The Charlie Kirk assassination and the impulse to declare things as forgeries

[Wetzelrad]

Introduction, on forgeries

When it comes to controversial topics, there is a common kneejerk reaction of declaring any piece of contrary evidence to be a fake or forgery. This is something we see frequently with the Holocaust, on both sides, but also with other major historical and political topics.

To begin with, it's not an entirely unfounded reaction. We all know of real, consequential forgeries, like FDR's map of a Nazi plan to partition South America, or the Kuwaiti ambassador's babies-taken-from-incubators story, or the Gulf of Tonkin attack. Examples like these have had an enormous cost in human life.

But there are also endless examples of false accusations of fakery, like the Israeli government's claims that videos in Gaza are staged with dolls or actors, or the competing accusations of forgery over the course of the war between Russia and Ukraine, or the Zimmerman telegram from WWI which was widely thought to be a forgery. In possibly the worst case, Alex Jones raised theories of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting being somehow fake, then retracted those theories later, only to be hit much later with unprecedented legal judgements against him in excess of $1 billion. Examples like these should surely make one consider the costs of making a reckless accusation.

Now obviously this type of accusation is a powerful narrative tool. If you can convince your audience that your opponent has forged evidence against you, it simultaneously clears yourself of blame and harms your opponent's reputation. Highly effective. But if you fail, the reputational harm lands on you and your cause.

In the case of the Holocaust, I do think there is an overeagerness to say that remarks attributed to the Nazis are forgeries. In many cases this seems to be not only untrue but totally unnecessary. Many of the Extermination Theory's most important prooftexts are evidence to the contrary when read in their full and proper context. Here I will direct the reader to this post by Callafangers in a thread by Archie on this same subject:

While it's entirely plausible that certain documents or other materials have been faked (given we know various powers have had motive, means, and patterns of deception, historically), I do see quite often that people (including Revisionists) do not take long enough to carefully consider everything in proper context. I think the Himmler Posen speech is a prime example of this.

The Charlie Kirk assassination

Charlie Kirk was killed almost a month ago. From the first day, various political forces have tried to pin the assassination on their ideological enemies. These primarily fall into right versus left, groyper versus communist, and Zionist versus anti-Zionist. Even Benjamin Netanyahu couldn't resist the urge to connect the killing with Islam. Members of these groups have since accused seemingly every single piece of evidence connected with the case of being faked, a behavior that would surely be discrediting if any side had the good sense not to participate in it. Here I will briefly go over some of those accusations.

1) Messages written on the bullet casings. These were found on the rooftop where the shooting occurred. The messages clearly indicate leftist leanings. Some replies have claimed they were a false trail left by a MAGA shooter, or they are fake because the messages were too long (up to 9 words) to fit on the casings, or that they would not be "engraved" as Governor Cox said, or that the FBI and police are just generally untrustworthy.

2) Photos of the shooter. Some replies have said these captures seem fake for no particular reason. Ron Unz found it suspicious that only two photos were given.

3) Video of shooter on the rooftop. This fuzzy video depicts the assassin fleeing the scene. Repliers were skeptical for various reasons, chiefly because they couldn't make out the gun he was carrying. Later, after it was determined that this video camera should have captured the shooting itself, skeptics theorized that the reason those earlier events were not included in the cut is because they did not actually happen on video.

4) Tyler Robinson's text message confession. This has been called "too convenient", "too perfect", and too "inorganic" for a text chat between young men.

5) Tyler Robinson's Discord message confession. This was called fake because Discord initially denied it, according to TMZ's reporting, but all other sources have since confirmed it as real.

6) DNA evidence found on a towel and screwdriver. These positively link Robinson to the rifle and the rooftop. Skeptics said this didn't make sense because they thought the rifle should be disassembled after the shooting and also because Robinson would need to have kept the screwdriver to reassemble it.

7) Charlie Kirk's letter to Netanyahu. This was called a lie, a lie by omission, and a misrepresentation, although it's not clear why. The subsequent publishing of the full letter, presumably leaked by Netanyahu, seems to have verified his claims, but that too has been called a fake.

8) Charlie Kirk's Zionist groupchat. This screenshot was initially called fake only because it easily could be faked. However, Kirk's executive producer has since confirmed the screenshot's veracity.

My judgement is that all of the above accusations were very poorly made. Several have been outright disproven already. In every case it is and was easily predictable that these items would turn out to be legitimate because they came from (relatively) credible sources with reputations to lose. Whereas if the items were illegitimate then we would expect a vocal denial from other involved parties, including the telephone company, Discord's staff, friends and family, the media, etc. It is inevitable that many of these items (and others less remarked upon, like the handwritten confession) will become even further beyond reproach when the case goes to trial.

So it was totally reckless and discrediting to declare things as forgeries based on mere skepticism. There is an obvious lesson here for skeptics generally and for revisionists specifically.

Apologies if this was too long winded. I am also willing to argue that Israel did not commit the assassination if anyone feels inclined.

[Cowboy]

This is one of the issues that was foreseeable with "great awakening" this year about Israel, Jews, etc. A lot of people who very recently had these revelations are very eager to blame them for every single negative thing that occurs in the world. This leads to people manipulating or simply making up stories to push this theory.

Instead of looking at the facts of the case and determining what happened, people started working backwards from the "Israel did it" conclusion, which left them scraping for evidence, and in some cases forging evidence. The main perpetrators of this were Candace Owens and Max Blumenthal, who tried to insinuate that Israel was behind the killing because Charlie Kirk turned down $500 million from Israel. Blumenthal also said that Kirk was berated by his Jewish donors (such as Bill Ackman) at a private event for not being sufficiently pro-Israel enough. Both of these accusations were sufficiently rebutted, and the rebuttals did not receive any pushback from Owens or Blumenthal.

They didn't necessarily forge a document or a transcript, but this shows how working backwards from a conclusion (sort of like how we see exterminationists do) can incline people to exaggerate/make things up. I do think it is important to not jump to calling everything a forgery, but I'd argue it's also important to evaluate the motives of the person giving out the information

Focusing more on the theory in itself, with the authentic leak from the group chat today, the Israel-killed-Kirk theorists are victory lapping. The leak in itself doesn't really shock me since it was obvious that there was going to be some internal conflict from the donors due to the loss of public support for Israel. Every event that Kirk went to, he would get asked about Israel from both a left-wing and a right-wing perspective. People were hurling quotes from the Talmud at him. Basically, he was either going to get called a shill for Israel or be called antisemitic by Zionist Jews. His hand was forced to bring someone like Tucker Carlson to try and maintain credibility with the younger, particularly white male demographic at the expense of donor money from Jews.

Do I think it's possible that Israel was involved in his assassination? Of course. We know that Israel is notorious for political assassinations throughout its existence, so if there was sufficient evidence to prove that Israel was responsible for Kirk's death then I would be on board with the theory. I've just yet to see anything convincing.

Great post and good job at bringing the issue of forgeries to the forefront.

[Archie]

I have always thought about document authenticity in probabilistic terms. I think people feel too much pressure to make a definitive binary judgment even when there is not sufficient information. It's okay to say it is not conclusive. On the Holocaust, as I think major mass scale forgery is not likely, my prior is that the vast majority of Holocaust-related documents are presumably authentic, but at the same time we cannot in many cases be absolutely sure of the authenticity of particular documents.

In psychology there is a phenomenon called belief perseverance which refers to how people are conservative with their beliefs and update them fairly slowly in response to new information. While this is not always ideal from a scientific perspective, practically speaking it's probably rational behavior in that new information often is fake, out of context, misleading, etc., so you don't want to overreact to it. If you were to change your fundamental worldview every time you read something new, you would probably go crazy.

If someone has spent say 100 or 200 hours studying the Holocaust and has concluded it is false (or true), that will start becoming a fixed belief. It becomes harder to change. If there is some document that is difficult to explain, the instinct will be to dismiss it in some fashion because it is inconsistent what everything else you "know." If you are right about everything else, then the incongruous information probably does have some explanation even if it is not known or immediately obvious. Intellectually, nothing should be dismissed without due consideration, but as an instinct it is understandable (especially since people do not have infinite time to research every little thing). But rather than crying forgery, I think the better approach would be to offer some possible interpretations and to be okay with leaving some things as open questions. People tend not to like open questions I assume because that sort of caution doesn't play well in a debate if the other side is going heavy on the bluster and overconfidence.

Here's how I think about this. Given the immense volume of Holocaust-related documents (millions of pages), we should expect a good number to present some difficulties and/or have uncertain interpretations. There is no need to have a perfect explanation for every single document. In some cases, essential context may be lost, any number of things. Forgery can seem like an easy out, but if it can't be proved then it is really just stepping over the problem.

Regarding current events and social media, those platforms just do not lend themselves to rigorous research, and it can be quite hard to evaluate sources in real time. Social media is all about recent posts. In your typical social media feed, stuff people were saying yesterday is old and buried. So predictably people just jump on whatever gives them confirmation bias.

Trust in public institutions is definitely at a low point, and conspiratorial thinking is an expected corollary. The thing is that knowing that institutions X, Y, Z are untrustworthy doesn't actually get you very far. It just leaves a vacuum which is filled with wild speculation.

[Wahrheitssucher]

Introduction, on forgeries
When it comes to (i) controversial topics, there is a common kneejerk (ii) reaction of declaring any piece of contrary (iii) evidence to be a fake or forgery.

I think you are framing this in an unhelpful way. I mean in a way that doesn’t serve an honest enquiry into what is true.
I.e. I suggest that you are starting from a vague and imprecise premise. I think what you are referring to is something else entirely. But… More on that later.

Let’s break your starting premise down. It consists of three parts:
1. a topic;
2. a reaction to it;
3. evidence (for or against) it.

Let's start with the 2nd part.
2. reaction.
Q. Is it actually a “common reaction” to do that?
Q. By whom is that “common”?
You appear to be implying we ALL do that. And I think you are implying that as a starting point for later dismissing as ‘bogus’ any analysis of the multiple inconsistencies of the official Kirk-killing narrative.

Then, let’s next analyse the 1st part of your premise.
1. topic.
you refer to a “controversial topic”!!
A public, filmed execution — of a popular but divisive shill for Israel who had recently rejected a deal with Netanyahu and was becoming publicly critical of ‘Israel’ — publicly killed in front of 4k cameras and a quite large audience is hardly a “controversial topic”. That’s daylight murder.
So that’s just one example of what I mean. By implying that such a public murder is just another “controversial topic” I am suggesting shows you have started from a flawed perspective.

3. evidence.
The credibility and reliability of the evidence is all we should be concerned with. So whether it’s fake or credible is all this is about.

So here’s a proposed replacement to your opening statement.
How about this instead:

“The government and main-stream-media are now so corrupted and controlled by zionist forces that anything they claim which justifies or whitewashes possible/probable Israeli crimes or serves a zionist agenda is quite rightly regarded with a healthy degree of skepticism.”

I’m suggesting that's a more helpful introduction to assessing the rival theories about the Kirk killing because it defintely IS a highly possible/probable Israeli crime.
Plus we need to be aware that the Israelis and their sayanim helpers are experts in assassinations with red-herring false-trails and governmental cover-ups.
So if we DON’T start with an awareness of THAT possibility/probability we are allowing ourselves to be easily deceived/duped.

To begin with, it's not an entirely unfounded reaction. We all know of real, consequential forgeries…

Yes, you give examples of well-known forgeries. But not who they served. Which is the most crucial question.

… there are also endless examples of false accusations of fakery

Sure. But again the way to see through them is to ask Cicero’s decisive question: Cui bono?

…possibly the worst case, Alex Jones raised theories of the Sandy Hook school shooting being somehow fake…

Alex Jones is professional camouflage producer. His job is to keep the masses excited and confused with some truths but mainly with sensational narratives that are distorted with idle speculation, rumour, and outright-falsehoods.
The purpose is to make it easy to disregard accurate analysis of governmental criminality and lies with: “oh, that’s just nonsense conspiracy theory”.
Summary: he’s a paid ‘smoke-screen’ producer.

The Charlie Kirk assassination

The official narrative of this public execution has all the ingredients of a deliberate deception.
The decision to not release:
1.) a doctor’s testimony or an autopsy report;
2.) the conclusion of ALL the available video evidence;
3.) etc. (I’ve been previously told by the moderators they don’t want detailed discussion of this here at CODOH).
all appears to be deliberate as it invites speculation.
That speculation and confusion is desired!

E.g. People are arguing online whether an autopsy was even performed! A fact which it would be EXTREMELY EASY to lay to rest. Yet that hasn’t been done.
Why?
E.g. People are arguing over whether the neck-wound we all saw is an entry or exit wound. Again that would be EXTREMELY EASY to settle, but they allow speculation.
Why?
Etc., etc.
I suggest it is because that uncertainty is desired as it enables the deceivers to dominate the discussion with two things: i.) a non-credible official narrative and ii.) many, speculative and often bizarre theories. The result is that the speculation puts off most people, allowing the ‘official’ story/deception to present itself as ‘sane’ and ‘responsible’.
People who want to believe their government and national institutions have their best interests at heart, will buy into the ‘official’ narrative for mental comfort.

“Is the purpose of the absence of facts [a deliberate policy in order] to produce competing theories to argue about and thus bury the facts?
Why can’t some independent authority – not the whore media, nor the FBI – say whether there are entrance and exit wounds and what weapon they are compatible with?
Why can’t the bullet be identified if it is true that the surgeon found it in Kirk’s neck ‘under the skin’.
The absence of the basic facts tells us that we are not meant to know.”
~ Paul Craig Roberts (who formerly held a sub-cabinet office in the United States federal government as well as teaching positions at several U.S. universities.)

FINALLY:
Apparently there were many ‘new’ groups of people who dealt with the aftermath of Kirk’s murder that were put in place shortly BEFORE the shooting:
— A new chief surgeon at the hospital they took him to (which wasn’t the closest nor had most experienced staff).
— A new department of FBI investigators who were assigned the investigation yet who were not the closest but are based far away from Utah.
— A new guy in charge of the judiciary in Utah who gets to choose who is Tyler Robinsons’ defence attorney
— a new guy at the not-nearest hospital who was chosen to do the autopsy.
Etc.

Which — if accurate — demonstrates an obvious institutionalised killing with people in place to cover it up and convict the planned patsy.
So who has the capability to do that?
And… CUI BONO?

Consequently, it is fair and intelligent to conclude this killing + MSM deriliction of journalistic duty, plus smokescreen speculation, plus inconsistent FBI deceptive narrative, has Israel and Mossad all over it.
And if you dismiss that explanation outright as ‘anti-semitic conspiracy theory’ I respectfully suggest to you that you have been successfully conditioned.

CONCLUSION:
See here: viewtopic.php?p=16888#p16888