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False Flag Operation - The Arcana Wiki

Basic Information

A False Flag Operation is a military attack (or other covert action) that is intended to fool the enemy, the observers, and/or the public into thinking it was perpetrated by a different government than the one that actually carried out the attack.

The motives and objectives of such a mission can vary significantly.

  1. The false flag may be used simply as a form of camouflage, to deceive enemy patrols in order to sew confusion or gain access to a remote or guarded area. Such a mission is often perpetrated while actually wearing the uniforms of another country, conducted by a unit flying the flag of another country, or carried out by ships or other vehicles bearing the enemy's identification marks and insignia.
  2. More insidiously, the false flag may be flown to frame another country, in order to provoke or justify a war. Sometimes the attack is a sneak attack on a third party. In still other cases the attack is actually a hoax or an treasonous inside job that is then blamed on another country.

In International Humanitarian Law, the legality of false flag operations is spelled out pretty expressly. It is a war crime to wear the uniform of a neutral country, or a humanitarian or neutral service such as the Red Cross or the uniform of the United Nations Peacekeepers. It is not a war crime to wear the uniform of an enemy nation, provided that you do not engage in combat while so dressed. Should a fight break out while so dressed, you must remove / cast aside the false uniforms and flags immediately, or else be guilty of a war crime. The precedent of this was established at the trial of Otto Skorzkeny in 1947, and specifically codified in Protocol I.

This category also encompasses the particularly disreputable activity of shipping military (or even black market civilian) supplies disguised as humanitarian supplies and/or whilst disguised as part of a legitimate humanitarian organisation. It is rarely actioned in "international" law except as an aggravating matter in another war crime but is generally despised due to the chilling effect that it can have on genuine humanitarian efforts, up to and including relief organisations being mistaken for smugglers and attacked.

While wearing an enemy uniform is not a war crime, any captured soldier in such a uniform may be convicted and executed as though they were a spy. This is established by the Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907).

Using a False Flag Operation to provoke a war does appear (in my admittedly layman's opinion) to be a war crime, since prior to the start of the war all sides are technically neutral or uninvolved - however a hoaxed attack probably avoids illegality.

Famous False-Flag Operations

This is a list of some of the best-known False Flags, a few of which are widely suspected but have never been admitted or confirmed by their perpetrators.

First Category (Camouflage and Confusion)

These are attacks made under enemy flag or using enemy uniforms or flags to penetrate behind enemy lines.

Second Category (Framings and Justifications)

These are events that provoked or justified wars or power grabs, and may have had sinister or traitorous truths behind them.

See also:
Nurse Nayirah
Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge debate
RMS Lusitania
9/11 conspiracy theories


In Spy Tradecraft / Espionage

As you can imagine, it's not uncommon in espionage circles to misrepresent what nation you work for. Sometimes spies are actually recruited to think they are working for a different cause than they are actually and inadvertently supporting. This was commonly done by the East German Stasi, who had special "Romeo" agents who would recruit female West German civil servants by claiming to work for neutral peace groups.

Such methods can also be used to fool suspected enemy agents into revealing themselves. Double Agent Earl Edwin Pitts was captured by FBI agents posing as Russian agents. Pitts was himself an FBI agent and secretly working for the Russians.

See also: false flag penetrator.

In Politics/Media

It's also quite possible - especially with modern social media platforms - to operate a false flag position, apparently as a supporter of one of your opponents, but disseminating policies and statements likely to prove poisonous to their reputation - this might be seen as a form of hostile astroturfing, especially if they can muster (or synthesise) some kind of support base. Such artificial sources can then be interviewed (or merely cited) for media purposes to further generate a false image of the sort of people who support the opponent in question, especially if the journalists involved are lazy, stupid and/or compliant.


Sources

Bibliography

1. Wikipedia - In addition, many of the links above have corresponding pages at Wikipedia

2. Movie: The Eagle Has Landed (based on a novel by Jack Higgins) - features German soldiers infiltrating in Allied uniforms

3. TV: Alias - the first two seasons revolve around a spy agency where nearly everyone thinks they're working for the U.S., but aren't.

Game and Story Use

TruthMove - False Flag Operations

False flag operations are a classic tool of deception and espionage. Intelligence agencies are usually linked to most false flag terrorism.

False flag terror by a state upon its own population can be a powerful tool of control. False flag operations can range from intentional provocation or "letting things happen," all the way up to outright orchestration.

Probably the most basic motive for a false flag incident would be to frame the enemy for an act of aggression or barbarism in order to justify a supposed "defensive" response. It is essentially a way of making it appear that the other side "threw the first punch."

Many of the most prominent conflicts of the twentieth century were initiated, and gained the necessary public support, based on false incidents, intelligence, and journalism. The public does not generally support war unless provided a relatively just cause. At present diverse populations worldwide recognize that few wars if any have been justified.

With weapons being a primary world industry and one of the most profitable, we can be certain that conflict will be promoted or not averted by corporations with cooperative governments and individuals seeking profit and market dominance.

While we don't claim that all the events in this section are 100% confirmed false flag operations, there is compelling evidence in each case that the official story is incomplete and the identity of the true perpetrators/facilitators is in doubt.

A Few Likely False Flag Operations:

False flag operation - RationalWiki

A false flag operation is an operation conducted by one party or government and made to appear as though it were sponsored by another party or government. The term (although not the tactic) has its origins in the traditions of "honourable" naval warfare, where ships were required to sail under their own national flag in order that they could be identified. As people learned that being a sneaky bastard was much more fun much more effective than playing by the rules, ships began sailing under "false" colours, i.e. flying their enemy's flag in order to get close to their enemy, before swapping to their true colours and opening fire.[1]

In the modern use of false flag tactics and operations, this final step is avoided entirely, making it difficult to identify what is really a false flag operation, and what is just some conspiracy nuts not trusting their own government.

A list of such attacks either determined or widely held to be false flag attacks follows:

[edit] Conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theorists have claimed that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were a false flag operation by the United States Government, notably in the "documentary" Loose Change. Their claims are not seen as credible by most investigators. It is interesting that the concept of a false flag operation is a staple of almost all conspiracy theories - that a government would attack their own people to justify something is appropriately dramatic and evil to be attractive to anyone already predisposed to the idea that the world is secretly being controlled by dark hidden forces. Similar claims were launched within an hour after the Boston Marathon bombing of 15 April 2013, and, two days later, after the West, TX fertiliser plant explosion, citing the monkey that jumps up and down in Alex Jones' head.[4]

On 11 January 2015, in the Project Camelot Portal blog, Kerry Cassidy wrote that the Charlie Hebdo massacre was obviously a False Flag operation by the French government.[5]

In fact, since the arrival of 9/11 truthers, no tragedy goes[6] by[7] without someone claiming it was a false flag.

Paranoids on both the left [8] and the right [9] have argued that Edward Snowden is, or likely is, a limited hangout or a false flag operation. Which is especially ironic given that Snowden's NSA documents have revealed actual false flag capabilities by the Canadian government, [10] and a British "dirty tricks" program -- including false flag operations -- shared with the U.S., New Zealand and Australian (and Canadian) governments.[11]

[edit] Political cases

False flag attacks have been used as an attempt to discredit the opposition in a political campaign. For instance, in 2008, a woman claimed to have been attacked and mutilated (having 'B' for 'Barack' carved into her face) by a black man for being a McCain supporter. Eventually however she confessed that she had mutilated herself and made the whole incident up [12]. Not helping her story was that the B was backwards and looked like it had been made by a fingernail not a knife.

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Note that the "swapping to their true colours" part is considered obligatory under the conventions of war, which consider using false flag to sneak up on an enemy fair game, but not actually attacking under a false flag.
  2. The Burning of Rome, 64 AD
  3. AD 64 - The great fire of Rome
  4. http://www.salon.com/2013/04/15/alex_jones_labels_boston_explosion_a_false_flag/
  5. Project Camelot, 11 Jan 2015
  6. Natural News brings the crazy
  7. infowars too
  8. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/06/naomi-wolf-edward-snowden-false-flag-conspiracy.html
  9. http://investmentwatchblog.com/snowden-a-limited-hangout-cia-op/
  10. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/24/snowden_dossier_details_canadian_spies_running_false_flag_operations_online/
  11. https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/
  12. http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/17789356/detail.html
Wikipedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

"False colors" redirects here. For the imaging technique, see False-color.

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

deHaven-Smith argues that the terminology has become looser in recent years due to the increasingly complex levels of "duplicity" and "international intrigue" between states.[2] Peter Dale Scott argues that false flags are methods used by deep states as a form of deep politics.[3][clarification needed]

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

Contents

[hide]

Use in warfare[edit]

Naval warfare[edit]

This practice is accepted in naval warfare, provided the false flag is lowered and the true flag raised before engaging in battle.[5] 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, in which Cap Trafalgar had been altered to look like Carmania.

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. Kormoran was also fatally damaged in that encounter and its crew was captured, but it was a considerable psychological victory for the Germans.[6]

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 Type 23 torpedo boat The British were able to get within two miles (3 km) of the harbour before the defences responded, where the explosive-rigged Campbeltown and commandos successfully disabled or destroyed the key dock structures of the port.[7][8]

Air warfare[edit]

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:[9]

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",[10] and as such these two non–controversial articles were already part of customary law.[11]

Land warfare[edit]

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 a U.S. military tribunal at the Dachau Trials. In this trial, the tribunal 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 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 American uniforms. 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,[12] it is mentioned that Paragraph 43 of the Field Manual published by the War Department, United States Army, on 1 October 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."
Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Protocol I of the Geneva Convention

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.
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[edit]

Russo-Swedish War[edit]

In 1788, the head tailor at the Royal Swedish Opera received an order to sew a number of Russian military uniforms. These were then used by the Swedes to stage an attack on Puumala, a Swedish outpost on the Russo-Swedish border, on 27 June 1788. This caused an outrage in Stockholm and impressed the Riksdag of the Estates, the Swedish national assembly, who until then had refused to agree to an offensive war against Russia. The Puumala incident allowed King Gustav III of Sweden, who lacked the constitutional authority to initiate unprovoked hostilities without the Estates' consent, to launch the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790)[13]

Second Sino-Japanese War[edit]

Japanese experts inspect the scene of the 'railway sabotage' on South Manchurian Railway

In September 1931, Japanese officers fabricated a pretext for invading Manchuria by blowing up a section of railway. Though the explosion was too weak to disrupt operations on the rail line, the Japanese nevertheless used this Mukden incident to seize Manchuria and create a puppet government for what they termed the "independent" state of Manchukuo.[14]

World War II[edit]

Gleiwitz incident[edit]

Alfred Naujocks

The Gleiwitz incident in 1939 involved Reinhard Heydrich fabricating evidence of a Polish attack against Germany to mobilize German public opinion for war and to justify the war with Poland. Alfred Naujocks was a key organiser of the operation under orders from Heydrich. It led to the deaths of Nazi concentration camp victims who were dressed as German soldiers and then shot by the Gestapo to make it seem that they had been shot by Polish soldiers. 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.[15]

The operation failed to convince international public opinion of the German claims, and both Britain and France-Poland's allies-declared war two days after Germany invaded Poland.[16]

Winter War[edit]

On November 26, 1939, the Soviet army shelled Mainila, a Russian village near the Finnish border. Soviet authorities blamed Finland for the attack and used the incident as a pretext to invade Finland, starting the Winter War, four days later.[17]

Cold War[edit]

Operation Northwoods[edit]

Operation Northwoods memorandum (13 March 1962).[18]

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 of 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.[19] 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.[20] Information about Operation Northwoods was later publicized by James Bamford.[21]

As a tactic to undermine political opponents[edit]

Reichstag fire[edit]

Main article: Reichstag fire

The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The fire started in the Session Chamber,[22] and, by the time the police and firemen arrived, the main Chamber of Deputies was engulfed in flames. Police searched the building and found Marinus van der Lubbe, a young Dutch council communist and unemployed bricklayer, who had recently arrived in Germany to carry out political activities.

The fire was used as evidence by the Nazis that the Communists were beginning a plot against the German government. Van der Lubbe and four Communist leaders were subsequently arrested. Adolf Hitler, who was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany four weeks before, on 30 January, urged President Paul von Hindenburg to pass an emergency decree to counter the "ruthless confrontation of the Communist Party of Germany".[23] With civil liberties suspended, the government instituted mass arrests of Communists, including all of the Communist parliamentary delegates. With their bitter rival Communists gone and their seats empty, the National Socialist German Workers Party went from being a plurality party to the majority; subsequent elections confirmed this position and thus allowed Hitler to consolidate his power.

Historians disagree as to whether Van der Lubbe acted alone, as he said, to protest the condition of the German working class, or whether the arson was planned and ordered by the Nazis, then dominant in the government themselves, as a false flag operation.[24][25]

Project TP-Ajax[edit]

Main article: 1953 Iranian coup d'état

On 4 April 1953, the CIA was ordered to undermine the government of Iran over a four-month period, as a precursor to overthrowing Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.[26] One tactic used to undermine Mosaddeh was to carry out false flag attacks "on mosques and key public figures", to be blamed on Iranian communists loyal to the government.[26]

The CIA project was code-named TP-Ajax, and the tactic of a "directed campaign of bombings by Iranians posing as members of the Communist party",[27] involved the bombing of "at least" one well known Muslim's house by CIA agents posing as Communists.[27] The CIA determined that the tactic of false flag attacks added to the "positive outcome" of Project TPAJAX.[26]

However, as "[t]he C.I.A. burned nearly all of its files on its role in the 1953 coup in Iran", the true extent of the tactic has been difficult for historians to discern.[28]

2008 Kurcha incident[edit]

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2014)

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 21 May 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.

An investigation by the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia found that the attackers were located on the Georgian side of the ceasefire line, about 100m from the buses, and that although hard evidence of the attackers' identities was lacking, inconsistencies merited further investigation, particularly the suggestion that the filming of the attack seemed anticipatory.[29]

A Georgian investigative TV documentary later found[citation needed] that camera crew from the government-friendly channel Rustavi 2 had been in position with their equipment before the shooting took place.

Pseudo-operations[edit]

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.[30] 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. 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."

Charlemagne Péralte of Haiti was assassinated in 1919, after checkpoints were passed by military disguised as guerrilla fighters

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 Péralte near Grande-Rivičre-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 the former country Rhodesia (now 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 with 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 black soldiers 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 Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army leader Joshua Nkomo in Zambia. This mission was finally aborted by the Selous Scouts, and attempted again, unsuccessfully, by the Rhodesian Special Air Service.[31]

Some offensive operations attracted international condemnation, in particular the Selous Scouts' raid on a Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) 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.[32] 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.[33]

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.[34]

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 insurgent-controlled 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."[30]

Similar false flag tactics were also employed during the Algerian civil war, starting in the middle of 1994. Death squads composed of Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (DRS) security forces disguised themselves as Islamist terrorists and committed false flag terror attacks. Such groups included the Organisation of Young Free Algerians (OJAL) or the Secret Organisation for the Safeguard of the Algerian Republic (OSSRA)[35] 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".[36]

Espionage[edit]

Main article: 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).[37]

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 U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation 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 recognised that friends as well as enemies must be completely deceived."[38]

Civilian usage[edit]

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[edit]

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) but make it appear as though the destruction was done by a rival company.[citation needed]

Political campaigning[edit]

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.

In the final days of the 1994 campaign, Governor Lawton Chiles' ran a false flag operation that paid for tens of thousands of calls to elderly voters using false organization names. The calls purported to be from Republican groups and told voters that Jeb Bush was against Social Security and seniors. Chiles' denied his campaign was behind the calls. After winning re-election and facing an investigation, Chiles admitted the truth in November 1995.[39]

In 2006, individuals practicing false flag behavior were discovered and "outed" in New Hampshire[40][41] and New Jersey[42] 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 19 February 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.[43]

Ideological[edit]

A bomb threat forged by Scientology operatives

Proponents of 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, some members of 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.[44]

See also[edit]

Concepts[edit]

Examples[edit]


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[Apr 12, 2017] Did Assad Really Use Sarin

Notable quotes:
"... is a journalist based in Madison, WI whose work focuses on the Middle East. He can be reached via Twitter @paulgottinger or email: [email protected] ..."
Apr 12, 2017 | www.counterpunch.org

Almost immediately after video of the alleged chemical weapons attack in Idlib hit Western media, Assad was declared guilty by US news networks and political commentators. The front page of the New York Times on April 5 th showed a heartbreaking image of a child wounded in the alleged chemical attack with a headline claiming Assad was responsible.

By the afternoon of April 7, a US attack seemed inevitable as both Rex Tillerson and Trump said action would be taken.

Between Democrats and Republicans, a bipartisan consensus emerged, rare in the Trump presidency, whereby Assad was deemed guilty and Trump was goaded on to attack. The few voices of dissent seemed mostly concerned with the lack of constitutional approval for the strike

The night of the strike, US media snapped into DPRK-style, state media mode. TV pundits fell into a trance while expressing the " beauty " of American power being unleashed on a country already destroyed by 6 years of war.

Pundits described the attack as "surgical" despite the pentagon quietly admitting one of the missiles missed its target and they don't know where it landed. My questions to both CENTCOM and the Secretary of Defense Office on the missing cruise missile have thus far gone unanswered. However, Syrian sources claim civilians were killed in the missile strike.

Trump justified the attack by invoking religiously themed buzzwords and unconvincing blather on the "beautiful babies" murdered in the chemical attack.

Following the attack, Trump officials' statements indicated there was a shift towards regime change. UN ambassador Nikki Haley said Sunday that removing Assad is now a priority.

The Neocon sharks have started circling too. Bill Kristol tweeted that these strikes should be used to move towards regime change in Iran. Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain have all joined in too, their mouths watering at the thought of ousting Assad.

But was Assad really responsible for the attack?

To ask such a question is to be deemed an "Assadist" by pundits and discourse police across the political spectrum.

Neither the lack of an independent investigation, nor the fact that nearly all the information on the alleged attack has come from rebel sources, who stand to benefit from a US response, is deemed sufficient cause for skepticism.

In a civilized society an actor is be presumed to be innocent until proven guilty. If guilt is determined, a legally justified course of action is taken. In the US however, if the accused is a US enemy, no evidence is needed, and even deranged conspiracies are given play in mainstream media coverage.

The best recent example of this is the US media's conspiracy about Russia stealing the US election and working for Trump. The US media has stooped so low as to even push bizarre conspiracies by Louise Mensch . She recently claimed the 2014 uprising in Ferguson was a Russian plot.

In the case of the alleged attack on Khan Sheikhun, US officials and pro-war experts immediately declared Assad's guilty and then cheered on an illegal use of force. This is all very reminiscent of the lead up to the Iraq war.

In an eerie coincidence, Michael R. Gordon, who with Judith Miller helped sell the Iraq WMD story to Americans, coauthored the New York Times April 4th article on Assad's alleged sarin attack at Khan Sheikhun.

To help sell the sarin narrative, the US media brought on a doctor to describe the alleged attack that has been accused of helping kidnap journalists in his work with extremists.

When the US investigated its own airstrike in Mosul this March, it took a number of days before it admitted it had killed hundreds of civilians. Yet, guilt was immediately assigned in the Khan Sheikhun attack.

In 2013, the US media also rushed to the conclusion Assad used sarin in a horrific incident in Ghouta. The US was on the verge of attacking Assad then, but Obama decided against it. Obama claimed he held off because US intelligence voiced skepticism about Assad's guilt.

The UN investigation on the Ghouta attack took almost a month and even its conclusions have been disputed.

In December of 2013, Seymour Hersh published a lengthy investigation into the 2013 attack in Ghouta and found reason to doubt Assad's responsibility for attack. He was forced to publish it in the London Review of Books after the New York Times and the Washington Post refused to run it.

He reported that classified US reports claimed that Syria's al Qaeda affiliate had "mastered the mechanics of creating sarin".

A month after Hersh's piece appeared, a MIT study cast further doubt on the US government's story by demonstrating that the rockets used in the Ghouta attack couldn't have flown as far as the US government claimed.

Ted Postol, one of the authors of the study said, "We were within a whisker of war based on egregious errors."

In this latest alleged gas attack, a few individuals have dared question the state narrative.

The journalist Robert Parry has recently claimed there is much to be made of the fact that Mike Pompeo, the CIA Director, wasn't among those helping sell this latest sarin story to the American people. He believes it indicates doubt in the CIA over Assad's involvement.

Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, has raised skepticism over Assad's involvement. He says rebels have had chemical weapons facilities in Syria and some of the witnesses' statements describe a strong smell during the attack, which indicates something other than sarin was used.

The Canadian government originally called for an investigation and stopped short of blaming Assad at the UN, but then later championed Trump's strikes.

Groups like Organizations for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and Human Rights Watch are still investigating the alleged attack in Khan Sheikhun.

Whether these groups or others will be able to conduct an independent investigation is not known. But in usual fashion, the US had no interest in investigating facts, which may provide the wrong answers.

It's possible that Assad carried out the attack, but just because he's a reprehensible figure doesn't mean there is no need to present evidence and conduct an independent investigation.

What's clear now is that the US attack benefitted jihadi groups, has made further US military action more likely, and has increased the chances of a direct military confrontation with Russia. All of these results are very dangerous.

Future US military action in Syria should be resisted with popular pressure. History shows we can't count on the media or pundits to act as the voice of reason. Join the debate on Facebook

Paul Gottinger is a journalist based in Madison, WI whose work focuses on the Middle East. He can be reached via Twitter @paulgottinger or email: [email protected]

10 false flags operations that shaped our world

From Nero to 9/11, via Pearl Harbour and the Gulf of Tonkin incident... Joe Crubaugh provides an "all time greatest hits" of false flag operations, whereby one scenario is repeated... as the world keeps falling for the same lie.

The most commonly known false flag operations consist of a government agency staging a terror attack, whereby an uninvolved entity gets blamed for the carnage. As at least two millennia have proven, false flag operations, with healthy doses of propaganda and ignorance, provided a great recipe for endless war. _In "War is a Racket", Two-time Medal of Honor recipient Major General Smedley Butler wrote: "I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested." _You may not have heard of these operations, but perhaps you have heard of these?

1. Nero, Christians, and the Great Fire of Rome

Rome, the night of July 19, 64 AD. The Great Fire burst through the rooftops of shops near the mass entertainment and chariot racing venue called Circus Maximus. The flames, whipped by a strong wind, rapidly engulfed densely populated areas of the city. After burning uncontrolled for five days, four of the 14 Roman districts were burned to the ground, and seven more were severely damaged._It was no secret that Nero wanted to build a series of palaces which he planned to name "Neropolis". But, the planned location was in the city and in order to build Neropolis, a third of Rome would have to be torn down. The Senate rejected the idea. Then, coincidentally, the fire cleared the very real estate Neropolis required.

Despite the obvious benefit, there's still a good probability that Nero did not start the fire. Up to a hundred small fires regularly broke out in Rome each day. On top of that, the fire destroyed Nero's own palace and it appears that Nero did everything he could to stop the fire. Accounts of the day say that when Nero heard about the fire, he rushed back from Antium to organize a relief effort, using his own money. He opened his palaces to let in the homeless and had food supplies delivered to the survivors._Nero also devised a new urban development plan that would make Rome less vulnerable to fire. But, although he put in place rules to insure a safer reconstruction, he also gave himself a huge tract of city property with the intention of building his new palace there. _People knew of Nero's plans for Neropolis, and all his efforts to help the city could not counteract the rampant rumours that he'd help start the fire.

As his poll numbers dropped, Nero's administration realised the need to employ False Flag 101: When something - anything - bad happens to you, even if it's accidental, point the finger at your enemy._Luckily, there was a new cult of religious nuts at hand. The cult was unpopular because its followers refused to worship the emperor, denounced possessions, held secret meetings and they were always talking about the destruction of Rome and the end of the world. Even more luckily for Nero, two of the cult's biggest leaders, Peter and Paul, were currently in town. Nero spread word that the Christians had started the Great Fire. The citizens of Rome bought his lie hook, line and sinker.

Peter was crucified and Paul beheaded. Hundreds of others in the young cult were fed to the lions or smeared with tar and set on fire to become human street lamps.

2. Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain

The Spanish Empire was the first truly global empire, reaching its territorial height in the late 1700s. By 1898, Spain was losing territories regularly. Cuba too was becoming increasingly hard to control and a minor revolution had broken out. This wasn't welcome news to people in the United States who owned Cuban sugar, tobacco and iron industry properties valued at over $50 million (worth ca. $1.2 billion today)._The main stream media, then dominated by newspaper magnates Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, exaggerated - and outright fabricated - stories of horrible conditions under Spanish rule. Following the age-old maxim, "If it bleeds, it leads", the newspapers published stories about Spanish death camps, Spanish cannibalism and inhumane torture. The newspapers sent reporters to Cuba. However, when they got there, they found a different story. Artist and correspondent Frederick Remington wrote back to Hearst: "There is no war. Request to be recalled." Hearst's famous reply: "Please remain. You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war." And he did. His newspaper, continually screaming how Spanish Cuba was going to hell in a hand basket, convinced big business interests in the US to put pressure on anti-war President William McKinley to protect their Cuban investments. McKinley, in response, sent the USS Maine battleship to Havana Harbour as a calming show of force.

Three weeks after arriving, on the night of February 15, 1898, the USS Maine exploded, killing 266 men. There are two theories for the explosion: some believe the explosion was caused by an external mine that detonated the ship's ammunition magazines. Others say it was caused by a spontaneous coal bunker fire that reached the ammunition magazines. Currently, the evidence seems to favour the external mine theory._Without waiting on an investigation, America's mainstream media blamed the tragedy on Spain and beat the drums for war. By April, McKinley yielded to public pressure and signed a congressional resolution declaring war on Spain. To help pay for the Spanish-American War, congress enacted a "temporary" tax of 3 percent on long-distance telephone bills. This was essentially a tax on the rich, as only about 1,300 Americans owned phones in 1898. Although the Spanish-American War ended in 1898, the temporary tax was only abolished in... 2005. Over its lifetime, the 107-year-old tax generated almost $94 billion - more than 230 times the cost of the Spanish-American War.

The Spanish-American War put a large nail in the coffin of Spain's global empire. And by the end of 1898, the United States, which was founded in opposition to imperialism, found itself in control not only of Cuba, but of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Hawaiian Islands as well.

3. The Manchurian Incident

The economic slump following 1929's thorough and convincing near-obliteration of Wall Street hit Japan especially hard: exports fell, unemployment rose. Japan, not being rich in natural resources, needed oil and coal to make power to run machines to produce goods to sell to other countries to make money to buy food to have enough energy. Manchuria, a province of China, had its fair share of oil and coal._After Japan decided it needed to invade Manchuria, they needed a pretext to justify the invasion. They chose to create a false flag attack on a railway close to Liutiao Lake... a big flat area that had no military value to either the Japanese or the Chinese. The main reason the spot was chosen was for its proximity (about 800 meters distant) to Chinese troops stationed at Beidaying. The Japanese press labelled the no-name site of the blast Liutiaogou, which was Japanese for "Liutiao Bridge." There was no bridge there, but the name helped convince some that the sabotage was a strategic Chinese attack.

Colonel Itagaki Seishiro and Lieutenant Colonel Kanji Ishiwara ordered officers of the Shimamoto Regiment to place a bomb beneath the tracks. The original bomb failed to detonate and a replacement had to be found. Then, at 10.20pm, September 18, 1931, the tracks were blown. Surprisingly, the explosion was minor. Only one side of the rail was damaged, and the damage was so light that a train headed for Shenyang passed by only a few minutes later. But it was a good enough excuse to invade...

The Japanese immediately charged the Chinese soldiers with the destruction, then invaded Manchuria. A puppet government known as Manchukuo was installed. The League of Nations investigated and in a 1932 report denied that the invasion was an act of defence, as Japan had advertised. But rather than vacate Manchuria, Japan decided to vacate the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations.

4. Secrets of the Reichstag Fire

In 1933, just a week before general elections that might place enough Nazis in office to make Hitler defacto dictator, the Reichstag, which housed the parliament of the German Empire, was set on fire. Adolf Hitler assured everyone that communist terrorists started the fire. Hitler's party member Hermann Göring stated that he had secret evidence that would soon be made public; evidence that proved communists did it. These proclamations came on top of weeks of Nazi-organized street violence designed to whip the public into a pathological fear of communists._The next day, the Nazis convinced a senile President von Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Decree. The decree, using defence against terrorism as an excuse, suspended just about every major civil liberty set forth in the Weimar Constitution: habeus corpus (the right to know why you're being put in jail)? Gone. Freedom of opinion? Gone. Freedom of the press? Not any more. Freedom to organise and assemble? Deported. The Reichstag decree even allowed the government to spy on its own citizens' personal mail and telephone conversations without a warrant... something most Americans today could hardly begin to fathom... a precursor to President George W. Bush secret order in 2002 ordering the National Security Agency to do just exactly the same thing._So what about the fire? The only thing historians seem to agree on is that Marinus van der Lubbe, a former Dutch Communist and mentally disturbed arsonist hungry for fame, was found inside the building. Despite the Nazi attempt to blame the fire on a group of communists, the communists were later acquitted by the Nazi government itself. After years of extensive investigation, most historians believe the Hitlerites themselves set fire to the Reichstag using van der Lubbe as their patsy: they knew a nut was going to try to burn down the building and not only did they let him do it, but they may have befriended him, encouraged him and even helped the blaze spread by scattering gasoline and incendiaries._Most Germans, feeling safe from terrorism again, didn't mind that their freedom and liberty had been stolen, or that so much of their life and work had become so strictly controlled. On the contrary, they felt very enthusiastic and patriotic about the new government because they ignorantly believed the new government cared about them. And as long as the average citizen worked hard, kept his mouth shut and let his kids take part in the Hitler Youth organization, he stayed out of the detention camps.

5. The Fake Invasion at Gleiwitz

In the late evening of Thursday, August 31, 1939, German covert operatives pretending to be Polish terrorists seized the Gleiwitz radio station in the German/Poland border region of Silesia. The station's music program came to an abrupt halt, followed by frantic German voices announcing that Polish formations were marching toward town. Germany was being invaded by Poland! Then, like a bad imitation of the previous year's infamous War of the Worlds broadcast, the transmission went dead for a moment of dramatic silence. Soon, the airwaves popped and crackled to life again, and this time Polish voices called for all Poles in the broadcast area to take up arms and attack Germany. _In no time, radio stations across greater Europe picked up the story. The BBC broadcast this statement: "There have been reports of an attack on a radio station in Gleiwitz, which is just across the Polish border in Silesia. The German News Agency reports that the attack came at about 8.00pm this evening when the Poles forced their way into the studio and began broadcasting a statement in Polish. Within quarter of an hour, says reports, the Poles were overpowered by German police, who opened fire on them. Several of the Poles were reported killed, but the numbers are not yet known." And thus, Hitler invented an excuse to invade Poland, which he did the next day: September 1, 1939. World War II began.

What really happened? Alfred Helmut Naujocks received the orders from Heinrich Müller, chief of the Gestapo, to put the staged terrorist attack together at the Gleiwitz station. At Naujock's disposal were what the Germans had codenamed "canned goods," which were dissenters and criminals kept alive in detention camps until the Gestapo needed a warm dead body. To add cogency to the Gleiwitz attack, Naujocks brought along one such canned good: Franciszek Honiok. Honiok, a German from the Silesian region, was a known Polish sympathizer. Before arriving at the station, the Gestapo gave him a lethal injection. Then, they dressed him up like a Polish terrorist and brought him to the front of the radio station. Naujocks later testified that the man was unconscious, but not dead yet, when he was shot full of pistol rounds. When the police and press found Honiok's body, they assumed he'd been one of the fictional Polish terrorists that attacked the station._In all, there were 21 fake terror actions along the border that same night, many of them using "canned goods" from German prisons so there would be plenty of bodies in the morning: evidence of Polish attackers that had been shot in self defence. The next day, after a long night filled with fake terror, Hitler gave a speech to the German Army, complete with synthetic anger: "The Polish State has refused the peaceful settlement of relations which I desired, and has appealed to arms. Germans in Poland are persecuted with bloody terror and driven from their houses. A series of violations of the frontier, intolerable to a great Power, prove that Poland is no longer willing to respect the frontier of the Reich. In order to put an end to this lunacy, I have no other choice than to meet force with force from now on. The German Army will fight the battle for the honour and the vital rights of reborn Germany with hard determination. I expect that every soldier, mindful of the great traditions of eternal German soldiery, will ever remain conscious that he is a representative of the National-Socialist Greater Germany. Long live our people and our Reich!"_Had it not been for the Nuremberg trials in 1945, the real story behind the Gleiwitz attack might never have been uncovered. It was there that the operation's leader, Alfred Naujocks, spilled the beans in a written affidavit.

6. The Myth of Pearl Harbour

On Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched a sneak attack at Pearl Harbor that decimated the US Pacific Fleet and forced the United States to enter WWII. That's what most of us were taught as school children... But, except for the date, everything you just read is a myth. In reality, there was no sneak attack. The Pacific Fleet was far from destroyed. And, furthermore, the United States took great pains to bring about the assault._On January 27, 1941, Joseph C. Grew, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, wired Washington that he'd learned of the surprise attack Japan was preparing for Pearl Harbour. On September 24, a dispatch from Japanese naval intelligence to Japan's consul general in Honolulu was deciphered. The transmission was a request for a grid of exact locations of ships in Pearl Harbour. Surprisingly, Washington chose not to share this information with the officers at Pearl Harbour. Then, on November 26, the main body of the Japanese strike force (consisting of six aircraft carriers, two battleships, three cruisers, nine destroyers, eight tankers, 23 fleet submarines, and five midget submarines) departed Japan for Hawaii._Despite the myth that the strike force maintained strict radio silence, US Naval intelligence intercepted and translated many dispatches. And, there was no shortage of dispatches: Tokyo sent over 1000 transmissions to the attack fleet before it reached Hawaii. Some of these dispatches, in particular this message from Admiral Yamamoto, left no doubt that Pearl Harbour was the target of a Japanese attack: "The task force, keeping its movement strictly secret and maintaining close guard against submarines and aircraft, shall advance into Hawaiian waters, and upon the very opening of hostilities shall attack the main force of the United States fleet and deal it a mortal blow. The first air raid is planned for the dawn of x-day. Exact date to be given by later order."_Even on the night before the attack, US intelligence decoded a message pointing to Sunday morning as a deadline for some kind of Japanese action. The message was delivered to the Washington high command more than four hours before the attack on Pearl Harbour. But, as many messages before, it was withheld from the Pearl Harbour commanders.Although many ships were damaged at Pearl Harbour, they were all old and slow. The main targets of the Japanese attack fleet were the Pacific Fleet's aircraft carriers, but Roosevelt made sure these were safe from the attack: in November, at about the same time as the Japanese attack fleet left Japan, Roosevelt sent the Lexington and Enterprise out to sea. Meanwhile, the Saratoga was in San Diego._Why did Pearl Harbour happen? Roosevelt wanted a piece of the war pie. Having failed to bait Hitler by giving $50.1 billion in war supplies to Britain, the Soviet Union, France and China as part of the Lend Lease program, Roosevelt switched focus to Japan. Because Japan had signed a mutual defence pact with Germany and Italy, Roosevelt knew war with Japan was a legitimate back door to joining the war in Europe. On October 7, 1940, one of Roosevelt's military advisors, Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum, wrote a memo detailing an 8-step plan that would provoke Japan into attacking the United States. Over the next year, Roosevelt implemented all eight of the recommended actions. In the summer of 1941, the US joined England in an oil embargo against Japan. Japan needed oil for its war with China, and had no remaining option but to invade the East Indies and Southeast Asia to get new resources. And that required getting rid of the US Pacific Fleet first._Although Roosevelt may have got more than he bargained for, he clearly let the attack on Pearl Harbour happen, and even helped Japan by making sure their attack was a surprise. He did this by withholding information from Pearl Harbour's commanders and even by ensuring the attack force wasn't accidentally discovered by commercial shipping traffic. As Rear Admiral Richmond K. Turner stated in 1941: "We were prepared to divert traffic when we believed war was imminent. We sent the traffic down via the Torres Strait, so that the track of the Japanese task force would be clear of any traffic."

7. Israeli Terrorist Cell Uncovered in Egypt

In July, 1954, an Israeli terrorist cell was activated inside Egypt. The ensuing attacks, cleverly designed to look like the work of Arabs, blasted and torched American and British targets. First, the Israeli terrorists firebombed the Alexandria Post Office. Then, they firebombed the US Information Agency libraries: one in Alexandria, and one in Cairo. Then, they firebombed a British-owned Metro-Goldwyn Mayer theatre, a railway terminal, the central post office, and a couple more theatres..._To smuggle their bombs inside the buildings, the terrorists used devices shaped like books, hiding them inside book covers. Once inside, bags filled with acid were placed on top of the nitroglycerin bombs. After several hours, the acid ate through the bags and ignited the nitroglycerin, causing explosions and blazing infernos.

In the early 1950s, the United States was making fast friends with Egypt, taking advantage of the new pan-Arab Egyptian government of Gamal Abdel Nasser. The warming relationship between the US and Egypt caused a very insecure Israel to feel threatened. Nassar also had plans to nationalize the Suez Canal, which had been controlled by the British for decades. Egypt had been known to blockade Israeli shipping through the canal and Israel feared Nassar would make a blockade permanent._After US President Eisenhower began encouraging the British to leave the Suez Canal Zone, Israel started looking for a way to make the British stay, and a way to remain best buddies with America. And what better way to treat your best friend than to stab them in the back and tell them one of your other friends did it?

David Ben Gurion, Israel's founding prime minister, thought that Egyptian terrorist attacks against Americans would be a perfect way to cool the growing US/Egypt relationship. Since there were no Egyptians planning attacks against Americans, Ben Gurion's protégés did the next best thing: they recruited Israeli agents to pretend to be Egyptian terrorists._The top-secret Israeli terrorist cell, Unit 131, had existed since 1948. In 1950, Israel's Directorate of Military Intelligence Aman was created and Israel sent an undercover agent, Colonel Avraham Dar (alias: John Darling, British citizen of the island of Gibraltar), to recruit more members to Unit 131. He also trained them in how to build bombs and terrify Americans and British civilians working and living in Egypt._Before the terrorist cell was activated, another Israeli agent named Avraham (Avraham Seidenberg) was sent to take control from Avraham Dar. Seidenberg first went to Germany to establish an alias: he assumed the identy of Paul Frank, a former SS officer, complete with underground Nazi connections. By 1954, his new identity was in place and he went to Egypt to take command of Unit 131. Everything was going well for the Israeli terrorists it seemed. But, there was one thing the members of Unit 131 didn't know: their terrorist sleeper cell had itself been infiltrated by the Egyptian intelligence service. The new Unit 131 leader, Seidenberg, had betrayed them to the Egyptians. So, when Unit 131 member Philip Nathanson made his way to bomb the British-owned Rio theatre in Alexandria, not only was he being followed, the Egyptian intelligence service had a fire engine waiting to put out the flames. As Nathanson stood in the ticket line, his bad luck turned worse when one of the bombs in his pocket ignited and then exploded. Nathanson was burned but not killed. As nearby pedestrians shouted warnings and wondered if he was a suicide bomber, Egyptian policemen stepped in, calmed the crowd, and identified Nathanson as one of the terrorists who had been blowing up American and British buildings._Nathanson was interrogated by Egypt's military intelligence and confessed the whole plot, which led to more arrests. When the Israeli spies were given a public trail, all the details of their terrorist training in Israel came to light._Former Israeli Prime Minister Ben Gurion and Israel's Aman chief, Binyamin Gibli, tried to frame their own Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon. They even offered forged documents as proof. The frame-up worked for a while, so much so that the entire incident is still popularly known as the Lavon Affair. Lavon resigned and Ben Gurion came out of political retirement to replace him as Israel's Defense Minister. However, the truth did finally emerge. In 1960, a review of the inquiry discovered the fake documents, as well as perjury by Seidenberg. A committee of seven Cabinet members cleared Lavon. Although Ben Gurion never admitted fault, he did resign his post as Defense Minister.

8. Operation Northwoods

In 1962, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously proposed state-sponsored acts of terrorism on American soil, against American citizens. The head of every branch of the US armed forces gave written approval to sink US ships, shoot down hijacked American planes, and gun down and bomb civilians on the streets of Washington, D.C., and Miami. The idea was to blame the self-inflicted terrorism on Cuba's leader, Fidel Castro, so the American public would beg and scream for the Marines to storm Havana. _The public learned about Operation Northwoods 35 years later, when the Top Secret document was declassified by the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board. Among other things, Operation Northwoods proposed:_- Faking the crash of an American passenger plane. The disaster was to be accomplished by faking a commercial flight from the US to Jamaica, and having the plane boarded at a public airport by CIA agents disguised as college students going on vacation. An empty remote-controlled plane would follow the commercial flight as it left Florida. The commercial flight's pilots would radio for help, mention that they had been attacked by a Cuban fighter, then land in secret at Eglin AFB. The empty remote-controlled plane would then be blown out of the sky and the public would be told all the poor college students aboard were killed._- Using a possible NASA disaster (astronaut John Glenn's death) as a pretext to launch the war. The plan called for "manufacturing various pieces of evidence which would prove electronic interference on the part of the Cubans" if something went wrong with NASA's third manned space launch. _- Blowing up buildings in Washington and Miami. Cuban agents (undercover CIA agents) would be arrested, and they would confess to the bombings. In addition, false documents proving Castro's involvement in the attacks would be "found" and given to the press. _- Attacking an American military base in Guantanamo with CIA recruits posing as Cuban mercenaries. This involved blowing up the ammunition depot and would obviously result in material damages and many dead American troops. As a last resort, the plan even mentioned bribing one of Castro's commanders to initiate the Guantanamo attack. That deserves repeating: the Pentagon considered using our tax dollars to bribe another country's military to attack our own troops in order to instigate a full-scale war.

Operation Northwoods was only one of several plans under the umbrella of Operation Mongoose. Shortly after the Joint Chiefs signed and presented the plan in March, 1962, President Kennedy, still smarting from the Bay of Pigs fiasco, declared that he would never authorize a military invasion of Cuba. In September, Kennedy denied the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Lyman Lemnitzer, a second term as the nation's highest ranking military officer. And by the winter of 1963, Kennedy was dead... killed, apparently, by a Cuban sympathiser in the streets of an American city.

9. Phantoms in the Gulf of Tonkin

On August 2, 1964, three North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked a US destroyer, the USS Maddox. The boats reportedly fired torpedoes at the US ship in international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin, about thirty miles off the Vietnam coast. On August 4, the US Navy reported another unprovoked attack on the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy._Within hours, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a retaliatory strike. As the bases for North Vietnamese torpedo boats were bombed, Johnson went on TV and told America: "Repeated acts of violence against the armed forces of the United States must be met not only with alert defense, but with a positive reply. That reply is being given as I speak tonight." The next day, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara assured Capital Hill that the Maddox had only been "carrying out a routine mission of the type we carry out all over the world at all times." McNamara said the two boats were in no way involved with recent South Vietnamese boat raids against North Vietnamese targets._At Johnson's request, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. The resolution pre-approved any military actions Johnson would take. It gave Johnson a free ticket to wage war in Vietnam as large as the President wanted. And, true to his large Texas roots, Johnson got a big war: by 1969, over half a million US troops were fighting in Indochina. Despite McNamara's testimony to the contrary, the USS Maddox had been providing intelligence support to South Vietnamese boats carrying out raids against North Vietnam. McNamara had also testified that there was "unequivocable proof" of an "unprovoked" second attack against the USS Maddox. In fact, the second attack never occurred at all._At the time of the second incident, the two US destroyers misinterpreted radar and radio signals as attacks by the North Vietnamese navy. It's now known that no North Vietnamese boats were in the area. So, for two hours, the two US destroyers blasted away at nonexistent radar targets and vigorously manoeuvred to avoid phantom North Vietnamese ships. Even though the second "attack" only involved two US ships defending themselves against a nonexistent enemy, the President and Secretary of Defense used it to coerce Congress and the American people to start a war they neither wanted nor needed._After the Vietnam War turned into a quagmire, Congress decided to put limits on the President's authority to unilaterally wage war. Thus, on November 7, 1973, Congress overturned President Nixon's veto and passed the War Powers Resolution. The resolution requires the President to consult with Congress before making any decisions that engage the US military in hostilities. It is still in effect to this day.

10. The September 11, 2001 Attacks

Like many buildings built in the 1970s, the twin towers were constructed with vast quantities of cancer-causing asbestos. The cost of removing the Twin Tower asbestos? A year's worth of revenues at a minimum; possibly as much as the value of the buildings themselves. The cost to disassemble the Twin Towers floor by floor would have run into the double-digit billions. In addition, the Port Authority was prohibited from demolishing the towers because the resulting asbestos dust would cover the entire city, which it did when they collapsed, resulting in many cancers with a confirmed link to the WTC dust._Despite its questionable status, in January of 2001, Larry Silverstein made a $3.2 billion bid for the World Trade Center. On July 24, the Port Authority accepted the offer. Silverstein then took out an insurance policy that, understandably, covered terrorist attacks, which happened seven weeks later. To date, Silverstein has been awarded almost $5 billion from nine different insurance companies. What was an asbestos nightmare turned into a $1.8 billion profit within seven weeks.

Donald Rumsfeld said about the Pentagon on the morning of September 10, 2001: "According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions." That bombshell was pretty much forgotten by the next morning. So, as a reward for losing $8,000 for every man, woman, and child in America, taxpayers patriotically forked over another $370 billion and counting to invade Iraq. True to form, the Pentagon promptly lost $9 billion of that money, too.

Eight days after the attacks, the 342-page Patriot Act was given to Congress. That same week, letters armed with anthrax from a US military lab entered the mail. Subsequently, while Congressional offices were evacuated, examined, cleaned and nasal cavities swabbed, the Patriot Act remained largely unread. Then, with little debate, the Patriot Act became law, giving the Bush administration unprecedented power to access people's medical records, tax records, information about the books they bought or borrowed and the power to conduct secret residential searches without notifying owners that their homes had been searched.

In early 2001, executives from Shell, BP, and Exxon met with Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force while it was developing its new national energy policy. Later, the companies freely admitted interest in profiting from Iraq's oil fields, even before the US invaded Iraq. And now? A new Iraq hydrocarbon law expected to pass in March 2007 will open the door for international investors, led by BP, Exxon and Shell, to siphon off 75 percent of Iraq oil wealth for the next thirty years.

According to statements by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a Bronze Star recipient with 22 years of experience in intelligence operations, a classified intelligence program codenamed Able Danger had uncovered two of the three 9/11 terrorist cells a year before the attacks and had identified four of the hijackers. Shaffer alerted the FBI in September of 2000, but the meetings he tried to set up with bureau officials were repeatedly blocked by military lawyers. Four credible witnesses have come forward to verify Shaffer's claims. _In August 2001, a Pan Am International Flight Academy instructor warned the FBI that a student (Zacarias Moussaoui) might use a commercial plane loaded with fuel as a weapon. The instructor asked "Do you realize that a 747 loaded with fuel can be used as a bomb?" Moussaoui was then arrested on immigration charges, but despite the repeated urging of the school and local agents, FBI headquarters refused a deeper investigation. The US also received dozens of detailed warnings (names, locations, dates) from the intelligence agencies of Indonesia, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Egypt, Jordan, India, Argentina, Morocco, Russia, Israel, France and even the Taliban. It would seem that the entire world was onto the bungling Saudi hijackers and somewhat perplexed that the US wasn't taking preventative actions. But in each case the US, as if by design, chose not to investigate. Instead. Condoleezza Rice, on May 16, 2002, stated: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon."_We also know that on the morning of 9/11, multiple Air Force war games and drills were in progress. The hijackers would have never made it to their targets without these war games: Operation Northern Vigilance ensured that many jet fighters that would have normally been patrolling the east coast were flying over Alaska and northern Canada in a drill that simulated a Russian air attack, complete with false radar blips. _Remarkably, operation Vigilant Guardian simulated hijacked planes in the north eastern sector, while real hijackers were in the same airspace. This drill had NORAD and the Air Force reacting to false blips on FAA radar screens. Some of these blips corresponded to real military aircraft in the air posing as hijacked aircraft. That's why when NORAD's airborne control officer, Lt. Col. Dawne Deskins, heard Boston claim it had a hijacked airliner, her first words were, "It must be part of the exercise."

Changing colours

If you follow the money, you can see that the people with the most to gain occupied the key military and civilian positions to help 9/11 happen, as well as to cover up the crime. Such is the hallmark of false flag operations throughout history. But the incredible scale of the 9/11 sham, and the sheer number of people who still refuse to see the mountain of truth in front of their eyes...that's what makes the September 11, 2001 attacks the greatest false flag operation of all time._Hermann Göring stated: "Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine 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."_Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf, a book still forbidden in some countries (such as France), wrote: "In the size of the lie there is always contained a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people...will more easily fall victim to a great lie than to a small one."

Joe Crubaugh is a freelance writer, artist, and software consultant.

[Dec 10, 2010] Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff White House Cabinet Member Suggested Killing an American Service Man to Justify by George Washington

12/10/2010 Washington's Blog

On Monday, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Hugh Shelton told told Jon Stewart that a Clinton cabinet member proposed letting Saddam kill an American pilot as a pretext for war in Iraq:

And see this.

This might seem, at first glance, like just an odd, one-off suggestion.

However, as reported by the New York Times and other newspapers, George W. Bush also suggested to Tony Blair that a U.S. plane be painted in United Nations colors so that - if Saddam shot it down - it would create a casus belli. As the Times wrote in 2006:

The memo [confirmed by two senior British officials as being authentic] also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire ....

And it's not just the current war in Iraq. As I've previously pointed out, war is always sold to it's people by artificially demonizing the enemy:

Countries need to lie about their enemies in order to demonize them sufficiently so that the people will support the war. That is why intelligence "failures" - such as the following - are so common:

And governments from around the world have admitted that - for many years - they have used false flag incidents to sell their people on the wars they wish to launch.

For example:

There are many other instances of false flag attacks used throughout history proven by the historical evidence. See this, this and this. The above are only some examples of governments admitting to using false flag terror.

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