From time to time I'm going to throw out a few terms, definitions and expositions on the political science (or political voodoo) subject one might call Modern Machiavellianism 101, the principles (or unprinciples) of which form the modus operandi of the Bush Administration. Today's term is "false flag operation", a term most readers are familiar with, but not all, so here is how Wikipedia briefly 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 one's own." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag)
I guess the old Hollywood pirate movies would be a perfect example of literally flying a false flag, when a pirate ship would hoist an innocent-looking national ensign as it approached its intended victim, beguiling the crew, and then haul up the Jolly Roger at the last minute as it attacked. In real history, a classic example would be the German Raiders of WWII, vessels which had hidden guns and torpedo-launchers on board what were converted merchant ships flying false flags as they approached other vessels. They would raise the German flag at the last moment, demand the other ship's surrender through signal flags, or some other means, to give the crew a cursory opportunity to escape if the German captain was feeling gracious, and then strive to sink it whether it surrendered or not.
But the type of false flag operation I am specifically referring to today is when one entity commits a crime or stages what looks like a crime while pretending to be another entity, so as to have all the blame cast on the second entity. For example, the infamous Reichstag Fire in Germany in 1933, which was originally blamed on the mentally challenged communist, Marinus Van der Lubbe, who also confessed, after Nazi interrogation, to the fire, is now widely accepted as an "inside" job by the Nazis themselves to promote a murderous purge against German communists and catapult Hitler to dictatorial power through the Enabling Act.
It was later revealed that an underground tunnel running from Hermann Goering's residence to the cellars of the Reichstag allowed storm troopers, led by SA leader Karl Ernst, to steal undetected into the building to engage in their own significant arsonist activities while Van der Lubbe, clueless, apparently ran amok, half-naked, using his shirt as a torch. Indications are that undercover Nazi agents had befriended him and knew the time of his arson attempt.
The Nazis also employed a sinister false flag op against Poland in 1939, staging an attack on the Gleiwitz radio station on the German border with Poland. One of several slightly different historical accounts has the Nazis dressing up several German-held convicts in Polish uniforms, shooting them and then arranging their bodies as if they had attacked the station. A German agent then read anti-German polemics over the air in Polish, conjuring up, across Germany's air waves, the imagined scenario that Poles had overrun the station. German citizens were outraged and Hitler dutifully invaded Poland the next day, citing this and several other alleged incidents as justification.
False flag operations have been used repeatedly throughout history, dating back to Nero framing the Christians for the great fire of Rome and beyond. And there are now widespread arguments that this Machiavellian technique has become an ongoing tool in both the American and British Establishments' clandestine bag of dirty tricks, the Gulf of Tonkin incident with North Vietnam often cited as one prominent example, not to mention the historical controversy surrounding the justification for the American invasion of Mexico in 1846, as well as the controversy surrounding the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor that led to the Spanish-American War in 1898.
Currently, there are powerful allegations that both 9/11 and the London Terror Bombings also fall into the false flag category, as shock and awe catastrophies designed to jerk the public's chains in the United States and Britain and then manipulate them into the frenzied service of war. Various draconian terror alerts and "uncovered" terrorist plots also raise questions, particularly in those cases where we learn that government agencies had conducted surveillance operations on suspects for months or even run sting operations against them. A good case in point is last year's melodramatic announcement of a "Liquid Bomb Plot" against some 14 airliners, a case which has slowly been unraveling as various suspects both in Britain and Pakistan have been quietly released or had their charges downgraded for lack of serious evidence, as opposed to mountains of dubious circumstantial "evidence". The assassination of Harik Hariri in Lebanon may also be a classic false flag op, tarring Syria with the murder while many, including French Intelligence officials, now believe Israeli operatives were behind it. I am sure viewers of this website have their own opinions on all of this.
What is worse is that there are now heightening rumors and predictions that a new false flag operation is underway to justify retaliatory attacks or full-scale war against Iran and/or Syria. The recent storming of a de facto Iranian consulate in Arbil in Kurdish Northern Iraq is, quite possibly, a trial run in this direction, an escalation beyond the arrest and later release of Iranian diplomats in Baghdad last December. Five Iranians, although in Arbil at the invitation of Kurdish authorities and recognized as diplomats by the Iraqi government, were arrested and accused by Americans of being Republican Guard types clandestinely supplying Iraqi insurgents with weapons, etc. Never mind that the Iranian government is Shiite and the insurgents, as the US military defines them, are Sunnis involved in hostilities with the Shiites - reality is the last consideration in splashy propaganda operations by an Imperialist power.
Let us hope that a false flag disaster with a made-in-USA Iranian pennant hoisted over it is simply overwrought paranoia, for the very last thing the planet needs is another bloody war. But if another major terrorist attack does occur, let us not be shocked and awed into stupidity, but start to analyze the event immediately with a healthy dose of skepticism.
The article is good and timely but its reference to Macchiavelli is... well, excessive. Niccolo Macchiavelli was a political scientist and a visionary- he never, neither in his tragic life nor in his perfect writings advocated 'false flag' operations, although he did praise pragmatism, ruthlessness and direct approach. He was honest in a way of his understanding of the process, that is all. The goons are all the same and those who were in his time and those who are now are as far from the brilliancy of Macchiavelli as we are from the Moon.
In Santa- Croche basilica in his beloved Florence lies Niccolo and the words on his tomb are 'No words..' Let's not smear the great man by comparing him to the murderous goons of our times. He deserves better.
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Mark Sashine (46 articles, 19 quicklinks, 234 diaries, 3348 comments)
on Monday, January 15, 2007 at 7:43:06 AM
Yes, Panurg, poor Machiavelli is probably rolling over in his grave at the usurption of his name over time, but unfortunately, the term Machiavellianism has taken on permanent connotations of its own independent of his writings. I could have said Mephistopholeanism and that might be more apt, but that is a mouthful and Mephistopholes might take potent umbrage with me over copyright issues.
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Mac McKinney (42 articles, 59 quicklinks, 137 diaries, 943 comments)
on Monday, January 15, 2007 at 8:34:02 AM
I have a great book about him and how tough it was for him and how he was tortured once also. In Italy he is very highly praised among the educated ones and he is also considered one of the visionaries and patriots of the independence. He lived a very unhappy life and it is so unfortunate that he is treated that wrongly still.
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Mark Sashine (46 articles, 19 quicklinks, 234 diaries, 3348 comments)
on Monday, January 15, 2007 at 8:47:13 AM
Macchiavelli's taken a bad wrap for this ends-justify-the-means-thing, but like Mac says, the guy is stuck with it, rather like Neitzche and "God is Dead". Sound bites before anyone coined the phrase.
911 was a false flag operation and until the people of the US decide to investigate it thoroughly, we are doomed to fight this War On Terror to no ultimate end except to fill the coffers of war profiteers and neoconservative desires to achieve world dominance.
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Angelo (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 157 comments)
on Monday, January 15, 2007 at 8:50:12 AM
This one needs to be on the list, though JFK squashed it - and those who proposed it...
National Security Archive April 30, 2001
In his new exposé of the National Security Agency entitled Body of Secrets, author James Bamford highlights a set of proposals on Cuba by the Joint Chiefs of Staff codenamed OPERATION NORTHWOODS. This document, titled "Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba" was provided by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as the key component of Northwoods. Written in response to a request from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale, the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. These proposals - part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose - included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake "Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington," including "sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated)," faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a "Remember the Maine" incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage. Bamford himself writes that Operation Northwoods "may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government."
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba [includes cover memoranda], March 13, 1962, TOP SECRET, 15 pp.
An independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University, the Archive collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The Archive also serves as a repository of government records on a wide range of topics pertaining to the national security, foreign, intelligence, and economic policies of the United States. The Archive won the 1999 George Polk Award, one of U.S. journalism's most prestigious prizes, for-in the words of the citation-"piercing the self-serving veils of government secrecy, guiding journalists in the search for the truth and informing us all."
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abacus (2 articles, 2 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 53 comments)
on Monday, January 15, 2007 at 6:35:34 PM
