A major problem with what you're writing here is that there is a very rich history of false flag attacks from nearly all governments, certainly including the US -- both planned and executed. For instance Operation Northwoods [1] was another false flag plan which would have the CIA carry out terrorist attacks against American civilian and military targets and then blame it on the Cuban government, to justify a war against Cuba. This plan made it all the way to JFK. Literally the one and only thing that stopped this plan from happening was JFK not cooperating with the CIA.
The 1953 Iranian coup [2] was organized by the US and CIA in particular. One of the many actions we were responsible for includes forming fake communist forces allegedly in support of the government. The government was not pro communist, but also did not actively crack down on them, so creating these fake groups who were both supposed to be communist and pro government worked doubly well. In any case these groups would then threaten and intimidate Islamic groups in the name of the government. This behavior culminated with these fake groups bombing the home of an influential Islamic cleric [3]. The whole idea being to turn the Islamic community against the government - and it worked. To this day the name of the individual who signed off on the operation is redacted, but it's rather evident that it was Eisenhower.
Ultimately governments tend to be consistently Machiavellian -- or at least populated by those willing to adopt such methods. And false flags are one of the most effective operations for shifting public opinion, creating justifications for war, and so on. The thing I find disappointing is how much people refuse to accept reality. Most people will not believe the two paragraphs I wrote above even though there is declassified material literally acknowledging exactly what happened. But it doesn't fit the way we naturally like to view our government, so most people resort to cognitive dissonance instead of acknowledging that their preconceived notions might not actually be correct.
I would have gone with the Gulf of Tonkin incident [1], in which it was later revealed that MACV-SOG had inserted a covert operations team (which was captured) and paid for an airstrike the night before North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked.
Congress was naturally not told of any of this before they passed the resolution that arguably led to the escalation of the war under Johnson.
> The thing I find disappointing is how much people refuse to accept reality. Most people will not believe the two paragraphs I wrote above even though there is declassified material literally acknowledging exactly what happened. But it doesn't fit the way we naturally like to view our government, so most people resort to cognitive dissonance instead of acknowledging that their preconceived notions might not actually be correct.
This is a critically important point when it comes to many (or most) facets of our society. I'd add to that the fact that most people don't like to admit they have been fooled. They cling to the narrative that has been instilled in them from birth, ("The US Navy, a global force for good") because that's the world they want to live in, that's the world they've been told they live in, and that's the world they have perceived their entire lives.
The 1953 Iranian coup [2] was organized by the US and CIA in particular. One of the many actions we were responsible for includes forming fake communist forces allegedly in support of the government. The government was not pro communist, but also did not actively crack down on them, so creating these fake groups who were both supposed to be communist and pro government worked doubly well. In any case these groups would then threaten and intimidate Islamic groups in the name of the government. This behavior culminated with these fake groups bombing the home of an influential Islamic cleric [3]. The whole idea being to turn the Islamic community against the government - and it worked. To this day the name of the individual who signed off on the operation is redacted, but it's rather evident that it was Eisenhower.
Ultimately governments tend to be consistently Machiavellian -- or at least populated by those willing to adopt such methods. And false flags are one of the most effective operations for shifting public opinion, creating justifications for war, and so on. The thing I find disappointing is how much people refuse to accept reality. Most people will not believe the two paragraphs I wrote above even though there is declassified material literally acknowledging exactly what happened. But it doesn't fit the way we naturally like to view our government, so most people resort to cognitive dissonance instead of acknowledging that their preconceived notions might not actually be correct.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
[3] - http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-...