False Flags

In our modern world of conspiracy theories and paranoia, I feel that it's more important than ever to understand the definition of a "false flag." In simple terms, a false flag is any kind of hostile action meant to antagonize a certain group while at the same time masking those responsible. Almost always you will see false flags being used in history to try and provoke or even give a reason to justify a country for going to war. Below is a catalogue of various examples through history of when these acts of inception have lead to international conflict:

• 1964 Gulf of Tonkin - A naval battle occurs between US and Vietnam. US claims another battle occurs a few days later to further antagonize Vietnam while there's no evidence of actual Vietnamese naval aggression
• 1931 Second Sino-Japanese War - Japanese officers, unknown to their government, blew up part of a railway with explosives. They claimed it was a foreign attack, which worked to provide the incentive Japan needed to go to war with Manchuria.
• 1939 Gleiwitz Incident - The most famous false flag in history, where Germany made up evidence of being attacked by Poland. This was the spark that rallied the German public opinion of supporting the invasion of Poland on September 1st, which, of course, is also the spark that kickstarted World War 2.

False flags such of these are obviously cataclysmic in their effects if they're executed successfully, but many articles such as this one will tell you how false flags are, in fact, more uncommon than conspirators would have you believe. A government conspiracy theory and a false flag are NOT the same thing, one is a baseless claim trying to be uncovered by the public while the other is an intentionally created fabrication often made by individuals rather than the government itself. A quote from Kathryn Olmstead puts it best, "The revelation of real, proven government lies and conspiracies helps explain the attraction of false flag conspiracy theories.

Growing distrust in government also allows these conspiracies to pass themselves off as true far too easily. As a result, history is flooded with fake false flag stories, with the most popular example in recent history being that surrounding the 9/11 terrorist  attack. The claim is that the entire incident was, in fact, incitement from the US government because they knew the aftermath would allow them to justifiably expand their power greatly. This did, of course, happen, but as history has revealed there is no reasonable way to argue that our government was, in fact, orchestrating this attack.

In short, the key takeaway from this post is that you need to understand real false flag inception is a very rare occurrence, but it's also incredibly difficult to distinguish between real and fake. We should be cautious of any events that could potentially spark conflict, but we also can't act prematurely when trying to place the blame on a side who may just seem to be the most logical culprit.