False Flag Terrorism

March 2nd 2012 False flag terrorism occurs when elements within a government stage a secret operation whereby government forces pretend to be a targeted enemy while attacking their own forces or people. The attack is then falsely blamed on the enemy in order to justify going to war against that enemy. Or as Wikipedia defines it: False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is, flying the flag of a country other than ones own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counterinsurgency operations, and have been used in peace-time; for example, during Italys strategy of tension. The term comes from the old days of wooden ships, when one ship would hang the flag of its enemy before attacking another ship in its own navy. Because the enemys flag was hung instead of the flag of the real country of the attacking ship, it was called a false flag attack. There are many examples of false flag attacks through history. For example, it is widely known that the Nazis, in Operation Himmler, faked attacks on their own people and resources which they blamed on the Poles, to justify the invasion of Poland. And it has now been persuasively argued as shown, for example, in this History Channel video that Nazis set fire to their own parliament, the Reichstag, and blamed that fire on others. The Reichstag fire was the watershed event which justified Hitlers seizure of power and suspension of liberties. And in the early 1950s, agents of an Israeli terrorist cell operating in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including U.S. diplomatic facilities, then left behind evidence implicating the Arabs as the culprits (one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to identify the bombers). Israels Defense Minister was brought down by the scandal, along with the entire Israeli government. Click here for verification. The Russian KGB apparently conducted a wave of bombings in Russia in order to justify war against Chechnya and put Vladimir Putin into power (see also this short essay and this report). And the Turkish government has been caught bombing its own and blaming it on a rebel group in order to justify a crackdown on that group. Muslim governments also play this game. For example, the well-respected former Indonesian president claimed that their government had a role in the Bali bombings. This sounds nuts, right? Youve never heard of this false flag terrorism, where a government attacks its own people then blames others in order to justify its goals, right? And you are skeptical of the statements discussed above? Please take a look at these historical quotes: If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. U.S. President James Madison

Why of course the people dont want war But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country. Hermann Goering, Nazi leader.

What about the U.S.?

Is it logical to assume that, even if other countries have carried out false flag operations (especially horrible regimes such as, say, the Nazis or Stalin), the U.S. has never done so? Well, as documented by the New York Times, Iranians working for the C.I.A. in the 1950s posed as Communists and staged bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected president (see also this essay). And, as confirmed by a former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence, NATO, with the help of the Pentagon and CIA, carried out terror bombings in Italy and blamed communists, in order to rally peoples support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism. As one participant in this formerlysecret program stated: You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security. Moreover, recently declassified U.S. Government documents show that in the 1960s, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan code-named Operation Northwoods to blow up American airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also to commit terrorist acts on American soil, and then to blame it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. The operation was not carried out only because the Kennedy administration refused to implement these Pentagon plans. For lots more on the astonishing Operation Northwoods, see the ABC news report; the official declassified documents; and watch this interview with James Bamford, the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABCs World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. One quote from the Northwoods documents states: A Remember the Maine incident could be arranged: We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba. Casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.

What about Al-Qaeda?

You might think Al-Qaeda is different. It is very powerful, organized, and out to get us, right? Consider this Los Angeles Times article, reviewing a BBC documentary entitled The Power of Nightmares, which shows that the threat from Al Qaeda has been vastly overblown (and see this article on who is behind the hype). And former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski testified to the Senate that the war on terror is a mythical historical narrative. And did you know that the FBI had penetrated the cell which carried out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, but had at the last minute cancelled the plan to have its FBI infiltrator substitute fake powder for real explosives, against the infiltrators strong wishes (summary version is free; full version is pay-per-view)? See also this TV news report. 2

Have you heard that the CIA is alleged to have met with Bin Laden two months before 9/11? Did you know that years after 9/11 the FBI first stated that it did not have sufficient evidence to prosecute Bin Laden for 9/11? The agency apparently still does not have any hard evidence linking Bin Laden to the crime (see also this partial confirmation by the Washington Post). And did you see the statement by the CIA commander in charge of the capture that the U.S. let Bin Laden escape from Afghanistan? Have you heard that the anthrax attacks which were sent along with notes purportedly written by Islamic terrorists used a weaponized anthrax strain from the top U.S. bioweapons facility? Indeed, top bioweapons experts have stated that the anthrax attack may have been a CIA test gone wrong. For more on this, see this article by a former NSA and naval intelligence officer and this statement by a distinguished law professor and bioterror expert (and this one). It is also interesting that the only Congress-members mailed anthrax letters were key Democrats, and that the attacks occurred one week before passage of the freedom-curtailing PATRIOT Act, which seems to have scared them and the rest of Congress into passing that act without even reading it. And though it may be a coincidence, White House staff began taking the anti-anthrax medicine before the Anthrax attacks occurred. Even General William Odom, former director of the National Security Agency, said By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In 78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism, yet in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation (the audio is here).

Why Does This Matter?

Please read what the following highly respected people are saying: Former prominent Republican U.S. Congressman and CIA official Bob Barr stated that the U.S. is close to becoming a totalitarian society and that the current administration is using fear to try to ensure that this happens. Current Republican U.S. Congressman Ron Paul stated that the government is determined to have martial law. He also said a contrived Gulf of Tonkintype incident may occur to gain popular support for an attack on Iran. Former National Security Adviser Brzezinski told the Senate that a terrorist act might be carried out in the U.S. and falsely blamed on Iran to justify war against that nation. The former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, Paul Craig Roberts, who is called the Father of Reaganomics and is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and Scripps Howard News Service, has said: Ask yourself: Would a government that has lied us into two wars and is working to lie us into an attack on Iran shrink from staging terrorist attacks in order to remove opposition to its agenda? If the Bush administration wants to continue its wars in the Middle East and to entrench the unitary executive at home, it will have to conduct some false flag operations that will both frighten and anger the American people and make them accept Bushs declaration of national emergency and the return of the draft. Alternatively, the administration could simply allow any real terrorist plot to proceed without hindrance. (See also this even stronger statement).

Retired 27-year CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who prepared and presented Presidential Daily Briefings and served as a high-level analyst for several presidents, stated that if there was another major attack in the U.S., it would lead to martial law. He went on to say: We have to be careful, if somebody does this kind of provocation big violent explosions of some kind we have to not take the word of the masters there in Washington that this was some terrorist event because it could well be a provocation allowing them, or seemingly to allow them to get what they want. The former CIA analyst would not put it past the government to play fast and loose with terror alerts and warnings and even terrorist events in order to rally people behind the flag. General Tommy Franks stated that if another terrorist attack occurs in the United States the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government. Daniel Ellsberg, the famous Pentagon Papers whistleblower, said if there is another terror attack, I believe the president will get what he wants. And what he wants is a new Patriot Act, one that will make the current Patriot Act look like the Bill of Rights. Former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter stated before the Iraq war started that there were no weapons of mass destruction. He is now saying that he would not rule out staged government terror by the U.S. government. And British Parliament Member George Galloway stated that there is a very real danger that the American government will stage a false flag terror attack in order to justify war against Iran and to gain complete control domestically.

The abundance of reliable information in this essay suggests that not only has the U.S. in the past conducted false flag operations, but there is a possibility that 9/11 involved some element of this deceit, and a future false flag operation cannot be ruled out
Special Note: For a collection of reliable, verifiable information suggesting that 9/11 may have been a form of false flag operation, please see the 9/11 Information Center available at this link.

False Flag Operations

False Flag (aka Black Flag) operations are covert operations designed to deceive in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is: flying the flag of a country other than ones own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counterinsurgency operations and can be used during peace-time.

Naval Warfare
This practice was considered acceptable in naval warfare, provided the false flag was lowered and the national flag raised before engaging in battle. Auxiliary cruisers operated in such a fashion in both World Wars, as did Q-ships, while merchant vessels were encouraged to use false flags for protection. The 1914 Battle of Trindade was between the auxiliary cruisers RMS Carmania and SMS Cap Trafalgar, which had previously disguised themselves as each other. One of the most notable examples was in World War II when the German commerce raider Kormoran, disguised as a Dutch merchant ship, surprised and sank the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney in 1941, causing the greatest recorded loss of life on an Australian warship. The Kormoran was also fatally crippled in that encounter and its crew was captured, but it was a considerable psychological victory for the Germans.[1] The British used a Kriegsmarine Ensign in the St Nazaire Raid and captured a German code book. The old destroyer Campbeltown, which the British planned to sacrifice in the operation, was provided with cosmetic modifications, cutting the ship's funnels and chamfering the edges to resemble a German Mwe-class destroyer. The British were able to get within two miles (3 km) of the harbor before the defenses responded, where the explosive-rigged Campbeltown and commandos successfully disabled or destroyed the key dock structures of the port.[2][3]

Air Warfare
In December 1922-February 1923, Rules concerning the Control of Wireless Telegraphy in Time of War and Air Warfare, drafted by a commission of jurists at the Hague regulates: [4] Art. 3. A military aircraft must carry an exterior mark indicating its nationality and its military character. Art. 19. The use of false exterior marks is forbidden. This draft was never adopted as a legally binding treaty, but the ICRC states in its introduction on the draft that "To a great extent, the draft rules correspond to the customary rules and general principles underlying treaties on the law of war on land and at sea",[5] and as such these two non controversial articles were already part of customary law.[6]

Land Warfare
In land warfare, the use of a false flag is similar to that of naval warfare. The most widespread assumption is that this practice was first established under international humanitarian law at the trial in 1947 of the planner and commander of Operation Greif, Otto Skorzeny, by the military court at the Dachau Trials. In this trial, the court did not find Skorzeny guilty of a crime by ordering his men into action in American uniforms. He had passed on to his men the 5

warning of German legal experts, that if they fought in American uniforms, they would be breaking the laws of war, but they probably were not doing so just by wearing the uniform. During the trial, a number of arguments were advanced to substantiate this position and the German and U.S. military seem to have been in agreement on it. In the transcript of the trial [7] it is mentioned that Paragraph 43 of the Field Manual published by the War Department, United States Army, on October 1, 1940, under the title "Rules of Land Warfare", says: "National flags, insignias and uniforms as a ruse - in practice it has been authorized to make use of these as a ruse. The foregoing rule (Article 23 of the Annex of the IVth Hague Convention), does not prohibit such use, but does prohibit their improper use. It is certainly forbidden to make use of them during a combat. Before opening fire upon the enemy, they must be discarded". Also The American Soldiers' Handbook, was quoted by Defense Counsel and says: "The use of the enemy flag, insignia, and uniform is permitted under some circumstances. They are not to be used during actual fighting, and if used in order to approach the enemy without drawing fire, should be thrown away or removed as soon as fighting begins". The outcome of the trial has been codified in the 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (Protocol I): Article 37.-Prohibition of perfidy 1. It is prohibited to kill, injure, or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy: (a) The feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender; (b) The feigning of an incapacitation by wounds or sickness; (c) The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status; and (d) The feigning of protected status by the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations or of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict. 2. Ruses of war are not prohibited. Such ruses are acts which are intended to mislead an adversary or to induce him to act recklessly but which infringe no rule of international law applicable in armed conflict and which are not perfidious because they do not invite the confidence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are examples of such ruses: the use of camouflage, decoys, mock operations and disinformation. Article 38.-Recognized emblems 1. It is prohibited to make improper use of the distinctive emblem of the red cross, red crescent or red lion and sun or of other emblems, signs or signals provided for by the Conventions or by this Protocol. It is also prohibited to misuse deliberately in an armed conflict other internationally recognized protective emblems, signs or signals, including the flag of truce, and the protective emblem of cultural property. 2. It is prohibited to make use of the distinctive emblem of the United Nations, except as authorized by that Organization. Article 39.-Emblems of nationality 1. It is prohibited to make use in an armed conflict of the flags or military emblems, insignia or uniforms of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict. 6

2. It is prohibited to make use of the flags or military emblems, insignia or uniforms of adverse Parties while engaging in attacks or in order to shield, favour, protect or impede military operations. 3. Nothing in this Article or in Article 37, paragraph 1 ( d ), shall affect the existing generally recognized rules of international law applicable to espionage or to the use of flags in the conduct of armed conflict at sea.

As pretexts for war

The Mukden incident in 1931 involved Japanese officers fabricating a pretext for annexing Manchuria by blowing up a section of railway. Six years later in 1937 they falsely claimed the kidnapping of one of their soldiers in the Marco Polo Bridge Incident as an excuse to invade China proper. The Gleiwitz incident in 1939 involved Reinhard Heydrich fabricating evidence of a Polish attack against Germany to mobilize German public opinion for war, to establish casus belli, and to justify the war with Poland. This, along with other false flag operations in Operation Himmler, would be used to mobilize support from the German population for the start of World War II in Europe. The Kassa attack in 1941 involved the city of Kassa, today Koice (Slovakia), which was then part of Hungary, being bombed by three unidentified planes of apparently Soviet origin. This attack became the pretext for the government of Hungary to declare war on the Soviet Union. The replacement of Iran's Anglo-Persian Oil Company with five American oil companies and the 1953 Iranian coup d'tat was the consequence of the U.S. and British-orchestrated false flag operation, Operation Ajax. Operation Ajax used political intrigue, propaganda, and agreements with Qashqai tribal leaders to depose the democratically elected leader of Iran, Mohammed Mosaddeq. Information regarding the CIA-sponsored coup d'etat has been largely declassified and is available in the CIA archives.[8] The planned, but never executed, 1962 Operation Northwoods plot by the U.S. Department of Defense for a war with Cuba involved scenarios such as fabricating the hijacking or shooting down passenger and military planes, sinking a U.S. ship in the vicinity of Cuba, burning crops, sinking a boat filled with Cuban refugees, attacks by alleged Cuban infiltrators inside the United States, and harassment of U.S. aircraft and shipping and the destruction of aerial drones by aircraft disguised as Cuban MiGs.[9] These actions would be blamed on Cuba, and would be a pretext for an invasion of Cuba and the overthrow of Fidel Castro's communist government. It was authored by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but then rejected by President John F. Kennedy. The surprise discovery of the documents relating to Operation Northwoods was a result of the comprehensive search for records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy by the Assassination Records Review Board in the mid-1990s.[10] Information about Operation Northwoods was later publicized by James Bamford.[11]

Pseudo-operations
Pseudo-operations are those in which forces of one power disguise themselves as enemy forces. For example, a state power may disguise teams of operatives as insurgents and, with the aid of defectors, infiltrate insurgent areas.[12] The aim of such pseudo-operations may be to gather short or long-term intelligence or to engage in active operations, in particular assassinations of important enemies. However, they usually involve both, as the risks of exposure rapidly increase with time and intelligence gathering eventually leads to violent confrontation. Pseudo-operations may be directed by military or police forces, or both. 7

Police forces are usually best suited to intelligence tasks; however, military provide the structure needed to back up such pseudo-ops with military response forces. According to US military expert Lawrence Cline (2005), "the teams typically have been controlled by police services, but this largely was due to the weaknesses in the respective military intelligence systems." The State Political Directorate (OGPU) of the Soviet Union set up such an operation from 1921 to 1926. During Operation Trust, they used loose networks of White Army supporters and extended them, creating the pseudo-"Monarchist Union of Central Russia" (MUCR) in order to help the OGPU identify real monarchists and anti-Bolsheviks. An example of a successful assassination was United States Marine Sergeant Herman H. Hanneken leading a patrol of his Haitian Gendarmerie disguised as enemy guerrillas in 1919. The Patrol successfully passed several enemy checkpoints in order to assassinate the guerilla leader Charlemagne Pralte near Grande-Rivire-du-Nord. Hanneken was awarded the Medal of Honor and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant for his deed. During the Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s, captured Mau Mau members who switched sides and specially trained British troops initiated the pseudo-gang concept to successfully counter Mau Mau. In 1960 Frank Kitson, (who was later involved in the Northern Irish conflict and is now a retired British General), published Gangs and Counter-gangs, an account of his experiences with the technique in Kenya; information included how to counter gangs and measures of deception, including the use of defectors, which brought the issue a wider audience. Another example of combined police and military oversight of pseudo-operations include the Selous Scouts in former country Rhodesia (current Zimbabwe), governed by white minority rule until 1980. The Selous Scouts were formed at the beginning of Operation Hurricane, in November 1973, by Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Ronald Reid-Daly. As all Special Forces in Rhodesia, by 1977 they were controlled by COMOPS (Commander, Combined Operations) Commander Lieutenant General Peter Walls. The Selous Scouts were originally composed of 120 members, with all officers being white and the highest rank initially available for Africans being colour sergeant. They succeeded in turning approximately 800 insurgents who were then paid by Special Branch, ultimately reaching the number of 1,500 members. Engaging mainly in long-range reconnaissance and surveillance missions, they increasingly turned to offensive actions, including the attempted assassination of ZIPRA leader Joshua Nkomo in Zambia. This mission was finally aborted by the Selous Scouts, and attempted again, unsuccessfully, by the Rhodesian Special Air Service.[13] Some offensive operations attracted international condemnation, in particular the Selous Scouts' raid on a ZANLA (Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army) camp at Nyadzonya Pungwe, Mozambique in August 1976. ZANLA was then led by Josiah Tongogara. Using Rhodesian trucks and armored cars disguised as Mozambique military vehicles, 84 scouts killed 1,284 people in the camp, the camp was registered as a refugee camp by the United Nations (UN). Even according to Reid-Daly, most of those killed were unarmed guerrillas standing in formation for a parade. The camp hospital was also set ablaze by the rounds fired by the Scouts, killing all patients.[14] According to David Martin and Phyllis Johnson, who visited the camp shortly before the raid, it was only a refugee camp that did not host any guerrillas. It was staged for UN approval.[15]

According to a 1978 study by the Directorate of Military Intelligence, 68% of all insurgent deaths inside Rhodesia could be attributed to the Selous Scouts, who were disbanded in 1980.
[16]

If the action is a police action, then these tactics would fall within the laws of the state initiating the pseudo, but if such actions are taken in a civil war or during a belligerent military occupation then those who participate in such actions would not be privileged belligerents. The principle of plausible deniability is usually applied for pseudo-teams. (See the above section Laws of war). Some false flag operations have been described by Lawrence E. Cline, a retired US Army intelligence officer, as pseudo-operations, or "the use of organized teams which are disguised as guerrilla groups for long- or short-term penetration of insurgentcontrolled areas." Pseudo Operations should be distinguished, notes Cline, from the more common police or intelligence infiltration of guerrilla or criminal organizations. In the latter case, infiltration is normally done by individuals. Pseudo teams, on the other hand, are formed as needed from organized units, usually military or paramilitary. The use of pseudo teams has been a hallmark of a number of foreign counterinsurgency campaigns."[12]

Espionage
See false flag penetrator. In espionage the term "false flag" describes the recruiting of agents by operatives posing as representatives of a cause the prospective agents are sympathetic to, or even the agents' own government. For example, during the Cold War, several female West German civil servants were tricked into stealing classified documents by agents of the East German Stasi intelligence service, pretending to be members of West German peace advocacy groups (the Stasi agents were also described as "Romeos," indicating that they also used their sex appeal to manipulate their targets, making this operation a combination of the false flag and "honey trap" techniques).[17] The technique can also be used to expose enemy agents in one's own service, by having someone approach the suspect and pose as an agent of the enemy. Earl Edwin Pitts, a 13-year veteran of the FBI and an attorney, was caught when he was approached by FBI agents posing as Russian agents. British intelligence officials in World War II allowed double agents to fire-bomb a power station and a food dump in the UK to protect their cover, according to declassified documents. The documents stated the agents took precautions to ensure they did not cause serious damage. One of the documents released also stated: "It should be recognized that friends as well as enemies must be completely deceived."[18]

Elections
In 2008 there was a shooting against two minibuses driving along in a volatile area right on the border between Abkhazia and the republic of Georgia. The buses were carrying Georgians who lived in Abkhazia and wanted to cross the border so they could go and vote in the parliamentary election that day.

The country had been experiencing internal political turmoil for the last year, and in an attempt to calm the situation, president Mikheil Saakashvili moved forward both presidential and parliamentary elections. However the presidential election in January that year was strongly contested, with hundreds of thousands attending protest rallies. When the parliamentary election came up in May, the mood was still tense. On mid day May 21 the two minibuses came under attack with small arms and grenades, and though there were no casualties, three people were taken to a hospital in Zugdidi, where president Saakashvili later arrived and was filmed by TV at the patients bedside. In his comments on TV, which dominated the news during Election Day, Saakashvili indicated that the attack had been an attempt to disrupt the election, implying that it had been Abkhaz or Russian forces who had been behind it. This provided for a favorable opportunity for the president to focus the nation's attention on an external enemy, thereby leading attention away from his domestic critics, as well as making use of his position as leader to rally the Georgians around his candidates in the election. However a United Nations investigation [19] later found, based on empty cartridges and the position of traces left by grenade launchers on the ground, that the attack had originated from a patch of land under control of Georgians and with weapons used by Georgian forces, indicating that the attack had been staged. A Georgian investigative TV documentary later found that camera crew from the governmentfriendly channel Rustavi 2 had been in position with their equipment before the shooting took place.

Civilian usage
While false flag operations originate in warfare and government, they also can occur in civilian settings among certain factions, such as businesses, special interest groups, religions, political ideologies and campaigns for office.

Businesses
In business and marketing, similar operations are being employed in some public relations campaigns (see Astroturfing). Telemarketing firms practice false flag type behavior when they pretend to be a market research firm (referred to as "sugging"). In some rare cases, members of an unsuccessful business will destroy some of their own property to conceal an unrelated crime (e.g. safety violations, embezzlement, etc.) but make it appear as though the destruction was done by a rival company.

Political campaigning
Political campaigning has a long history of this tactic in various forms, including in person, print media and electronically in recent years. This can involve when supporters of one candidate pose as supporters of another, or act as straw men for their preferred candidate to debate against. This can happen with or without the candidate's knowledge. The Canuck letter is an example of one candidate creating a false document and attributing it as coming from another candidate in order to discredit that candidate.

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In 2006, individuals practicing false flag behavior were discovered and "outed" in New Hampshire[20] [21] and New Jersey[22] after blog comments claiming to be from supporters of a political candidate were traced to the IP address of paid staffers for that candidate's opponent. On February 19, 2011, Indiana Deputy Prosecutor Carlos Lam sent a private email to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker suggesting that he run a "'false flag' operation" to counter the protests against Walker's proposed restrictions on public employees' collective bargaining rights. "If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions' cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions," read the email. It went on to say that the effort "would assist in undercutting any support that the media may be creating in favor of the unions." The press had acquired a court order to access all of Walker's emails and Lam's email was exposed. At first, Lam vehemently denied it, but eventually admitted it and resigned.[23]

Ideological
Political or religious ideologies will sometimes use false flag tactics. This can be done to discredit or implicate rival groups, create the appearance of enemies when none exist, or create the illusion of organized and directed opposition when in truth, the ideology is simply unpopular with society. In retaliation for writing The Scandal of Scientology, the Church of Scientology stole stationery from author Paulette Cooper's home and then used that stationery to forge bomb threats and have them mailed to a Scientology office. The Guardian's Office also had a plan for further operations to discredit Cooper known as Operation Freakout, but several Scientology operatives were arrested in a separate investigation and the plan failed.[24]

A bomb threat forged by Scientology operatives

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Terrorism
False flag tactics were also employed during the Algerian civil war, starting in the mid-1994. Death squads composed of DRS (Dpartement du Renseignement et de la Scurit) security forces disguised themselves as Islamist terrorists and committed false flag terror attacks. Such groups included the OJAL (Organization of Young Free Algerians) or the OSSRA (Secret Organization for the safeguard of the Algerian Republic)[25] According to Roger Faligot and Pascal Kropp (1999), the OJAL was reminiscent of "the Organization of the French Algerian Resistance (ORAF), a group of counter-terrorists created in December 1956 by the Direction de la surveillance du territoire (Territorial Surveillance Directorate, or DST) whose mission was to carry out terrorist attacks with the aim of quashing any hopes of political compromise."
[26]

The Russian apartment bombings in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999 which killed nearly 300 people, was described by Yury Felshtinsky, Alexander Litvinenko, David Satter, Boris Kagarlitsky, Vladimir Pribylovsky, Anna Politkovskaya, filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov, investigator Mikhail Trepashkin, Russian politician Alexander Lebed as a false flag terrorist attack coordinated by the Federal Security Service, the main domestic security agency of the Russian Federation.[27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] On the night of February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire. At the urging of Hitler, Hindenburg responded the next day by issuing an emergency decree "for the Protection of the people and the State," which stated: "Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed" suspending key provisions of the German Weimar Constitution. The question of who actually started the Reichstag fire is still often considered unknown and occasionally debated (while Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe was convicted of the crime and executed, his conviction is not considered credible by many).

Dirty War
Main article: Dirty War During a 1981 interview whose contents were revealed by documents declassified by the CIA in 2000, former CIA and DINA agent Michael Townley explained that Ignacio Novo Sampol, member of CORU, an anti-Castro organization, had agreed to commit the Cuban Nationalist Movement in the kidnapping, in Buenos Aires, of a president of a Dutch bank. The abduction, organized by civilian SIDE agents, the Argentine intelligence agency, was to obtain a ransom. Townley said that Novo Sampol had provided six thousand dollars from the Cuban Nationalist Movement, forwarded to the civilian SIDE agents to pay for the preparation expenses of the kidnapping. After returning to the US, Novo Sampol sent Townley a stock of paper, used to print pamphlets in the name of "Grupo Rojo" (Red Group), an imaginary Argentine Marxist terrorist organization, which was to claim credit for the kidnapping of the Dutch banker. Townley declared that the pamphlets were distributed in Mendoza and Crdoba in relation with false flag bombings perpetrated by SIDE agents, which had as their aim to accredit the existence of the fake Grupo Rojo. However, the SIDE agents procrastinated too much, and the kidnapping ultimately was not carried out.[38]

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See also
Concepts: Agent provocateur Black propaganda Casus belli Covert operation Front organization Joe job, a similar online concept Mimicry State terrorism

Examples:

Bloed, Bodem, Eer en Trouw (Flemish neo-Nazi group preparing false flag attacks) Bologna massacre Canuck letter Celle Hole CIA Operation Ajax (USA overthrowing of Mohammed Mossadeq, Prime Minister of Iran, in 1953) CIA Operation Northwoods was a Plan to blame Cuba for a Terrorist attack in order to get a pretext for 'justified' War of aggression after USA funded and organized failed Terrorist attack known as CIA Operation Mongoose. CIA PBSUCCESS ([USA]) Operation for overthrowing the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954 CIA Project Cherry (USA non-stop assassination project to kill Norodom Sihanouk, Prince, and later King of Cambodia) Gleiwitz incident - 3rd Reich Nazis Operation Himmler in order to get pretext for 'justified' war of aggression against Poland with USSR day after that - named Fall Wei Kommandoverband Jaguar German army unit conducting deep reconnaissance in Soviet uniforms Lavon Affair Israeli attempt to plant bombs in Western targets in Egypt, in blaming Arab elements Marxist-Leninist Party of the Netherlands (fake party set up by the Dutch security service) Masada Action and Defense Movement ("Zionist" group bombing Arab targets in France, really French white supremacists) Operation Jaque Reichstag Fire, which led to the Reichstag Fire Decree which suspended the Weimar Constitution until the end of the Third Reich Shelling of Mainila by Joseph Stalin and USSR in order to get pretext for 'justified' war of aggression named Winter War SIS (MI6) Operation Boot (UK Operation for overthrowing of Mohammed Mossadeq, Prime Minister of Iran, in 1953 with Americans)[39] Special Activities Division The Plaza Miranda Bombings in the Philippines, which led to Ferdinand Marcos's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. The strategy of tension in Italy during the 1970s, when right-wing Italian, Spanish, Greek, and CIA agents caused various terrorist acts in Italy, which were publicly laid to 13

Communist terrorist groups that were actually fakes, and to the Red Brigades who were actually innocent of these particular crimes

Espionage Intelligence cycle management Notes:

1. Squires, Nick. "HMAS Sydney found off Australia's west coast", The Telegraph, 2008-03-17. 2. Guinness World Records (2009), p.155 3. Young, P (Ed) (1973) Atlas of the Second World War (London: The Military Book Society) 4. The Hague Rules of Air Warfare, 1922-12 to 1923-02, this convention was never adopted (backup site) 5. "Rules concerning the Control of Wireless Telegraphy in Time of War and Air Warfare. Drafted by a Commission of Jurists at the Hague, December 1922 - February 1923.: Introduction". ICRC. http://www.icrc.org/IHL.nsf/INTRO/275?OpenDocument. Retrieved December 2010. 6. Gmez, Javier Guisndez (20 June 1998). "The Law of Air Warfare". International Review of the Red Cross 38 (323): 34763. doi:10.1017/S0020860400091075. http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/misc/57jpcl.htm. 7. Source: Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals. United Nations War Crimes Commission. Vol. IX, 1949: Trial of Otto Skorzeny and others General Military Government Court of the U.S. zone of Germany August 18 to September 9, 1947 8. Kinzer, Stephen; John Wiley and Sons (2003). "All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (U)". Journal of the American Intelligence Professional 48: 258. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csipublications/csi-studies/studies/vol48no2/article10.html. Retrieved 2007-02-04. 9. Excerpts from declassified 1962 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Memo "Operation Northwoods: Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba" 10. Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government's Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence in the Assassination of JFK, Douglas P. Horne, Chief Analyst for Military Records, Assassination Records Review Board, 2009, self-published through Amazon.com 11. James Bamford (2002). Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-secret National Security Agency. Anchor Books. pp. 8291. a b 12. Cline, Lawrence E. (2005) Pseudo Operations and Counterinsurgency: Lessons from other countries, Strategic Studies Institute. 13. Cline (2005), p. 11. 14. Cline (2005), quoting Reid-Daly, Pamwe Chete: The Legend of the Selous Scouts, Weltevreden Park, South Africa: Covos-Day Books, 1999, p. 10 (republished by Covos Day, 2001, ISBN 978-1-919874-33-3) 15. Cline (2005), who quotes David Martin and Phyllis Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe: the Chimurenga War, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1981, pp. 241-242. 16. Cline (2005), p. 8-13. For 1978 study, quotes J. K. Cilliers, Counter-insurgency in Rhodesia, London: Croom Helm, 1985, pp. 60-77. Cline also quotes Ian F. W. Beckett, The Rhodesian Army: Counter-Insurgency 1972-1979 at selousscouts 17. Crawford, Angus (Friday, 20 March 2009). "Victims of Cold War 'Romeo spies'". BBC Online. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7953523.stm. Retrieved 10 April 2009. 14

a b 18. "Britain 'bombed itself to fool Nazis'". BBC. 2002-02-28. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2522115.stm. Retrieved 2008-11-04. 19. "Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Abkhazia, Georgia". United Nations Security Council. 2008-07-23. http://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get? Open&DS=S/2008/480&Lang=E&Area=UNDOC. Retrieved 2008-08-21. 20. Steele, Allison, "Bass staffer in D.C. poses as blogger: Bogus posts aimed at his political opponent", Concord Monitor, September 26, 2006 (URL last accessed October 24, 2006). 21. Saunders, Anne, "Bass aide resigns after posing as opponent's supporter online", The Boston Globe, September 26, 2006 (URL last accessed October 24, 2006). 22. Miller, Jonathan, "Blog Thinks Aide to Kean Posted Jabs At Menendez", New York Times, September 21, 2006 (URL last accessed October 24, 2006). 23. Montopoli, Brian (March 25, 2011). "Indiana prosecutor resigns for encouraging fake attack on Wisconsin governor". CBS News. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301503544_162-20047130-503544.html. 24. United States of America v. Jane Kember, Morris Budlong, Sentencing Memorandum; pp. 23-25. 25. Lounis Aggoun and Jean-Baptiste Rivoire (2004). Franalgrie, crimes et mensonges dEtats, (Franco-Algeria, Crimes and Lies of the States). Editions La Dcouverte. ISBN 2-7071-4747-8. Extract in English with mention of the OJAL available here. 26. Luonis Aggoun and Jean-Baptiste Rivoire, ibid., quoting Roger Faligot and Pascal KROP, DST, Police Secrte, Flammarion, 1999, p. 174. 27. Boris Kagarlitsky, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Comparative Politics, writing in the weekly Novaya Gazeta, says that the bombings in Moscow and elsewhere were arranged by the GRU 28. David Satter - House committee on Foreign Affairs 29. Felshtinsky & Pribylovsky 2008, pp. 105111 30. Video on YouTube In Memoriam Aleksander Litvinenko, Jos de Putter, Tegenlicht documentary VPRO 2007, Moscow, 2004 Interview with Anna Politkovskaya 31. Russian Federation: Amnesty International's concerns and recommendations in the case of Mikhail Trepashkin - Amnesty International 32. Bomb Blamed in Fatal Moscow Apartment Blast, Richard C. Paddock, Los Angeles Times, September 10, 1999 33. At least 90 dead in Moscow apartment blast, from staff and wire reports, CNN, September 10, 1999 34. Evangelista 2002, p. 81 35. Did Putin's Agents Plant the Bombs?, Jamie Dettmer, Insight on the News, April 17, 2000. 36. The consolidation of Dictatorship in Russia by Joel M. Ostrow, Georgil Satarov, Irina Khakamada p.96 37. McCain decries "New authoritarianism in Russia", November 4, 2003 38. Visit by Guillermo Novo Sampol to Chile in 1976, 1 and 2, on the National Security Archive website 39. Garretwilson.com

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