The term “False Flag” has been drafted into our political discourse of late. Those seeking to deflect blame from real perpetrators have invented conspiracy theories to explain the 9/11 attacks and the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
So, what is a False Flag operation and how do they affect history?
Typically, a government seeking to use military force to achieve a geopolitical objective will mount a False Flag operation to convince the public to support its attack on a rival nation. The term originates from the days when pirates disrupted marine traffic. A pirate ship would raise, for example, a French flag to convince a French merchant ship that it was in no danger.
Oops!
That was long ago and has little impact on the state of the world today. But consider this:
· The Bush administration cherry picked intelligence developed by the CIA to convince Americans in the wake of 9/11 they were in danger of attack by Iraq using “weapons of mass destruction.”
· The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which was passed by the U.S. Congress to authorize the war in Vietnam was based on bogus intelligence. LBJ was trying to win an election in 1964 and wanted to make sure his opponent, Barry Goldwater, couldn’t paint him as weak in the midst of the Cold War. So, 50,000 Americans lost their lives in a war the U.S. couldn’t win.
· In 1939, Nazi operatives dressed as Polish soldiers attacked a German radio tower at the German-Polish border. They left behind the corpse of a pro-Polish German farmer dressed in a German uniform. Hitler used the event to convince the German public of the need to attack its neighbor to the east.
· And, of course, students of American history will remember Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War of 1899. The U.S. government wanted to expel Spain from its colony 90 miles off the coast of Florida. So, they invented an attack on a US Navy ship, the U.S.S. Maine, in Havana Harbor. “Remember the Maine!” became a well-remembered battle cry.
What these and many other examples throughout history have in common is a tried-and-true methodology:
· Create the illusion of a threat.
· Attach yourself to defense against the threat.
· Blame the desired enemy.
· Drum up enough public support to go to war.
So, what’s the ultimate False Flag Operation? Well, I have an answer to that question. But you’ll have to wait for the sequel to The Awakening of Artemis: False Flag to be published later in 2022.