CAPITULO IV IV.2.4 ASPECTOS SOCIOECONÓMICOS
DESARROLLO ECONÓMICO
Operation Northwoods
Operation Northwoods memorandum (13 March 1962).[18]
The planned, but never executed, 1962Operation North- woods 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 mili- tary 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 ofFidel Castro's communist govern- ment. It was authored by theJoint Chiefs of Staff, but then rejected by President John F. Kennedy. The sur- prise discovery of the documents relating to Operation Northwoods was a result of the comprehensive search for records related to theassassination of President John F. Kennedyby theAssassination Records Review Boardin the mid-1990s.[20] Information about Operation North- woods was later publicized byJames Bamford.[21]
17.3 As a tactic to undermine polit-
ical opponents
17.3.1 Reichstag fire
Main article:Reichstag fire
TheReichstag firewas anarsonattack on theReichstag buildingin Berlin on 27 February 1933. The fire started in the Session Chamber,[22] and, by the time the police and firemen arrived, the mainChamber of Deputieswas engulfed in flames. Police searched the building and found Marinus van der Lubbe, a young Dutch council communistand unemployed bricklayer, who had recently arrived in Germany to carry out political activities. The fire was used as evidence by the Nazis that the Communistswere beginning a plot against the German government. Van der Lubbe and four Communist leaders were subsequently arrested.Adolf Hitler, who was sworn in asChancellor of Germany four weeks before, on 30 January, urged PresidentPaul von Hindenburgto pass an emergency decree to counter the “ruthless confrontation of theCommunist Party of Germany".[23]With civil lib- erties suspended, the government instituted mass arrests of Communists, including all of the Communist parlia- mentary delegates. With their bitter rival Communists gone and their seats empty, the National Socialist Ger- man Workers Party went from being apluralityparty to themajority; 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 Ger- man 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]
17.3.2 Project TP-Ajax
Main article:1953 Iranian coup d'état
On 4 April 1953, theCIAwas ordered to undermine the government of Iran over a four-month period, as a precur- sor to overthrowing Prime MinisterMohammad Mosad- degh.[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 de- termined 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]
92 CHAPTER 17. FALSE FLAG
17.3.3
2008 Kurcha incident
In 2008 there was ashootingagainst two minibuses driv- ing along in a volatile area right on the border between Abkhaziaand the republic ofGeorgia. The buses were carrying Georgians who lived in Abkhazia and wanted to cross the border so they could go and vote in the parlia- mentary election that day.
The country had been experiencing internal political tur- moil for the last year, and in an attempt to calm the situation, president Mikheil Saakashvilimoved 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 Zug- didi, where president Saakashvili later arrived and was filmed by TV at the patients’ bedside.
In his comments on TV, which dominated the news dur- ing 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 pres- ident 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 in- vestigation, particularly the suggestion that the filming of the attack seemed anticipatory.[29]
A Georgian investigative TV documentary later found that camera crew from the government-friendly channel Rustavi 2 had been in position with their equipment be- fore the shooting took place.
17.4 Pseudo-operations
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-termintelligenceor to engage in active operations, in particularassassinationsof 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; how- ever, military provide the structure needed to back up such pseudo-ops with military response forces. Accord- ing 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 respec- tive military intelligence systems.”
Charlemagne Péralteof Haiti was assassinated in 1919, after checkpoints were passed by military disguised as guerrilla fight- ers
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 Armysupporters 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. Hannekenleading a patrol of his Haitian Gendarmerie disguised as enemy guerrillasin 1919. The Patrol successfully passed sev- eral enemy checkpoints in order to assassinate the guerilla leader Charlemagne Péralte near Grande-Rivière-du- Nord. Hanneken was awarded theMedal of Honorand was commissioned a Second Lieutenant for his deed. During theMau Mau uprisingin the 1950s, captured Mau Mau members who switched sides and specially trained British troops initiated the pseudo-gang concept to suc- cessfully counter Mau Mau. In 1960Frank Kitson, (who was later involved in theNorthern Irish conflictand is now
17.5. ESPIONAGE 93
a retired British General), published Gangs and Counter-
gangs, an account of his experiences with the technique
inKenya; 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 over- sight of pseudo-operations include theSelous Scoutsin the former countryRhodesia(nowZimbabwe), 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 Rhode- sia, by 1977 they were controlled by COMOPS (Com- mander, Combined Operations) Commander Lieutenant GeneralPeter 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 ap- proximately 800 insurgents who were then paid by Spe- cial Branch, ultimately reaching the number of 1,500 members. Engaging mainly in long-range reconnaissance and surveillance missions, they increasingly turned to of- fensive actions, including the attempted assassination of Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army leader Joshua NkomoinZambia. This mission was finally aborted by the Selous Scouts, and attempted again, unsuccessfully, by theRhodesian Special Air Service.[31]
Some offensive operations attracted international con- demnation, 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 byJosiah Tongogara. Using Rhodesian trucks and armored cars disguised as Mozam- bique military vehicles, 84 scouts killed 1,284 people in the camp-the camp was registered as arefugee campby theUnited 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 John- son, 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 dis- banded 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 acivil waror during abelligerent military occupationthen those who participate in such actions would not beprivileged belligerents. The princi- ple ofplausible deniabilityis usually applied for pseudo- teams. (See the above section Laws of war). Some false flag operations have been described by Lawrence E. Cline, a retiredUS Army intelligenceofficer, as pseudo-
operations, or “the use of organized teams which are dis- guised as guerrilla groups for long- or short-term pene- tration ofinsurgent-controlled areas.”
Pseudo Operations should be distinguished, notes Cline, from the more common police or intelligenceinfiltration 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 or- ganized units, usually military orparamilitary. The use of pseudo teams has been a hallmark of a number of foreign counterinsurgencycampaigns.”[30]
Similar false flag tactics were also employed during the Algerian civil war, starting in the middle of 1994. Death squadscomposed ofDépartement du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (DRS) security forces disguised them- selves as Islamist terrorists and committed false flag ter- ror 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 theDirection de la surveillance du territoire(Territorial Surveillance Di- rectorate, or DST) whose mission was to carry out terror- ist attacks with the aim of quashing any hopes of political compromise”.[36]
17.5 Espionage
Main article:False flag penetrator
Inespionagethe term “false flag” describes the recruit- ing 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 Germancivil servants were tricked into stealing classified documents by agents of theEast German Stasiintelligence service, pretending to be members of West German peace advocacy groups (the Stasi agents were also described as "Romeos,” indi- cating 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 sus- pect and pose as an agent of the enemy.Earl Edwin Pitts, a 13-year veteran of the U.S.Federal Bureau of Investiga- tionand an attorney, was caught when he was approached by FBI agents posing as Russian agents.
British intelligence officials in World War II allowed dou- ble agents to fire-bomb a power station and a food dump in theUKto protect their cover, according todeclassified documents. The documents stated the agents took pre- cautions to ensure they did not cause serious damage.
94 CHAPTER 17. FALSE FLAG
One of the documents released also stated: “It should be recognised that friends as well as enemies must be com- pletely deceived.”[38]
17.6 Civilian usage
While false flag operations originate in warfare and gov- ernment, they also can occur in civilian settings among certain factions, such as businesses, special interest groups, religions, political ideologies and campaigns for office.
17.6.1
Businesses
In business and marketing, similar operations are be- ing employed in some public relationscampaigns (see Astroturfing). Telemarketing firms practice false flag type behavior when they pretend to be amarket research firm (referred to as "sugging"). In some rare cases, mem- bers 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.
17.6.2
Political campaigning
Political campaigning has a long history of this tactic in various forms, including in person, print media and elec- tronically in recent years. This can involve when sup- porters of one candidate pose as supporters of another, or act as “straw men” for their preferred candidate to de- bate against. This can happen with or without the can- didate’s knowledge. TheCanuck letteris 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, GovernorLawton Chiles' ran a false flag operation that paid for tens of thou- sands of calls to elderly voters using false organization names. The calls purported to be from Republican groups and told voters thatJeb Bushwas against Social Security and seniors. Chiles’ denied his campaign was behind the calls. After winning re-election and facing an investiga- tion, 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] afterblogcomments claiming to be from supporters of a political candidate were traced to theIP addressof 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 theprotestsagainst Walker’s proposed restric- tions on public employees’collective bargainingrights:
“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]
17.6.3 Ideological
Proponents of political or religious ideologies will some- times use false flag tactics. This can be done to discredit or implicate rival groups, create the appearance of ene- mies when none exist, or create the illusion of organized and directed opposition when in truth, the ideology is simply unpopular with society.
A bomb threat forged by Scientology operatives
In retaliation for writingThe Scandal of Scientology, some members of the Church of Scientologystole stationery from authorPaulette Cooper's home and then used that stationery to forge bomb threats and have them mailed to a Scientology office. TheGuardian’s Officealso had a plan for further operations to discredit Cooper known as Operation Freakout, but several Scientology opera- tives were arrested in a separate investigation and the plan failed.[44]
17.7 See also
17.7.1 Concepts
• Agent provocateur • Black propaganda • Casus belli • Covert operation• Denial and deception