False flags are too hard
========================

False flags are too hard is John Kiriakou's answer to whether he was ever involved in promoting false stories while at the CIA, and to the broader question of how common staged operations really are.

The mechanical objection

Kiriakou does not deny that the category exists: there is such a thing as a false flag operation. His objection is practical. Such operations are very difficult, have a lot of moving parts, and require a lot of people to buy into the conspiracy. For that reason, he says, the agency really did not use them very often, they were simply too complicated.

The correspondence

He describes the volume of enquiry he now receives on the subject. It was only recently, he says, that people began emailing him, messaging him on Facebook or contacting him on Twitter about false flag operations, and he notes one friend who thinks every event in life is a false flag operation. The idea strikes him as preposterous precisely because these operations are so labour-intensive and so difficult to carry out.

Why the belief persists

Kiriakou does not leave the answer there, and the concession he adds is as firm as the denial. His interviewer said that people who write in mean well, and Kiriakou agreed that one cannot blame them for being paranoid.

The reason, he says, is the government's own conduct: when a government is not transparent, when it pretends to tell the American people the whole story about terrorist operations and then the story changes, one cannot blame people for being suspicious of the official line.

He applies the same reasoning to torture, noting that everything the government has said about it since 2002 has been a lie, and asking why anyone would believe it now.

See also

- Israeli False Flags
- Robert David Steele
- SEAL Team Six attrition
- CIA media relations
