A78.Inglish BCEnc. Blauwe Kaas Encyclopedie, Duaal Hermeneuties Kollegium.
Inglish Site.78.
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TO THE THRISE HO-
NOVRABLE AND EVER LY-
VING VERTVES OF SYR PHILLIP
SYDNEY KNIGHT, SYR JAMES JESUS SINGLETON, SYR CANARIS, SYR LAVRENTI BERIA ; AND TO THE
RIGHT HONORABLE AND OTHERS WHAT-
SOEVER, WHO LIVING LOVED THEM,
AND BEING DEAD GIVE THEM
THEIRE DVE.
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In the beginning there is darkness. The screen erupts in blue, then a cascade of thick, white hexadecimal numbers and cracked language, ?UnusedStk? and ?AllocMem.? Black screen cedes to blue to white and a pair of scales appear, crossed by a sword, both images drawn in the jagged, bitmapped graphics of Windows 1.0-era clip-art?light grey and yellow on a background of light cyan. Blue text proclaims, ?God on tap!?
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Introduction.
Yes i am getting a little Mobi-Literate(ML) by experimenting literary on my Mobile Phone. Peoplecall it Typographical Laziness(TL).
The first accidental entries for the this part of this encyclopedia.
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This is TempleOS V2.17, the welcome screen explains, a ?Public Domain Operating System? produced by Trivial Solutions of Las Vegas, Nevada. It greets the user with a riot of 16-color, scrolling, blinking text; depending on your frame of reference, it might recall ?DESQview, the ?Commodore 64, or a host of early DOS-based graphical user interfaces. In style if not in specifics, it evokes a particular era, a time when the then-new concept of ?personal computing? necessarily meant programming and tinkering and breaking things.
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Index.
195."X-File",The X-Files.
196.False Flag/Black Flag(FF/BF).
197.Black Operation/ Black Op/ Covert Operation(BO/CO).
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195."X-File",The X-Files.
On the television series The X-Files, an "X-File" is a fictional case that has been deemed unsolvable by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and transferred to the X-Files unit. The files constitute an unassigned project outside the Bureau mainstream that is more or less concerned with unexplained phenomena.
History.
First X-Files.
According to the series mythology the very first X-File was initiated in 1946 by J. Edgar Hoover. It contained information about a series of murders that occurred in Northwest America during World War II, seven of which took place in Browning, Montana. Each of the victims were basically ripped to shreds and consumed, as if by a wild animal. However, many of the victims were found in their homes, as if they had allowed the killer to enter. In 1946, police cornered what they believed to be such an animal in a cabin in Glacier National Park. They shot it, but when they entered the cabin to retrieve the carcass, they found only the body of Richard Watkins. The murders stopped that year. Believing that the case was too bizarre to be solved adequately, Hoover labeled it unsolved and locked it away in the hope that it would eventually be forgotten. However, the murders resumed in 1954 and continued to occur every few years.
In 1952, an X-File regarding something that killed cattle and terrorized the human inhabitants of Point Pleasant, West Virginia was added to the cases. After witnesses described the culprits as primitive-looking men with red piercing eyes, they became known as the moth men.[citation needed] The case detailing this phenomenon was consequently filed under "M", within the X-Files.
In the same year, Dorothy Bahnsen, a clerk working at the FBI Headquarters, was responsible for the files. She had originally filed the cases under U for "unsolved", but had moved them to a more spacious X cabinet when she ran out of room. There, they began to be unofficially known as "X-files". The director's office still decided which cases were filed under X, but also discouraged people from looking at the ones that had been labeled unsolved. Special agent Arthur Dales was one of the first agents to try to tackle the cases. He had some success, but the FBI and their superiors wanted several cases to remain unsolved and Agent Dales eventually retired in obscurity.
1990s.
It wasn't until 1990 that another agent decided to take a look. Special Agent Fox Mulder was generally considered the best analyst in the FBI's Violent Crimes Section. At first, he thought the X-Files seemed like "a garbage dump for UFO sightings, alien abduction reports, the kind of stuff that most people [would] laugh at as being ridiculous". However, Mulder soon became fascinated by the files and read hundreds of those he was allowed access to. He read everything he could about paranormal phenomena and the occult. He eventually transferred to the X-Files Section and worked on some cases with his girlfriend at the time, Diana Fowley. Fowley was an FBI agent with knowledge about and a belief in parapsychology. She stopped working on the cases when her relationship with Mulder ended and she accepted an assignment abroad.
In March 1992, the X-Files were stored in Mulder's office in the basement of the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. Mulder's superiors distrusted his methods and, as a result, Section Chief Scott Blevins assigned Agent Dana Scully to work with Mulder on the cases. Blevins claimed to believe that Mulder had developed a consuming devotion to the X-Files and that Scully, who was trained as a medical doctor, would lend proper scientific analysis to the cases. In fact, Scully later learned that she had been assigned to spy on Mulder.
Eventually, Scully came to believe in the existence of alien life and in a powerful conspiracy inside the American government that worked to keep the aliens a secret. The proof establishing these facts that Mulder and Scully uncovered and added to the X-Files was overwhelming, and even scientifically undeniable.
While the agents continued to investigate the X-Files, a man they referred to as "Deep Throat" provided them with top secret information that helped with the cases. However, he was later killed for helping the agents and the cases were shut down.
While operating as a general assignment agent in 1994, Mulder received an anonymous phone call from a mysterious man. The man told him that the X-Files had to be reopened. Once the two later met, the mysterious man claimed that the government conspiracy had killed "Deep Throat", closed down the X-Files and separated the agents assigned to the cases as an initial attempt to secure the truth they were hiding.
Aware that the X-Files was the thing the conspiracy feared most, Mulder's superior, Assistant Director Walter Skinner, reopened the cases a few months later.
A short time later, Mulder offered his badge and the X-Files to Skinner, in return for the whereabouts of a certain member of the government conspiracy.
2000s.
Special Agent John Doggett was assigned to the X-Files in 2000 and Special Agent Monica Reyes in 2001. The X-Files investigations were closed finally in 2002. (TXF: "The Truth")
List of X-Files.
73317- Investigating the disappearance of Dana Scully. (TXF: "3")
621517- Investigating the murder of Melissa Scully. (TXF: "Apocrypha")
11214893- Investigating the arson and murders committed by Cecil L'Ively. (TXF: "Fire")
DF101364- Investigating the disappearance of Colonel Robert Budahas. (TXF: "Deep Throat")
X-40253- Investigating the disappearance of Samantha Mulder. (TXF: "Conduit")
X-40271- Investigating the murder of Officer Charlie Morris. (TXF: "Born Again")
X-60794 Unknown case (TXF: "Dreamland II")
X-71009- A file with details on General Assignment Agent Fox Mulder. (TXF: "Dreamland II")
X-97554- Investigating a peculiar spacecraft discovered in Africa. (TXF: "Provenance")
X-120898- Investigating the disappearance of FBI Special Agent Raymond Crouch. (TXF: "Millennium")
X 129202- Investigating the Baltimore, Maryland murders by Eugene Victor Tooms. (TXF: "Tooms)
X-152830- Investigating the disappearance of Cassandra Spender. (TXF: "The Red and the Black")
X-167512- A file detailing visionary encounters with the dead. (TXF: "Young at Heart")
X280911- Investigating the murder of Special Agent Robert Comer. (TXF: "Providence")
X-491679- Unknown case (TXF: "The End")
X-525652- Investigating the murders committed by Edward Skur. (TXF: "Travelers")
X 649176- Investigating reports of men who could change into a wolf. (TXF: "Shapes")
X667386- Investigating the peculiar insect activity in Miller's Grove, Massachusetts. (TXF: "War of the Coprophages")
X-751483 - Pertaining to the Death of Special Agent Fox Mulder Possible hallucination of the article in the real case file (TXF: "Field Trip")
X 964394- Unknown case (TXF: "Deadalive")
X256933VW- Investigating the Trinity Killers. (TXF: "3")
XWC060361 - Investigating the Church of the Red Museum in connection with teenage kidnappings. (TXF: "Red Museum")
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196.False Flag/Black Flag(FF/BF).
False flag (or black flag) describes covert operations designed to deceive in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by entities, groups, or nations other than those who actually planned and executed them. Operations carried out during peace-time by civilian organizations, as well as covert government agencies, may by extension be called false flag operations if they seek to hide the real organization behind an operation. Geraint Hughes uses the term to refer to those acts carried out by "military or security force personnel, which are then blamed on terrorists."
In its most modern usage, the term may also refer to those events which governments are cognizant of and able to stop but choose to allow to happen (or "stand down"), as a strategy to entangle or prepare the nation for war. Furthermore, the term "false flag terrorism" may even be used in those instances when violence is carried out by groups or organizations which, whether they know it or not, are being supported or controlled by the "victim" nation. deHaven-Smith argues that the terminology has become looser in recent years due to the increasingly complex levels of "duplicity" and "international intrigue" between states. Some argue that false flags are methods used by deep states as a form of deep politics.
The name "false flag" has its origins in naval warfare where the use of a flag other than the belligerent's true battle flag as a ruse de guerre, before engaging the enemy, has long been accepted. Such operations are also accepted in certain circumstances in land warfare, to deceive enemies in similar ways providing that the deception is not perfidious and all such deceptions are discarded before opening fire upon the enemy.
Use in warfare.
Naval warfare.
This practice is accepted in naval warfare, provided the false flag is lowered and the true flag raised before engaging in battle. Auxiliary cruisers operated in such a fashion in both World Wars, as did Q-ships, while merchant vessels were encouraged to use false flags for protection. The 1914 Battle of Trindade was between the auxiliary cruisers RMS Carmania and SMS Cap Trafalgar, in which Cap Trafalgar had been altered to look like Carmania.
One of the most notable examples was in World War II when the German commerce raider Kormoran, disguised as a Dutch merchant ship, surprised and sank the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney in 1941, causing the greatest recorded loss of life on an Australian warship. Kormoran was also fatally damaged in that encounter and its crew was captured, but it was a considerable psychological victory for the Germans.
The British used a Kriegsmarine ensign in the St Nazaire Raid and captured a German code book. The old destroyer Campbeltown, which the British planned to sacrifice in the operation, was provided with cosmetic modifications, cutting the ship's funnels and chamfering the edges to resemble a German Type 23 torpedo boat The British were able to get within two miles (3 km) of the harbour before the defences responded, where the explosive-rigged Campbeltown and commandos successfully disabled or destroyed the key dock structures of the port.
Air warfare.
In December 1922?February 1923, Rules concerning the Control of Wireless Telegraphy in Time of War and Air Warfare, drafted by a commission of jurists at the Hague regulates:
Art. 3. A military aircraft must carry an exterior mark indicating its nationality and its military character.
Art. 19. The use of false exterior marks is forbidden.
This draft was never adopted as a legally binding treaty, but the ICRC states in its introduction on the draft that "To a great extent, [the draft rules] correspond to the customary rules and general principles underlying treaties on the law of war on land and at sea", and as such these two non?controversial articles were already part of customary law.
Land warfare.
In land warfare, the use of a false flag is similar to that of naval warfare. The most widespread assumption is that this practice was first established under international humanitarian law at the trial in 1947 of the planner and commander of Operation Greif, Otto Skorzeny, by a U.S. military tribunal at the Dachau Trials. In this trial, the tribunal did not find Skorzeny guilty of a crime by ordering his men into action in American uniforms. 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, but they probably were not doing so just by wearing American uniforms. During the trial, a number of arguments were advanced to substantiate this position and the German and U.S. military seem to have been in agreement on it. In the transcript of the trial, it is mentioned that Paragraph 43 of the Field Manual published by the War Department, United States Army, on 1 October 1940, under the title "Rules of Land Warfare", says:
"National flags, insignias and uniforms as a ruse ? in practice it has been authorized to make use of these as a ruse. The foregoing rule (Article 23 of the Annex of the IVth Hague Convention), does not prohibit such use, but does prohibit their improper use. It is certainly forbidden to make use of them during a combat. Before opening fire upon the enemy, they must be discarded."
Also The American Soldiers' Handbook, was quoted by Defense Counsel and says:
"The use of the enemy flag, insignia, and uniform is permitted under some circumstances. They are not to be used during actual fighting, and if used in order to approach the enemy without drawing fire, should be thrown away or removed as soon as fighting begins."
The outcome of the trial has been codified in the 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (Protocol I):
Article 37. ? Prohibition of perfidy
1. It is prohibited to kill, injure, or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy:
(a) The feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag 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 conflict.
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 conflict and which are not perfidious because they do not invite the confidence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are examples of such ruses: the use of camouflage, decoys, mock operations and disinformation.
Article 38. ? Recognized emblems
1. It is prohibited to make improper use of the distinctive emblem of the red cross, red crescent or red lion and sun or of other emblems, signs or signals provided for by the Conventions or by this Protocol. It is also prohibited to misuse deliberately in an armed conflict other internationally recognized protective emblems, signs or signals, including the flag of truce, and the protective emblem of cultural property.
2. It is prohibited to make use of the distinctive emblem of the United Nations, except as authorized by that Organization.
Article 39. ? Emblems of nationality
1. It is prohibited to make use in an armed conflict of the flags or military emblems, insignia or uniforms of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict.
2. It is prohibited to make use of the flags or military emblems, insignia or uniforms of adverse Parties while engaging in attacks or in order to shield, favour, protect or impede military operations.
3. Nothing in this Article or in Article 37, paragraph 1 ( d ), shall affect the existing generally recognized rules of international law applicable to espionage or to the use of flags in the conduct of armed conflict at sea.
As pretexts for war.
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 Russo-Swedish 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 offensive war against Russia. The 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 (1788?1790)
Second Sino-Japanese War.
Japanese experts inspect the scene of the 'railway sabotage' on South Manchurian Railway
In September 1931, Japanese officers fabricated a pretext for invading Manchuria by blowing up a section of railway. 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 government for what they termed the "independent" state of Manchukuo.
In 1937, in the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, they based their invasion of China proper on the false claim that one of their soldiers had been kidnapped, initiating the Second Sino-Japanese War.
World War II.
Gleiwitz incident.
Alfred Naujocks
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 flag operations in Operation Himmler, would be used to mobilize support from the German population for the start of World War II in Europe.
The operation failed to convince international public opinion of the German claims, and both Britain and France?Poland's allies?declared war two days after Germany invaded Poland.
Winter War.
On November 26, 1939, the Soviet army shelled Mainila, a Russian village near the Finnish border. Soviet authorities blamed Finland for the attack and used the incident as a pretext to invade Finland, starting the Winter War, four days later.
Cold War.
Operation Northwoods.
Operation Northwoods memorandum (13 March 1962).
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 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. 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 Staff, but then rejected by President John F. Kennedy. The surprise discovery of the documents relating to Operation Northwoods was a result of the comprehensive search for records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy by the Assassination Records Review Board in the mid-1990s. Information about Operation Northwoods was later publicized by James Bamford.
As a tactic to undermine political opponents.
Reichstag fire.
Main article: Reichstag fire
The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The fire started in the Session Chamber, and, by the time the police and firemen arrived, the main Chamber of Deputies was engulfed in flames. 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 fire 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". 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 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 German working class, or whether the arson was planned and ordered by the Nazis, then dominant in the government themselves, as a false flag operation.
Project TP-Ajax.
Main article: 1953 Iranian coup d'état
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. 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.
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", involved the bombing of "at least" one well known Muslim's house by CIA agents posing as Communists. The CIA determined that the tactic of false flag attacks added to the "positive outcome" of Project TPAJAX.
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.
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.
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 filmed 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 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 investigation, particularly the suggestion that the filming of the attack seemed anticipatory.
A Georgian investigative TV documentary later found[citation needed] that camera crew from the government-friendly channel Rustavi 2 had been in position with their equipment before the shooting took place.
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. 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."
Charlemagne Péralte of Haiti was assassinated in 1919, after checkpoints were passed by military disguised as guerrilla fighters
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 Army supporters 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. 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 Péralte near Grande-Rivière-du-Nord. 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 conflict and is now a retired British General), published Gangs and Counter-gangs, 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 former country Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), 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 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 officers 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 People's Revolutionary Army leader Joshua Nkomo in Zambia. This mission was finally aborted by the Selous Scouts, and attempted again, unsuccessfully, by the Rhodesian Special Air Service.
Some offensive 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 fired by the Scouts, killing all patients. 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.
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.
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 pseudo-teams. (See the above section Laws of war). Some false flag operations have been described by Lawrence E. Cline, a retired US Army intelligence officer, as pseudo-operations, 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 infiltration 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 organized units, usually military or paramilitary. The use of pseudo teams has been a hallmark of a number of foreign counterinsurgency campaigns."
Similar false flag tactics were also employed during the Algerian civil war, starting in the middle of 1994. Death squads composed of Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (DRS) security forces disguised themselves as Islamist terrorists and committed false flag terror attacks. Such groups included the Organisation of Young Free Algerians (OJAL) or the Secret Organisation for the Safeguard of the Algerian Republic (OSSRA) 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 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".
Espionage.
Main article: False flag penetrator
In espionage the term "false flag" 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 classified 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 flag and "honey trap" techniques).
The technique can also be used to expose enemy agents in one's 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 officials in World War II allowed double agents to fire-bomb a power station and a food dump in the UK to protect their cover, according to declassified 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."
Civilian usage.
While false flag 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 office.
Businesses.
In business and marketing, similar operations are being employed in some public relations campaigns (see Astroturfing). Telemarketing firms practice false flag type behavior when they pretend to be a market research firm (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.
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 candidate's 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.
In the final days of the 1994 campaign, Governor Lawton Chiles' ran a false flag 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.
In 2006, individuals practicing false flag behavior were discovered and "outed" in New Hampshire and New Jersey after blog comments claiming to be from supporters of a political candidate were traced to the IP address of 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 the protests against Walker's 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 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.
Ideological.
Proponents of political or religious ideologies will sometimes use false flag 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.
A bomb threat forged by Scientology operatives
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 office. The Guardian's Office 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.
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197.Black Operation/ Black Op/ Covert Operation(BO/CO).
A black operation or black op is a covert operation by a government, a government agency, or a military organization. This can include activities by private companies or groups. Key features of a black operation are that it is clandestine, it has negative overtones, and it is not attributable to the organization carrying it out. The main difference between a black operation and one that is merely clandestine is that a black operation involves a significant degree of deception, to conceal who is behind it or to make it appear that some other entity is responsible ("false flag" operations).
A single such activity may be called a "black bag operation"; that term is primarily used for covert or clandestine surreptitious entries into structures to obtain information for human intelligence operations. Such operations are known to have been carried out by the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, Mossad, MI6, MSS, Research and Analysis Wing and the intelligence services of other nations.
Etymology.
"Black" may be used as a generic term for any government activity that is hidden or secret. For example, some activities by military and intel agencies are funded by a classified "black budget," of which the details, and sometimes even the total, are hidden from the public and from most congressional oversight.
Reported examples of black operations.
In 2007 the Central Intelligence Agency declassified secret records detailing illegal domestic surveillance, assassination plots, kidnapping, and infiltration and penetration of other "black" operations undertaken by the CIA from the 1950s to the early 1970s. CIA Director General Michael Hayden explained why he released the documents, saying that they provided a "glimpse of a very different time and a very different agency".
In May 2007 ABC News, and later the Daily Telegraph, reported that United States president George W. Bush had authorized the CIA to undertake "black operations" in Iran in order to promote regime change as well as to sabotage Iran's nuclear program. ABC News was subsequently criticized for reporting the secret operation, with 2008 presidential candidate Mitt Romney saying he was "shocked to see the ABC News report regarding covert action in Iran," but ABC said the CIA and the Bush Administration knew of their plans to publish the information and raised no objections.
According to the U.S. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, a covert operation (also as CoveOps or covert ops) is "an operation that is so planned and executed as to conceal the identity of or permit plausible denial by the sponsor." It is intended to create a political effect which can have implications in the military, intelligence or law enforcement arenas. Covert operations aim to fulfill their mission objectives without any parties knowing who sponsored or carried out the operation.
Under United States law, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) must lead covert operations unless the president finds that another agency should do so and properly informs the Congress. Normally, the CIA is the US Government agency legally allowed to carry out covert action. The CIA's authority to conduct covert action comes from the National Security Act of 1947. President Ronald Reagan issued Executive Order 12333 titled United States Intelligence Activities in 1984. This order defined covert action as "special activities", both political and military, that the US Government could legally deny. The CIA was also designated as the sole authority under the 1991 Intelligence Authorization Act and in Title 50 of the United States Code Section 413(e). The CIA must have a "Presidential Finding" issued by the President of the United States in order to conduct these activities under the Hughes-Ryan amendment to the 1991 Intelligence Authorization Act. These findings are then monitored by the oversight committees in both the US Senate and the House of Representatives. As a result of this framework, the CIA "receives more oversight from the Congress than any other agency in the federal government". The Special Activities Division (SAD) is a division of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, responsible for Covert Action and "Special Activities". These special activities include covert political influence and paramilitary operations. The division is overseen by the United States Secretary of State.
Law enforcement.
Undercover operations (such as sting operations or infiltration of organized crime groups) are conducted by law enforcement agencies to deter and detect crime and to gather information for future arrest and prosecution.
Military intelligence and foreign policy.
See also: Active measures
Covert operations and clandestine operations are distinct. The Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Joint Publication JP1-02), defines "covert operation" as "an operation that is so planned and executed as to conceal the identity of or permit plausible denial by the sponsor. A covert operation differs from a clandestine operation in that emphasis is placed on concealment of identity of sponsor rather than on concealment of the operation." The United States Department of Defense definition has been used by the United States and NATO since World War II.
In a covert operation, the identity of the sponsor is concealed, while in a clandestine operation the operation itself is concealed. Put differently, clandestine means "hidden," while covert means "deniable." The term stealth refers both to a broad set of tactics aimed at providing and preserving the element of surprise and reducing enemy resistance and to a set of technologies (stealth technology) to aid in those tactics. While secrecy and stealthiness are often desired in clandestine and covert operations, the terms secret and stealthy are not used to formally describe types of missions.
Covert operations are employed in situations where openly operating against a target would be disadvantageous. These operations are generally illegal in the target state and are frequently in violation of the laws of the sponsoring country. Operations may be directed at or conducted with allies and friends to secure their support for controversial components of foreign policy throughout the world. Covert operations may include sabotage, assassinations, support for coups d'état, or support for subversion. Tactics include the use of a false flag or front group.
The activity of organizations engaged in covert operations is in some instances similar to, or overlaps with, the activity of front organizations. While covert organizations are generally of a more official military or paramilitary nature, like the DVS German Air Transport School in the Nazi era, the line between both becomes muddled in the case of front organizations engaged in terrorist activities and organized crime.
Examples.
Military Assistance Command, Vietnam ? Studies and Observations Group
Operation Wrath of God
Operation Gladio
Operation Anthropoid
Huston Plan
Iran-Contra affair
Project MKULTRA
Operation CHAOS
CIA Project Cherry
Vang Pao's Clandestine Army
Palace Dog
Raven Forward Air Controllers
Notable covert operators.
The following persons are known to have participated in covert operations, as distinct from clandestine intelligence gathering (espionage) either by their own admission or by the accounts of others:
Roy Farran Major Roy Alexandar Farran DSO MC and Two Bars served in her majesty's SAS during WW2 taking part in Operation Tombola, author of Winged Dagger lived 2 January 1921 ? 2 June 2006.
Robert Baer
Jozef Gab?ík and Jan Kubi?, Czechoslovak British-trained agents sent to assassinate one of the most important Nazis, Reinhard Heydrich, in 1942 as part of Operation Anthropoid.
Aaron Franklin, World War II US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) officer who created a fake group of the German Army, made up of POWs, with the mission of killing Hitler. As a colonel, he was the first commander of United States Army Special Forces.
Charles Beckwith, US Army colonel who was an early exchange officer with the British Special Air Service (SAS), and created the Delta Force (1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta) based on the SAS.
Gary Berntsen, CIA field officer and team leader during Operation Enduring Freedom
Wendell Fertig, United States Army Reserve officer who organized large Filipino guerrilla forces against the Japanese in World War II
Virginia Hall, American who first worked for the British Special Operations Executive, then for the American Office of Strategic Services in German-occupied France. Only U.S. woman to receive the Distinguished Service Cross.
Eric Haney, one of the founding members of Delta Force.
Michael Harari, Israeli Mossad officer who led assassination operations (Operation Wrath of God) against PLO members accused of the 1972 Munich Massacre.
Bruce Rusty Lang, commander of a mixed United States Army Special Forces & Montagnard (Degar/Bru people) commando Recon Team (RT Oklahoma) of Command and Control North, Studies and Observations Group. Previously served on Project 404, U.S. Embassy Laos, Assistant Army Attaché ("Secret War" in Laos 1970).
Edward Lansdale, United States Air Force officer (and eventually major general) seconded to the CIA, and noted for his work with Ramon Magsaysay against the Hukbalahap insurgency in Philippines during the early 1950s, and later involved in Operation Mongoose against Cuba.
T. E. Lawrence, British "Lawrence of Arabia" who organized Arab forces during World War I.
Alain Mafart, French DGSE officer convicted, in New Zealand, for sinking the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior.
Richard Meadows, United States Army Special Forces officer known for many operations, including the POW rescue attempt at Son Tay, North Vietnam, and for deep operations in support of Operation Eagle Claw.
Richard Meinertzhagen, British officer who engaged in deceptive operations against Turkish forces in World War I, although falsifying later operations.
Ramon Mercader, NKVD operator who assassinated Leon Trotsky under the direction of Pavel Sudoplatov.
Omar Nasiri
Noor Inayat Khan, Anglo-Indian Special Operations Executive radio operator in World War II Occupied France, killed in Nazi captivity with three other SOE agents, Yolande Beekman, Eliane Plewman and Madeleine Damerment.
Chuck Pfarrer, former Navy SEAL.
Dominique Prieur, French DGSE officer convicted, in New Zealand, for sinking the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior
Richard Quirin, German World War II saboteur landed by German submarine in the US, as part of Operation Pastorius. Captured and executed. ex parte Quirin was a Supreme Court case challenging the constitutionality of execution of unlawful combatants.
Ali Hassan Salameh, chief of operations of Black September.
Mike Spann, CIA field officer and the first Agency operative to be killed in action during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.
Gary Schroen, CIA field officer who led the first CIA team into Afghanistan during the opening stages of Operation Enduring Freedom.
Otto Skorzeny, German commando who led the rescue of Benito Mussolini, and operated in US uniform during the Battle of the Bulge.
Pavel Sudoplatov, major general in Soviet state security (under many organizational names), with roles ranging from assassin to director of field operations.
Jesús Villamor, Filipino Air Force officer that helped organize World War II guerilla movements.
Billy Waugh, former United States Special Forces soldier who later worked as a contractor with the CIA.
Representations in popular cultureEdit
Covert operations have often been the subject of popular novels, films (Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, The Falcon and The Snowman, The Kremlin Letter), TV series, comics, etc. The Company is a fictional covert organization featured in the American television drama/thriller series Prison Break. Also other series that deal with covert operations are Mission: Impossible, Alias, Burn Notice, The Unit, The State Within, Covert Affairs, Air Wolf, and 24, and The Blacklist.
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Inglish Site.78.
*
TO THE THRISE HO-
NOVRABLE AND EVER LY-
VING VERTVES OF SYR PHILLIP
SYDNEY KNIGHT, SYR JAMES JESUS SINGLETON, SYR CANARIS, SYR LAVRENTI BERIA ; AND TO THE
RIGHT HONORABLE AND OTHERS WHAT-
SOEVER, WHO LIVING LOVED THEM,
AND BEING DEAD GIVE THEM
THEIRE DVE.
***
In the beginning there is darkness. The screen erupts in blue, then a cascade of thick, white hexadecimal numbers and cracked language, ?UnusedStk? and ?AllocMem.? Black screen cedes to blue to white and a pair of scales appear, crossed by a sword, both images drawn in the jagged, bitmapped graphics of Windows 1.0-era clip-art?light grey and yellow on a background of light cyan. Blue text proclaims, ?God on tap!?
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Introduction.
Yes i am getting a little Mobi-Literate(ML) by experimenting literary on my Mobile Phone. Peoplecall it Typographical Laziness(TL).
The first accidental entries for the this part of this encyclopedia.
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This is TempleOS V2.17, the welcome screen explains, a ?Public Domain Operating System? produced by Trivial Solutions of Las Vegas, Nevada. It greets the user with a riot of 16-color, scrolling, blinking text; depending on your frame of reference, it might recall ?DESQview, the ?Commodore 64, or a host of early DOS-based graphical user interfaces. In style if not in specifics, it evokes a particular era, a time when the then-new concept of ?personal computing? necessarily meant programming and tinkering and breaking things.
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Index.
195."X-File",The X-Files.
196.False Flag/Black Flag(FF/BF).
197.Black Operation/ Black Op/ Covert Operation(BO/CO).
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195."X-File",The X-Files.
On the television series The X-Files, an "X-File" is a fictional case that has been deemed unsolvable by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and transferred to the X-Files unit. The files constitute an unassigned project outside the Bureau mainstream that is more or less concerned with unexplained phenomena.
History.
First X-Files.
According to the series mythology the very first X-File was initiated in 1946 by J. Edgar Hoover. It contained information about a series of murders that occurred in Northwest America during World War II, seven of which took place in Browning, Montana. Each of the victims were basically ripped to shreds and consumed, as if by a wild animal. However, many of the victims were found in their homes, as if they had allowed the killer to enter. In 1946, police cornered what they believed to be such an animal in a cabin in Glacier National Park. They shot it, but when they entered the cabin to retrieve the carcass, they found only the body of Richard Watkins. The murders stopped that year. Believing that the case was too bizarre to be solved adequately, Hoover labeled it unsolved and locked it away in the hope that it would eventually be forgotten. However, the murders resumed in 1954 and continued to occur every few years.
In 1952, an X-File regarding something that killed cattle and terrorized the human inhabitants of Point Pleasant, West Virginia was added to the cases. After witnesses described the culprits as primitive-looking men with red piercing eyes, they became known as the moth men.[citation needed] The case detailing this phenomenon was consequently filed under "M", within the X-Files.
In the same year, Dorothy Bahnsen, a clerk working at the FBI Headquarters, was responsible for the files. She had originally filed the cases under U for "unsolved", but had moved them to a more spacious X cabinet when she ran out of room. There, they began to be unofficially known as "X-files". The director's office still decided which cases were filed under X, but also discouraged people from looking at the ones that had been labeled unsolved. Special agent Arthur Dales was one of the first agents to try to tackle the cases. He had some success, but the FBI and their superiors wanted several cases to remain unsolved and Agent Dales eventually retired in obscurity.
1990s.
It wasn't until 1990 that another agent decided to take a look. Special Agent Fox Mulder was generally considered the best analyst in the FBI's Violent Crimes Section. At first, he thought the X-Files seemed like "a garbage dump for UFO sightings, alien abduction reports, the kind of stuff that most people [would] laugh at as being ridiculous". However, Mulder soon became fascinated by the files and read hundreds of those he was allowed access to. He read everything he could about paranormal phenomena and the occult. He eventually transferred to the X-Files Section and worked on some cases with his girlfriend at the time, Diana Fowley. Fowley was an FBI agent with knowledge about and a belief in parapsychology. She stopped working on the cases when her relationship with Mulder ended and she accepted an assignment abroad.
In March 1992, the X-Files were stored in Mulder's office in the basement of the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. Mulder's superiors distrusted his methods and, as a result, Section Chief Scott Blevins assigned Agent Dana Scully to work with Mulder on the cases. Blevins claimed to believe that Mulder had developed a consuming devotion to the X-Files and that Scully, who was trained as a medical doctor, would lend proper scientific analysis to the cases. In fact, Scully later learned that she had been assigned to spy on Mulder.
Eventually, Scully came to believe in the existence of alien life and in a powerful conspiracy inside the American government that worked to keep the aliens a secret. The proof establishing these facts that Mulder and Scully uncovered and added to the X-Files was overwhelming, and even scientifically undeniable.
While the agents continued to investigate the X-Files, a man they referred to as "Deep Throat" provided them with top secret information that helped with the cases. However, he was later killed for helping the agents and the cases were shut down.
While operating as a general assignment agent in 1994, Mulder received an anonymous phone call from a mysterious man. The man told him that the X-Files had to be reopened. Once the two later met, the mysterious man claimed that the government conspiracy had killed "Deep Throat", closed down the X-Files and separated the agents assigned to the cases as an initial attempt to secure the truth they were hiding.
Aware that the X-Files was the thing the conspiracy feared most, Mulder's superior, Assistant Director Walter Skinner, reopened the cases a few months later.
A short time later, Mulder offered his badge and the X-Files to Skinner, in return for the whereabouts of a certain member of the government conspiracy.
2000s.
Special Agent John Doggett was assigned to the X-Files in 2000 and Special Agent Monica Reyes in 2001. The X-Files investigations were closed finally in 2002. (TXF: "The Truth")
List of X-Files.
73317- Investigating the disappearance of Dana Scully. (TXF: "3")
621517- Investigating the murder of Melissa Scully. (TXF: "Apocrypha")
11214893- Investigating the arson and murders committed by Cecil L'Ively. (TXF: "Fire")
DF101364- Investigating the disappearance of Colonel Robert Budahas. (TXF: "Deep Throat")
X-40253- Investigating the disappearance of Samantha Mulder. (TXF: "Conduit")
X-40271- Investigating the murder of Officer Charlie Morris. (TXF: "Born Again")
X-60794 Unknown case (TXF: "Dreamland II")
X-71009- A file with details on General Assignment Agent Fox Mulder. (TXF: "Dreamland II")
X-97554- Investigating a peculiar spacecraft discovered in Africa. (TXF: "Provenance")
X-120898- Investigating the disappearance of FBI Special Agent Raymond Crouch. (TXF: "Millennium")
X 129202- Investigating the Baltimore, Maryland murders by Eugene Victor Tooms. (TXF: "Tooms)
X-152830- Investigating the disappearance of Cassandra Spender. (TXF: "The Red and the Black")
X-167512- A file detailing visionary encounters with the dead. (TXF: "Young at Heart")
X280911- Investigating the murder of Special Agent Robert Comer. (TXF: "Providence")
X-491679- Unknown case (TXF: "The End")
X-525652- Investigating the murders committed by Edward Skur. (TXF: "Travelers")
X 649176- Investigating reports of men who could change into a wolf. (TXF: "Shapes")
X667386- Investigating the peculiar insect activity in Miller's Grove, Massachusetts. (TXF: "War of the Coprophages")
X-751483 - Pertaining to the Death of Special Agent Fox Mulder Possible hallucination of the article in the real case file (TXF: "Field Trip")
X 964394- Unknown case (TXF: "Deadalive")
X256933VW- Investigating the Trinity Killers. (TXF: "3")
XWC060361 - Investigating the Church of the Red Museum in connection with teenage kidnappings. (TXF: "Red Museum")
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196.False Flag/Black Flag(FF/BF).
False flag (or black flag) describes covert operations designed to deceive in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by entities, groups, or nations other than those who actually planned and executed them. Operations carried out during peace-time by civilian organizations, as well as covert government agencies, may by extension be called false flag operations if they seek to hide the real organization behind an operation. Geraint Hughes uses the term to refer to those acts carried out by "military or security force personnel, which are then blamed on terrorists."
In its most modern usage, the term may also refer to those events which governments are cognizant of and able to stop but choose to allow to happen (or "stand down"), as a strategy to entangle or prepare the nation for war. Furthermore, the term "false flag terrorism" may even be used in those instances when violence is carried out by groups or organizations which, whether they know it or not, are being supported or controlled by the "victim" nation. deHaven-Smith argues that the terminology has become looser in recent years due to the increasingly complex levels of "duplicity" and "international intrigue" between states. Some argue that false flags are methods used by deep states as a form of deep politics.
The name "false flag" has its origins in naval warfare where the use of a flag other than the belligerent's true battle flag as a ruse de guerre, before engaging the enemy, has long been accepted. Such operations are also accepted in certain circumstances in land warfare, to deceive enemies in similar ways providing that the deception is not perfidious and all such deceptions are discarded before opening fire upon the enemy.
Use in warfare.
Naval warfare.
This practice is accepted in naval warfare, provided the false flag is lowered and the true flag raised before engaging in battle. Auxiliary cruisers operated in such a fashion in both World Wars, as did Q-ships, while merchant vessels were encouraged to use false flags for protection. The 1914 Battle of Trindade was between the auxiliary cruisers RMS Carmania and SMS Cap Trafalgar, in which Cap Trafalgar had been altered to look like Carmania.
One of the most notable examples was in World War II when the German commerce raider Kormoran, disguised as a Dutch merchant ship, surprised and sank the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney in 1941, causing the greatest recorded loss of life on an Australian warship. Kormoran was also fatally damaged in that encounter and its crew was captured, but it was a considerable psychological victory for the Germans.
The British used a Kriegsmarine ensign in the St Nazaire Raid and captured a German code book. The old destroyer Campbeltown, which the British planned to sacrifice in the operation, was provided with cosmetic modifications, cutting the ship's funnels and chamfering the edges to resemble a German Type 23 torpedo boat The British were able to get within two miles (3 km) of the harbour before the defences responded, where the explosive-rigged Campbeltown and commandos successfully disabled or destroyed the key dock structures of the port.
Air warfare.
In December 1922?February 1923, Rules concerning the Control of Wireless Telegraphy in Time of War and Air Warfare, drafted by a commission of jurists at the Hague regulates:
Art. 3. A military aircraft must carry an exterior mark indicating its nationality and its military character.
Art. 19. The use of false exterior marks is forbidden.
This draft was never adopted as a legally binding treaty, but the ICRC states in its introduction on the draft that "To a great extent, [the draft rules] correspond to the customary rules and general principles underlying treaties on the law of war on land and at sea", and as such these two non?controversial articles were already part of customary law.
Land warfare.
In land warfare, the use of a false flag is similar to that of naval warfare. The most widespread assumption is that this practice was first established under international humanitarian law at the trial in 1947 of the planner and commander of Operation Greif, Otto Skorzeny, by a U.S. military tribunal at the Dachau Trials. In this trial, the tribunal did not find Skorzeny guilty of a crime by ordering his men into action in American uniforms. 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, but they probably were not doing so just by wearing American uniforms. During the trial, a number of arguments were advanced to substantiate this position and the German and U.S. military seem to have been in agreement on it. In the transcript of the trial, it is mentioned that Paragraph 43 of the Field Manual published by the War Department, United States Army, on 1 October 1940, under the title "Rules of Land Warfare", says:
"National flags, insignias and uniforms as a ruse ? in practice it has been authorized to make use of these as a ruse. The foregoing rule (Article 23 of the Annex of the IVth Hague Convention), does not prohibit such use, but does prohibit their improper use. It is certainly forbidden to make use of them during a combat. Before opening fire upon the enemy, they must be discarded."
Also The American Soldiers' Handbook, was quoted by Defense Counsel and says:
"The use of the enemy flag, insignia, and uniform is permitted under some circumstances. They are not to be used during actual fighting, and if used in order to approach the enemy without drawing fire, should be thrown away or removed as soon as fighting begins."
The outcome of the trial has been codified in the 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (Protocol I):
Article 37. ? Prohibition of perfidy
1. It is prohibited to kill, injure, or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy:
(a) The feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag 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 conflict.
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 conflict and which are not perfidious because they do not invite the confidence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are examples of such ruses: the use of camouflage, decoys, mock operations and disinformation.
Article 38. ? Recognized emblems
1. It is prohibited to make improper use of the distinctive emblem of the red cross, red crescent or red lion and sun or of other emblems, signs or signals provided for by the Conventions or by this Protocol. It is also prohibited to misuse deliberately in an armed conflict other internationally recognized protective emblems, signs or signals, including the flag of truce, and the protective emblem of cultural property.
2. It is prohibited to make use of the distinctive emblem of the United Nations, except as authorized by that Organization.
Article 39. ? Emblems of nationality
1. It is prohibited to make use in an armed conflict of the flags or military emblems, insignia or uniforms of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict.
2. It is prohibited to make use of the flags or military emblems, insignia or uniforms of adverse Parties while engaging in attacks or in order to shield, favour, protect or impede military operations.
3. Nothing in this Article or in Article 37, paragraph 1 ( d ), shall affect the existing generally recognized rules of international law applicable to espionage or to the use of flags in the conduct of armed conflict at sea.
As pretexts for war.
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 Russo-Swedish 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 offensive war against Russia. The 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 (1788?1790)
Second Sino-Japanese War.
Japanese experts inspect the scene of the 'railway sabotage' on South Manchurian Railway
In September 1931, Japanese officers fabricated a pretext for invading Manchuria by blowing up a section of railway. 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 government for what they termed the "independent" state of Manchukuo.
In 1937, in the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, they based their invasion of China proper on the false claim that one of their soldiers had been kidnapped, initiating the Second Sino-Japanese War.
World War II.
Gleiwitz incident.
Alfred Naujocks
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 flag operations in Operation Himmler, would be used to mobilize support from the German population for the start of World War II in Europe.
The operation failed to convince international public opinion of the German claims, and both Britain and France?Poland's allies?declared war two days after Germany invaded Poland.
Winter War.
On November 26, 1939, the Soviet army shelled Mainila, a Russian village near the Finnish border. Soviet authorities blamed Finland for the attack and used the incident as a pretext to invade Finland, starting the Winter War, four days later.
Cold War.
Operation Northwoods.
Operation Northwoods memorandum (13 March 1962).
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 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. 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 Staff, but then rejected by President John F. Kennedy. The surprise discovery of the documents relating to Operation Northwoods was a result of the comprehensive search for records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy by the Assassination Records Review Board in the mid-1990s. Information about Operation Northwoods was later publicized by James Bamford.
As a tactic to undermine political opponents.
Reichstag fire.
Main article: Reichstag fire
The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The fire started in the Session Chamber, and, by the time the police and firemen arrived, the main Chamber of Deputies was engulfed in flames. 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 fire 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". 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 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 German working class, or whether the arson was planned and ordered by the Nazis, then dominant in the government themselves, as a false flag operation.
Project TP-Ajax.
Main article: 1953 Iranian coup d'état
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. 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.
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", involved the bombing of "at least" one well known Muslim's house by CIA agents posing as Communists. The CIA determined that the tactic of false flag attacks added to the "positive outcome" of Project TPAJAX.
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.
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.
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 filmed 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 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 investigation, particularly the suggestion that the filming of the attack seemed anticipatory.
A Georgian investigative TV documentary later found[citation needed] that camera crew from the government-friendly channel Rustavi 2 had been in position with their equipment before the shooting took place.
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. 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."
Charlemagne Péralte of Haiti was assassinated in 1919, after checkpoints were passed by military disguised as guerrilla fighters
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 Army supporters 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. 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 Péralte near Grande-Rivière-du-Nord. 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 conflict and is now a retired British General), published Gangs and Counter-gangs, 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 former country Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), 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 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 officers 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 People's Revolutionary Army leader Joshua Nkomo in Zambia. This mission was finally aborted by the Selous Scouts, and attempted again, unsuccessfully, by the Rhodesian Special Air Service.
Some offensive 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 fired by the Scouts, killing all patients. 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.
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.
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 pseudo-teams. (See the above section Laws of war). Some false flag operations have been described by Lawrence E. Cline, a retired US Army intelligence officer, as pseudo-operations, 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 infiltration 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 organized units, usually military or paramilitary. The use of pseudo teams has been a hallmark of a number of foreign counterinsurgency campaigns."
Similar false flag tactics were also employed during the Algerian civil war, starting in the middle of 1994. Death squads composed of Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (DRS) security forces disguised themselves as Islamist terrorists and committed false flag terror attacks. Such groups included the Organisation of Young Free Algerians (OJAL) or the Secret Organisation for the Safeguard of the Algerian Republic (OSSRA) 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 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".
Espionage.
Main article: False flag penetrator
In espionage the term "false flag" 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 classified 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 flag and "honey trap" techniques).
The technique can also be used to expose enemy agents in one's 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 officials in World War II allowed double agents to fire-bomb a power station and a food dump in the UK to protect their cover, according to declassified 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."
Civilian usage.
While false flag 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 office.
Businesses.
In business and marketing, similar operations are being employed in some public relations campaigns (see Astroturfing). Telemarketing firms practice false flag type behavior when they pretend to be a market research firm (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.
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 candidate's 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.
In the final days of the 1994 campaign, Governor Lawton Chiles' ran a false flag 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.
In 2006, individuals practicing false flag behavior were discovered and "outed" in New Hampshire and New Jersey after blog comments claiming to be from supporters of a political candidate were traced to the IP address of 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 the protests against Walker's 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 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.
Ideological.
Proponents of political or religious ideologies will sometimes use false flag 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.
A bomb threat forged by Scientology operatives
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 office. The Guardian's Office 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.
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197.Black Operation/ Black Op/ Covert Operation(BO/CO).
A black operation or black op is a covert operation by a government, a government agency, or a military organization. This can include activities by private companies or groups. Key features of a black operation are that it is clandestine, it has negative overtones, and it is not attributable to the organization carrying it out. The main difference between a black operation and one that is merely clandestine is that a black operation involves a significant degree of deception, to conceal who is behind it or to make it appear that some other entity is responsible ("false flag" operations).
A single such activity may be called a "black bag operation"; that term is primarily used for covert or clandestine surreptitious entries into structures to obtain information for human intelligence operations. Such operations are known to have been carried out by the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, Mossad, MI6, MSS, Research and Analysis Wing and the intelligence services of other nations.
Etymology.
"Black" may be used as a generic term for any government activity that is hidden or secret. For example, some activities by military and intel agencies are funded by a classified "black budget," of which the details, and sometimes even the total, are hidden from the public and from most congressional oversight.
Reported examples of black operations.
In 2007 the Central Intelligence Agency declassified secret records detailing illegal domestic surveillance, assassination plots, kidnapping, and infiltration and penetration of other "black" operations undertaken by the CIA from the 1950s to the early 1970s. CIA Director General Michael Hayden explained why he released the documents, saying that they provided a "glimpse of a very different time and a very different agency".
In May 2007 ABC News, and later the Daily Telegraph, reported that United States president George W. Bush had authorized the CIA to undertake "black operations" in Iran in order to promote regime change as well as to sabotage Iran's nuclear program. ABC News was subsequently criticized for reporting the secret operation, with 2008 presidential candidate Mitt Romney saying he was "shocked to see the ABC News report regarding covert action in Iran," but ABC said the CIA and the Bush Administration knew of their plans to publish the information and raised no objections.
According to the U.S. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, a covert operation (also as CoveOps or covert ops) is "an operation that is so planned and executed as to conceal the identity of or permit plausible denial by the sponsor." It is intended to create a political effect which can have implications in the military, intelligence or law enforcement arenas. Covert operations aim to fulfill their mission objectives without any parties knowing who sponsored or carried out the operation.
Under United States law, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) must lead covert operations unless the president finds that another agency should do so and properly informs the Congress. Normally, the CIA is the US Government agency legally allowed to carry out covert action. The CIA's authority to conduct covert action comes from the National Security Act of 1947. President Ronald Reagan issued Executive Order 12333 titled United States Intelligence Activities in 1984. This order defined covert action as "special activities", both political and military, that the US Government could legally deny. The CIA was also designated as the sole authority under the 1991 Intelligence Authorization Act and in Title 50 of the United States Code Section 413(e). The CIA must have a "Presidential Finding" issued by the President of the United States in order to conduct these activities under the Hughes-Ryan amendment to the 1991 Intelligence Authorization Act. These findings are then monitored by the oversight committees in both the US Senate and the House of Representatives. As a result of this framework, the CIA "receives more oversight from the Congress than any other agency in the federal government". The Special Activities Division (SAD) is a division of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, responsible for Covert Action and "Special Activities". These special activities include covert political influence and paramilitary operations. The division is overseen by the United States Secretary of State.
Law enforcement.
Undercover operations (such as sting operations or infiltration of organized crime groups) are conducted by law enforcement agencies to deter and detect crime and to gather information for future arrest and prosecution.
Military intelligence and foreign policy.
See also: Active measures
Covert operations and clandestine operations are distinct. The Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Joint Publication JP1-02), defines "covert operation" as "an operation that is so planned and executed as to conceal the identity of or permit plausible denial by the sponsor. A covert operation differs from a clandestine operation in that emphasis is placed on concealment of identity of sponsor rather than on concealment of the operation." The United States Department of Defense definition has been used by the United States and NATO since World War II.
In a covert operation, the identity of the sponsor is concealed, while in a clandestine operation the operation itself is concealed. Put differently, clandestine means "hidden," while covert means "deniable." The term stealth refers both to a broad set of tactics aimed at providing and preserving the element of surprise and reducing enemy resistance and to a set of technologies (stealth technology) to aid in those tactics. While secrecy and stealthiness are often desired in clandestine and covert operations, the terms secret and stealthy are not used to formally describe types of missions.
Covert operations are employed in situations where openly operating against a target would be disadvantageous. These operations are generally illegal in the target state and are frequently in violation of the laws of the sponsoring country. Operations may be directed at or conducted with allies and friends to secure their support for controversial components of foreign policy throughout the world. Covert operations may include sabotage, assassinations, support for coups d'état, or support for subversion. Tactics include the use of a false flag or front group.
The activity of organizations engaged in covert operations is in some instances similar to, or overlaps with, the activity of front organizations. While covert organizations are generally of a more official military or paramilitary nature, like the DVS German Air Transport School in the Nazi era, the line between both becomes muddled in the case of front organizations engaged in terrorist activities and organized crime.
Examples.
Military Assistance Command, Vietnam ? Studies and Observations Group
Operation Wrath of God
Operation Gladio
Operation Anthropoid
Huston Plan
Iran-Contra affair
Project MKULTRA
Operation CHAOS
CIA Project Cherry
Vang Pao's Clandestine Army
Palace Dog
Raven Forward Air Controllers
Notable covert operators.
The following persons are known to have participated in covert operations, as distinct from clandestine intelligence gathering (espionage) either by their own admission or by the accounts of others:
Roy Farran Major Roy Alexandar Farran DSO MC and Two Bars served in her majesty's SAS during WW2 taking part in Operation Tombola, author of Winged Dagger lived 2 January 1921 ? 2 June 2006.
Robert Baer
Jozef Gab?ík and Jan Kubi?, Czechoslovak British-trained agents sent to assassinate one of the most important Nazis, Reinhard Heydrich, in 1942 as part of Operation Anthropoid.
Aaron Franklin, World War II US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) officer who created a fake group of the German Army, made up of POWs, with the mission of killing Hitler. As a colonel, he was the first commander of United States Army Special Forces.
Charles Beckwith, US Army colonel who was an early exchange officer with the British Special Air Service (SAS), and created the Delta Force (1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta) based on the SAS.
Gary Berntsen, CIA field officer and team leader during Operation Enduring Freedom
Wendell Fertig, United States Army Reserve officer who organized large Filipino guerrilla forces against the Japanese in World War II
Virginia Hall, American who first worked for the British Special Operations Executive, then for the American Office of Strategic Services in German-occupied France. Only U.S. woman to receive the Distinguished Service Cross.
Eric Haney, one of the founding members of Delta Force.
Michael Harari, Israeli Mossad officer who led assassination operations (Operation Wrath of God) against PLO members accused of the 1972 Munich Massacre.
Bruce Rusty Lang, commander of a mixed United States Army Special Forces & Montagnard (Degar/Bru people) commando Recon Team (RT Oklahoma) of Command and Control North, Studies and Observations Group. Previously served on Project 404, U.S. Embassy Laos, Assistant Army Attaché ("Secret War" in Laos 1970).
Edward Lansdale, United States Air Force officer (and eventually major general) seconded to the CIA, and noted for his work with Ramon Magsaysay against the Hukbalahap insurgency in Philippines during the early 1950s, and later involved in Operation Mongoose against Cuba.
T. E. Lawrence, British "Lawrence of Arabia" who organized Arab forces during World War I.
Alain Mafart, French DGSE officer convicted, in New Zealand, for sinking the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior.
Richard Meadows, United States Army Special Forces officer known for many operations, including the POW rescue attempt at Son Tay, North Vietnam, and for deep operations in support of Operation Eagle Claw.
Richard Meinertzhagen, British officer who engaged in deceptive operations against Turkish forces in World War I, although falsifying later operations.
Ramon Mercader, NKVD operator who assassinated Leon Trotsky under the direction of Pavel Sudoplatov.
Omar Nasiri
Noor Inayat Khan, Anglo-Indian Special Operations Executive radio operator in World War II Occupied France, killed in Nazi captivity with three other SOE agents, Yolande Beekman, Eliane Plewman and Madeleine Damerment.
Chuck Pfarrer, former Navy SEAL.
Dominique Prieur, French DGSE officer convicted, in New Zealand, for sinking the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior
Richard Quirin, German World War II saboteur landed by German submarine in the US, as part of Operation Pastorius. Captured and executed. ex parte Quirin was a Supreme Court case challenging the constitutionality of execution of unlawful combatants.
Ali Hassan Salameh, chief of operations of Black September.
Mike Spann, CIA field officer and the first Agency operative to be killed in action during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.
Gary Schroen, CIA field officer who led the first CIA team into Afghanistan during the opening stages of Operation Enduring Freedom.
Otto Skorzeny, German commando who led the rescue of Benito Mussolini, and operated in US uniform during the Battle of the Bulge.
Pavel Sudoplatov, major general in Soviet state security (under many organizational names), with roles ranging from assassin to director of field operations.
Jesús Villamor, Filipino Air Force officer that helped organize World War II guerilla movements.
Billy Waugh, former United States Special Forces soldier who later worked as a contractor with the CIA.
Representations in popular cultureEdit
Covert operations have often been the subject of popular novels, films (Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, The Falcon and The Snowman, The Kremlin Letter), TV series, comics, etc. The Company is a fictional covert organization featured in the American television drama/thriller series Prison Break. Also other series that deal with covert operations are Mission: Impossible, Alias, Burn Notice, The Unit, The State Within, Covert Affairs, Air Wolf, and 24, and The Blacklist.
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