(WMR) -- Revelations about a shadowy right-wing group called Ergenekon participating with Turkish military and intelligence elements in “false flag” terrorist attacks in order to bring down the Turkish government are nothing new and are, in fact, a normal tactic used by intelligence services. However, the term “false flag” has been irresponsibly relegated to the arena of “conspiracy theories” by a corporate media answering to their own hidden agendas.

In 1996, then-South African Deputy President Thabo Mbeki told the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission that the apartheid government carried out “false flag” terrorist attacks that were then attributed to the African National Congress (ANC), which had a policy of not targeting civilians in its battle with the apartheid regime. The horrible execution method of “necklacing,” putting a burning tire over the necks of victims that would burn them to death, was carried out by apartheid agents provocateurs to damage the reputation of the ANC, Mbeki told the commission.

Some of the gruesome videotaped beheadings carried out on Westerners in Iraq may also have been carried out by agents provocateurs on the payroll of U.S. and other intelligence services to generate sympathy for the U.S.-led occupation of the country and pin blame on the Iraqi insurgents.

Many observers point out that Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish national who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981, may have been unwittingly used by Western intelligence in order to foment a Polish insurrection against the Soviet Union. Agca thought at various times he was working for the Soviets, Bulgaria, or Iran through the CIA. Turkish Interior Minister Hussan Gunes, who investigated Agca, said he thought Agca was involved in an attempt to provoke an uprising in Poland and cut it off from the Warsaw Pact.

The most infamous and documented U.S. false flag operation was the proposed Operation Northwoods, a plan hatched by the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Kennedy administration in 1962 that included terrorist attacks against ships and passenger planes, claiming Cuba was behind them and providing a pretext for a U.S. invasion of Cuba.

In 1967, Israel attacked the National Security Agency intelligence ship, the U.S.S. Liberty, hoping the Americans would believe Egypt carried out the attack, prompting a U.S. military strike on Egypt, with which Israel was fighting the Six Day War. The Israeli operation was reportedly code-named Operation Cyanide.

More recently, Ikram Yabukov, a former Uzbek National Security Service (SNB) major, said the government of President Islam Karimov carrid out a number of false flag terrorist attacks and then blamed them on Islamist extremists to win support at home and abroad. Former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray validated Yabukov’s claims. Uzbekistan was an early U.S. coalition partner in the so-called “Global War on Terrorism” following the 9/11 attacks.

Yakobov also claimed that many Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) leaders, designated terrorists by the U.S. State Department, were nurtured by the Uzbek government, which supported their bombings in Tashkent and the 2005 Andijon uprising, which killed more than 1,500 people. In another false flag, Yakubov said the SNB engineered a 2004 passenger plane crash in Tashkent that killed senior UN official in Uzbekistan Richard Conroy. Conroy apparently had information linking Karimov to trafficking of drugs and women forced abroad into prostitution.

Last month, three German BND intelligence agents were arrested by Kosovo authorities after they were accused of throwing a bomb at the European Union office in Pristina, the Kosovo capital. The previously unheard of Army of the Republic of Kosovo claimed responsibility for the attack. The BND believes that their agents were fingered by corrupt Kosovo politicians who were the actual perpetrators of the attack on the EU building. The Germans are aware that the Kosovo government, which is riddled with criminals of every strike, takes its orders from the United States.

What is certain is that “false flag” operations run throughout history. There is new evidence that Ergenekon key players are supported by certain elements in Utah. Ironically, one of the most dastardly uses of the false flag attack was by Mormon settlers in Utah who preyed upon California-bound wagon trains. One such attack, the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857, saw 120 California-bound men, women, and children massacred by Mormon militiamen who left Indian artifacts at the crime scene to make authorities believe the wagon train had been beset upon by Indians. 

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

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