Governments admit to faking terrorism: a list | Hacker News Reader

Governments admit to faking terrorism: a list

ritholtz.com

447 pointsmarojejian134 comments

A lot of people's jobs in the military is to come up with plans like these. The point is that we're not actually doing them most of the time.

The fact that a US senator once proposed a false flag does not make this official US policy. If we had to take everything every member of congress said as scripture, we'd have bombed every country in the world by now.

There are a lot of disturbing stuff in this list, but the false equivalency between putting a weapon down next to an afghan civilian after being (most likely) accidentally killed (despicable, but not always likely they went in with a plan to kill civilians) and actively killing your own people just so you can say it was some militants (an actual campaign involving planning and whatnot) is preposterous

Creating a fake terrorist organisation to mess with the heads of the real ones doesn't seem like an issue in itself, and there's a pretty big line to cross between fake training camps and real bombs.

Also, the notion that a country is funding terrorism in another country is not exactly a novel one.

It's unfortunate because there are a lot of real issues, but some people who cover these issues try so hard to find all these issues with US policy (of which there are many), that they try to equate some offhand remark of a senator with years-long operations involving framing and murdering innocents with express political goals.

>As reported by BBC, the New York Times, and Associated Press, Macedonian officials admit that the government murdered 7 innocent immigrants in cold blood and pretended that they were Al Qaeda soldiers attempting to assassinate Macedonian police, in order to join the “war on terror”.

This one is beyond bizarre.

>The point is that we're not actually doing them most of the time.

I agree, but is that really knowable? By definition, the successfully done ones aren't known, right? Not that it's a reason to dive into conspiracy theories.

I'm maybe too much of an optimist , but I've always felt like we're(Americans) a bit less realpolitik than the rest of the world, and that if it were to come to shooting Americans for political gain, somebody would say something. I think the biggest proof is in the Snowden revelations, american politicians seem to be the only ones complaining about their own country's systems. We seem to have a good culture of protecting government institutions above politics, even if our politics end up being pretty shitty anyways. Other countries are loud about the leaks, but only to hit on other countries. I've heard nobody in France complain about the DGSE's complete unfettered usage of everyone's data.

I'm also of the opinion that there are enough incompetent people in every part of the government that we'd somehow end up hearing about it anyways.

> I'm maybe too much of an optimist , but I've always felt like we're(Americans) a bit less realpolitik than the rest of the world, and that if it were to come to shooting Americans for political gain, somebody would say something.

Spend some time consuming foreign-language media. You'll find the same hard-nosed realpolitik narrative on foreign governments, mixed with a much more sympathetic treatment of the domestic government.

This has the same effect: "we" are sincere, "they" are nefarious, "we" are straightforward, "they" are untrustworthy, "we" are working for the greater good, "they" are working for their own advantage, etc.

At least in France, I've found that people are a lot more accepting of realpolitik from the french state. The limited time I spent talking to people in Japan about politics makes it seem like nobody can be an idealist about the japanese gov't with all the wheeling and dealing that happens there.

I'm not saying that the US is some shining standard of gov't, but that the citizens seem to care a lot more about their ideals than in some other countries, sometimes at the cost of seemingly sound things (healthcare, gun rights, whatever).

I think the US government is partly such a big target for criticism (constructive and otherwise) exactly because Americans are such navel gazers.

Conspiracy theories, and flat-out badmouthing the government happens in every country I've been in (and generally the government is far worse than the US one in at least some ways), but they never get traction. It's different in the US. The cynic in me would say that it's quite exceptional for the US to not have the "main" news organization to be state-controlled. And not conspiracy-theorist-style state controlled, actually state controlled. It is blatantly obvious that the BBC asks for permission before running government corruption stories for example. Hell, they even ask for permission before running corruption stories about the US government.

But in nearly all of Europe, there is zero doubt that the main news providers are 100% state controlled : the BBC, Nederland 1/2/3 (the Netherlands), VRT (Belgium), France 1/2/3 (France), ... Nobody's even trying to hide that fact.

The BBC is officially public, but not officially state controlled. Same goes for the German public broadcasters. (In Germany, they are controlled by the same people than run the political parties, though. Literally.)

Sure haven't been shy about shooting non-Americans for political gain in the last century, though.

> I've heard nobody in France complain about the DGSE's complete unfettered usage of everyone's data.

Tell me about it. Guess it wasn't as important as gay marriage, football or the road tax.

It's really just the tip of the iceberg. How many "terrorists" has the FBI arrested where the FBI delivered the plan, the motivation, contacts and most importantly, the explosives?

They are actively fabricating terrorist plots.

One way to keep on top of the KPIs

It is actually incredibly easy to see how smart people tasked with solving complicated societal problems arrive at false flag operations as a viable solution:

Imagine you have a credible imminent threat to your society posted by a danger to which the society is not familiar enough with to fully grasp and take seriously.

Do you wait for the threat to play out and take your chances with the society sufficiently changing its attitude towards it in time? Or do you galvanize things with a false flag operation that will cause less damage than the real threat but induce the much needed urgent action against it? Almost like a vaccine. Innocent people will die either way.

It is incredibly paternalistic in a way, and a morally gray area. Ultimately it is a lack of faith in the people the operation is trying to protect, a lot of times it is flat out wrong or backfires in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways - for example Iran.

And yet. And yet, not always. And when it works you'll never hear about it.

Thought exercise: You are a marine biologist who has become convinced that over fishing is about to cause a sudden, sharp, and potentially irreversible collapse in the sea food supply. Millions will starve. But meanwhile tuna cans remain cheap and abundant in supermarkets across the world.

This is a long standing serious issue but now it is coming to a head, do you wait for the crisis to unfold and hope international politics find a way to avoid it in time or..?

You are describing any terrorism here.

> It is actually incredibly easy to see how smart people tasked with solving complicated societal problems arrive at false flag operations as a viable solution:

The end justifies the means. And we surely shouldn't be naive about it. And if we don't do it first, the opposition will no doubt get ahead. And that's all that matter in the end. It's a pissing contest taking place in a graveyard.

> Show us not the aim without the way. For ends and means on earth are so entangled, that changing one, you change the other too; Each different path brings other ends in view.

- Arthur Koestler

> "Innocent people will die either way."

This is no gray area.

In above hypothetical situation, prior “galvanization” causes controllable damage. If you don't do this, and the worst happens, does this mean that many people are now dead due to your negligence? After all, the information you had did indicate that chances of such a disaster would drop dramatically if you fake an attack in time.

This might be very painful to realize, I think.

Imagine you were a US intelligence officer with an extremely in-depth knowledge of socioeconomic momentum around the world. You are aware that oil is a relatively irreplaceable dependency and that most oil is controlled by foreign regimes that are not allies of the US. You realize that if things keep going this way, those in control of oil will have huge advantages in the future. You have the ability to recognize that perhaps in the long term, this could result in these countries overtaking the US economically and culturally. These regimes have religious connections to organizations who are militarily anti-american, too!

But the society is not familiar enough with the threat to fully grasp and take seriously. Do you wait for the threat to play out and take your chances with the society sufficiently changing its attitude towards it in time? Or do you galvanize things with a false flag operation that will cause less damage than the real threat but induce the much needed urgent action against it? Almost like a vaccine. Innocent people will die either way.

Yep.

"Society is not familiar enough with the threat.." Yeah, that whole line of bullshit is definitely the sort of rationalization people unfortunately make.

Unfortunately its also bullshit.

The United States is just as much an evil, selfish empire as any that came before it.

Someday people like you may learn to think on your own rather than rationalizing immoral acts.

One way to make it easier for yourself. Try to think of things on a smaller scale. Say if your dad was lying to you (as an adult) about how your sister was killed by a terrorist. Only he really killed her in order to take over her bedroom to convert it into a gaming room.

The established institutions need to be completed demolished. They are destructive, unethical, worthless.

But anyway it doesn't matter too much what people do anymore. Within a few decades artificial intelligences will take over. And it will be a much more ethical and sane world. Because many of the problems we have are the result of human ignorance, stupidity, and childishness.

I apologize for the miscommunication in my post. I am certainly not an advocate for the Iraq war or the line of thinking you're criticizing. I was hoping to propose a follow-up thought experiment to GP's in order to provoke discussion around the fact that the US is continually engaging in such inadequate behavior.

Apologist

It is not a grey area. It is a completely black area. Completely and totally wrong.

From the article:

>>"As admitted by the U.S. government, recently declassified documents show that in the 1960′s, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan 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. See the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings."

I know I'll be 65+ years old; retired in a Nigerian village eating some Obe Ata Dindin. Suddenly someone is going to show me a breaking-news article about the real truth of 9/11. Based on this, I see it takes about 55 years before the truth comes out. Anytime you read something about seemingly insane 9/11 truthers talk, keep this bit of info in the back of your mind and consider that they just might be right...

Isn't the whole Iraq war a false flag act of terrorism? Accepting that the 9/11 attack was executed by those purported to have done so, and even if you accept that all the knowledge of the preparation and planning for the act was overlooked and filled with institutional incompetence and failure; using one act as a justification for action of a totally different nature and rationale is just that.

Was it really just opportune that 9/11 happened to justify the Iraq war? I mean, there is an audio recording of Wolfowitz proclaiming how 9/11 should be used and is an opportunity to rationalize an attack on Iraq?

Not really. I've read the books of Clarke and Tenet, and according to them yes, it was just opportune. Wolfowitz, Cheney, et al had decided to go to war years before and had written about it extensively.

After Afganistan, intelligence services were directed to "find a link" over and over again until such information could be gathered, no matter how flawed. Feith at DOD was (inappropriately) tasked with finding intelligence that supported the administrations conclusions. ( http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/... ) Cheney even went out and made several speeches saying the link was substantial to the bewilderment of CIA. In truth, no significant link was ever found.

I generally find this blogger too alarmist, but much of the list here appears accurate, and shocking to me. Faked terrorism seems much more common than I would guess. Of course, the more liberal/democratic the country, and the more recent, the more weak/stetched the case is.

but still, the lesson to me is that this sort of "conspiracy" is not at all implausible, even in a country like Canada....

>Of course, the more liberal/democratic the country, and the more recent, the more weak/stetched the case is.

Not really, quite the opposite. The most "liberal" countries are the worst perpetrators of such things, if we're talking about Western democracies. They usually do it outside their territorry to assert influence on countries and place allies in power, grab resources, prevent unfavorable regime change etc.

(Nothing to do with establishing democracy either: they are impartial to that, and have worked with regimes such as the apartheid in S.A., Pinochet etc, including of course people like Noriega, Saddam and Ossama, which they later broke ties with when their foreign interests didn't ally as well, but who were just as scum when they were pals).

What? This is like saying that peaceniks are, in reality, the most violent of all. That after leaving Love-All-Equal Unitarian Church, the church-goers spend time studying the strategies of Hermann Goering. That's utter hogwash.

For some reason, neither Scandinavia, nor Canada, nor Switzerland appear on the list as perpetrators. And when Italy does, it's when the country is run by a decidedly illiberal corporatist/fascist.

Indeed, for some reason, liberalism -- that is, the philosophy based on the ideas of freedom and universal human equality under the law -- is seen as antithetical to violent mendacity.

Italy doesn't need false flags anymore. We believe whatever the TV says since 30+ years.

>What? This is like saying that peaceniks are, in reality, the most violent of all. That after leaving Love-All-Equal Unitarian Church, the church-goers spend time studying the strategies of Hermann Goering. That's utter hogwash.

Study the history of colonialism. BILLIONS of people enslaved, suffered, killed, mamed, had their resources and country stolen and such. All by "civilized western societies" such as England, France, Belgium, Holland, et co. And then post-colonialism, where US plays a major role.

>For some reason, neither Scandinavia, nor Canada, nor Switzerland appear on the list as perpetrators.

Yes, and the reason is they didn't do much if anything bad in that regard.

Then again, I didn't say that ALL western democracies did such things.

I also didn't say that this behavior is inherent to being a democracy.

I only said that the worst offenders in such matters have historically been (and continue to be) western democracies.

Here's just an example, the tip of the iceberg, of what they still continue to do:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/inside-france...

In general, I thinking its reasonable to say that regardless of whether or not the accusation turns out to be true, the initial evidence is always weak. It takes time and a drip drip effect until the case becomes true, or not.

It's a bit of a mixed bag. The Columbian think wasn't a politically motivated false flag operation, for instance, it was murder for financial gain.

Yes, it's a bit misleading to mix in US State Dept contingency plans (Northwoods) with actual false flag operations (Israeli bombings in Egypt).

I think most of us have come to believe that governments themselves are better terrorists than the real ones.

Generally the distinction between gangster and terrorist depends on the motive. But the methods don't differ much.

And yet, one might wonder: who is it that benefits most from these stories on .gov and .mil doing these distasteful things?

As much as I'd love to believe that we've all spontaneously awoken to our governments being underhanded, I cannot help but wonder if it's as organic as we'd believe.

OK, tell us who benefits most. I have no idea what you're insinuating, so why not come out and say it?

I honestly haven't thought it through too far myself--just curious, is all.

EDIT: That's the problem with conspiracies...it's conspiracies all the way down, and then beneath that happenstance.

To answer your question quite simply; we do. When people realise it's all a shell game and they are being manipulated by a parasitic organism that pretends to act for their benefit while actually doing its utmost to control and extract everything that it can from them, this is the first step to really changing that state of affairs.

As long as the truth, justice and apple pie rhetoric holds sway, all momentum to destroy the system remains muted. When people stop buying it on the other hand... Things will really start to change.

I stopped buying it years ago, the extent to which my life personally has changed as a result is absolute. Not a single thing remains the same as prior to my fundamental rejection of the premises of the modern nation state as a beneficial organisational unit. Scaled up from just rare individuals scattered across the world into wide societal acceptance this will be an unstoppable force for change.

The problem with distinguishing agents provocateur from real terrorists lies in the proof. Enough real terrorists / revolutionaries / gangsters exist that one cannot assume governments acting as the sole generator. And reasonable people do not - or at least should not - act solely on suspicion.

Leakers might provide a solution, but a lot of conspiracies are very small and tightly-bound. And one cannot discount the possibility of the leak - or the leaker, e.g. Snowden - being discredited.

I would also add that the decentralized command-and-control model of terrorist organizations (i.e. cells) allows outside organizations to hijack cells for their own ends, at least temporarily. With no higher-ups actually giving orders, who can really determine the source of a particular objective?

This is something that is really starting to bother me: More and more websites are doing this thing (on tabets such as the nexus 7 I'm on now) where they load most of the way in a second or two, and then some loading screen pops up and I have to wait 15-20 more seconds for some god-awful "mobile" paginated monstrosity that is slower and harder to read than the desktop site.

Can we stop that please? Just...stop.

This is a tried and true tactic. It would take extensive use of brainwashing and belief in fairy tales about an enlightened government, a city on hill exceptional-ism or what-have-you to think these don't happen. However, this level of brainwashing is achieved in US quite often. It is a lot worse vis-a-vis the rhetoric of independence, free thinking, individualism. But that in an of itself (this belief that we are no brainwashed) is also a result of brainwashing.

The issue is quite subtle and there are a few factors at play. One is the basic need to believe their "team" is a good team. This works with the brainwashing. "Teams", "us vs them" is ingrained in our tribal brains. We want to think our team is the winning team. We are better, special, not like "those others".

It is really working against the flow when attempting to show our citizens that "yes, our country has done these horrible things to others". They is an irrational immune response against it, they have been believing their family/their team they've rooted for now has a dark secret, its past marred in shameful things. They have been telling others, their kids, and themselves how great our country is, and now look! -- a total reversal, "what, have I been living in a fantasy world all this time?" kind of bewilderment. So instead of exposing and handling the hard truth, it is easy to bury it, stick fingers in the ears and say "la-la-la, I am not hearing you, ..."

This also is interesting because it kind of explains what happens in the brains of many who work for CIA, NSA and other such agencies. They are supposedly hired for their exceptional patriotism. Now sometimes it backfires, because they realize what they have to do in their jobs contradicts the high idealized patriotic beliefs of what this country is about. So there is Snowden, he is one of them. What about others?

There was an article just yesterday about how "Morale at NSA is low after the leaks". Hmm, it is low. Why is it low?. Good to explore. Did many realize they have been playing for the bad guys all this time? Or do they just feel angry about one of their team members "betraying" the team and they don't see anything wrong at all with what they do. To keep their nice govt job are they forced to believe one thing in their heads ("this fucking contradicts what our Constitution is all about!"), and profess another thing at work publicly. Much like North Koreans perhaps. Cry with happiness when "Dear Leader" drives, but curse his guts in their head? Who knows.

Another way to look at it is from a psychopathic, practical aspect. Do people just acknowledge the situation for what it is and say "yes we are bad and we love it". "We conducted these attacks? Great! Let us do more. If it means a blowing up a few civilians so be it." I can image many at the top operate on this principle.

they realize what they have to do in their jobs contradicts the high idealized patriotic beliefs of what this country is about

This is extremely uncommon.

For example, I used to be a submarine officer in the Navy, and I left as a conscientious objector because of this realization. In an average year, less than 100 active duty service members will apply for conscientious objector status (there are over 1 million active duty personnel). If you take a look at [this graph](http://izbicki.me/blog/most-conscientious-objectors-are-not-...) based on GAO data, you'll see that the number of conscientious objector applications dropped significantly after September 11th. This is despite the fact that the wars afterward have been much more controversial and less just.

Why is [NSA moral] low?

I'd bet it's not because of any ethical conflicts. Instead, it's because 100s of man-years of work is going out the window. One of their own betrayed them. This would be demoralizing even for the most ethically unquestionable teams.

Instead, it's because 100s of man-years of work is going out the window.

Rightly so, because this work should never have been done at all!

People may have ethical conflicts but not voice or do much with them because they feel the security their job provides is superior to leaving & having to find something new.

The NSA's morale is low because shit rolls downhill.

The pressure is increased while blame flows down The Hill through every office and cubicle. New procedures are set in place so that supervisors can tell their supervisors what steps they've taken to ensure there won't be another Snowden. Peons scramble to adopt these new procedures all while under closer scrutiny from everyone around them. Everyone, including the janitors, are pressed to find "traitors" in their ranks. All of this while harvesting/analyzing new data and shredding/deleting evidence. I'm guessing that $100,000+ salary is fast losing it's allure.

> It would take extensive use of brainwashing and belief in fairy tales about an enlightened government, a city on hill exceptional-ism or what-have-you to think these don't happen.

And the only way a government could pull that off would be to do something drastic, like if it forced all citizens to sit listening to government employees deliver government curricula for 8 hours a day for twelve years during some of the most formative periods of their lives.

It's such a relief we have not yet descended to these depths eh?

In schools, some countries tell the kids to do morning prayer, and some tell them to sing the national anthem. Some countries tell them to do both. I can't think of that many countries where they are not normally prompted to do either one or the other.

There are many countries which prompt for neither prayer nor patriotism. Ireland certainly does not and I don't think the UK does either (certain very religious schools of course may differ).

Bizarrely, in the UK there is a law which mandates daily religious worship in all state-maintained schools:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130401151655/htt...

"Since the 1944 Education Act, re-enacted in all subsequent Education Acts, there has been a statutory requirement that all maintained schools must provide a daily act of collective worship for all registered pupils, unless they have been withdrawn by their parents. The Education Act 1988 removed the requirement for this to take place at the start of the school day. Collective Worship can now take place any time of the school day."

In practice, the law is widely ignored.

We had to say the lords prayer at school in the morning and regularly take part in christian services that you couldn't opt out of unless your parents insisted and that was in a UK state high school about 15 years ago.

Confirming that the UK does not do either, although there are some schools that are co-funded with the Church of England.

NB: I went to CoE schools for 7 years of my K12 education, and came out an atheist. I think part of it is to do with the teaching - even at a church school, we were encouraged to question everything, and had at least an hour a week where we learned about other religions in a very objective light.

I believe that on many levels, education comes down to that learning to question - and when you're told to believe things unquestioningly, you're intentionally breeding ignorance. My take is that it's not so much about schools having prayer etc, but the way they encourage thought. Kids are smart; if they're allowed to think for themselves, they will.

In Canada we don't do either in public schools. Singing the national anthem is pretty much reserved just for Remembrance Day, maybe with a little bit of practice for a few days beforehand to avoid embarrassment at not knowing the lyrics. Certainly no prayers are ever said at school.

I'm Canadian and not that old (30's), and I was required to both sing the national anthem and recite The Lord's Prayer daily in grade school. Granted it might have been an exception as it was a small town.

I'd be surprised if that was an exception; I'm only a decade younger (and Canadian) and only missed out on The Lord's Prayer. But sung the anthem every morning. And I'm not in a small town... If that's changed, it changed recently.

Education in Canada varies heavily by province (and intra-province which education system you're in) which could explain some differences in your experiences.

Australian (30's). We recited The Lord's Prayer daily in public primary school (the Government run one) and regularly sang the national anthem.

I'm Canadian (26) and I was required to sing the national anthem every morning while attending school in Ontario (Toronto). This was not the case when I attended school in Quebec (Montreal). I think daily anthem singing is determined by the local school board.

> I can't think of that many countries where they are not normally prompted to do either one or the other.

Most countries I lived in don't prompt either. (And in Germany, people would be out on the streets if a school did that kind of prompting.)

Netherlands here, no such thing in public schools, friends of mine who went to Catholic schools do mention morning prayers, I'm still thankful my parents sent me to a public school!

Hmm. I went to a local school here in the UK and remember sitting in a hall singing hymns and then having to say prayers. Although, judging by what my younger sister told me, that's out the window now.

Portugal here, we have none of that. What was exactly the point you were trying to make?

Good thing we have smart people like you and those who voted up this comment who have resisted all the brainwashing.

That's what they want you to think...

I'm shocked by the amount of comments here saying things like "they didn't planned to kill, they just took advantage of it" or "they planned it but didn't do it", so it's ok. It's not ok, it's miscreant attitude that demonstrates poor human skills.

I want to be represented by people with high human skills. Call me an idealistic if you want, it's ok for me in a world where vice is common place. Any way, we can't do anything great if we don't expect much of ourselves.

Yeah, we've known about these tactics for decades. I wouldn't be surprised if 50 years from now, 9/11 is also revealed to have been a false flag operation.

I would like to say that the Russian apartment bombings, although not officially proven to originate from the government, upon thorough investigation appear to have a very significant probability of being an actual brutal false flag. In addition to the available facts and possible motives, one can also consider that all serious journalists investigating this in Russia, and several KGB whistleblowers, have been assassinated.

I don't see the recent "secret weapons" in Iraq thing.

As others have noted, this is just the tip of the iceberg. It is an ancient and endemic practice.

The actions of stupid and incompetent men

(I say "men", because women just haven't had sufficient chance to prove themselves as such; but between Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton, and Condoleezza Rice they really have even a worse track record than men with their strong start of fail)

What offensive activities have Yulia Tymoshenko, Yingluck Shinawatra, Julia Gillard, Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir, Angela Merkel or Helle Thorning-Schmidt done to contribute to this false-flag 'start of fail'? Where are their wars?

Why even bring in a needless gender divide, instead of just saying 'people'?

You mean the recent "secret weapons" in Syria thing? [0]

[0]= http://www.lrb.co.uk/2013/12/08/seymour-m-hersh/whose-sarin

Maybe someone can explain this one to me ... about WMD in Iraq.

1) Iraq kills > 500 civilians using chemical weapons (google Ali Chemicali, Halabja, ...) (documented, amongst others, by the UN)

2) it is known that for at least a decade after that, Iraq was producing chemical weapons. (again, documented by the UN)

3) US invades

4) finds no weapons

Apparently the conclusion after this series of events is "there never were any chemical weapons", with a subtext of "Bush/CIA was not wrong, just lying".

I find it VERY hard to honestly draw that conclusion. The obvious conclusion is that those weapons were moved, the question is where.

Regarding 'WMDs in Iraq', chemical weapons were never really considered WMD before the US needed to justify the Iraq invasion. WMD meant 'nuclear' to the general public, and chemical weapons were added to make them bathe in the 'reflected glory' of nuclear weapons' destructiveness. Before this time, the term 'NBC' was used for these unconventional weapons; Nuclear, Biological, Chemical. Chemical weapons are horrific (as are smallarms, really), but are difficult to use and do not cause mass destruction.

They had it in the 80's and a bit later. After twenty years of sanctions they had little left but residual infrastructure.

The inspector conclusions at the end of Gulf II weren't that there was zero evidence of WMD, just that no stockpiles of it were found. It was not found in neighboring countries either.

Turns out Saddam was bluffing, which he admitted to later. He could not appear to be weak before US and Iran, literally surrounded by enemies. Everyone was wrong on WMD, he had fooled them with his elaborate games. Saddam's mistake was that he misjudged American govt resolve to oust him after 9/11. That they fabricated the reasons may have even surprised him.

Considering things in this perspective, is it so far-fetched to at least consider the possibility that 9/11 was a false-flag attack?

> Considering things in this perspective, is it so far-fetched to at least consider the possibility that 9/11 was a false-flag attack?

Yes, it would be completely far fetched and cretinous. You would have to completely ignore the history of bin Laden's interactions with American and the CIA, the attack on the USS Cole the year before, and the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.

The Bin Laden and Bush families go way back. FBI Agent Robert Wrights press conference is a good place to start. http://911encyclopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Robert_Wright

Also the calls Emad Salem (1993 WTC Bombing) recorded with his FBI handler where he talks about who built the bomb.

Considering things in what perspective? Everything listed here about the US was either just a proposal that never came to fruition, or not actually a false flag attack (a grunt trying to cover up civilian casualties by planting weapons on them, as reprehensible as it is, is a far cry from a false-flag terror attack on your own people).

This list is quite confused and several of the examples are not false flag operations. As Wikipedia's definition says, it has to be carried out with the purpose of pinning blame on another group and tarnishing their reputation.

> Although the FBI now admits that the 2001 anthrax attacks were carried out by one or more U.S. government scientists, a senior FBI official says that the FBI was actually told to blame the Anthrax attacks on Al Qaeda by White House officials.

Is the author suggesting that the US government in fact organized the anthrax letters? That's a long stretch from the evidence that the letters were sent by a government employee. It's unfortunate that the government would try to blame al Qaeda, but it's just opportunistic dishonesty since they didn't plan the attack.

> Former Department of Justice lawyer John Yoo suggested in 2005 that the US should go on the offensive against al-Qaeda, having “our intelligence agencies create a false terrorist organization."

This seems to be taken from an op-ed, which is a pretty terrible place to plan a false flag operation if you think about it. Yoo seems to be suggesting disrupting al Qaeda through disinformation, but I guess the name leads people to assume that something more evil must be going on.

> U.S. intelligence officers are reporting that some of the insurgents in Iraq are using recent-model Beretta 92 pistols, but the pistols seem to have had their serial numbers erased. ... Analysts speculate that agent provocateurs may be using the untraceable weapons even as U.S. authorities use insurgent attacks against civilians as evidence of the illegitimacy of the resistance.

Pretty speculative and doesn't fall under the category of "government admissions." In any case, even if true, it's questionable whether it's qualifies as a false flag operation.

> A Colombian army colonel has admitted that his unit murdered 57 civilians, then dressed them in uniforms and claimed they were rebels killed in combat

War crime, followed by cover-up. Not false flag.

> U.S. soldiers have admitted that if they kill innocent Iraqis and Afghanis, they then “drop” automatic weapons near their body so they can pretend they were militants.

Same as previous.

> The highly-respected writer for the Telegraph Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says that the head of Saudi intelligence – Prince Bandar – admitted last the Saudi government controls “Chechen” terrorists.

I don't even understand how this could be confused with a false flag. Just a threat of using a proxy force, and who knows if it's true.

Then to further confuse things the author defines "false flag terrorism" as "a government attacking its own people, then blaming others in order to justify going to war against the people it blames." I don't know why the author includes "its own people" and that the purpose must be to start a war, because neither of those appears in the Wikipedia definition and each is violated by several of his examples. But it just goes to show the sloppy thinking that went into putting together this list.

Look, many of these incidents were despicable and those responsible deserve to be called out, but the list is such a mixed bag of actual violence, planned violence, or speculation of planned violence, sometimes by the military, sometimes by police forces, sometimes by radicals. I don't see what the message is supposed to be by listing all of these together.

And you missed including these items:

  As admitted by the U.S. government, recently declassified 
  documents show that in the 1960′s, the American Joint 
  Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan 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. See the 
  following ABC news report; the official documents; and 
  watch this interview with the former Washington 
  Investigative Producer for ABC’s World News Tonight with 
  Peter Jennings.

  2 years before, American Senator George Smathers had 
  suggested that the U.S. make “a false attack made on 
  Guantanamo Bay which would give us the excuse of actually 
  fomenting a fight which would then give us the excuse to 
  go in and [overthrow Castro]“.

  And Official State Department documents show that – only 
  nine months before the Joint Chiefs of Staff plan was 
  proposed – the head of the Joint Chiefs and other high-
  level officials discussed blowing up a consulate in the 
  Dominican Republic in order to justify an invasion of 
  that country. The 3 plans were not carried out, but they 
  were all discussed as serious proposals

While he included the disclaimer at the end "the 3 plans were not carried out", he mixes this in with a list of actual false flag operations, and if you didn't know better when reading these items, you may believe that these were actually carried out by the US government.

Mixing real false-flag operations with things that were at some point discussed as possible options is fairly misleading at best; couple with all of the other examples you quote, I would call this post downright dishonest.

Between the paranoia about "false flag", and the line "People are slowly waking up to this whole con job by governments who want to justify war", this is veering dangerously close to "wake up sheeple!" territory.

False flag operations are the bread and butter of conspiracy theorists, and I'd like to show this list to some I know...

This may not be an ideal list, but it describes things that actually occurred. The false-flags that involved the US are the exceptions that prove the rule. You can see how far these proposals typically get in the US government.

> The false-flags that involved the US are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Are they? They are certainly rare, but so are actual terrorists attacks in the United States. If you choose at random an attack on the US outside of a combat zone within our lifetimes, you have a nontrivial probability that it was an admitted false flag operation. And that's just counting the ones they've admitted.

This isn't to say that we should fall in with the "9/11 was an inside job" people, but rather that we should be extraordinarily skeptical when there is some kind of an attack and self-interested parties come out of the woodwork with complicated one-sided proposals to ensure "never again" (even though they can ensure no such thing), which just so happen to secure to the proponents an unfathomably large quantity of tax dollars.

> If you choose at random an attack on the US outside of a combat zone within our lifetimes, you have a nontrivial probability that it was an admitted false flag operation.

Really? What are the admitted false flag operations against the US, forgetting about how old any of us are? If I look at the list from the article, the ones involving the US are either not false flag operations (my post), operations never put into action, or actual false flag operations but against a foreign country (Iran, Italy).

Obviously if you go down this road you end up in conspiracy theory land because everybody has their own version of historical events even after the parts that everyone admits happened, but here are a couple of incidents not on the list:

FBI had an inside man in the 1993 WTC bombing but chose not to thwart the bombing by substituting the explosives for inert powder (allegedly to preserve the inside man's cover): http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/28/nyregion/tapes-depict-prop...

Second gulf of Tonkin incident famously used to justify the Vietnam war never actually happened. Government now admits it never happened, doesn't admit to intentional fabrication. (Is it a false flag operation to falsely claim there was an attack or provocation without properly verifying the truth of it before going public? Because if it is then we also get to put the Iraq WMDs on the list. For that matter, if we want to go that far back, the sinking of the USS Maine which was used to justify the Spanish-American war was also subsequently shown to not have been an actual attack: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_Incident#Investigations).

I don't mean to make the argument that the US is often in the business of bombing itself in order to drum up business for the defense industry, but rather that the defense industry will use anything that looks like an attack to opportunistically drum up business for itself. Only after they've finished lining their pockets with our money does it come out that the original justification evaporates upon scrutiny.

The distinctive thing about hardcore conspiracy theorists is that they don't base their ideas on reality (reality as perceived by non-conspiracy theorists). They are not truly skeptics, because their skepticism is selectively applied. They are typically willing to believe anything they hear, just so long as it comes from another conspiracy theorist who shares the belief that everything the government says is a lie. So skepticism isn't the issue; the issue is staying in touch with reality -- specifically a reality that a variety of people can agree on.

There's no such thing as "reality".

Until a short time ago, the idea that some state would extensively spy into his and other countries people's communications would have been labelled as a conspiracy theory.

Now that the documents have uncovered what's going on, it's not a conspiracy theory anymore.

I understand that some people have ideas based on extremely unlikely scenario. But nonetheless, the reality you write about is based on what's available.

How do you know what's not available?

The article is confusing, but it has a point, and it's that the governments of the countries listed (there is clear winner in numbers...) have essentially sold their morale for political purposes, regardless of it having the form of faking of terrorism, or masking war crimes. I think that some of them arrived to the point of thinking that sacrificing a few (dozens? hundreds? thousands?) of their citizen for such purposes, would be reasonable.

Hold on, yes there is such a thing as 'reality'. It's the independent and objective causality chain. The tree falling in the woods is reality.

Conspiracy theorists really drive me nuts for so many reasons. We invaded Iraq after spending months trumpeting it in the press and the perpretators used it as a plank in elections. The worst crimes are just not secret. They do it in our faces and there are many, many people who think it's great. A secret trade deal may let companies sue for something or other in foreign countries? There are people getting elected on a platform of denying evolution and climate change!

False terrorism is still terrorism and I feel that your list discounting these as actual false flag operations diminishes the main point.

This article is very 'unpatriotic' ... I don't think normal god fearing individuals with so much power would even think to do these horrible things.

Time for my 'delusion' pills ... ;)

FEAR: False Evidence Appearing Real.

False flags are symptoms of a deeper problem. The root problem is that we want war to be justified, because we want to be the good guys. War is unjustified, period, even when you think you are doing the right thing -- it is this that a lot of people have moral problems with Ender's Game.

One could add the Marco Polo Bridge incident. Under inadvertent stuff one could add the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

I second that motion.

* Bombing of the golden mosque

* Assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists

* Stuxnet

* Smuggling rocket launchers into Gaza

* Gulf of Tonkin

* Assassination of JFK

* Oil Embargo on Japan

* Selling arms to Iraq

* Iran-contra

* 9/11

Tip of the iceberg.

Not really surprising, but how do we stop it? Can it be stopped, or is corruption in government, just something we're forced to live with forever?

"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."

But the price is cheaper if you redefine liberty.

It's not "corruption in government" (e.g some rotten apples). It's what people used to call the "military industrial complex" which operates the government too. Those are not the works of some lunnies -- those are examples of official policy, discussed, planned, and executed long term for decades...

Well I don't know if this is a solution, but a useful observation might be to point out that war and violence is extremely financially profitable for a large number of people. When we want more of something, we make it profitable (solar energy, whatever), so can we really expect any different when we make violence profitable?

> but how do we stop it? Can it be stopped, or is corruption in government, just something we're forced to live with forever?

Excellent question - the question of our time.

I think you'd have to learn what lessons you can from the peace movements of South Africa, East Germany, the color revolutions and so on.

However, this raises the question: if the government has unofficially declared war on the civilian public - should the public declare war on the government?

These books by Gene Sharpe are worthy of further study (especially "From Dictatorship to Democracy"):

http://www.aeinstein.org/english

Perhaps a new form of government entirely? e.g. decision making using the jury system:

http://equalitybylot.wordpress.com

Very encouraging that more people are becoming aware of the machinations of power. The real terrorists are much closer to home unfortunately ...

That Onswipe plugin is so annoying on iOS.

A plugin designed to annoy the visitors

A series of CIA memos describes how Israeli Mossad agents posed as American spies to recruit members of the terrorist organization Jundallah to fight their covert war against Iran: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/13/false_flag

> People are slowly waking up to this whole con job by governments who want to justify war.

More people are talking about the phrase “false flag” than ever before.

Here's an interesting google trends graph of the phrase over time - http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=false%20flag

My only problem is with this one:

>Undercover Israeli soldiers admitted in 2005 to throwing stones at other Israeli soldiers so they could blame it on Palestinians, as an excuse to crack down on peaceful protests by the Palestinians

2005 was the height of the 2nd intifada, there were nearly daily suicide bombings in Israel there was no need for excuses and undercover agents. Also the source basically says that the soldiers were originally supposed to work undercover and locate the organizers to be arrested (quality arrests, say what you want about that...) but as things appeared to get out of control the undercover agents (who were first timers) took matters into their own hands.

I'm surprised they missed this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_%28testimony%29

I thought the basic idea was documented clearly in 1984

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire

That's an impressive list, but far from complete. Here's a famous false flag operation in post-Nazi Germany for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celle_Hole

I personally think that the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_1980_Bologna_bombing should be part of that list.

In the recent Brazilian protests, infiltrated undercover policemen made several violent actions as an excuse to lower the credibility of peaceful protests.

I wonder what this list would look like in comparison with a list of legitimate acts of terrorism. Hint: it would look pretty insignificant.

Blowing up consulates... sounds really familiar...

Not to diminish the issue, but many items were not 'governments' but rather members of govt covering up errors.

I think that's the key thing, though. I would gladly live under practically any government system if I knew that all the officials and citizens were perfectly honest, responsible and charitable. I don't think I'd like any system that was repeatedly plagued by the types of individuals that are committing these acts.

I'm really tempted to say "that's life"; there are no perfect people to run the govt any more than in any other sphere.

A terrorist is a freedom fighter who isn't on your side.

Just FYI ritholtz is a complete fake... tried to build a brand out of working as a strategist at a bombed out bank.

Not saying that his articles are invalid, just that he is a serial marketer with little in terms of relevant credentials.

What? He's been a trader/strategist for nearly 30 years and is CEO of his own firm. Furthermore, he one of the most widely read financial bloggers around. Why don't you post some evidence supporting your claims.

P.S. He didn't write this, he posted to his blog.

So frustrating this site is unreadable on the iPhone.

use a different browser? (if this is allowed)

Using a different browser (technically, a different rendering engine) is not allowed on the iPhone. There are alternative browsers like Chrome, but they use the iPhone Safari rendering engine and serve merely to sync your bookmarks and whatnot with your other Chrome bookmarks and provide a slightly different UI.

Equally frustrating to see otherwise intelligent people using such arbitrarily crippled devices. Try using a better phone, one without such despicable corporate hostility driving it.

looks like a nash equilibrium to me!

loving the fake Hitler quote

More info:

"Hitler on Terrorism

"Hitler has often been quoted as saying: "Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death." This quote is based on two invented remarks in Hermann Rauschning's mendacious book, The Voice of Destruction."

http://www.ihr.org/other/weber2011fakequotations.html

That might very well be accurate, but I'm not daft enough to believe anything posted on the "Institute for Historical Review" site. Do you have any better sources?

That was just the number one result, this post number two (9 total). I googled the quote without Hitler, and all results came up as a misattribution, but in my quick skim, there wasn't a different attribution.

Yes, I checked too, but all the misattribution links appeared to be related to neo-nazi sites, so I'm not sure.

Is this on-topic for HN?

Old news.

Government is the enemy.

That means no wealth redistribution.

Can the internet balance these two?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com