborate schemes to baffle their victims as they part them from their money. And the best disguise for a crook during an elaborate heist is a suit and tie.

[Dont call me Shirley]

54. Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding

[Orsino]

13. Here you go.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026407517

[Capt. Obvious]

17. Oh just a little thing called 9-11

[Rex]

18. The Bay of Pigs.

Seriously, just because use don't know what a term is, does not automatically mean it is imaginary. That is a really sad way to view the world imo.

So there has never been a time when infiltrators worm their way into an organization (like OWS) and try to disrupt it? Guess what, that is a false flag operation.

Just go look up the term and read about it, lot's of examples. Just because the idiot Right uses a term, does not mean you should dismiss it out of hand. Even better, go educate yourself with google.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

20. 9/11 was a false flag operation. nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. The CIA planted bombs in Iran in the 1950s and blamed them on communists

But a copy of the agency's secret history of the 1953 coup has surfaced, revealing the inner workings of a plot that set the stage for the Islamic revolution in 1979, and for a generation of anti-American hatred in one of the Middle East's most powerful countries.
...
The history says agency officers orchestrating the Iran coup worked directly with royalist Iranian military officers, handpicked the prime minister's replacement, sent a stream of envoys to bolster the shah's courage, directed a campaign of bombings by Iranians posing as members of the Communist Party, and planted articles and editorial cartoons in newspapers.
...
The shah was a problem from the start. The plan called for him to stand fast as the C.I.A. stirred up popular unrest and then, as the country lurched toward chaos, to issue royal decrees dismissing Dr. Mossadegh and appointing General Zahedi prime minister.
...
In early August, the C.I.A. stepped up the pressure. Iranian operatives pretending to be Communists threatened Muslim leaders with ''savage punishment if they opposed Mossadegh,'' seeking to stir anti-Communist sentiment in the religious community.

In addition, the secret history says, the house of at least one prominent Muslim was bombed by C.I.A. agents posing as Communists. It does not say whether anyone was hurt in this attack.
...
Mr. Roosevelt (Kermit, grandson of Teddy) told the shah ''that failure to act could lead only to a Communist Iran or to a second Korea.''

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/16/world/secrets-history-cia-iran-special-report-plot-convulsed-iran-53-79.html?src=pm&pagewanted=1

[Ichingcarpenter]

27. X files spin off show 'the lone gunmen''

The X-Files spinoff series, 'The Lone Gunmen,' had its pilot episode concerned with a federally-sanctioned/terrorist plot to fly an airplane by remote-control into the World Trade Center! The pilot was written by Chris Carter, Vince Gilligan, John Shiban and Frank Spotnitz.

the central conspiracy in the episode involved high-tech electronic hijacking of a commercial airliner with the intent of crashing it into the WTC. Although the episode was conceived and shot in 2000 and aired 6 months before the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the eerie coincidence sent shockwaves through cast and producers.'


"The pilot progrm, which first aired on March 4, 2001, concerned a government plot by a radio control jetliner to crash an airplane into the World Trade Center and make it appear as a terrorist plot in order to justify more defense spending."

[MineralMan]

34. Probably. DU has an entire group dedicated to discussing

such things. You can visit it at this link. Good luck:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1135

[valerief]

37. Oh, you coy thang, you! Thinking there ain't no sech animal as a false flag.

I can you see you right now.

[arcane1]

39. Some say the sinking of the Maine was a false flag

All things considered, it would not surprise me one bit.

[WDIM]

45. Well it is interesting we went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan

After 9-11 yet we were attacked by Saudis with no connection to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Any major world event besides a natural disaster follow the money and who benefited and you find the people responsible.

[suffragette]

46. Brooks Brother riot, with Republican staffers posing as irate Florida voters

[daredtowork]

49. It's a sign of low trust in govt and media

Also many of the major military actions and wars the US has been involved in since the late 19th century (the consolidation of big corporations and overseas investments) were triggered by manufactured incidents and media manipulation - at least if you believe Howard Zinn.

It seems a few decades later a historian always comes along and finds the "plan" to invade the Phillipines (I forgot the name of the "incident&quot , Cuba (the fake story about strip searching ladies, explosion of the Maine), WWI (Lusitania and other ships had been carrying weapons to "allies" despite our neutrality), WWII (also illegal supplying and nuking of Japan to keep them from surrendering to Russia), Vietnam (fake gulf of Tonkin incident), first Iraq War (Downing Street Memo on finding wmd to justify). Lets not forget CIA involvement in propping up dictators against popular revolutions in Latin America And South East Asia. If you want to get a tad conspiratorial, we can talk about "economic hitmen" arranging to put countries into US debt so both our and their oligarchs will enrich themselves while popular reforms get blocked.

With all of this REALLY going on, it's hard not to overthink the meaning of "international incidents". Whenever I have the urge to speculate, I have to pinch myself and remind myself that I just don 't know. I've been surrounded by propaganda and disinformation from all sides, and I feel paralyzed by it.

What I find hilarious about the Republican "Charleston" false flaggers (an incident that has not yet happened), is that most of the actual fake outs and fictional "incidents" have been Republican inventions at the behest of, to use the hoary term, the military industrial complex and the oligarchs. Is their wacko conspiracy macine a projection of a guilt complex - deep psychological disturbances over what they have done? It doesn't take much to imagine the same happening here, since we are being turned into the same sort of county where the CIA propped up all those dictators - small elite ownership class, large class of impoverished quasi-slaves used for labor in a few mega-industries or set adrift. Democracy isn't in the interest of those who have power - "governance" by any means is. Those means include false flags. So the disempowered populace waits.

[Blue_Tires]

50. I do agree the term gets thrown around way too much

[HassleCat]

51. Definitely

When something happens, and we blame it on the wrong party, that is not a false flag. A true false flag incident involves the perpetrators posing as someone they are not with the specific intention of prompting a response or retaliation directed at the wrong party. Mistaken identity, fog of war, etc. are not false flag operations.

[lapfog_1]

52. Funny you should mention the X-Files

x-Files spinoff "The Lone Gunman" pilot aired March 4, 2001

[Dont call me Shirley]

53. False Flag Origin...

"False flag (or black flag) describes covert operations designed to deceive in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by entities, groups, or nations other than those who actually planned and executed them. Operations carried out during peace-time by civilian organizations, as well as covert government agencies, may by extension be called false flag operations if they seek to hide the real organization behind an operation. Geraint Hughes uses the term to refer to those acts carried out by "military or security force personnel, which are then blamed on terrorists."[1]"

"The name "false flag" has its origins in naval warfare where the use of a flag other than the belligerent's true battle flag as a ruse de guerre, before engaging the enemy, has long been accepted.[4] Such operations are also accepted in certain circumstances in land warfare, to deceive enemies in similar ways providing that the deception is not perfidious and all such deceptions are discarded before opening fire upon the enemy."

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag#Naval_warfare

[whatchamacallit]

55. Ah yes, the eternal heretic hunt...

[Maedhros]

60. More recently, the sarin gas attacks in Syria were determined to be a false flag operation

by Turkey.