Mail-bomber 'false flag' theories overwhelm discourse on terrorism
Conservative pundits and far-right white nationalists are blaming the victims for explosive devices directed at liberals and the press.
It might be interesting to start your stopwatches the moment an act of terrorism or mass killing is first reported and note how long it will be until someone on the internet chimes in about how the violence is a 鈥渇alse flag鈥� operation or another nefarious conspiracy of some kind.
In the case of the recent spate of explosive devices mailed to leading liberal political figures and CNN, the stopwatch would have run only a few minutes. Almost immediately, conspiracist websites were posting theories about the 鈥渇ake bombs.鈥� Some people learned about the bombs by reading the 鈥渇alse flag鈥� theories first.
Within the day, conspiracists and other far-right extremists were competing to cook up the wildest variations on the false-flag theories, as well as to demand investigations into who really sent the bombs, with many implying that the victims sent the bombs to themselves. The meme was especially popular on white nationalist websites.
Milo Yiannopoulos praised the would-be bomber on Instagram, saying it was 鈥渄isgusting and sad (that they didn鈥檛 go off, and the daily beast didn鈥檛 get one).鈥�
Even after Friday鈥檚 arrest of a Florida man with an apparent background in right-wing activism on charges of, among others, transporting and mailing illegal explosives, the most dogged among these theorizers have clung to their belief that it was all a scheme by nefarious forces to make Trump supporters look bad.
Authorities 听迟丑补迟 13 explosive devices were sent through the U.S. Postal Service to multiple targets, mostly liberal Democratic politicians: former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, former first lady and secretary of state Hillary Clinton, former vice president Joe Biden, Rep. Maxine Waters, philanthropist George Soros, actor Robert DeNiro, Senators Corey Booker and Kamala Harris, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, former National Intelligence director James Clapper, former CIA director John Brennan聽and the offices of CNN in New York City. Reports emerged today that the bomber also to billionaire financier Tom Steyer.聽
Investigators traced the packages to a postal facility in Opa-locka, Florida.
For the conspiracy-minded, this news was an open invitation to theorize, especially coming in the run-up to midterm elections.
Leading the charge, as usual, was Alex Jones鈥� Infowars, which posted shortly after the bombs were reported 听迟丑补迟 Jones had predicted several months ago that 鈥渢he media would be targeted for attacks that would bolster the narrative that President Trump is inciting violence.鈥�
Ostensibly mainstream conservative pundits joined in the skepticism, including , who tweeted: 鈥淔ake News鈥擣ake Bombs; Who could possibly benefit by so much fakery?鈥� He deleted it later, and replaced it with a tweet saying: 鈥淔ake News had just successfully changed the narrative from the onslaught of illegal immigrants and broken border security to 鈥榮uspicious packages.鈥� 鈥�
Likewise, popular radio host : "How about a day like this? How about a day like this where you create a scenario where it looks like the mobs are on both sides? It looks like the Republicans have a mob, too, or at least an 'insaniac.' There's some Republican out there sending bombs to decent, good Democrats and media people 鈥� former Democrat presidents and the harmless people at CNN.鈥�
Fellow radio host Michael Savage , 鈥渋t鈥檚 a high probability that the whole thing is set up as a false flag to gain sympathy for the Democrats... and to get our minds off the hordes of illegal aliens approaching our southern border.鈥�
The idea ran even wilder as it spread to more extreme venues. Turning Point USA鈥檚 Candace Owens tweeted: 鈥淚鈥檓 going to go ahead and state that there is a 0% chance that these 鈥榮uspicious packages鈥� were sent out by conservatives,鈥� she wrote. 鈥淭he only thing 鈥榮uspicious鈥� about these packages, is their timing. Caravans, fake bomb threats鈥攖hese leftists are going ALL OUT for midterms.鈥� She, too, deleted it later.
Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the anti-Muslim hate group Center for Security Policy, was similarly skeptical. 鈥淣one of the leftists ostensibly targeted for pipe-bombs were actually at serious risk, since security details would be screening their mail,鈥� he tweeted. 鈥淪o let鈥檚 determine not only who is responsible for these bombs, but whether they were trying to deflect attention from the Left鈥檚 mobs.鈥�
John Guandolo, a former FBI agent turned anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist, 聽a 鈥淢arxist counter-state operation鈥� and 鈥渢he democrats鈥� Operation Bomb Ourselves.鈥� He did criticize President Trump, though: 鈥淔or his part, President Trump has failed to purge the government of Obama-appointed personnel/deep-state operatives,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淣or has the President taken Republican leaders to task for treating Marxists, especially Marxist candidates for public office, like 鈥榝ellow-politicians who have differing views鈥� instead of like willing hostile actors in a war to destroy America鈥檚 foundation.鈥�
White nationalists in particular were fond of exploring various facets of the 鈥渇alse flag鈥� assertions. David Duke聽was one of the first to join the parade, tweeting: 鈥淭he Trump administration needs to get to the bottom of this highly orchestrated (bombing) campaign that is being exploited by the enemies of the American people to distract from their caravans, political violence and very fake news.鈥�
Alt-right neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin, wanted to take things even further at his website The Daily Stormer. Anglin wrote, 鈥淭here is zero chance that this is anything other than an October Surprise hoax designed to affect the midterm elections,鈥� and named the FBI 鈥渢he No. 1 suspect.鈥�
Another Stormer writer speculated about where the so-called 鈥�#MAGAbomber鈥� would strike next, concluding: 鈥淪o I expect the harassment of Republican officials to escalate. Soon, Antifa is going to be sending Molotov cocktails into the black SUVs of Republican congressmen. 鈥� We鈥檙e entering a period of political terrorism, lads. A period of false flags and targeted killings, most likely.鈥�
Yiannopoulos decided to outdo them all with 聽lamenting that 鈥渢he bombs didn鈥檛 go off.鈥� After other users complained, Instagram officials initially insisted that the post didn鈥檛 鈥渧iolate community guidelines.鈥�
Eventually, however, , and Yiannopoulos complained bitterly: 鈥渋 need private security whenever i appear in public, but they cry when i make a joke 鈥� about a false flag designed to distract us from the democrat funded and organized illegal migrant caravan.鈥� As for journalists, he added that 鈥渢hey are scum and I will not mourn them.鈥� That post was also removed.
Just for the record: Explosive devices like the pipe bombs sent in the mail have long been favored weapons of the radical right in the United States, reflecting its propensity聽for weapons of mass destruction generally. The use of pipe bombs by right-wing domestic terrorists dates back at least to the 1984 rampage of the neo-Nazi gang The Order, as well as subsequent terrorist plots that emanated from the Aryan Nations compound in northern Idaho in the 鈥�80s and 鈥�90s. These included聽pipe-bomb attacks聽on the Spokane Spokesman-Review newspaper and a Planned Parenthood clinic聽. The man who bombed the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Eric Rudolph,聽used pipe bombs in his attacks on abortion providers and gay bars.
More recently, homemade bombs turned up in聽a spate of cases聽involving radical-right extremists in 2009-10. These included an older case, from 2004, when neo-Nazis sent a bomb in the mail to the director of the Office of Diversity for the city of Scottsdale, Arizona, and聽
On Friday, police arrested a Florida man named Cesar Sayoc in the bombings. When it became apparent that he was an avid Trump supporter and not a probable candidate for a 鈥渇alse flag鈥� operation, most of the mainstream pundits who had voiced doubts about the case have so far fallen silent on the matter, including Dobbs, Owens, Yiannopoulos and Limbaugh. Only Fox Business correspondent Geraldo Rivera, who had also tweeted his doubts, 听迟丑补迟 he had 鈥渙utsmarted myself.鈥�
However, the dedicated conspiracists and white nationalists remained dogged in their insistence that it was all a false flag. David Duke 聽out a post describing the 鈥渉oax bombs never meant to explode鈥� as part of a 鈥淶iomedia effort to stop the Midterm Rep surge and get attention off the invasion of the USA.鈥� Duke also said that Sayoc, who claims Native American ancestry, was being described as white even though he would 鈥渇it in perfectly with those in the Caravan Invasion.鈥�
Alex Jones, meanwhile, insisted that Sayoc was a 鈥渇ake bomb patsy,鈥� and ranted at length on his show that the devices were hoax items that could never explode. (FBI officials at Friday鈥檚 briefing on the arrests insisted this was not the case.) At the Daily Stormer, Anglin agreed with Jones.
鈥淗e鈥檚 a perfect patsy,鈥� Anglin wrote. 鈥淲hat I believe is that they planned this well in advance, found a guy they could either blame it on or get to go along with it. He was the only one that worked.鈥�
Photo credit Drew Angerer/Getty Images
