by Graeme MacQueen from
Off Guardian
Onto the 24-hour reality show that is U.S. politics, 15 package bombs recently made their entrance.
The devices were sent to vocal opponents of Mr. Trump, most of them
prominent members of the Democratic Party. The incident became public
on October 25, less than two weeks before the November 6 elections that
mark the middle of Trump’s first term.
Now, it is an interesting question as to whether the designated
perpetrator, Cesar Sayoc, is a lone wolf terrorist or a patsy acting on
behalf of larger forces. I am encouraged to see researchers exploring
the second possibility. But my focus in this article is different.
The suggestion that the package bomb incidents might be false flag
attacks—attacks by opponents of Trump deceptively imputing the attacks
to his supporters to discredit them before the elections—was rapidly put
forth. Among the fastest off the mark were right-wing pundits, so it
was easy enough for various “liberals” (whatever this term means today
in the U.S.) to characterize the false flag suggestion as a variety of
right-wing conspiracy theory, and as both intellectually ridiculous and
morally disgusting. The evident aim has been to stigmatize the concept
and drive it from responsible political discourse.
Among the most prominent of the denunciations appeared in CNN and The New York Times.
The article by CNN Editor-at-large Chris Cillizza’s was entitled,
“Debunking the despicable ‘false flag’ theory on the mail bombs.” He
quoted Rush Limbaugh’s claim that a “Democratic operative” could be
responsible for the attacks in order to make it look as if “the
Republicans are a bunch of insane lunatics.” Cillizza noted that
although we may be tempted to dismiss such “conspiracy crap” without
comment, we must not. To refuse to comment on it is “to let it fester.”
We must publicly challenge it. His article, it seems, was meant to be a
model of such debunking.
It was not a good model...
[read more
here]