What seems most pertinent in this whole pipe-bomb story is the fact that they were described as “crude:”
A sudden wave of pipe bombs targeting Hillary Clinton, former President Barack Obama, other prominent Democrats and CNN was thwarted without physical harm, but an anxiety-filled day on Wednesday deepened political tensions and fears two weeks before national midterm elections.
None of the bombs detonated as law enforcement took them away for examination and disposal.
The first crude bomb to be discovered had been delivered Monday to the suburban New York compound of George Soros, a liberal billionaire and major contributor to Democratic causes. The FBI said an additional package was intended for former Attorney General Eric Holder, but that one ended up at a Florida office of Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose return address was on it.
Later Wednesday, a package addressed to Rep. Maxine Waters with similar markings and characteristics to the other devices was intercepted at a Los Angeles mail facility.
The targets of the bombs were some of the figures most frequently criticized by President Donald Trump, who still assails Clinton at rallies while supporters chant “lock her up” — two years after he defeated her and she largely left the political scene.
This is not merely an odd choice of words from news outlet, but seems to accurately describe the nature of the devices, which very well may turn out not to be bombs at all:
None of the devices harmed anyone, and it was not immediately clear whether any of them could have. One law enforcement official said investigators were examining the possibility that they were hoax devices that were constructed to look like bombs but would not have exploded.
Now the media prefers the sensational to the mundane. This is not an ideological point, but an economic one. Outrage, horror, fear, and anger sell well, and the old media flagships are generally in pretty dire straights, financially. “If it bleeds, it leads,” as they say in the business.
If you share this assumption with me, then what one would expect to find if the bombs were even remotely lethal is an adjective more tantalizing than “crude.” In fact, if the behavior of the media over the past two years is anything to go by — especially in the run-up to an election — we can expect that “crude” will probably turn out to be generous, and that the law enforcement hunch that the devices were hoax devices will probably be correct.
So far as I can tell, pipe-bombs are not that hard to make. If the device was harmless or even fake, that essentially leaves only two possibilities. Either the sender was embarrassingly incompetent, or the whole ordeal was a false-flag.
Now if we are to assume the attack was a sincere multiple-assassination attempt, there are essentially three primary suspects:
- ISIS
- A Republican
- A mentally perturbed individual
If, on the other hand, we assume the attack was a false-flag, then there is only one suspect:
- A Democrat
Of these four, which is most likely?
Off the bat, the fact that the bombs appear to have been harmless points to either a false-flag or a mentally perturbed person. ISIS has struggled before with bombs, but not with something so simple as a pipe-bomb. That’s grade-school stuff for them.
It is theoretically possible that a Republican sent these devices ineptly, but historically speaking, right-wing bombers have — like ISIS — been reasonably competent. McVeigh and Kaczynski come to mind. If a Republican sent these devices that may, in fact, not even be bombs, it is probable that they fall more closely into the mentally perturbed camp than the GoP.
But besides just raw odds, there is another critical question: Cui bono? Who benefits?
A Republican does not benefit from this, if his goal is for his candidates to win. The Democrats do. They’ll now get to talk about how Trump has radicalized things, that this is all his fault, as every outlet has taken great pains to somehow connect the president to these bombings (because that isn’t radicalizing or instigating anything). The timing is also a classic “October surprise.”
If I was a betting man, my money would be that this is a false-flag attack. Democrats attacking themselves, again. After all, it happens damn near every month.
We will of course have to wait to find out more information to know anything for sure, but if that is your instinct, then take the time to write it down. Don’t forget it. And don’t let other people say “wait until more information comes out,” and then say “that was so last year” when the information actually does come out. There is no accountability, there is no learning, there is no purpose in discussing anything if people allow their memory to be siphoned off by the swirling attention whirlpool that is the “news cycle.”
