#1919: Wayne Madsen

Wayne Madsen is a deranged conspiracy theorist whose work is published on the blog Wayne Madsen Report and occasionally picked up by major media outlets out to make fools of themselves – most famously, perhaps, the Observer in 2013 (discussed here) – and even more often by disreputable outlets that don’t really care. Madsen is also a frequent contributor to the Alex Jones show.

Trutherism

More than anything, Madsen is associated with 9/11 conspiracy theories, and he has even self-published a book according to which the attacks were planned and carried out as a joint Israel–Saudi Arabia venture, with the blessing of the US, as a “false flag” operation. In particular, according to Madsen, the 9/11 attacks were “an operation carried out by Mossad, Saudi intelligence, ... and elements of the CIA.” The book was the culmination of a decade’s worth of deranged ruminations: Madsen first made some waves with truther nonsense in 2003, when claiming to have uncovered information in a classified congressional report that he said contained information linking the September 11 attacks to the government of Saudi Arabia and the Bush administration through. Even the Saudi Foreign Minister eventually got annoyed with him.

Cynthia McKinney appears to be a fan of Madsen’s work on 9/11, despite the fact that Madsen has pushed conspiracy theories involving her, too.

Israel and Mossad

Conspiracies involving Israel and Mossad are staples in Madsen’s writing. In addition to causing 9/11, Mossad was responsible for assassinating hundreds of Iraqi scientists after the invasion in 2003 (published in The Palestine Telegraph), and in 2005, Madsen claimed that “an unidentified former CIA agent” had informed him that the USS Cole was hit by a Popeye cruise missile launched from an Israeli Dolphin-class submarine, making that, too, a false flag operation (unidentified former CIA agents are common sources of information among deranged people writing in CAPSLOCK on the Internet). Unnamed sources also informed him, in 2010, that Blackwater was conducting false-flag operations in Pakistan, blaming it on the Taliban (in an article published in Pakistan Daily). Moreover, “Israel reportedly has plans to relocate thousands of Kurdish Jews from Israel, including expatriates from Kurdish Iran, to the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Nineveh under the guise of religious pilgrimages to ancient Jewish religious shrines,” says Madsen, the operative word being “reportedly”. That one was picked up by a number of Middle Eastern junk conspiracy magazines newspapers, too.

In 2008 Madsen suggested, in an ArabNews article, that Mossad was behind the criminal prosecution of governor Eliot Spitzer. In particular, Madsen claimed that the prostitution firm that entangled Spitzer in a call girl ring, was as a Mossad front, and that Spitzer was actually outed by Russian-Israeli gangsters angry at Spitzer’s crack down on Wall Street malfeasance. And just to make sure, Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik was an Israeli agent who murdered 77 people on behalf of Tel Aviv.

In general, Mossad (and AIPAC) control the CNN, and – more generally – that “the Israeli lobby owns the Congress, media, Hollywood, Wall Street, both political parties and the White House.”

Obama

Madsen is a birther. In 2008, Madsen reported that unnamed “GOP dirty tricks operatives” had found a Kenyan birth certificate registering the birth of Barack Obama, Jr. on August 4, 1961. Madsen’s claims were duly picked up by the WND.

But not only is Obama a Kenyan – he is also gay. Indeed, claims about Obama’s visits to the bath house and how Obama used basketball pickup games to pick up men, popular on wingnut sites during Obama’s presidency, often originated with Madsen. According to Madsen, Obama has long worn “clear nail polish” and frequented Chicago bathhouses, and during his presidency “White House S&M ring order[ed] special videos from Abu Ghraib;” the White House would also, on Obama’s order, ensure that President Bush’s “feces and urine are classified top secret” and “captured” from special toilets and “flown back from Europe,” which tells you much more about what fantasies run through Madsen’s mind than it does about Obama. Apparently, Obama had homosexual trysts in particular with Representative Artur Davis, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Senate majority leader Bill Frist.

And not only was Obama a Kenyan and gay; he was also a Saudi mole – Madsen was one of the main promoters of that idea, widely popular in certain circles and endorsed, for instance, by Trump’s advisor Roger Stone, who calls Madsen his “friend”.

In 2012, Madsen self-published a book, Manufacturing a President, arguing that Obama was a creation of the CIA, even though he is a Saudi mole and the CIA is controlled by Mossad. The world is a strange place.

A few other claims

Madsen has promoted a dizzying array of conspiracies and wild claims also beyond those mentioned above. A couple of examples:

In 2002, The Guardian picked up Madsen’s claim that the US Navy had aided in an attempted overthrow of Hugo Chavez, his sources being the usual one. The claims actually made it to the US Senate, making a fool of Sen. Christopher Dodd.

In 2005, Madsen asserted that the US was secretly running the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (in a hearing in DRC). Local newspapers (conspiracy rags, mostly) ran with the story, with New African claiming that Madsen’s testimony “was so revealing that the mainstream Western media … have refused to print it,” which is even more evidence for there being a conspiracy. So it goes.

And in 2009, Madsen claimed that unidentified Mexican and Indonesian journalists had been told by unidentified UN World Health Organization officials and scientists that the 2009 H1N1 strain of swine flu virus appeared to be the product of U.S. military sponsored gene splicing (it doesn’t appear that way, not even remotely). Madsen knows a remarkable number of unidentified people who just happen to overhear or be told extremely secret information. The story was picked up by several questionable media outlets, including Russia Today.

Diagnosis: Utterly deranged nutter with a mind unclouded by facts, evidence or reason, who at least lets his bigotry shine through rather clearly in his ravings about world politics. The scary thing is that Madsen appears also to have a lot of influence among those whose agendas would be well served if Madsen’s conspiracy theories were true, which is apparently a substantial number of people, media outlets and politicians.