I can’t determine what site or what commentator initially brought up Craft/Blackwater but there’s a lot of information about it out on the web. Craft International started being mentioned on April 17, two days after the bombings. Pontifications about the possible presence of Craft International at the Boston Marathon blossomed into full force false flag paranoia on April 18. Alex Jones, the ruddy huckster, was a force behind accusations against Craft International as being part of a false flag, which makes sense because he was literally the first conspiracy theorist to declare false flag as the cause behind the Boston bombings. He waited a cool 41 minutes after the bombings before he invoked false flag, and I have to commend him for his restraint. It had to have hurt him to wait that long. But he had to have sighed with relief when people began to notice the men in the black caps with the black backpacks because then he had something upon which to pin his false flag allegations.
I suspect I will mention this again when I discuss all of the false flag accusations that happened before 4/18, but it is logically impossible to declare any violent event a government-inspired false flag before the government has even had a chance to declare a suspect. How can it be a false flag before the government has even told us an official story? It can’t, unless you are convinced that every horrible thing that ever happens is obviously planned by the government against innocent Americans in order to strip us of our rights in some sort of eventual Constitutional rights denigration in the name of… whatever it those who invoke false flag during a stiff wind fear. At that point, all evidence is just confirmation bias. They knew a false flag was going to happen. They had to wait for one. And that’s crappy logic and evidence analysis.
Still, the Craft International rumors had some steam. The discussion and accusations were provoked by the number of men on the ground at the scene of the bombing, before and after, dressed identically. The men were wearing khaki pants, khaki boots, black zip-up jackets, black caps with what appear to be skulls on them, and black backpacks.
Craft International is a tactical and weapons training company that offers their services to military and law enforcement agencies. The Craft employees are ex-military – the company was founded by Chris Kyle, the former Navy Seal sniper who was shot to death on a shooting range in February of 2013, a sad end that sparked its own conspiracy theories. An explanation behind the company’s logo can be found here. The company’s logo has several facets to it, but it is mainly derived from the skulls that Kyle and Seal Team Three painted on their gear “in order to strike fear in the enemy.” As of this writing, Craft International has not explained their presence at the Boston Marathon. I have not been able to find any sort of official explanation or admission as to why Craft Agents may have been present at the Boston Marathon.
When the FBI narrowed their search to the Tsarnaev brothers, it caused a surge of outrage. Given the number of black backpacks that people wore that day, and given how much the “Craft” backpacks resembled the pack that exploded (the pack that makes up the bulk of the analysis in my “The backpacks” section), conspiracy theorists began to cry foul. They believed that Craft had been involved in a government attack on American citizens and that the government was specifically focusing on the Tsarnaev brothers as patsies. Some also believed that the government and media were specifically suppressing pictures of Craft employees so as not to distract from the Tsarnaev brothers as suspects.
Lots and lots of time was spent analyzing the backpacks that the Craft operatives were wearing that day. But most of that energy was wasted because the Craft backpacks were compared to that backpack that so many think was identified as the pack that carried the bomb, the same backpack I could find no proof that anyone in authority had declared to be the actual bomb-carrying backpack. Until someone with the FBI, the US Attorney General’s Office or even the Boston police say without a doubt that was the pack that carried the bomb, all the analysis of the Craft bag to the bag shown so much in the media is just speculation.
But I cannot emphasize how much conspiracy theorist energy was spent discussing the backpacks. Tons of circles and arrows again. Just teeming with arrows and circles.
This theory has some legs because no one in authority will explain whether or not those men were Craft operatives, and, if they were, what they were doing there that day.
The best debunk to the entire notion that Craft Agency employees detonated bombs against American people is that it is hard to maintain much in the way of secrecy when one is wearing a uniform with a traceable logo, in the company of others dressed identically. Surely if the American government were going to engage in a conspiracy against the American people that involved hiring mercenaries to kill American citizens and then blame it on patsies, the actual bombers would have kept a lower profile and not worn clothing and engaged in behaviors that all but screamed, “Hey, Craft employees over here!”
A false flag is hardly a false flag if the hired perpetrators make themselves known at every turn and appear in dozens of photographs as being on the scene in gear that rapidly identifies them as being a part of a cohesive group whose presence cannot be easily explained.
ETA on 5/28/13: A commenter named GG gave me a link to an article on the Randi forums that goes a long way towards explaining why the men in black caps and khaki pants were at the Boston Marathon. On the Homeland Security Today website, it’s explained that the National Guard has what are called Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams (WMD-CSTs). GG gives an excellent summary of the information over on the JREF forum.
This is what WMD-CSTs do, straight from the HST website:
Since 2001, CSTs have served as full-time, federally funded National Guard units supporting local civil authorities in responding to events known or suspected to involve weapons of mass destruction, whether it be hostile use of chemicals such as nerve or blister agents, toxic industrial chemical spills, biological events (anthrax, ricin, etc.) or radiological sources.
“The mission is that they will support civil authorities at a domestic CRBNe site by identifying CBRNE agents and substances, assessing current and projecting consequences,” advising on response measures and assisting on appropriate requests for additional support, explained Frank Hudoba, National Guard Bureau Branch Chief for the Weapons of Mass Destruction/Civil Support Teams. “We’re able to respond to an actual or suspected terrorist WMD incident and intentional and non-intentional release of CBRNE materials or natural or man-made disaster in the United States that has caused or can cause catastrophic loss of property.”
The WMD-CSTs also attends events to offer support in the event of an attack.
They were also called upon for 504 standby missions in support of large-scale events, including national and state special security events, stadium and arena sporting events and political gatherings where the WMD-CSTs, in cooperation with local first responders, provided air sampling and chemical detection or similar activities.
And in fact, the government has indeed revealed that the WMD-CSTs were on the ground in Boston the day of the attacks:
The Massachusetts team was on duty during the running of the Boston marathon, augmented by similar civil support teams from the New York and Rhode Island National Guards.
Evidently even InfoWars and Ron Paul’s site of many horrors have admitted that the men with the Geiger counters were WMD-CSTs, putting a rest to this theory in the eyes of most reasonable people and even most of the moderate conspiracy theorists.
None of this information will do anything to deter the false flaggers who are certain our government would kill American citizens in an attempt to… again, whatever it is they think the government would gain from making it seem like some hostile force blew up citizens watching a marathon when the government was responsible for the murders. For those false flaggers, it makes perfect sense that highly trained representatives of the National Guard would kill innocent people in a disguised use of illegal force against American citizens. But for the rest of us, this can effectively put to bed the identities of the men in the black caps and why they were at Boston that day because it makes infinitely more sense, Law of Parsimony-wise, that the WMD-CSTs would be on hand during a major sporting event that also fell on Tax Day and Patriot Day than that the government would have the National Guard killing citizens for strange goals that vary by the person flogging the theory.
Thanks for the info, GG!
when people were first talking about these guys on reddit, someone said that the guys were definitely Craft but were not really undercover but just “working,” as if there was an unconfirmed threat and they were there with their radiation detecting gadgets and keen eyes. They look shocked at what they are seeing, to me. They’re on their phones asking, “WHAT THE FUCK” just like everyone else. It IS weird that it isn’t their instinct to rush to the aid of victims, but who knows what their protocol is in a situation like this.
I don’t think Craft agents are trained in first aid or triage of any sort, or at least I don’t recall such training touted on their website. I bet in their minds, if they were Craft agents, the best thing they could do would be to engage in post-terrorism tactics, like seeing if there was radiation, scanning the crowds for more potential bombs. I have always wondered if Craft was there to train local law enforcement in some manner, but if that is the case, surely they would have said something. I also read someone say, don’t remember where, that perhaps this was a training drill for Craft agents, like they asked if they could use the Boston Marathon as a means of training new agents.
It’s all so bizarre. So much could be cleared up if Craft or if law enforcement would just reveal why those men were there.
And they just happened to train exactly at the blast moment at the blast point?
That’s not so odd Urmas. Strategically, if one was going to place a bomb at the marathon, one would want to incur a number if casualties. The most casualties would happen at the places people congregated at the beginning of the race or the end of the race. Where else should they have trained? At the ten mile mark? Since we know for sure WMD-CSTs were on the ground in Boston, it makes perfect sense to me that they would be training around the areas where the bombs went off since the bombs were placed near the end of the marathon in places with a lot of people watching the race.
And the preblast announcement that there is a drill going on? Ahh nothing to see here. It’s exactly as our leaders and media say. Clearly they cannot stop attacks until we all have a camera surgically implanted in our anuses and bedrooms.
So, WHY were the bombs detonated *3* hours after the race was won, when there were FEWER potential targets than if they’d detonated earlier?
And, WHY in the past 5 years, have we heard so little about Tsarnaev?” And NOTHING *from* him?
You do know about the Tsarnaev Bros. alleged drug dealing? What I read on this site here convinces me only that *some* people will do ANYTHING to tamp down “conspiracy theories”.
Craft Int’l does in fact offer a first respnder course.
My only question is, if CRAFT knew there were bomb threats or whatever why TF wasent fbi there?
The skull is derived from a comic book character. It does not originate with Kyle’s Special Operations Unit or Seal Team 3. With all the bs in the book, and the suspicious claims about killing American looters after Katrina struck New Orleans; I don’t trust his business at all. Here is a theory: Kyle agreed to a false flag, when he grew a conscience about it he was killed. The sledged murderer was sentenced as a sane person, anyone with ptsd would have been deemed unstable. Shit does not add up.
These men are WMD-CST.
I don’t have the time to type it all out, but I posted all the relevant information on the JREF conspiracy forum, here is a link, it begins halfway down page 16 and goes for a few pages.
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=256876&page=16
Thanks, GG! That clears up so much. I’m in the middle of seven or eight things all at once but I plan to edit this entry to include this information. Thanks for sharing this because this is something I don’t think I would have uncovered on my own.
My husband, amusingly, said that the hat logos looked like the Punisher logo.
No problem, Infowars even came out and admitted it was CST, after a week or 2 of dragging their pictures through the mud
http://www.infowars.com/military-men-witnessed-at-boston-bombing-identified-as-national-guard-cst-teams/
Any questions that you have about this I could probably answer, Ive had to answer more than a few from conspiracy theorists.
This is another pile of garbage that begs the question: why because you’ve provided some circumstantial evidence that the craft guys didn’t do it do you conclude the government wasn’t involved and its nut job to think they were. This is not clear headed or independent thinking.
The huge presence of all sorts of characters craft included is reason to question whether or not the government was involved. If we conclude they were not the next question one must ask is why with this huge showing of multi agency manpower and high tech gadgets could these morons not stop two kids with home made bombs? I mean really, seriously. How many billions have we wasted on homeland security and the like? And they can’t stop home made pressure cooker bombs? Even with private mercenary auxiliary support?
That’s mind boggling. There are only two possible answers here:
1.) the government was in on it
2.) the government is serially and criminally incompetent. They are wasting our money and destroying our civil liberties and that’s bad enough in and if itself but the icing on the cake is they are woefully incompetent to accomplish their stated purposes time and time again.
You never deal with the important questions and answers. You just seem to want to ridicule whoever you term a “conspiracy theorist”
Get to the real heart of the matter!
Please see this reply to one of your dozen comments: http://houdinisrevenge.com/boston-bombing-conspiracy-theories-the-backpack-analyses/#comment-188
I wish the use of the term “government” in these matters would cease and desist. Trying to portray the vast bureaucracy as some sort of monolithic entity that acts as some huge, gnawing beast in these false flags is not helpful. There are many, many cliques within or appended to government that do whatever in Hell they feel like doing, and most of the “government” hasn’t a clue. Just consider the “black'” budget alone – billions and billions are spent with no oversight from anyone.
What other word would you use for it? I can see it’s a convenient short hand that doesn’t convey the specificity needed, but in the absence of specificity in sprawling conspiracy theories I’m unsure what label would be better. The Powers That Be (TPTB), maybe?
A more accurate term might me “militarized mafia.”
I’ll do my best to remember that – it’s certainly a more colorful term than “the government” so if nothing else that works in its favor.
Try: The “GREG B.’s”…. the Global Ruling Elites and Global Banksters….
To the author of the post we’re commenting on…. Nice try, dude. When somebody says “the government”, that means literally millions of FedGov employees, and several more million active duty military. Perhaps 10Million persons total. Obviously, they were NOT ALL involved in *anything*! So, “certain persons, and groups of persons within the FedGov and military” is more accurate than “the Gov’t”. And no, I’m sorry, for the FedGov to impose MARTIAL LAW, 5 days later, looking for 2 guys with nothing more than firearms….????…. And, why was news of the West, Tx., blast, on Weds., 04/17, suppressed in the lame-stream media? 5x the deaths of Boston, and 11 were first responders. The story of the Boston Marathon bombings is as hinky as 9/11….
I just want to note here. Can’t be sure still as there is much speculation, but it looks like craft to me and people are missing some important things. First, conspiracy theory was a term coined by the government during rumors of the watergate scandal. It was only coined investigative journalism once the watergate scandal was exposed. Second. Chris Kyle’s wife filed a lawsuit against many within Craft. People in top within Craft had been going rogue for awhile and agreeing to contracts for personal monetary gain without the knowledge of the company. Just food for thought. I also worked with guys who did these sort of things and worked in these types of forces within the military. There’s a lot of things that would just blow people’s minds. Those things you think that never happen or go on, can guarantee it goes on a lot more than one would think.
Hey Walsh, thanks for the comment. Though I debunk things I think are dumb, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with calling as of yet unproven weirdness a “conspiracy theory,” regardless of who floated the theory initially or even how unhinged some conspiracy theorists behave. Plenty of theories of conspiracies stopped being theories.
I know there are people who are very suspicious of how Chris Kyle died and that Craft staged this actual bombing is a far sounder theory than the “crisis actors Jeff Bauman never existed no one died it was all makeup” theories. Because I approach these sorts of incidents as they come, then move on, sort of how I approach books, I don’t revisit entries like this or look into later research, which is kind of a problem and likely why I stick to specific pieces of media now, like books or film. So I’m not wholly sure of new looks at Craft’s potential involvement but I certainly don’t dismiss it. There’s been enough horrible stuff landsliding that people are still trying to deny – Lolita Express, deliberate CIA destabilization of Honduras and Venezuela, among them – that it’s not wholly possible for me to dismiss any paramilitary group with as many creepy elements as Craft as a bad actor.
I’m glad to see some comments on here pointing out some important facts. For one, that there are most certainly factions inside “the gov’t” that can and do act on rogue contracts, black ops made on backroom deals. It doesn’t need to be the catch all “big bad government” to be believable or even true. Secondly, just because these guys were stupid enough (brazen enough) to be waltzing about in their Craft fatigues doesn’t make them innocent. We shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss our media charlatan’s abilities to cover things up, they’re masters of the art. We should all know as fact, that they were infiltrated a LONG time ago by our CIA goon squad controllers. And finally I’ll finish with a very strong study of these black ops programs and our country’s history of using destruction and chaos to control us. Take for instance the Northwoods documents… we may have had a 911 back in the 1960s had JFK not stood up to the devilish thuggery od the CIA.