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Conspiracy Theories


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Hi Mr. Farrius,

Sounds like paranoid delusion to me.

If you still can't believe that the U.S. would do something like this, you are extremely misinformed about the extraordinary powers of government my friend. It would only sound like paranoid delusion to you because you seem to be deluded. Remember, governments care only for people as a whole, never for the person. Thus, this AIDS/CANCER cure conspiracy is extremely feasible.

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Firstly - conspiracy by it's very nature is based on paranoia, lack of evidence and delusion.

There is no proof of a cure for cancer and no evidence that the government is hiding such a cure. It is not my duty to believe but yours to prove. End of story.

Second - with regard to conspiracy; and I believe I made this point already, there is no doubt that the US Government (or any government for that matter) is capable of skulduggery or acts which lack any and all morality).

The problem is the massive coordination it would take to pull of these so-called conspiracies. Human nature itself is the biggest barrier.

It can't be done.

Conspiracy theory is very interesting folklore but offers little practical insight into the world.

I will say again - the claimant must provide the proof.

I am required to do nothing except reject that such a conspiracy exits. This is how rational thought works.

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Thanks to Krusty and The Mod Centrist for holding up the candle of sanity in these discussions.

Here's another plank to support both of your arguments:

Most of the plots that conspiracy theorists would like us to believe happened would never have been approved because of the risk involved.

The motivation for these plots is always given as something that happened immediately afterwards (for JFK, the escalation of the Vietnam conflict, for 9-11 the invasion of Afghanistan etc.) but none of these outcomes was clear or predictable immediately after the incident let alone before.

So strategists would never be able to guarantee ANY outcome of a catastrophic event like 9-11.

If they wanted to invade Afghanistan, they could have easily fabricated evidence to do so. They wouldn't have had to stupidly destroy their own symbols of stability first.

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Most of the plots that conspiracy theorists would like us to believe happened would never have been approved because of the risk involved.

Plus, of course, what if you get caught conspiring? The more complex the plan, the more people have to be involved, and the higher the chance becomes that somebody will become loose-lipped in a bar or just rat out his fellow conspirators.

There was a conspiracy in England, centuries ago, to blow up the houses of Parliament. It was uncovered, and Guido Fawkes was apprehended in the basement of Westminster surrounded by barrels of gunpowder. Under torture so severe he could barely sign his confession, he named his accomplices, all of whom were tortured, hung, drawn and quartered (a very nasty method of execution involving partial strangulation, disembowelment, burning of the entrails in front of the convict and finally, being torn limb from limb).

Basically, it's hard to keep a conspiracy under wraps, and if you are caught plotting to kill the President or start a war for Machiavellian reasons, you would probably go down for high treason, which still carries the death penalty even in democratic countries.

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As I said before it is not difficult to understand that the Bin Laden family had an alibi; they were making money, a lot of it at the time this occured, well known by the higher echelons of business and government I would doubt that their loyalty leaned even remotely towards Fundementalism. As well, you don't think that they had already been looked at very closely in the decades before while OBL was fighting Americans in Somalia and elsewhere? I have no doubt that they were wisked away for their own protection knowing that they left hundreds of billions of dollars as an unofficial bail bond should they need to be asked or required co-operation of any kind.

That's rather a lot to take on faith, don't you think? Isn't this the kind of thing the public is owed an explanation for? Instead, the Bush admin has never come through with a public inquiry into 9-11 and subsequent events. The one report that was done was heavily censored to remove references to Bush's ties with the House of Saud. Someone has a lot to answer for, yet no heads have rolled in the greatest breach of national security in history. Why?

This lack of accountability is a greater danger to democracy than any group of foreign radicals.

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You expect us to believe that just because GWB had some third party relationship with a member of the Saud family, that implicates him in a mass conspiracy to slaughter thousands of Americans?

It seems to me that thats rather a lot to take on faith

No, you're jumping to conclusions. I never said that Bush's shady dealings with the clan bin Laden and teh terroist supporting house of Saud were anything but that: shady business dealings. However, the fact that Bush is president AND allowed people associated with the man allegedly responsible for the 9-11 attacks to flee the country mere days after the event (and in violation of a North American air travel ban) should raise some serious red flags.

Personally, I think it confirms where Bush's interests lie: business special interests first, the safety and security of America a distant second.

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Hello all,

Can we get a source for the claim that the Saudi's (bin Ladin Family?) left the United States immediately after the terrorist attacks?

Also, I think we must be careful about jumping to conclusions here. My understanding is that the Saudi Government and Bin Ladin Family have distanced themselves from him (Osama).

How can you justify holding high level officials for something to which they themselves have not done? I think this would be diplomatically problematic to say the least.

Many conspiracy theorists seem to forget that the United States foreign policy is largely based on RealPolitic which puts practical concerns ahead of moral ones. This however, again is not conspiracy in practice.

I have been against the war in Iraq from day one and I also have been critical of the current US administration.

A non-intervention/isolationist foreign policy turn, I believe would be of more use in US defense.

Having said that I think we must look at the US relationship to the Saudi's in practical terms - namely in the house of Saud fell what would replace it? - an extremist regime which is much more dangerous.

Last summer I saw Henry Kissinger interviewed in reference to the Iranian revolution - he said that yes the Sha of Iran was bad - however if he had not been overthrown we would see a moderate Islamic state in Iran today instead of the current Theocracy.

The same situation occurs in Saudi Arabia. This again is why I tend to favor the "devil you know" theory and goes to another reason why I oppossed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

So just because there are links between the Saudis and the US I don't think it fits under the label of conspiracy.

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The same situation occurs in Saudi Arabia. This again is why I tend to favor the "devil you know" theory and goes to another reason why I oppossed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

I follow you to a point. But too often in the past the "devil you know" excuse has been used to justify American support of absolutely inhuman regimes, and when there was more than one other alternative available.

My feeling is that we've come a long way since the 1970s and 1980s in this regard, yet people today seem to be playing catch-up with their anti-Americanism.

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Hello Mr. Farrius,

US tradition is very isolationist but this view was largely swept aside as a result of WWII and the Cold War. The issue is very complex as the United States has interferred in other nations often at their request.

When there is trouble in the world it is often the United States that gets called on to help.

One possible solution is a stronger UN with more commitment in $ and troops from other countries. This will defer the responsibility away from the US.

We are along way from this however. It must also be remembered that the US due to domestic energy consumption is reliant on foreign sources of fuel which it must maintain access to.

Definetly no easy answers.

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One possible solution is a stronger UN with more commitment in $ and troops from other countries. This will defer the responsibility away from the US.

Is that so? Does the U.S. really want less responsibility? Is that why it charged into Iraq, regardless of the UN, and now that it's in a sticky situation, wants help? Give me a break.

The U.S. only helps other nations when it benefits in doing so. That's why it didn't help Liberia as quickly as it should've, but rushed quickly into Iraq (for oil).

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One possible solution is a stronger UN with more commitment in $ and troops from other countries. This will defer the responsibility away from the US.

Agreed. However, the problem here lies in the fact that the U.S. has no interest in promoting multilateralism and a strong United Nations, as that would act a check on their own aspirations of a political economic and military hegemony (as detailed by the Project for a New Amerian Century and the American Enterprise Institute: two right wing think tanks whose members are counted among the upper echelons of American policy-making). Not to mention the consternation a strong UN would cause the deranged neocon howler monkey punditiocracy who mock the institution for its ineffectiveness while silultaneously (and paradoxially) raging against the organization's attempt to apply some sort of socialist agaenda to the world.

A better way to run the UN would be to first scrap the UNSC and to create stringant critera for membership (for instance: to qualify for member ship and benefits such as internatioonal aid, countries should be required to institute democratic reforms, adhere to human rights guidelines, etc.)

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Totally agree with that last statement, Black Dog.

There is an argument that by allowing in non-democratic nations, we can somewhat influence them, and over time they may bring in democratic change and what not. I think however that the United Nations should be the United Democratic Nations. You can liken it to clubs like Kiwanis or the Kinsmen, they don't want members that beat their children or are not good citizens.

As for the UNSC, the idea of veto is about power. Power to enforce your will upon the rest of the members. Majority support for resolutions should not be able to be cancelled out by one member country, be it the US or France.

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Hello All,

I found this quote which I couldn't resist placing here:

"Have you noticed that the most vocal promoters of Conspiracy Theory seem to be uniquely unqualified?

It seems, as a rule, they are custodians, bus drivers, clerks, etc.; but here they are on the radio or publishing a leaflet or book as an expert on insider business and political dealings at an international level!

This is not to denigrate any profession, but merely to point out that there seems to be a common thread among the most enthusiastic supporters and proponents of Conspiracy Theory--they lack experience and access to the international political and business world, and seem to have careers that allow lots of time to fantasize about how things "really are."

Source: http://www.acts17-11.com/conspire.html

I included this on this topic because it's very important to remember that conspiracy theory is a flawed view of events.

We must not give creedence to wild theories with absolutely no proof. There can be little doubt as to who the attackers were or what motivated them. There can also be little doubt that there is absolutely no advantage to the Bush administration in taking part or condoning any such attack.

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Real conspiracies work best when small and short lived. They take significant energy and planning and are vulnerable to the light of scrutiny. Every person brought in and every day that passes adds to the risk of an ongoing conspiracy.
But this is mere conventional thinking, not Conspiracy Theory. Conspiratists believe not merely that an occasional conspiracy exists, but that this is the dominant theme of history, that an "unseen hand" is guiding the world inexorably to the whim of certain supra-rich and/or powerful individuals.
And while conspiratists project fantastic evils onto the Rockefellers or the Catholics or the US Congress or the Jews or whomever, real enemies who are hell-bent on destroying us go unnoticed.

The bottom line is that while it may be great fun and fantasy for those of a paranoid bent, Conspiracy Theory is NOT taken seriously by people who run this world, it is useless for predicting or explaining what is going on and why. Only those who do not need to be correct can hold this view for long.

Also somewhere it said that it takes significant energy and time to disprove one. One that say, a bus driver dreamed up one afternoon.

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Let me attempt to clarify the issue of the Bin Laden Family departure from America shortly after 9.11. I can not provide cites as I am responding from my memory of information provided by sources in Massachusetts at that time.

This is a large family and supposedly had long since disavowed the fanatic. A brother, family members and others were resident in Cambridge at the time. In the immediate aftermath, there was concern expressed by the Saudi Ambassador to the State Dept. that these family members could be in danger due to the family relationship and an official request was made for diplomatic clearance to fly them home from the US. Diplomatic clearance was provided to appropriate officials at Logan Airport and they all left the US.

Standard Diplomatic stuff, protection of citizens in a foreign country.

Not sure how this has morphed into Conspiracy Theory but this is what was conveyed to people at Logan, at the time, and the State Dept. paperwork had every 'i' dotted and 't' crossed or that plane would not have left the ground.

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