Sigh...

Someone should write up a list of ways to evaluate the plausibility of conspiracy theories that actually has a basis in game theory and the way organizations work.

You have the FBI making criminals from scratch and then stopping them before they can carry out an attack. They give them duds to reduce the risk further. This is then used to justify their existence. Thankfully we have mountains of evidence that no plots by three letter agencies ever get out of hand.

Or going forward with the attack and then ask for bigger budget to be allocated to them to avoid future "unfortunate" occurrences and to reward their incompetence & treason a win-win-win.

Where is your evidence of that?

A plausible theory, that's all!

You're clearly an agent provocateur.

Hey, it's a plausible theory...

Before Snowden, I would laugh at him with you. Now... I have a hard time dismissing anything as conspiracy theory nut-baggery...

False flags, although risky, are probably the cheapest way to create an atmosphere conducive to change. Was the Parliament shooting a false flag? Who knows. The bottom line is govs seem to have repressive legislation sitting around to push whenever bad things happen. My guess is the West's governments anticipate unrest as a long-term consequence of economic globalization and they want to consolidate power in advance.

The bigger loss is that even if we think a false flag operation to be extremely unlikely, we no longer rate it as impossible. Then again, anyone who was rating them as impossible pre-Snowden hadn't been paying attention to history.