Popular in alt-media circles, though seldom explicitly stated as an argument, the False-Flag Exercise Hypothesis promotes the idea that the coincidence of official training exercises or drills with major terror attacks somehow proves—or at least heavily suggests—that these events are instances of state-sponsored false-flag terrorism. But exactly how is this argument supposed to go?

To discuss the question we welcome back Tom Secker of SpyCulture.com, writer, researcher, fim-maker and creator of the excellent podcast ClandesTime, who guides us through the idea's history in military deception techniques, considers its role as a popular—but, in his view, largely mistaken—conspiracy theory and assesses the extent to which it has been encouraged through state-sponsored mass entertainment.

Subjects include: The Bay of Pigs, Operation Northwoods, Operation Gladio, The Russian Apartment Bombings, 9/11, 7/7 and The Boston Bombings.

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"...it is sometimes necessary to do unpleasant things which lose a certain amount of allegiance for a moment in order to produce your overall results"—Frank Kitson

This week we conclude our two-part interview with lawyer and university lecturer Adeyinka Makinde on his forthcoming academic paper: "Intelligence Accountability - Can the British State Convict Itself?"

In the first part we discussed Tony Blair's decision to take Britain to war against Iraq in 2003, and considered the prospects for war-crime prosecution under international and domestic law.

In the second part we move on to discuss Britain's role in the US-led "extraordinary rendition" programme—asking to what extent former UK foreign secretary, Jack Straw, and former head of counter-intelligence at MI6, Mark Allen, were involved in that—and end by looking at Britain's counter-insurgency strategy in Northern Ireland, which was initiated in the early 1970s by then Brigadier Frank Kitson.

Adeyinka Makinde trained for the law as a barrister. He lectures in criminal law and public law at a university in London, and has an academic research interest in intelligence & security matters. He is a contributor to a number of websites for which he has written essays and commentaries on international relations, politics and military history. He has served as a programme consultant and provided expert commentary for BBC World Service Radio, China Radio International and the Voice of Russia.

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"But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy"—Downing Street Memo

This week we are joined by the lawyer and university lecturer Adeyinka Makinde for the first part of a fascinating two-part interview centring in his forthcoming academic paper: "Intelligence Accountability : Can the British State Convict Itself?" Focusing on the 2003 Iraq invasion, "extraordinary renditions" and the UK's counter-insurgency strategy in the early years of the Northern Ireland "Troubles", Makinde questions the relationship between morality and "national interest" goals, and probes international and domestic law to make a case for the criminal culpability of high-ranking officials of the British state.

In this first part, Adeyinka Makinde challenges the opinion held by some experts, such as Geoffrey Robertson, that Tony Blair is not eligible to be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court.

Adeyinka Makinde trained for the law as a barrister. He lectures in criminal law and public law at a university in London, and has an academic research interest in intelligence & security matters. He is a contributor to a number of websites for which he has written essays and commentaries on international relations, politics and military history. He has served as a programme consultant and provided expert commentary for BBC World Service Radio, China Radio International and the Voice of Russia.

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"The manœuvre which brings an ally into the field is as serviceable as that which wins a great battle.^{"—Churchill *}

This week, as part of our false-flag series, we are joined by the author James Perloff for a discussion on the Lusitania, the famous British ocean liner that was sunk by a German submarine in 1915. Was the Lusitania—and the 1198 passengers and crew who perished with her—simply the victim of a German U-boat torpedo attack? Or did the British government deliberately place the Lusitania in jeopardy in order to attract a German attack in the hope of bringing America into WWI?

James Perloff is author of The Shadows of Power (an exposé of the Council on Foreign Relations that has sold over 100,000 copies), Tornado in a Junkyard and The Case Against Darwin (each challenging Darwinian evolution theory), and most recently Truth Is a Lonely Warrior (investigating the dark spiritual forces behind the drive for world government). For nearly three decades he wrote for The New American magazine.

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This week we are honoured to speak with Charles and Mary Ann Strange, whose son Michael—Cryptologic Technician and Petty Officer (Collection) First Class Michael Strange—was tragically killed in a suspicious helicopter shoot-down in Afghanistan.

Michael had served as a member of SEAL Team Six when it was reported to have assassinated Osama bin Laden at the beginning of May 2011. But on August 6, 2011 Michael was killed—along with fourteen other members of SEAL Team Six, two other Navy SEALs, thirteen US Army and US Navy support personnel, seven Afghan commandos, one Afgan interpreter and one US military working dog—when the CH-47D Chinook helicopter in which they were travelling was shot down by the Taliban.

But this was no ordinary tragedy in the horrific course of warfare; it was a deeply suspicious event. And many of the families who lost loved ones that day continue to press their catalogue of serious questions that the authorities seem unwilling to answer.

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Once again we welcome to the programme Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, who joins us to give his reaction to the Paris Attacks of 13th November, assessing them in relation to current and historical geopolitical realities. In the second half of the interview Dr. Roberts shares with us his analysis of the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and other so-called "trade deals" such as TTIP and TiSA, and raises the question as to whether we are seeing, in these developments, the dawn of the New World Order.

"There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this, Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever." (Orwell, 1984)

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Remember what the world used to be like - before 2013 - when all our electronic communications were being scooped up by intelligence agencies and stored in massive data silos? Well now, thanks to Edward Snowden.... well, what?

This week we welcome back to the programme writer, researcher and fim-maker Tom Secker of SpyCulture.com, InvestigatingTheTerror.com and the fascinating podcast ClandesTime, who joins us for an in-depth and entertaining discussion on his controversial, yet intriguing, take on the whole Edward Snowden phenomenon. Is Snowden everything he seems to be? Were his NSA "revelations" really as significant as has almost universally been claimed? Or are there reasons to suspect that this might have been all officially sanctioned: an elaborate limited hangout for the purposes of normalisation and control?

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Our guest this week is Swiss historian Dr. Daniele Ganser, author of the seminal book NATO's Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe, who joins us for a fascinating (though at times unsettling) conversation on the subject of Operation GLADIO.

Shortly after WWII a Europe-wide network of secret armies was organised under the aegis of NATO, tasked with providing military and intelligence resistance in the event of a feared Soviet invasion. Modelled on the resistance movements of the war years, many of these "stay behind" units remained faithful to their original mandate. But by the early 1960s - under the pressures of anti-communist politicking and flirtations with the Far Right - some of these groups began to morph into something more sinister, linking up with extreme right-wingers who carried out acts of false-flag terrorism, harassment of left-wing parties and coups d'état.

But was this morphing simply an unforseen consequence of the unaccountability and instability of the network itself? Or was it, at least in part, engineered by the very Anglo-American establishment which gave birth to the project in the first place? And to what extent, therefore, can such acts of terror be seen as manifestations of 'the strategy of tension', carried out by the State against its own citizens for the purposes of control at home and geopolitical gain abroad? (We also discuss: Operation Northwoods, the so-called War on Terror, 9/11 and the recent Charlie Hebdo attacks.)

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James Corbett, investigative journalist and host of The Corbett Report, joins us once again, this time for a detailed interview on the subject of ISIS.

How are we to understand ISIS? (IS? ISIL? AQI? JTJ? ...?) Is it, as often presented, essentially a spontaneous grouping of violent jihadists with aspirations for a global caliphate? Or is it, in reality, a multi-faceted phenomenon, arising out of - and manipulated by - various religious, geopolitical and corporate interests, each with its own vested interests in promoting ongoing destabilisation of the Middle East?

Drawing upon his years of research into geopolitics, and sharing with us from an open-source investigation into ISIS at The Corbett Report, James analyses this bewildering corner of the Grand Chess Board and identifies likely Players to help us interpret the Moves as the deadly Game continues.

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This week we are joined by Dr. Graeme MacQueen, co-editor of The Journal of 9/11 Studies, for an in-depth discussion on his important new book, The 2001 Anthrax Deception : The Case for a Domestic Conspiracy.

Shortly after 9/11, the US was once again gripped by fear as letters containing anthrax were sent through the post to news media offices and two US Senators, killing five and infecting perhaps dozens of others. Initially widely-blamed on Al Qaeda and Iraq, the attacks were used to jusify and accelerate the USA PATRIOT Act. But as evidence grew that the anthrax spores had originated in laboratories embedded in the US military-industrial complex, attention was diverted to looking for the "lone nut"; a quest that ended with a convenient suicide.

But what, asks Dr. MacQueen, should we conclude from all the "intelligence" that supposedly pointed towards Al Qaeda and Iraq in the first place? Was it all error? Or was it, as he persuasively argues, a nexus of "faulty" intelligence, "prescient" media reports, "tips", and astonishing "coincidences" that inescapably points towards a group of insiders within the US state appartus itself? And if so, argues Dr. MacQueen, the evidence heavily suggests that this group was also responsible for planning the 9/11 attacks.

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For the short Easter break, we again take the opportunity to share a Guest Episode - this time, an audio essay by a listener to The Mind Renewed, Antony Rotunno.

In "Conspiracy Theory - A Powerful Phrase!" Antony Rotunno - a UK English teacher now living in Madrid - discusses the development, power and scope of the term "conspiracy theory" (in its pejorative sense). Maintaining that its weaponised function as a thought-stopper in the general population is regularly exploited by those in authority in order to discourage investigation of government wrongdoing, Antony Rotunno argues that the only way forward for us is to "change the discourse": to think outside the Matrix, and work towards bringing others into the conversation, so that the structures that inhibit critical thinking might be laid bare.

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Writer, researcher and film-maker Tom Secker joins us for a detailed interview on 7/7 (the July 7th 2005 London bombings). Drawing upon his several years of research, Tom shares with us many of the problems with the official story, delves into the backstories behind the alleged suicide bombers, and uncovers layer upon layer of suspicious information suggesting that 7/7 may have been a false-flag terror event instigated by British Intelligence.

Tom also discusses how, in the run-up to the attacks, predictive programming in popular culture may have shaped public perception of 7/7, and how cognitive infiltration as a double bluff has negatively impacted the quest for 7/7 truth.

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The veteran Canadian journalist, media critic and documentary film producer Barrie Zwicker joins us for an analysis of the term "conspiracy theory" or "conspiracy theorist." Weaponised by the CIA in the late 1960s as a device for its assets in the media to discourage criticism of the Warren Report, the term "conspiracy theorist" became a powerful thought-stopper and has functioned ever since as a tool of psychological control. Barrie Zwicker also shares with us aspects of his experience as a 9/11 Truther, offers advice on how to respond to accusations, and gives us his forecast on the mainstream media's coverage of the 50th anniversary of the "execution" of JFK.

[conspiracy theory, conspiracy theorist, conspiracy nut, conspiracy whacko, tin foil hat, 9/11, false-flag operations, CIA, National Clandestine Service, NCS, 1035-960, Operation Mockingbird, PSYOP, Psychological Warfare Division, JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, Warren Commission Report, FDR, Pearl Harbor, Marshall McLuhan, Bertrand Russell, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, crimestop, Charles Pigden, Big Foot, Elvis, Lochness Monster, Abominable Snowman, Jonathan Kay, Among the Truthers, Peter Dale Scott, SCAD, Charles Pigden, The Muckrakers, tobacco industry]

"...it's not easy when you're at 20,000 feet, and your plane is on fire, and people are screaming for their lives, and you have to do an emergency landing... let me tell you, it's not easy... And what happened since is even worse: finding out that your own government did it to you on purpose."

On Christmas Day 2009, Kurt Haskell and his wife Lori were on-board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam bound for Detroit, on which the so-called "Underwear Bomber", Farouk Abdulmutallab, attempted to set off an explosive or incendiary device. According to the official version of events, this was an Al-Qaeda attack against the United States of America. Joining us to dispute this narrative, is Kurt Haskell himself, who, as a witness to this event, explains why he believes he was in the presence of a staged, false-flag operation, organised by the U.S. itself.

[Underwear Bomber, Christmas Bomber, Flight 253, Farouk Abdulmutallab, Man in Orange, false flag, FBI, NDAA, Patriot Act, War on Terror, police state, Barack Obama, Patrick Kennedy, Al-Qaeda, 9/11, Schiphol Airport, Hilary Clinton, Michael Chirtoff]

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts joins us to discuss his recent article "Washington Is Insane", in which he dismisses as pure propaganda the claim by the U.S. that Syria's President Assad ordered the use of chemical weapons, thus crossing the "red line" declared by Obama. Indeed the real 'villain of the piece' is Washington itself, or rather the "military-security complex" that controls it. (Subjects include: the NSA, false flag terror and the possibility of economic collapse.)

Dr. Roberts is the Chairman of the The Institute for Political Economy. In a varied career, spanning academia, journalism, business and public service, he has held numerous senior academic positions in universities; was an associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal ; and was appointed by President Reagan as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during Reagan's first term in office; after which he served as a consultant to both the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Commerce.

[Sarin, Friends of Syria, Supreme Military Council, UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria, Carla Del Ponte, Al-Nusra Front, Jabhat al-Nusra, Al Qaeda, Joint Chiefs of Staff, JFK, Gulf of Tonkin, false flag, propaganda, Bashar Hafez al-Assad, Der Spiegel, military-industrial complex, WMD, R2P, NATO, Eisenhower, NSA, Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, Cardinal József Mindszenty, Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, Pravda, Oliver Stone, The Untold History of the United States, Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah, China, Russia, WWIII, Dr. Strangelove, William Kristol]