Long ago, when I still ived in Calfornia, I mention that George Bush might use a vague terrorist threat to either delay elects or declare martial law. It this point, I think the nationalist ferver has died down a bit and to do either of those things there would need to be a real attack and lives really lost.
This lead me to wonder one group (a nation or ethic group) used violence, and then blamed it on other parties to get their way.
The answer is yes, though in my brief search I could only find two examples. While there are a lot of examples of in fighting between religious sects and close ethnic groups, the use of subtrafuge to blame other parties for the acts seems rare. And, while not "violence" in the general scene, there are man examples of involuntery medical testing resulting in the deaths of many in the U.S. (Tusgekee Experiments, and radiating American in the South West and monitoring them for years to see the health effects with out ever telling the subjects what was going on).
The first was before the Nazi's were in power, they would attack and kill fellow germans in opposing political party meetings and make it look like communists did it. Then Nazi's use anti-communist retoritic in conjunction with that to attract followers.
The other example was in the series of bombs against Iraqi Jews and synagogues in Baghdad in 1950 by Israeli agents to terrorize Iraqi Jews into immigration to Israel.
So, while I couldn't find any examples on American soil in my brief search, it is true this sort of thing is not unprecedented.
Is his something that could happen here and would it work?
If it were to happen, how?
And does anyone know of other examples? I would hate to single out just two groups if there are more examples to be had.
My guess is a west coast attack in a liberal city like San Francisco, Portland, or Seattle. This would show that both coasts are vulnerable. Kill off liberal critics, and possibly convert liberals to the pro-war side of things.
Discuss!