False Flags: The U.S. Deceptions That Sold Wars
Aug 22, 2025, 08:15 PM
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The U.S. government has planned, approved, and used deception to justify war. This podcast-exclusive investigation examines Operation Northwoods, Vietnam’s Gulf of Tonkin, Iraq’s Nayirah testimony, and COINTELPRO—all real, all documented.
This episode is produced exclusively for the Divergent Files Podcast.
What if your government was willing to attack its own people…
just to justify a war?
What if it wasn’t a theory—but policy?
This episode exposes the buried history of U.S. deception campaigns used to manufacture consent, silence dissent, and steer the public into conflicts they never chose. Not rumors. Not speculation. Declassified plans, sworn testimony, and government admissions.
We begin with Operation Northwoods, a Joint Chiefs–approved proposal that openly suggested staging terrorist attacks on American civilians to justify war with Cuba. The plan was never executed—but it was signed, approved, and shelved. Which raises a far more unsettling question: what was carried out later?
From there, we examine how the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was used to sell the Vietnam War—despite later admissions that the attack never occurred as reported. We revisit the Nayirah testimony, a fabricated hospital witness story that helped launch the Gulf War. And we expose how COINTELPRO waged psychological war at home, destroying civil-rights and anti-war movements from the inside.
This investigation traces a consistent pattern:
• False or exaggerated events used to spark conflict
• Media narratives locked in before facts could surface
• Psychological operations aimed at emotional manipulation
• Truth emerging decades later—after the damage was done
These operations didn’t require bombs.
They required belief.
From the Spanish-American War to Vietnam, Iraq, and domestic political warfare, we show how narrative control became America’s most reliable weapon—and why it still works.
This episode isn’t anti-American.
It’s anti-deception.
Because democracy doesn’t collapse when people disagree.
It collapses when they’re lied to—on purpose.
This is the history they never wanted you to read.
And by the time most people do…
the story has already moved on.
Stay curious. Stay grounded.
And remember… no matter what they tell you, the truth is still out there.
What if your government was willing to attack its own people…
just to justify a war?
What if it wasn’t a theory—but policy?
This episode exposes the buried history of U.S. deception campaigns used to manufacture consent, silence dissent, and steer the public into conflicts they never chose. Not rumors. Not speculation. Declassified plans, sworn testimony, and government admissions.
We begin with Operation Northwoods, a Joint Chiefs–approved proposal that openly suggested staging terrorist attacks on American civilians to justify war with Cuba. The plan was never executed—but it was signed, approved, and shelved. Which raises a far more unsettling question: what was carried out later?
From there, we examine how the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was used to sell the Vietnam War—despite later admissions that the attack never occurred as reported. We revisit the Nayirah testimony, a fabricated hospital witness story that helped launch the Gulf War. And we expose how COINTELPRO waged psychological war at home, destroying civil-rights and anti-war movements from the inside.
This investigation traces a consistent pattern:
• False or exaggerated events used to spark conflict
• Media narratives locked in before facts could surface
• Psychological operations aimed at emotional manipulation
• Truth emerging decades later—after the damage was done
These operations didn’t require bombs.
They required belief.
From the Spanish-American War to Vietnam, Iraq, and domestic political warfare, we show how narrative control became America’s most reliable weapon—and why it still works.
This episode isn’t anti-American.
It’s anti-deception.
Because democracy doesn’t collapse when people disagree.
It collapses when they’re lied to—on purpose.
This is the history they never wanted you to read.
And by the time most people do…
the story has already moved on.
Stay curious. Stay grounded.
And remember… no matter what they tell you, the truth is still out there.