If you think the following is an exaggeration, check out the LA Times article
in question:
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(fifth paragraph from the end):

"Among other things, this body would launch secret operations aimed at
'stimulating reactions' among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass
destruction -- that is, for instance, prodding terrorist cells into action and
exposing themselves to 'quick-response' attacks by U.S. forces.
Such tactics would hold 'states/sub-state actors accountable' and 'signal to
harboring states that their sovereignty will be at risk,' the briefing paper
declares."

"Into the Dark"

By
Chris Floyd, Counterpunch

This column stands foursquare with the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S.
Secretary of Defense, when he warns that there will be more terrorist attacks
against the American people and civilization at large. We know, as does the
Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, that this statement
is an incontrovertible fact, a matter of scientific certainty. And how can we
and the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, be so sure
that there will be more terrorist attacks against the American people and
civilization at large?

Because these attacks will be instigated at the order of the Honorable Donald
H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense.

This astonishing admission was buried deep in a story which was itself
submerged by mounds of gray newsprint and glossy underwear ads in last
Sunday's Los Angeles Times. There--in an article by military analyst William
Arkin, detailing the vast expansion of the secret armies being massed by the
former Nixon bureaucrat now lording it over the Pentagon--came the revelation
of Rumsfeld's plan to create "a super-Intelligence Support Activity" that will
"bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare,
intelligence, and cover and deception."

According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld by his Defense
Science Board, the new organization--the "Proactive, Preemptive Operations
Group (P2OG)"--will carry out secret missions designed to "stimulate
reactions" among terrorist groups, provoking them into committing violent acts
which would then expose them to "counterattack" by U.S. forces.

In other words--and let's say this plainly, clearly and soberly, so that no
one can mistake the intention of Rumsfeld's plan--the United States government
is planning to use "cover and deception" and secret military operations to
provoke murderous terrorist attacks on innocent people. Let's say it again:
Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and the other members of the
unelected regime in Washington plan to deliberately foment the murder of
innocent people--your family? your friends? your lovers? You? --in order to
further their geopolitical ambitions.

For P2OG is not designed solely to flush out terrorists and bring them to
justice--a laudable goal in itself, although the Rumsfeld way of combating
terrorism by causing it is pure moral lunacy. (Or should we use the Regime's
own preferred terminology and just call it "evil"?)

No, it seems the Pee-Twos have bigger fish to fry. Once they have sparked
terrorists into action--by killing their family members? luring them with
loot? fueling them with drugs? plying them with jihad propaganda? messing with
their mamas? or with agents provocateurs, perhaps, who infiltrate groups then
plan and direct the attacks themselves?--they can then take measures against
the "states/sub-state actors accountable" for "harboring" the Rumsfeld-roused
gangs. What kind of measures exactly? Well, the classified Pentagon program
puts it this way: "Their sovereignty will be at risk."

The Pee-Twos will thus come in handy whenever the Regime hankers to add a
little oil-laden real estate or a new military base to the Empire's burgeoning
portfolio. Just find a nest of violent malcontents, stir 'em with a stick, and
presto: instant "justification" for whatever level of
intervention/conquest/rapine you might desire. And what if the territory you
fancy doesn't actually harbor any convenient marauders to use for fun and
profit? Well, surely a God-like "super-Intelligence Support Activity" is
capable of creation ex nihilo, yes?

The Rumsfeld-Bush plan to employ murder and terrorism for political, financial
and ideological gain does have historical roots (besides al Qaeda, the Stern
Gang, the SA, the SS, the KGB, the IRA, the UDF, Eta, Hamas, Shining Path and
countless other upholders of Bushian morality, decency and freedom). We refer
of course to Operations Northwoods, oft mentioned in these pages: the plan
that America's top military brass presented to President John Kennedy in 1962,
calling for a phony terrorist campaign--complete with bombings, hijackings,
plane crashes and dead Americans--to provide "justification" for an invasion
of Cuba, the Mafia/Corporate fiefdom which had recently been lost to Castro.

Kennedy rejected the plan. Now Rumsfeld has resurrected Northwoods, but on a
far grander scale, with resources at his disposal undreamed of by those brass
of yore, with no counterbalancing global rival to restrain him--and with an
ignorant, corrupt president who has shown himself all too eager to embrace any
means whatsoever that will augment the wealth and power of his own narrow,
undemocratic, elitist clique.

There a transgression here, a stepping-over-- with forethought, planning--of
lines that should never be crossed. Acting in deadly symbiosis with killers,
ranters and those supreme "sub-state actors," the mafias, Bush and his cohorts
are plunging the world into an abyss, an endless night of black ops,
retribution, blowback, deceit, of murder and terror-- the perversion of all
that's best in us, of all that we've won from the bestiality of our primal
nature.

It's not a fight for freedom; it's a retreat into darkness.