False ag

False colors redirects here. For the imaging technique, Cap Trafalgar which had been altered to look like Carsee False-color.
mania. (Contrary to some possibly mendacious accounts
The contemporary term false ag describes covert oper- the RMS Carmania had not been altered to resemble the
Cap Trafalgar.)
Another notable example was the World War II German
commerce raider Kormoran which surprised and sank the
Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney in 1941 while disguised as a Dutch merchant ship, causing the greatest
recorded loss of life on an Australian warship. While
Kormoran was fatally damaged in the engagement and
its crew captured the outcome represented a considerable
psychological victory for the Germans.[3]
Other examples from WWII included a Kriegsmarine
ensign in the St Nazaire Raid and captured a German code
This US Douglas A-26 C Invader was painted in fake Cuban Air book: the old destroyer Campbeltown, which the British
Force colors for the military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the planned to sacrice in the operation, was provided with
CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506 in April 1961. cosmetic modications that involved cutting the ships
funnels and chamfering the edges to resemble a German
ations that are designed to deceive in such a way that the Type 23 torpedo boat.
operations appear as though they are being carried out by
By this ruse the British were able to get within two miles
entities, groups, or nations other than those who actually
(3 km) of the harbour before the defences responded,
planned and executed them.[1]
where the explosive-rigged Campbeltown and commanHistorically, the term false ag has its origins in naval dos successfully disabled or destroyed the key dock strucwarfare where the use of a ag other than the belligerents tures of the port.[4][5]
true battle ag as a ruse de guerre, before engaging the
enemy, has long been accepted.[1]
Operations carried out during peace-time by civilian or- 1.1 Air warfare
ganizations, as well as covert government agencies, can
(by extension) also be called false ag operations if they
In December 1922February 1923, Rules concerning the
seek to hide the real organization behind an operation.
Control of Wireless Telegraphy in Time of War and Air
Warfare, drafted by a commission of jurists at the Hague
regulates:[6]

Use in warfare

Art. 3. A military aircraft must carry an exteIn land warfare such operations are generally deemed acrior mark indicating its nationality and its milceptable in certain circumstances, such as to deceive eneitary character.
mies providing that the deception is not perdious and all
such deceptions are discarded before opening re upon
Art. 19. The use of false exterior marks is forthe enemy. Similarly in naval warfare such a deception
bidden.
is considered permissible provided the false ag is low[2]
ered and the true ag raised before engaging in battle:
auxiliary cruisers operated in such a fashion in both World This draft was never adopted as a legally binding treaty,
Wars, as did Q-ships, while merchant vessels were en- but the ICRC states in its introduction on the draft that 'To
couraged to use false ags for protection.
a great extent, [the draft rules] correspond to the customSuch masquerades promoted confusion not just of the ary rules and general principles underlying treaties on the
enemy but of historical accounts: in 1914 the Battle of law of war on land and at sea',[7] and as such these two
Trindade was fought between the British auxiliary cruiser noncontroversial articles were already part of customary
RMS Carmania and the German auxiliary cruiser SMS law.[8]
1

1.2

Land warfare

AS PRETEXTS FOR WAR

2. Ruses of war are not prohibited. Such ruses

are acts which are intended to mislead an adversary or to induce him to act recklessly but
which infringe no rule of international law applicable in armed conict and which are not
perdious because they do not invite the condence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are examples of such ruses: the use of camouage, decoys, mock operations and disinformation.

In land warfare, the use of a false ag is similar to that

of naval warfare: the trial of Otto Skorzeny, who planned
and commanded Operation Greif, by a U.S. military tribunal at the Dachau Trials included a nding that Skorzeny was not guilty of a crime by ordering his men into
action in American uniforms. While he had passed on to
his men the warning of German legal experts that if they
fought in American uniforms, they would be breaking the
laws of war they probably were not doing so simply by
wearing American uniforms. During the trial, a number Article 38. Recognized emblems
of arguments were advanced to substantiate this position
and the German and U.S. military seem to have been in
1. It is prohibited to make improper use of the
agreement.
distinctive emblem of the red cross, red cresIn the transcript of the trial,[9] it is mentioned that Paracent or red lion and sun or of other emblems,
graph 43 of the Field Manual published by the War Designs or signals provided for by the Convenpartment, United States Army, on 1 October 1940, under
tions or by this Protocol. It is also prohibited to
the entry Rules of Land Warfare states 'National ags, inmisuse deliberately in an armed conict other
signias and uniforms as a ruse in practice it has been auinternationally recognized protective emblems,
thorized to make use of these as a ruse. The foregoing rule
signs or signals, including the ag of truce, and
(Article 23 of the Annex of the IVth Hague Convention),
the protective emblem of cultural property.
does not prohibit such use, but does prohibit their improper
2. It is prohibited to make use of the distincuse. It is certainly forbidden to make use of them during a
tive emblem of the United Nations, except as
combat. Before opening re upon the enemy, they must be
authorized by that Organization.
discarded'.
The American Soldiers Handbook, was also quoted by Article 39. Emblems of nationality
Defense Counsel: 'The use of the enemy ag, insignia,
and uniform is permitted under some circumstances. They
1. It is prohibited to make use in an armed conare not to be used during actual ghting, and if used in
ict of the ags or military emblems, insignia
order to approach the enemy without drawing re, should
or uniforms of neutral or other States not Parbe thrown away or removed as soon as ghting begins.
ties to the conict.
Subsequently the outcome of the trial has been codied
2. It is prohibited to make use of the ags or
in the 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions
military emblems, insignia or uniforms of adof 12 August 1949 (Protocol I):
verse Parties while engaging in attacks or in orArticle 37. Prohibition of perdy
der to shield, favour, protect or impede military
operations.
1. It is prohibited to kill, injure, or capture an
3. Nothing in this Article or in Article 37,
adversary by resort to perdy. Acts inviting the
paragraph 1 ( d ), shall aect the existing gencondence of an adversary to lead him to beerally recognized rules of international law aplieve that he is entitled to, or is obliged to acplicable to espionage or to the use of ags in
cord, protection under the rules of international
the conduct of armed conict at sea.
law applicable in armed conict, with intent to
betray that condence, shall constitute perdy.
The following acts are examples of perdy:
2 As pretexts for war
(a) The feigning of an intent to negotiate under
a ag of truce or of a surrender;
(b) The feigning of an incapacitation by
wounds or sickness;
(c) The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status; and
(d) The feigning of protected status by the use
of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United
Nations or of neutral or other States not Parties
to the conict.

2.1 Russo-Swedish War

In 1788, the head tailor at the Royal Swedish Opera received an order to sew a number of Russian military uniforms. These were then used by the Swedes to stage
an attack on Puumala, a Swedish outpost on the RussoSwedish border, on 27 June 1788. This caused an outrage
in Stockholm and impressed the Riksdag of the Estates,
the Swedish national assembly, who until then had refused to agree to an oensive war against Russia. The

2.4

Cuban Revolution

Puumala incident allowed King Gustav III of Sweden,

who lacked the constitutional authority to initiate unprovoked hostilities without the Estates consent, to launch
the Russo-Swedish War (17881790).[10]

2.2

Second Sino-Japanese War

Japanese experts inspect the scene of the 'railway sabotage' on

South Manchurian Railway

In September 1931, Japanese ocers fabricated a pretext

for invading Manchuria by blowing up a section of rail- Alfred Naujocks
way. Though the explosion was too weak to disrupt operations on the rail line, the Japanese nevertheless used this
Mukden incident to seize Manchuria and create a puppet as a pretext to invade Finland, starting the Winter War,
government for what they termed the independent state four days later.[14]
of Manchukuo.[11]

2.3
2.3.1

World War II
Gleiwitz incident

2.4 Cuban Revolution

2.4.1 Operation Northwoods

The planned, but never executed, 1962 Operation Northwoods 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 military planes, sinking a U.S. ship in the vicinity of Cuba,
burning crops, sinking a boat lled with Cuban refugees,
attacks by alleged Cuban inltrators inside the United
States, and harassment of U.S. aircraft and shipping
and the destruction of aerial drones by aircraft disguised
as Cuban MiGs.[16] These actions would be blamed on
Cuba, and would be a pretext for an invasion of Cuba
and the overthrow of Fidel Castro's communist government. It was authored by the Joint Chiefs of Sta, but
The operation failed to convince international public then rejected by President John F. Kennedy. The suropinion of the German claims, and both Britain and prise discovery of the documents relating to Operation
FrancePolands alliesdeclared war two days after Northwoods was a result of the comprehensive search for
records related to the assassination of President John F.
Germany invaded Poland.[13]
Kennedy by the Assassination Records Review Board in
the mid-1990s.[17] Information about Operation North2.3.2 Winter War
woods was later publicized by James Bamford.[18]
The Gleiwitz incident in 1939 involved Reinhard Heydrich fabricating evidence of a Polish attack against
Germany to mobilize German public opinion for war and
to justify the war with Poland. Alfred Naujocks was a
key organiser of the operation under orders from Heydrich. It led to the deaths of Nazi concentration camp
victims who were dressed as German soldiers and then
shot by the Gestapo to make it seem that they had been
shot by Polish soldiers. This, along with other false ag
operations in Operation Himmler, would be used to mobilize support from the German population for the start
of World War II in Europe.[12]

On November 26, 1939, the Soviet army shelled Mainila,

a Russian village near the Finnish border. Soviet author- 2.5
ities blamed Finland for the attack and used the incident

Vietnam War

3 AS A TACTIC TO UNDERMINE POLITICAL OPPONENTS

engulfed in ames. Police searched the building and
found Marinus van der Lubbe, a young Dutch council
communist and unemployed bricklayer, who had recently
arrived in Germany to carry out political activities.
The re was used as evidence by the Nazis that the
Communists were beginning a plot against the German
government. Van der Lubbe and four Communist leaders
were subsequently arrested. Adolf Hitler, who was sworn
in as Chancellor of Germany four weeks before, on 30
January, urged President Paul von Hindenburg to pass an
emergency decree to counter the ruthless confrontation
of the Communist Party of Germany".[21] With civil liberties suspended, the government instituted mass arrests
of Communists, including all of the Communist parliamentary delegates. With their bitter rival Communists
gone and their seats empty, the National Socialist German Workers Party went from being a plurality party to
the majority; subsequent elections conrmed this position
and thus allowed Hitler to consolidate his power.

Operation Northwoods memorandum (13 March 1962).[15]

Historians disagree as to whether Van der Lubbe acted

alone, as he said, to protest the condition of the German working class, or whether the arson was planned and
ordered by the Nazis, then dominant in the government
themselves, as a false ag operation.[22][23]

3.2 Project TP-Ajax

2.5.1

Gulf of Tonkin Incident

Main article: 1953 Iranian coup d'tat

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident occurred in 1964 whereby

the CIA conducted operations reported by the NSA as
North Vietnamese aggression towards the United States.
The incident was used as a pretext for the United States to
escalate Vietnam War eorts. During the operations on
August 2nd, 1964 USS Maddox provoked the North Vietnamese by entering restricted waters. Then, on August
4th, 1964, it was reported that North Vietnam attacked
two US ships, USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy. The
claim that the ships were attacked was later discovered to
be false and in 2005 declassied documents revealed that
both the CIA and NSA were involved in the manufacture
of the incidents that led to US air strikes on August 7th,
1964.[19]

3
3.1

As a tactic to undermine political

opponents
Reichstag re

Main article: Reichstag re

The Reichstag re was an arson attack on the Reichstag
building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The re started
in the Session Chamber,[20] and, by the time the police
and remen arrived, the main Chamber of Deputies was

On 4 April 1953, the CIA was ordered to undermine the

government of Iran over a four-month period, as a precursor to overthrowing Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.[24] One tactic used to undermine Mosaddegh was
to carry out false ag attacks on mosques and key public
gures, to be blamed on Iranian communists loyal to the
government.[24]
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,[25] involved the
bombing of "at least" one well known Muslims house
by CIA agents posing as Communists.[25] The CIA determined that the tactic of false ag attacks added to the
positive outcome of Project TPAJAX.[24]
However, as "[t]he C.I.A. burned nearly all of its les on
its role in the 1953 coup in Iran, the true extent of the
tactic has been dicult for historians to discern.[26]

3.3 2008 Kurcha incident

In 2008 there was a shooting against two minibuses driving along in a volatile area right on the border between
Abkhazia and the republic of Georgia. The buses were
carrying Georgians who lived in Abkhazia and wanted to
cross the border so they could go and vote in the parliamentary election that day.

5
The country had been experiencing internal political turmoil for the last year, and in an attempt to calm the
situation, president Mikheil Saakashvili moved 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 Zugdidi, where president Saakashvili later arrived and was
lmed by TV at the patients bedside.
In his comments on TV, which dominated the news during 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 president to focus the nations 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 ceasere line, about 100m from the
Charlemagne Pralte of Haiti was assassinated in 1919, after
buses, and that although hard evidence of the attackers
checkpoints were passed by military disguised as guerrilla ghtidentities was lacking, inconsistencies merited further in- ers.
vestigation, particularly the suggestion that the lming of
the attack seemed anticipatory.[27]
A Georgian investigative TV documentary later found Union set up such an operation from 1921 to 1926.
that camera crew from the government-friendly channel During Operation Trust, they used loose networks of
Rustavi 2 had been in position with their equipment be- White Army supporters and extended them, creating the
pseudo-"Monarchist Union of Central Russia (MUCR)
fore the shooting took place.
in order to help the OGPU identify real monarchists and
anti-Bolsheviks.

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, inltrate insurgent areas.[28] The
aim of such pseudo-operations may be to gather short or
long-term intelligence or to engage in active operations, in
particular assassinations of 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; however, military provide the structure needed to back up
such pseudo-ops with military response forces. According 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 respective military intelligence systems.

An example of a successful assassination was United

States Marine Sergeant Herman H. Hanneken leading a
patrol of his Haitian Gendarmerie disguised as enemy
guerrillas in 1919. The Patrol successfully passed several enemy checkpoints in order to assassinate the guerilla
leader Charlemagne Pralte near Grande-Rivire-duNord. Hanneken was awarded the Medal of Honor and
was commissioned a Second Lieutenant for his deed.
During the Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s, captured Mau
Mau members who switched sides and specially trained
British troops initiated the pseudo-gang concept to successfully counter Mau Mau. In 1960 Frank Kitson, (who
was later involved in the Northern Irish conict and is now
a retired British General), published Gangs and Countergangs, an account of his experiences with the technique
in Kenya; 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 oversight of pseudo-operations include the Selous Scouts in
The State Political Directorate (OGPU) of the Soviet the former country Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), governed

6
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 Rhodesia, by 1977 they were controlled by COMOPS (Commander, Combined Operations) Commander Lieutenant
General Peter Walls. The Selous Scouts were originally
composed of 120 members, with all ocers being white
and the highest rank initially available for black soldiers
being colour sergeant. They succeeded in turning approximately 800 insurgents who were then paid by Special Branch, ultimately reaching the number of 1,500
members. Engaging mainly in long-range reconnaissance
and surveillance missions, they increasingly turned to offensive actions, including the attempted assassination of
Zimbabwe Peoples Revolutionary Army leader Joshua
Nkomo in Zambia. This mission was nally aborted by
the Selous Scouts, and attempted again, unsuccessfully,
by the Rhodesian Special Air Service.[29]
Some oensive operations attracted international condemnation, 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 by Josiah Tongogara. Using
Rhodesian trucks and armored cars disguised as Mozambique military vehicles, 84 scouts killed 1,284 people in
the camp-the camp was registered as a refugee camp by
the United 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 red by the Scouts, killing all
patients.[30] According to David Martin and Phyllis Johnson, 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.[31]
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 disbanded in 1980.[32]
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 a civil war or during a belligerent
military occupation then those who participate in such
actions would not be privileged belligerents. The principle of plausible deniability is usually applied for pseudoteams. (See the above section Laws of war). Some
false ag operations have been described by Lawrence E.
Cline, a retired US Army intelligence ocer, as pseudooperations, or the use of organized teams which are disguised as guerrilla groups for long- or short-term penetration of insurgent-controlled areas.
Pseudo Operations should be distinguished, notes Cline,
from the more common police or intelligence inltration
of guerrilla or criminal organizations. In the latter case,
inltration is normally done by individuals. Pseudo
teams, on the other hand, are formed as needed from or-

ESPIONAGE

ganized units, usually military or paramilitary. The use of

pseudo teams has been a hallmark of a number of foreign
counterinsurgency campaigns.[28]
Similar false ag tactics were also employed during the
Algerian civil war, starting in the middle of 1994. Death
squads composed of Dpartement du Renseignement et
de la Scurit (DRS) security forces disguised themselves as Islamist terrorists and committed false ag terror attacks. Such groups included the Organisation of
Young Free Algerians (OJAL) or the Secret Organisation
for the Safeguard of the Algerian Republic (OSSRA)[33]
According to Roger Faligot and Pascal Kropp (1999),
the OJAL was reminiscent of the Organization of the
French Algerian Resistance (ORAF), a group of counterterrorists created in December 1956 by the Direction de
la surveillance du territoire (Territorial Surveillance Directorate, or DST) whose mission was to carry out terrorist attacks with the aim of quashing any hopes of political
compromise.[34]

5 Espionage
Main article: False ag penetrator
In espionage the term false ag describes the recruiting 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 German civil servants
were tricked into stealing classied documents by agents
of the East German Stasi intelligence service, pretending
to be members of West German peace advocacy groups
(the Stasi agents were also described as "Romeos, indicating that they also used their sex appeal to manipulate
their targets, making this operation a combination of the
false ag and "honey trap" techniques).[35]
The technique can also be used to expose enemy agents in
ones own service, by having someone approach the suspect and pose as an agent of the enemy. Earl Edwin Pitts,
a 13-year veteran of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and an attorney, was caught when he was approached
by FBI agents posing as Russian agents.
British intelligence ocials in World War II allowed double agents to re-bomb a power station and a food dump
in the UK to protect their cover, according to declassied
documents. The documents stated the agents took precautions to ensure they did not cause serious damage.
One of the documents released also stated: It should be
recognised that friends as well as enemies must be completely deceived.[36]

6.3

Ideological

Civilian usage

7
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.

While false ag operations originate in warfare and government, they also can occur in civilian settings among
certain factions, such as businesses, special interest
groups, religions, political ideologies and campaigns for
oce.
The press had acquired a court order to access all of
Walkers emails and Lams email was exposed. At rst,
Lam vehemently denied it, but eventually admitted it and
6.1 Businesses
resigned.[41]
In business and marketing, similar operations are being employed in some public relations campaigns (see 6.3
Astroturng). Telemarketing rms practice false ag
type behavior when they pretend to be a market research
rm (referred to as "sugging"). In some rare cases, members 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.

6.2

Ideological

Political campaigning

Political campaigning has a long history of this tactic in

various forms, including in person, print media and electronically in recent years. This can involve when supporters of one candidate pose as supporters of another,
or act as straw men for their preferred candidate to debate against. This can happen with or without the candidates knowledge. The Canuck letter is an example of
one candidate creating a false document and attributing
it as coming from another candidate in order to discredit
that candidate.

A bomb threat forged by Scientology operatives.

Proponents of political or religious ideologies will sometimes use false ag tactics. This can be done to discredit
or implicate rival groups, create the appearance of enemies when none exist, or create the illusion of organized
and directed opposition when in truth, the ideology is
simply unpopular with society.

In the nal days of Floridas 1994 gubernatorial campaign, Democrat Governor Lawton Chiles ran a false ag
operation that paid for tens of thousands of calls to elderly voters using false organization names. The calls
purported to be from Republican groups and told voters that Jeb Bush was against Social Security and seniors.
Chiles denied his campaign was behind the calls. After winning re-election and facing an investigation, Chiles
admitted the truth in November 1995.[37]

In retaliation for writing The Scandal of Scientology, some

members of the Church of Scientology stole stationery
from author Paulette Cooper's home and then used that
stationery to forge bomb threats and have them mailed
to a Scientology oce. The Guardians Oce also had
a plan for further operations to discredit Cooper known
as Operation Freakout, but several Scientology operatives were arrested in a separate investigation and the plan
failed.[42]

In 2006, individuals practicing false ag behavior were

discovered and outed in New Hampshire[38][39] and
New Jersey[40] after blog comments claiming to be from
supporters of a political candidate were traced to the IP
address of paid staers for that candidates opponent.

7 See also

On 19 February 2011, Indiana Deputy Prosecutor Carlos

Lam sent a private email to Wisconsin Governor Scott
Walker suggesting that he run a "'false ag' operation
to counter the protests against Walkers proposed restrictions on public employees collective bargaining rights:
If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions cause
to physically attack you (or even use a rearm

7.1 Concepts
Agent provocateur
Black propaganda
Casus belli
Covert operation
Denial and deception

8
Front organization
Joe job, a similar online concept
Mimicry
State terrorism

7.2

Examples

Bloed, Bodem, Eer en Trouw (Flemish neo-Nazi

group preparing false ag attacks)
Celle Hole
CIA Operation Ajax (United States overthrowing of
Mohammed Mossadeq, Prime Minister of Iran, in
1953)[25]
Gleiwitz incident aka Operation Himmler
Knights of the Red Branch Inc
Lavon Aair Israeli attempt to plant bombs in Western targets in Egypt, in blaming Arab elements
Marxist-Leninist Party of the Netherlands (fake
party set up by the Dutch security service)
Masada Action and Defense Movement (French
white supremacists, under the guise of a fake extremist Zionist movement, conducted bombings of
Arab targets in France in an attempt to start a war
between French Arabs and Jews.)

References

[1] deHaven-Smith, Lance (2013). Conspiracy Theory in

America, Austin: University of Texas Press. p.225
[2] the use of a false ag has always been accepted as a legitimate ruse de guerre in naval warfare, the true battle
ag being run up immediately before engaging (Thomas,
Rosamund M., ed. (1993), Teaching Ethics: Government ethics, Centre for Business and Public, p. 80, ISBN
9781871891034).
[3] Squires, Nick. "HMAS Sydney found o Australias west
coast", The Telegraph, 17 March 2008.
[4] Guinness World Records (2009), p.155
[5] Young, P (Ed) (1973) Atlas of the Second World War
(London: The Military Book Society)
[6] The Hague Rules of Air Warfare, 1922-12 to 1923-02,
this convention was never adopted (backup site)
[7] Rules concerning the Control of Wireless Telegraphy in
Time of War and Air Warfare. Drafted by a Commission
of Jurists at the Hague, December 1922 February 1923.:
Introduction. ICRC. Retrieved December 2010.

REFERENCES

[8] Gmez, Javier Guisndez (20 June 1998). The Law of

Air Warfare. International Review of the Red Cross 38
(323): 34763. doi:10.1017/S0020860400091075.
[9] Source: Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals. United
Nations War Crimes Commission. Vol. IX, 1949: Trial
of Otto Skorzeny and others General Military Government Court of the U.S. zone of Germany 18 August to
9 September 1947
[10] (Finnish) Mattila, Tapani (1983). Meri maamme turvana
[Sea safeguarding our country] (in Finnish). Jyvskyl:
K. J. Gummerus Osakeyhti. ISBN 951-99487-0-8. (),
p. 142.
[11] Weland, James (1994).
Misguided Intelligence:
Japanese Military Intelligence Ocers in the Manchurian
Incident, September 1931. Journal of Military History
58 (3): 445460. doi:10.2307/2944134.
[12] Bradley Lightbody, The Second World War: Ambitions to
Nemesis, Routledge, 2004, ISBN 0-415-22405-5, Google
Print, p.39
[13] Steven J. Zaloga, Poland 1939: The Birth of Blitzkrieg,
Osprey Publishing, 2002, ISBN 1-84176-408-6, p. 39
[14] Turtola, Martti (1999). Kansainvlinen kehitys Euroopassa ja Suomessa 1930-luvulla. In Leskinen, Jari;
Juutilainen, Antti. Talvisodan pikkujttilinen. pp. 44
45.
[15] U.S. Joint Chiefs of Sta, Justication for US Military Intervention in Cuba (TS)", U.S. Department of Defense, 13 March 1962. The Operation Northwoods document in PDF format on the website of the independent,
non-governmental research institute the National Security
Archive at the George Washington University Gelman Library, Washington, D.C. Direct PDF links: here and here.
[16] Excerpts from declassied 1962 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Sta
Memo Operation Northwoods: Justication for U.S.
Military Intervention in Cuba
[17] Horne, Douglas P., Chief Analyst for Military Records,
Assassination Records Review Board (2009). Inside the
Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Governments Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conicting Medical Evidence in the Assassination of JFK. self published.
ISBN 098431444X. Retrieved April 2014.
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[39] Saunders, Anne, Bass aide resigns after posing as opponents supporter online, The Boston Globe, 26 September
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[24] Callanan, James (2009). Covert Action in the Cold War:

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[42] United States of America v. Jane Kember, Morris Budlong, Sentencing Memorandum; pp. 2325.

9 External links

10

10

10
10.1

TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

Text

False ag Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag?oldid=725680140 Contributors: Olivier, Jdlh, Michael Hardy, Ixfd64, IZAK,
Skysmith, Kingturtle, Ugen64, GCarty, Wikiborg, Furrykef, Tempshill, AnonMoos, Vardion, PBS, Donreed, ZimZalaBim, Bkell, Carnildo,
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Pharaoh of the Wizards, PCock, Rodrigo braz, PalestineRemembered, JPLeonard, Maurice Carbonaro, Hodja Nasreddin, Cop 663, Grosscha, RenniePet, Chiswick Chap, Spartelite, C1010, DadaNeem, Xyl 54, Vanished user 39948282, Julyda4th, WLRoss, Ashcroftgm,
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MenoBot, ClueBot, MBD123, The thing is, Binksternet, Mild Bill Hiccup, Foofbun, LonelyBeacon, Trivialist, Grandpallama, Geo247,
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Phantomop, Gamebuster19901, Isambard Kingdom, Mister Sneeze A Lot, A1491625, BU Rob13, ImHere2015, Ebookomane, Incendiary
Iconoclasm, TEH1990, Skyscraper1996, Moscowamerican and Anonymous: 396

10.2

Images

File:193109_mukden_incident_railway_sabotage.jpg Source:
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