I don't usually read the religiously leaning press in any way, but I came across a very insightful article on a column by Chuck Baldwin that offers great insight into the false flag phenomenon which you can find here:
http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/Articles/tabid/109/ID/3478/How-To-Spot-A-False-Flag-Event.aspx
I have copied and pasted it here for convenience:
An immediate comprehensive narrative, including a convenient culprit. Law enforcement, government agencies, and the mainstream media immediately proffer a narrative that completely explains the event and encourages citizens to tie their intellectual understanding of the tragedy to the emotions they experience. In his lecture at Contact in the Desert, [author and researcher] Richard Dolan noted that a distinguishing characteristic of a false flag operation is that the official narrative IS NOT questioned by the media. There are often legislative, ideological and sociopolitical power plays waiting in the wings, which the government can immediately implement.
The official narrative has obvious domestic and geopolitical advantages for the governing body. The Bush administration used 9/11 to usher in the War on Terror, which has served as a lynchpin for countless civil liberty infringements by the national security state, including ubiquitous domestic surveillance and indefinite detention.
The narrative behind the attack serves to leverage emotions like fear, as well as patriotism, in order to manufacture consent around a previously controversial issue. For example, many of the recent domestic terror attacks, including the Aurora [and Orlando] shooting[s], have exacerbated and reinforced advocacy of gun control legislation.
Military training drills and police drills occur on the day of and very near the attack itself, causing confusion to obscure eye witness testimony and allowing orchestrators to plant both patsies, disinformation and backup operatives. This is no small point. An incredible percentage of major domestic or international terror attacks have involved simultaneous "training drills.” This list includes, but is not limited to, the infamous NORAD drills of 9/11, the 7/7 London Bombings, the 2011 Norway shooting, the Aurora shooting, Sandy Hook, and the Boston Marathon. Though none of the aforementioned events can be confirmed or denied without a doubt, they bear a striking resemblance to previous false flag attacks and should be looked at with an investigative eye.
It's time for those of us who have been reluctant to consider the possibility that our own government (and the governments of Israel and Great Britain) could actually be complicit in domestic terrorism in order to further a nefarious agenda to at least stop accepting the government and media’s version of these tragedies at face value. For the most part, the mainstream media is little more than a propaganda ministry for the federal government. We haven’t seen true objective investigative journalism since before the death of John F. Kennedy.
Granted, not every national tragedy is part of a government conspiracy--and there is a plethora of "conspiracy nuts" out there to whom EVERYTHING is a conspiracy and through which we must wade to try to ascertain the truth. These people make it difficult for all of us. The Internet has provided the Chicken Littles of the world with an opportunity to play journalist. And their “everything's-a-conspiracy” rants only serve to mask the true conspiracies and turn the average John Doe away from the truth. That’s why I believe that many of these “conspiracy-everywhere” Internet bloggers are actually PART OF THE CONSPIRACY. Their job is to make genuine whistleblowers and researchers look like conspiracy “kooks.” Then, of course, there are genuine kooks out there, too.
Regardless, the similarities and "coincidences" of many of these national tragedies are just too numerous for rational people to ignore. I believe Mr. Swift's analysis is very intelligent, coherent, and plausible.
Our Founding Fathers believed their government (the British Crown) was deliberately conspiring against them. Thomas Jefferson said as much in our Declaration of Independence:
“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Read it again: “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a DESIGN to reduce them under absolute Despotism . . . .” Jefferson and the rest of America’s founders believed that there was a “design” (i.e, “plot,” “scheme,” or “conspiracy,” if you please) to “reduce them under absolute Despotism.” So, if you believe that government conspiracy is only for kooks, you must include America’s Founding Fathers in that group.
Patrick Henry may have said it best: "We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation?
"For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth--to know the worst and to provide for it."
I submit if we deliberately "shut our eyes against a painful truth," liberty is not long for this country. And there is plenty of blame to go around.
Obviously, the “no conspiracy” group is contributing greatly to the demise of liberty by their unwillingness to even examine the evidence suggesting government conspiracies. Truly, they are shutting their eyes “against a painful truth.” And, unfortunately, this group is most prevalent among pastors, Christians, and churches.
I find it incredible that people who supposedly study their Bibles are so completely blind to government conspiracies. The Old and New Testaments are replete with examples of government conspiracies. Jewish governments, especially, were notorious for conspiring against God’s prophets in the Old Testament and against Jesus and the Apostles in the New Testament. Plus, the New Testament plainly pictures the master conspirator, Satan, as being the “god of this world” and “the prince of the power of the air.” His offer to Christ on the Mount of Temptation to give Jesus the “kingdoms of the world” was NOT challenged by the Lord. In other words, Jesus didn’t dispute the fact that Satan controls many, if not most, of the world’s governments. The Book of Ephesians warns against the conspiracy of “principalities,” “powers,” “rulers of the darkness of this world,” and “spiritual wickedness in high places.” Every Bible commentator that I respect includes wicked civil magistrates within these personages. Yet when one brings up the possibility of government conspiracies to the average church member, he or she is treated as if they have the palsy.
Nowhere is this attitude of the denial of conspiracies more evident than in the whole Muslim versus America façade. Almost no Christian leader seems to be able to see the “man behind the curtain” in this whole affair. They have absolutely NO concept of what the governments of the U.S., Great Britain, Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia are surreptitiously doing to instigate and foment this “war with Islam.” (Of course, there is no war against the Islamic states of Saudi Arabia and Turkey; they are our “allies.”) Christians aren’t even willing to study the matter. Therefore, the devil--along with the evil miscreants inside Western governments that he controls--is able to go about his diabolical work completely undetected.
But, in all fairness, the “everything's-a-conspiracy” group must also share culpability in our country’s demise. There are too many professing “patriots” who seem to have no honesty or objectivity whatsoever. To them, everything government does is bad whether it is or isn’t. And, of course, they, the so-called “patriots,” can do NOTHING wrong.
For example, if a black kid in an inner city is unjustly killed by a police officer, these “patriots” say absolutely NOTHING. But if one of their “own” is justly killed by police, they scream “tyranny” and shout about the need for revolution. Such people seem to have no reasoning ability and no understanding of Natural Law. They are agenda driven as surely as are big-government toadies. In fact, some of these “patriot” Internet bloggers and radio broadcasters are no better than the mainstream media: they twist the truth in order to pander to the people who are supporting them financially. It’s not about principle; it’s not about truth; it’s not about the rule of law. It’s all about their financial success.
When we only condemn injustice committed by government, while overlooking and condoning injustice committed by so-called “patriots,” we lose all credibility and integrity. Everything is not a conspiracy. Every policeman or federal agent is not a Jackboot. Sometimes there are real acts of violence committed by real deranged criminals with no help whatsoever from anyone--including anyone in government. And sometimes there are so-called “patriots” who are themselves evil, using the freedom movement for their own ulterior purposes. And, of course, there are well-intentioned people who sometimes do very foolish and unwise things. And only foolish and unwise people would condone and support foolish and unwise actions, even if they are well-intentioned.
I totally agree with Sebastian Swift’s article that there are indeed false flag operations being perpetrated by rogue elements within government--including the governments of the United States, Great Britain, and Israel. I further agree that people need to honestly and objectively be alert for the identifying characteristics of these false flag operations. More than that, the American people need to begin holding our civil magistrates accountable for these operations, as they could not continue without the tacit support of our elected representatives and President.
But what we do NOT need are phony “patriots” who do nothing but distract, confuse, and incite by calling everything a conspiracy and who themselves are guilty of unlawful conduct--unlawful conduct as defined by God and Natural Law. (This is why the ignorance and silence of America’s pulpits is such an egregious crime: people do not even know how to discern lawful and unlawful conduct because pastors are not teaching them these Biblical Natural Law principles.) Plus, I am personally convinced that many of these hot-headed so-called “patriots” are in reality government agent provocateurs who are deliberately trying to incite real patriots into doing something stupid.
Again, I submit if we deliberately "shut our eyes against a painful truth," liberty is not long for this country. And that includes admitting when a tragedy is NOT a conspiracy. But it also means admitting when evidence suggests that it IS."
