Claim: President Obama fired several military officers for disobeying his order to destroy Charleston as part of a "false flag" attack.
FALSE
Example: [Collected via e-mail, October 2013]
Inquiring about a tactical nuke detonated underwater off the coast of SC during week ending
A shocking new Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) report circulating in the Kremlin today states that President Barack Obama, while in a rage, ousted four of the United States top ranking military officers after they refused to detonate a nuclear device "in/near" Charleston, South Carolina this past week and, instead, exploded it off the Atlantic Coast.
According to this report, Strategic Missile Forces Command (SMF) notified both President Putin and the General Staff this past Tuesday
Origins: This October 2013 article about President Obama supposedly firing "four top ranking military officers" after they refused to detonate a nuclear device "in or near" Charleston, South Carolina, isn't a real news item. And neither is its follow-up which posited that Russia had successfully test-fired a ballistic missile in "direct response to President Barack Obama's attempt to destroy Charleston" as part of a "false flag attack."
Both items are just more fictional "Sorcha Faal" sensationalism originating with a single disreputable source, the whatdoesitmean.com political conspiracy site, of which RationalWiki says:
Each report resembles a news story in its style but usually includes a sensational headline barely related to reality and quotes authoritative high-level Russian sources (such as the Russian Federal Security Service) to support its most outrageous claims. Except for the stuff attributed to unverifiable sources, the reports don't contain much original material. They are usually based on various news items from the mainstream media and/or whatever the clogosphere is currently hyperventilating about, with each item shoehorned into the conspiracy narrative the report is trying to establish.
Sorcha Faal is the alleged author of an ongoing series of "reports" published at WhatDoesItMean.com, whose work is of such quality that even other conspiracy nutters don't think much of it.
In this case the actual news items from which the Sorcha Faal fantasy was spun were the mid-October 2013 announcements that Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael Carey and U.S. Vice Adm. Tim Giardina,
both of whom oversaw the United States' arsenal of nuclear forces, had been relieved of their commands for "personal misbehavior."
Previous examples of WhatDoesItMean nuttery include a May 2013 report that Russian President Vladimir Putin had threatened U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry with a world war over a "bee apocalypse" supposedly caused by American agricultural biotechnology corporations.
Unfortunately, other political conspiracy sites which have more professional-appearing names and layouts than whatdoesitmean.com, such as the European Union Times, republish the former's fantastic "Sorcha Faal" reports, creating the misleading impression that such material is being reported by multiple legitimate news sources.
As RationalWiki notes of the European Union Times:
The European Union Times strays deeply into tinfoil hat territory. For example, it regularly re-publishes the hilarious "reports" of "Sorcha Faal." If you see a headline that is really "out there" (for example, "US Earthquake Weapon Test Fails Again, Destroys
In March 2015, an audience member at the South Carolina National Security Action summit posed a rambling question to former senator Rick Santorum that included the claim that "Obama tried to blow up a nuke in Charleston a few months ago":
Where do we go from here? Ted told me I've got to wait now till the next election. I don't think the country will be around for the next election. Obama tried to blow up a nuke in Charleston a few months ago and the three Admirals and Generals. He has totally destroyed our military. He has fired all the Generals and all the Admirals who said they wouldn't fire on the American people if they ask 'em to do so if he wanted to take the guns away from 'em. This man is a Communist dictator. We need him out of the White House now. And the Congress of the United States is the only
Y'know, what's goin' on Senator Santorum.
Last updated: 19 March 2015