False-Flag Operation: Difference between revisions

'''King Richard IV''': Oh yes... Well, er, get them to dress up as Germans, will you? |''[[Blackadder|The Black Adder]]''}}

* Pretending to be an enemy and [[Wounded Gazelle Gambit|attacking]] ''[[Wounded Gazelle Gambit|yourself'']]'', to [[Pretext for War|justify a counterattack]];

This is an example of [[Truth in Television]], since false flag operations have been used in real life to do all of this. It's generally frowned upon by the [[The Laws and Customs of War|Geneva Convention]]. You're allowed to do it in naval warfare, but have to raise your true colours before opening fire.

* In ''[[Transformers: Robots in Disguise]]'', the Predacons disguise themselves as Autobots and fire on the Decepticons, hoping that the two groups will annihilate each other.

* In an issue of ''[[G.I. Joe]]: Special Missions'', the [[G.I. Joe]] team breaks a group of Russian soldiers out of prison in Afghanistan while posing as Russian military, and then gets the Russians to undertake a mission for them in the Middle East, posing as members of [[G.I. Joe]] in a bizarre double [[False-Flag Operation]].

* In a move that borders on [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]], the Stunticons of all groups pull this in the course of the original ''[[Transformers]]'' Marvel comic run. They end up realizing that the anti-robot human organization RAAT and their [[Psycho Electro]] [[Broken Bird]] Circuit Breaker are indiscriminately targeting Transformers, completely blind to faction affiliations. They wise up to the fact faster than the Autobots, and during a battle with the Aerialbots, the Stunticons rally around the Autobot Skids, pretending to protect him from his allies, and ultimately convincing the mentally unhinged Circuit Breaker that her hunch was right--allright—all the robots were working in concert to overthrow Earth and that the factions are just a ruse. Naturally, she attacks the Aerialbots while the Stunticons make a hasty escape. This is a case of an inverted false flag operation, with one faction pretending to protect their enemies in the middle of a clear fight between the two groups in order to have their ''mutual'' enemies start blindly attacking. Now bear in mind that this is the ''[[Teeth-Clenched Teamwork|Stunticons]]'' we're talking about here.

* A favorite of [[Big Bad|Big Bads]]s in many [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] movies.

* In Terry Gilliam's ''[[Brazil (film)|Brazil]]'', random bombings occassionallyoccasionally erupt, and are implied to be false flags.

* In ''[[Eighth8th Wonderland]]'', the countries opposing the virtual nation initiate bombings and blaimblame [[Eighth8th Wonderland]] for them.

* The film version of ''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (film)|The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]'' starts with the Fantom and his [[Mook|Mooks]]s attacking the Bank of England in London disguised as Germans and speaking German. They then attack a zeppelin factory in Berlin disguised as British soldiers. This is done for two purposes. First, the Fantom wants to escalate the animosity between the European powers in order to start [[World War OneI]]. Second, he wants the gold and plans for the foundation of Venice in the Bank of England and German scientists to design new war machines. Once the war starts, he wants to sell advanced weapons to both sides.

* [[Joseph Conrad]]'s novel ''[[The Secret Agent]]'' involves a combination of false flagging and an agent provocateur -- theprovocateur—the main character is a member of the Tsarist secret police and he joins an anarchist group in London and plants a bomb in the Royal Greenwich Observatory to discredit them.

* Subverted in the ''[[Discworld]]'' novel ''[[Discworld/Jingo|Jingo]]''. {{spoiler|There is an assassination attempt on a <s>Arabi</s>Klatchian dignitary, and the evidence that the Klatchians themselves were behind it (i.e. the assassin was paid with foreign currency and there was ''sand on the floor'') is so insultingly obvious, Commander Vimes assumes someone in Ankh-Morpork was framing them to make it look like they were trying to provoke a war. A Klatchian turns out to have planted the evidence to [[I Know You Know I Know|hide the fact that he did hire an assassin]] for this very purpose. After a couple hundred pages of [[Moral of the Story|messages]] against racism, the author points out that true equality means giving minorities the chance to be bastards.}}

* In one of Daniel Silva's novels about an Israeli spy, the hero is captured by Palestinian terrorists who want to place him at a suicide bombing in France they carry out as a [[False-Flag Operation]] framing Israel for a [[False-Flag Operation]], like the odious conspiracy theory Israel was behind 9/11. Sadly, it works at least temporarily all too well.

** For a more straight-up example, see ''[[Red Storm Rising]]'', when the KGB sets up a bombing of the Politburo to manufacture a ''[[casus belli]]'' as part of their "maskirovka" (Russian for "camouflage" or "concealment").

* In Graham McNeill's [[Warhammer 4000040,000]] [[Ultramarines (novel)|Ultramarines]] novel ''Nightbringer'', Vedden and his men disguised themselves as Arbites and attacked [[Powder Keg Crowd|a demonstration, to produce a riot]].

** ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Star Trek Enterprise]]'' did this one when the Romulans used a ship with a holographic display to fake various species around human space to try and get them fighting each other. Brilliantly unsuccessfully, as it turns out, as the joint effort to find and defeat the ship forms the basis for the Federation and Starfleet.

* In ''[[V (TV series)|V]]'', the Visitors use a staged terrorist attack against a Visitor-run chemical processing plant as grounds to institute martial law throughout most of the world. ''V'' being loosely based on the rise of fascism in pre-[[WWII]] Germany, this incident was inspired by the Reichstag fire of 1933, supposedly set by Nazi operatives posing as Communists.

** Also in ''[[V (TV series)|V]]'' the Visitors claim a conspiracy by Earth scientists is the reason they must take control, to keep order.

* The Drakh run a [[False-Flag Operation]] to get the entire galaxy mad at the Centauri in ''[[Babylon 5]]''.

* In ''[[Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri]]'', the [[Spiritual Successor]] to ''[[Civilization]]'', your Probe Teams can perform various acts of terrorism at your opponents - and with an aditionaladditional expenditure in Energy Credits, and a somewhat higher risk of failure, blame it on another faction at the same time. Takes a lot of guts and funding, but can truly work wonders.

** ThisIn is''[[Master alsoof Orion]]'' framing another empire is an option for ''very'' successful spy missions. inOr ''Masterjust Ofabout Orion'any spy mission if you're playing the Darloks.

** One quest in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' on the Horde side involves setting the [[Knight Templar|Scarlet Crusade]] (even more) against [[The Undead|The Scourge]] by burning down their camp and planting a literal false flag.

* In ''[[End WarEndWar]]'', a new World War erupts when the European Federation, leery of the United States achieving clear military dominance through completion of a militarized space station, fund terrorist attacks on them and when that fails, they use their anti-ballistic-missile [[Kill Sat]] to shoot down the [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|Freedom IV]] shuttle headed up to complete the station. ''Actually,'' the terrorists were funded by ''Russia,'' who was leery of being the world's largest supplier of oil once several other nations have hit Hubbert's Peak, and wanted the US to declare war on Europe so they could "aid their allies" in making Europe go away before the United States and Europe would turn Russia into Iraq II for their oil. As false flag operations go, this one is subverted; the plan goes off without a hitch...until the United States wigs right out when Russia starts making gains in the conflict and declares war on them, too.

* In ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'', [[Aristocrats Are Evil|Dycedarg Beoulve and Duke Larg]] [[Evil Plan|conspire to have Princess Ovelia kidnapped]] (and subsequently assassinated) [[False-Flag Operation|by agents wearing the colors of Larg's rival]], Duke Goltanna. This would remove Goltanna as a rival to the crown and allow Larg to enthrone his own candidate, Prince Orinus. However, the captain of the operation, a sellsword named [[The Chessmaster|Delita]], is actually a [[Double Agent]] working in Goltanna's favor, and instead [[Out-Gambitted|has Larg's agents die to Ovelia's bodyguards]] [[Gambit Pileup|as he rescues the princess himself and delivers her to]] [[Corrupt Church|the Church]].

** Likewise in Rome; the VCI are hired to set off a "terrorist" attack, in order to influence an upcoming vote on terror and terror protection device system [[Buffy-Speak|things]]. Beyond that, of course, the evil plot is a [[False-Flag Operation]] writ large; Halbech wants to keep the world angry and scared so they'll continue buying Halbech systems; The China/Taiwan war will make a huge market for weapons, as will the continued hunt for terrorists in the Middle East following the airliner incident that kicks everything off, and the Italian paranoia over terrorists will provide an endless market for terrorist-stopping systems.

** This happens again near the end. {{spoiler|[[Decoy Protagonist|Vaan]] uses [[Sky Pirate|Balthier's]] [[Chekhov's Gun|vocal modulator]] to pose as [[Magnificent Bastard|Larsa]] [[The Wise Prince|Solidor]] to convince [[Wild Card|Marquis Ondore]] to hold back his [[Leeroy Jenkins|airship charge]] against the [[Airborne Aircraft Carrier|Sky]] [[Cool Airship|Fortress Bahamut]] so they can board it and have a shot at taking out [[Big Bad|Vayne]] and the [[Wave Motion Gun|Mist Cannon]] before it [[Nuke'Em|destroys Ondore's fleet]] and [[Colony Drop|drops the rubble on Rabanastre]].}}

* In the first episode of ''[[The Legend of Calamity Jane]]'', outlaw Bill Doolin fakes raids by both the Comanche tribe and the CalvaryCavalry, threatening to cause already-poor relations to flare into war. The long-term implications don't really concern him, though -- hethough—he just wants to draw security off of a shipment of gold.

* Some claim the Israeli attack on the [[wikipedia:USS Liberty incident|USS ''Liberty'']] during the Six Days War was one of these. On the one hand, the fact that Israel quickly accepted blame for the incident, claiming it to have been a tragic mistake, sort of defeats the notion of it being a "false flag". On the other hand, there is still much controversy over aspects of the incident and how deliberate it may have been, and the theory that Israel would have shifted responsibility to Egypt, if it could have, is certainly in the spirit of the term.

* The German police has used (and may still use) agent''agents provocateurs'' during demonstrations to start riots and give their uniformed comrades a reason to crack down on the demonstrators. It backfired at least once, when the uniformed riot cops battered a group of protestorsprotesters, including some undercover officers. It would have been hillarioushilarious, if it hadn`'t been for the dozens of injured protestorsprotesters.

* The Gleiwitz incident mentioned above, when Nazi Germany provided justification for its war with Poland at the start of World War II by dressinghaving some soldiers dress up in Polish uniforms, then attackingattack a German radio outpost whileand leavingbroadcast behindanti-German amessages. body,Then they dressed up concentration camp prisoners as Polish soldiers and shot them "in self-defense". It was just one of a number of independent operations collectively named "Operation Himmler". Noteworthy in that this was such an [[Epic Fail]] (absolutely no one believed it), the fact that Germany claimed self-defense as a reason to go to war is regarded as an interesting bit of trivia instead of an important historical fact.

** Westboro Baptist Church attempted this on Anonymous as well. However, Anonymous called them out on it, basically saying that Westboro wasn't worth their time, despite how odious Anonymous found them. When told during an interview by a representative of the Westboro Baptist Church that the hack could have been Anonymous, despite assertions from the Anonymous representative that the hacks lacked all the signatures of a typical Anonymous attack, the Anonymous representative proceeded to ''[[Refuge in Audacity|hack the Westboro Baptist Church website while on the air]]'' to demonstrate how easy it was, and to post a message about how ludicrous the church was being.

* [[Rush Limbaugh]]'s "Operation Chaos" during the 2008 Democratic primaries certainly tried its very hardest to be one of those. The idea was for Republicans to switch their party registration to Democrat and then vote for [[Hillary Clinton]] (the underdog, at that point) in the primaries, in an effort to draw the primaries out and encourage more intra-party warfare between Clinton and Obama supporters, with the end result of a divided Democratic Party, who would then lose to the Republicans in the general election. How well it succeeded in its initial goals is debatable -- thedebatable—the primary fight went through all 50 states (an event not seen in American politics for close to 40 years prior), and False Flagging Republicans certainly had ''some'' effect, but it's hard to know precisely how much and where. How well it succeeded in the "split the Democrats down the middle and make McCain win" goal is a bit more obvious.

** This had more to do with the fact that the West viewed him as being potentially useful in any shooting war with the Soviets than because they believed he was on the up and up. Indeed, they actually went so far as to hang a noose in his bedroom with an attached note saying that he would make himself avalibleavailable to Western high command or he would be in effect placing his neck into said noose.

* Whenever a crime is committed by a member of a radical political faction in a first-world country (the KKK, for instance), expect its members to claim that it was a [[False-Flag Operation]] and that the culprit was a patsy for [[The Government]].

* The [[wikipedia:Lindsay pamphlet scandal|Lindsay Pamphlet Scandal]]: Prior to the 2007 Australian election, Liberal Party members were caught distributing pamphlets porportedlypurportedly from a radical Muslim organisation (that did not actually exist) [[Your Approval Fills Me with Shame|supporting]] the Labor Party.

* In 66 AD, a band of Jewish Zealots known as the ''Sicarii'' infiltrated the city of Jerusalem and procededproceeded to commit a series of atrocities against ''their own people'' in order to ensure that they would have no choice but to continue warring with the Romans rather than negotiate for peace.

* This is what [[Troll|trollstroll]]s use the anonymity of the internet for.

* Mountain Meadows. Possibly [[Truth in Television|the inspiration for]] the scene with Sand People in ''[[Star Wars]]'', wasWas basically Mormons pretending to be Indians and attacking emigrants moving through the area.

* The presence of [[Pinkerton Detective|Pinkerton Detectives]]s as agent provocateurs has been suspected in the Haymarket Riots; if not the bombing itself, the violences of the previous day.

* According to Occupy Wall Street, just about any incident of anybody in the protest doing no-nos like setting a fire, breaking a store front window, or throwing something at the cops is '"clear evidence of agent provocateurs sent by the police, the 1% and The Man to discredit the movement'". Suggesting otherwise will either garner a link to the Wikipedia article on COINTELPRO, or a very Hipster-like sneer of how you '"just don't get it'", or the more amusing suggestion that you, yourself are in fact an agent of the government.

** There have also been a lot of documented agent provocateur activities, both recently{{when}} and a while back. In 1977, CBS News obtained a US Army document that detailing plans for dealing with protesters at the 1968 DNC. According to the document, about one out of 6 people at the protests was an FBI agent or some other type of government agent.

** The same can be said of the [[Conspiracy Theorist|more radical]] opponents of the US/NATO intervention in the [[Libya|Libyan]]n civil war. There were claims flying all over the internet that the rebels were CIA stooges and that Gaddafi otherwise had the people's full support.

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