Beware the False Flag Event

Here’s the storyline: An immigrant enters the United States from a Muslim country.  He is able to acquire weapons, and also makes an explosive vest. He goes to an event or a Christian church. Once there, he opens fire and sets off his vest, killing and maiming dozens of innocent men, women and children. That night, Trump gives an emotional televised address to a shocked nation. In his speech, he tells the American people that this event would never have happened if his ban on Muslims entering the U.S. had been allowed to stand. His supporters are energized while detractors are left trying to counter an emotionally charged argument with dry facts and numbers.

How convenient, right? The event just happens to bolster Trump’s view that every Muslim is a potential terrorist and would like nothing more than to kill Americans. He tried to keep us safe, but was thwarted by activist judges and naïve liberals. Now some of us might say the timing of this event is too good to be true, and we might be right. It could be a false flag event.

What is a false flag event? It is an act of violence or sabotage that appears to be perpetrated by an enemy, but which was actually planned and carried out by the aggrieved party to further a desired agenda. A good example of a false flag event was Operation Northwoods. In the early 1960s, communist Cuba represented a huge thorn in the side of the United States. Agencies within our government drafted a proposal to stage hijackings and bombings of American civilian airliners in air space between the two countries in order to gain public support for an attack on Cuba. The plan was never carried out, but it is a well-documented case of how to stage a false flag event.

False flag operations have been around at least since the height of the Roman Empire, but there are many recent examples, as well. In the late 1800s, Spanish controlled Cuba was becoming too rebellious for the likes of America’s sugar, tobacco and iron industries and something needed to be done to quell the uprising. At the time, President McKinnley was not interested in a war with Spain, but on February 15, 1898 the USS Maine exploded and 266 U.S. sailors lost their lives. No one actually knows what caused the explosion, but the incident was used by the press and large corporations as a way to force McKinnley to go to war with Spain.

In1933, Hitler’s Nazi party was on the verge of gaining enough seats to install Hitler as a defacto dictator, but the outcome of the upcoming elections was not certain. A week before the elections, the Reichstag, which housed the German parliament, caught on fire and was destroyed. Hitler used the event to blame communist terrorists for the fire and was swept into power. Most historians agree that the Nazis either started the fire or encouraged a deranged man to do the deed so they could blame the communists.

There are other examples, including the bogus Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 that President Johnson used to dramatically increase America’s presence in Vietnam. Some false flag events are speculative, like Pearl Harbor and the events of 9/11, while others are well documented. The point is, false flag operations have proven to be useful tools in garnering public support for unpopular government actions.

All of that considered, would anyone put it past the morally bankrupt Trump administration to stage an event to further its dark agenda?

Can we handle the truth about our violent country?

As Americans, we love to characterize ourselves as a peace-loving nation that only commits acts of violence in self-defense or to aid our allies. Like so many of our bedtime stories about our country, it is a myth that sounds great in a political stump speech but isn’t borne out by the facts. Here are a few of those nasty, inconvenient facts:

We are a country born of violent revolution, and America has been at war 222 years out of 239 years since 1776.

The 2013 Global Peace Index by Vision of Humanity ranks the United States 100 out of 162 countries, behind countries like Sierra Leone, Mongolia, Brazil, Morocco, and Nicaragua. The organization defines peace as: "Harmony achieved by the absence of war, conflict or violence or fear of the aforementioned."

When the battleship U.S.S. Maine exploded and sank in Havana harbor in 1898, this was the last push needed to force America into a war with Spain. The explosion and loss of life was blamed on Spanish forces, even though it was actually the result of a smoldering coal bunker fire that melted through a bulkhead into an ammunition locker.

A plan to attack American cities to justify war with Cuba was approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962. Rejected by President Kennedy, Operation Northwoods remained classified for 35 years.

In 1964, President Johnson used the Gulf of Tonkin incident, where it was claimed a U.S. ship was attacked by North Vietnam, to greatly escalate our military presence in South Vietnam. Later declassified documents revealed there was no attack on the ship by the North Vietnamese.

America invaded Iraq in 2003 based on claims that the country presided over by Saddam Hussien had concealed weapons of mass destruction, an active nuclear weapons program and was a supporter of al Qaeda, none of which proved to be true.

The A.C. Nielsen Company estimates that the average child will see 8,000 murders on television by the time he or she completes elementary school, and a given child will view over 200,000 acts of violence by the age of 18.

America has a homicide rate of 4.7 murders per 100,000 people, which is one of the highest of all developed countries.

The United States is by far the world's biggest arms exporter.

The U.S. has recently supplied firearms, armored vehicles, and items from a category that includes chemical and riot control agents like tear gas to nations with records of suppressing democratic dissent such as Algeria, Egypt, and Peru.

In 2013, the United States sent Israel at least $196 million in parts for military airplanes and helicopters, a category that includes F-16 fighter jets and Apache helicopters, both of which Israel is currently using to attack Gazan homes, offices and farmland. Total military aid sent by the U.S. to Israel stands at $3 billion annually.

America has secretly supported brutal dictatorships around the globe since the end of World War II, from Chili’s Augusto Pinochet to Libya’s Gaddafi to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah.

Since the War on Terror began, 41 men have been targeted for drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan. These strikes caused 1,147 deaths, and some of the targets are still believed to be alive. The Council on Foreign Relations estimates that drones have killed 3,674 people outside of Pakistan and Afghanistan.