Use of the term 'false flag' is often met with raised eyebrows and accusations of conspiracism. But false flags are a very real and very present feature of geopolitics — and denying that is simply denying reality.

Last week, the United States, along with the United Kingdom and France, bombed Syrian government targets, ostensibly in retaliation for an alleged chemical attack which was carried out one week before in the city of Douma.

The story we're told is simple: Syrian President Bashar Assad is an evil maniac who uses poison gas on his citizens for the sheer entertainment value. As neocon think tank the Atlantic Council put it last week, when Assad gasses people, he is simply "indulging an addiction" — an addiction which he seems to have only recently acquired, given the fact that before Syria's war began, American journalists were busy praising the "educated" and "informed" Assad and marveling at the "phenomenal" levels of peace and religious diversity within Syria.