A crazy conspiracy theory making its way around the web claims that President Obama has issued a "kill order" against GOP Presidential candidate Ron Paul.
The theory was published at the European Union Times, which claims:
The Federal Security Service (FSB) is reporting today that the “secret letter” sent to Prime Minister Putin by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda contains a warning that United States President Barack Obama has issued an executive-level “kill order” against US Congressman Ron Paul over fears this charismatic politician, who many believe could capture the Republican Presidential 2012 nomination, is about to expose to all Americans what can only be described as the largest mass theft in human history.
The article, which cites the Russian Federal Security Service with no corroborating evidence, has been linked on a number of sites, including The Daily Paul, a website that advocates the Paul candidacy. Google returned several links mentioning the claim at the Paul site, but one is currently not working.
The EU Times also refers to a Senate vote on the National Defense Authorization Act that caused a stir after the ACLU claimed it would let the military arrest and detain U.S. citizens indefinitely without trial::
Ron Paul’s fears of a police state America being ruled by a dictatorial tyrant were confirmed yesterday when the US Senate, in a 61-37 vote gave, for the first time in history, the power to the US Military to hold citizens without charges or trial indefinitely by passing a bill that was written in secret and never openly debated.
So frightening is this new law that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the days prior to its passing warned: “The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.”
The bill, however, clearly states the opposite.
But facts are often irrelevant when a conspiracy theory is concerned.
A post at The Humble Libertarian notes that those who have seen the link or heard the theory should not take it seriously:
The website names its source as the Russian Federal Security Service, but they don't link to the alleged report itself, they just link to the Russian agency's website. When I copied and pasted all of its headlines into Google Translate, I saw no headline that could remotely resemble anything about a Ron Paul "kill order," and nothing that even mentioned Obama or Ron Paul.
Not linking to the actual report is annoyingly unhelpful at best, and kind of sketchy at worst. Don't ever suspend your critical thinking and investigative abilities the second you hear a headline that confirms just how evil your opponent is, especially if it sounds too horrible to be true.
The article was written by one "Sorcha Faal," a name apparently fairly well-known among conspiracy theorists.
A post at abovetopsecret.com notes:
There is no such person as “Sorcha Faal, Russian academic” “Sorcha Faal” is actually David Booth, an American computer programmer “Sorcha” is alleged to be a Russian academic but there is absolutely no record of anyone with such a name in Russian academia. These periodic eruptions have absolutely no basis in any kind of fact or reality and are typical of the nonsense bespangling the internet. These reports, however, have a good deal of entertainment value.
What is curious, however, is that some of Paul's supporters seem to take it seriously.
More on Ron Paul at Examiner.com can be found here.
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