The Identification Friend of Foe (IFF) system is a communication system designed to identify vehicles as friendly or unknown. This system is incapable of identifying any vehicle as foe because if the system does not receive the correct answer or receives no answer at all, the vehicle cannot be positively identified and it is thus labelled as unknown.
We people send out IFF interrogation signals all the time. We do so with potential friends, family, business partners, casual encounters, romantic engagements and so on. Is then there a surprise to know that our IFF signals are also sent to governments? Of course not. We want to know if a given state "authority" is friendly or unfriendly. We must know this information in order to know how to act and so we ask: Are you here, dear authority, to help me or to hurt me?
And what answer do we get? "Of course we are here to help you. Always."
But then the picture becomes complicated. We observe that said authorities routinely act against our best interests. They say one thing and then they do the opposite. This is also an IFF reply. And so the most relevant issue now becomes knowing which answer is the correct one, the first or the second one.
The correct answer to this question is not easy to come by. Obviously we cannot trust any message coming from the government because it has lied to us before. This in and by itself should suffice to answer our question: no, the government is not here to help you otherwise there would be no need to lie. However, we know that politics and policies are never perfect and they are never applied as defined. There is room for error, interpretation and change. Thus it is possible that government activities against our best interests are simply statistical anomalies. Stuff that happens here and there but it is not part of the bigger picture. Thus we must seek resolution through other means.
There is an old saying that goes like this: listen to what I say but watch what I do. Actions speak far louder than words. It is for this reason that we must watch and observe over longer periods of time what governments do if we want to receive a valid IFF reply. There is another saying: there is safety in numbers (or its statistical equivalent, the law of big numbers). A few observations may be in error, but a whole pile of them almost never lie.
However, as we take this task to heart we discover that the observations are split. Some seem to benefit us while others seem to hurt us. Furthermore, this seems to be going on all time. This behaviour is part of the big picture. Where does this leave us? Nowhere. We cannot reach a decision. For that, we need to take a step backwards and begin to watch events on a historical time scale.
One year. Five years. Ten Years. Twenty years. Forty years and so on. If you can do this you will then notice that a different picture begins to emerge. For every event that benefits us there are many others that hurt us. For every event in our favour, there are many other against us. And one more thing. This picture is not easy to see. There are many hidden elements, occult relations and delayed reactions. But there is a guide. Politician's statements always seem to be contrary to reality in the long term. They promise something and reality delivers the opposite. Yes, politicians are lying to us, imagine that!
Decoding IFF Government signals is not easy because we, the people, are short-time emitters of IFF interrogations and as such we expect accurate short term replies. But what happens if governments (all governments) are systematically engaging in Electronic Counter-Measures (ECM)? Will they be able to fool our IFF question by camouflaging the answer as "Friend"? The answer is yes. Governments are constantly and continuously engaging in Counter Measures (CM) to fool our IFF instincts. Of course, this could not be otherwise because politician's jobs depend on this strategy (see for example Government Morality).
But then again everything is fair in love and war. Now, we are most certainly sure that politicians are not in government because they love us. This necessarily means that the other option must be true. They are indeed at war with us. And this is at the center of our problem. Why would you ever believe any IFF reply that originates in your enemy with whom you are at war? Only a fool or somebody with a death wish would do so.
We do not want to believe ourselves to be fools. Our ego won't let us and so we believe the government CM IFF replies. We believe the lies. We make up excuses for the lies. We support the government because in so doing we support our ego. Never you mind they are full of contradictions. And this is the sad reality, dear reader.
In order to be able to accurately decode IFF replies from the government, we must engage in the discipline of history. We must patiently wait and decode historic events over very long periods of time at which point a clear trend will become visible and unquestionable. However, how many of us can do so? How many of us are willing to spend time looking over old data going back decades? Not too many, but this is what you need to do if you wish to obtain an accurate reply.
Governments fool us all the time not only because their IFF replies are well-crafted CM signals, but because the real signals require such lengthy periods of time to become visible. Yes, we have an ego problem and we have a historical problem. Governments know this and they fully exploit these facts. And it is for this very reason that we are here. To provide you with a historical perspective that will clarify and place in context the true IFF reply you are receiving from the government thus helping you to recognize reality. One warning though: don't expect the true answer to be "Friend".
Unless you prefer to have an ego ride. Unless you are too busy to review history, even superficially. That's OK. It is fully your decision. Just remember; at the end of the day don't be surprised if the reply continues to be the same "Foe".
Note: please see the Glossary if you are unfamiliar with certain words.
