So here we go – my last attempt. Feel free to have the last word after me boys, I won’t feel that my manhood has been inpugned if the very last syllable is not mine.

At the risk of repeating myself, I don’t doubt that conpiracies exist, or that they can be wide ranging and dangerous. I also know that some conspiracies don’t exist, except in the fevered brains of people who want desperately to see a pattern because otherwise all there is is randomness and chaos that is too frightening to deal with. Frankly, most of the shit that goes on the world is somewhere between the two.

And here is something that I do object to (more than having my words manipulated and misinterpreted) – where crazy theories mask an underlying wrong doing. I will point over to Rachel in North London (http://rachelnorthlondon.blogspot.com/), the blog of a woman who was on a tube train on 7 July 2005 and got blown up. She has been campaigning for a proper inquiry into that day and the events leading up to it. She is being seriously hindered (and harrassed) by tin foil hat conspiracy theorists, who try to persuade her that because the forensics teams looked under the trains, that must mean that “they” know something “we” don’t know about the position of the bomb. Her attempt to get something sensible and necessary is being pulled down by the ramblings of those who really really want the world to be run by sinister cabals of power-weilding maniacs, because they really couldn’t handle the truth.

However, you then go from there to say “I’ll make the point again, I do not think it impossible for conspiracies to exist, merely unlikely.”. This is what gets other people upset.

Your first point is that giant conspiracies are unlikely to stay completely secret. And a series of giant conspiracies have been exposed, sometimes after many years. This is not an argument that there are unlikely to be giant conspiracies now, it’s an argument that giant conspiracies happening now might get exposed later. We don’t have any adequate statistics about how often giant conspiracies get exposed because we don’t know about the ones that don’t get exposed. If we were in a position to know about all the conspiracies and see how many of them get exposed then we could do statistics on it. But without that we simply don’t know.

Your second point, that there are lots of stupid conspiracy theories, says nothing about how many conspiracies there are. If I ran a government agency with a budget to pay people to make stupid conservative arguments online, then I would certainly consider paying people to make stupid conspiracy theories to help drown out the less-stupid ones. But I have no evidence that the various brilliant trolls who make such beautifully derailing stupid arguments (even here, but no names) are professionals. There may be no one with such a budget. The important thing is that the presence of a whole lot of stupid conspiracy theories says nothing about the number of actual conspiracies.

I’ve heard about a couple of minor conspiracies myself. A man I trusted who had spent a long time in the navy told me that at one time during the vietnam war his aircraft carrier spent some time inside chinese territorial waters, as part of an operation that was “mapping the continental shelf”. They ran with minimal electricity and pretended they weren’t there, and if the chinese had challenged them it would have been some kind of international incident. He said we’d never admitted to it, but it happened. I believe him. It wasn’t really any big deal since we got away with it. Of course we want the information, and it would be impolite to the chinese to talk about how we took it. There’s no particular reason for it to ever get publicly admitted.

Late in the iraq/iran war I talked with a man who claimed he had planned artillery strikes for the army. He was one of 90 men who planned poison gas strikes for the iraqis. He said we didn’t admit that we were doing it, but we were. He mentioned various details that later became public, and—years later, when they almost all matched up—I believed him. Before that I’d kept an open mind. At least after that I believed he was involved in the operation to the point he knew a lot about it.

His story made a lot more sense than the official version, which said we gave the iraqis satellite data about iranian troop movements, and then we planned conventional artillery strikes to disrupt the iranian attacks, and the iraqis planned their own chemical attacks entirely without our aid, and afterward we gave the iraqis satellite data with an analysis that assumed they had followed our conventional attack plan and showing them how well it worked. That just doesn’t make sense. My acquaintance said that we used the data to improve our own chemical warfare knowledge, which makes very good sense as we just don’t have a lot of real data about it—the WWI guys didn’t collect a lot of the things we need to know.

I read Colonel Patrick Lang’s blog for awhile. Colonel Lang’s current big interest is the possibility that our transport into iraq is vulnerable and our supplies could get cut off. He did happen to mention at one point that he had been the senior theatre intelligence guy when that poison gas operation was going on, and we had nothing whatsoever to do with the iraqi gas attacks, we gave them strictly conventional artillery advice. I told him the story I’d heard, and the reasons I believed the guy had been there. I suggested that perhaps Lang had been too high in the chain of command to know the details, or maybe the guy was lying for no particular gain. Within two hours Lang banned me and deleted all my comments. There’s no particular reason to believe the official version, but it’s slightly scandalous for us to participate in chemical weapons war crimes. So we tell just enough of a cover story to avoid embarrassment and try to forget the whole thing. Ninety targetters plus a bunch of support people is a lot for the story not to leak, but of course it did leak repeatedly—and nobody really wants to follow up on it.

The US public accepts a lot of hypocrisy in our government, and when it involves US interests pitted against foreign interests we generally think a degree of lying is a good thing. Lots of times leaks can get the immediate result, “Thanks for telling me that secret! You did the right thing when you did that secret mission and I’m proud of you! Of course we can’t admit what happened to them furriners but just among ourselves I gotta say you did great.”

Given the number of conspiracies that have been exposed, I think it’s plausible that there are probably a number of continuing conspiracies now that will be exposed in coming years.

And sure, there are a lot of goofy conspiracy theories. But if somebody who’s seemed knowledgeable and level-headed before suggests you look into a particular conspiracy theory, I hope you’ll consider that one with an open mind. There are more nutty theories circulating than you could check on in a lifetime, if you wanted to try them all. But if somebody you generally trust suggests a few that are better than usual, those are worth checking aren’t they?

This gets to a point about how people maintain world views. Donald said that he simply does not believe the necessary portion of the American elite is morally capable and bold enough to do something like 9/11. I pointed to Northwoods as an example of exactly that, and I frankly consider it a strong refutation. Though I don’t know, my guess would be that Donald already knew about Northwoods, at least in a general way, but had not integrated that knowledge into his general world view. It is a sort of cognitive dissonance. There is this general view about the government elite, and then there is this specific fact that contradicts it. Why is the general view not revised in light of the fact? After all, Northwoods dates from a time when the military and government were not full of the types who actively pray for Armageddon and may therefore be more inclined to extreme actions. If the elite were capable of such a thing then, it seems it would be even more capable now.

sg, quite so and abb1 made a good point. After all, Katherine seems to want to argue that “I hesitate to say, for fearing of starting the whole think off again, that the fact that you know about cointelpro tends to support my theory.” She doesn’t hesistate to say this because it is ill-supported, but just because she, for some reason, does not like the debate. But in fact if Katherine were to take this position, she would have to argue that it is somehow inevitable that a bunch of hippie radicals are going to always break into the FBI office, steal all the files, and publish the good bits – that’s the only reason we know about Cointelpro. And, of course, this conspiracy will have no fuck-ups. Good luck with that argument.

And it’s not like Cointelpro is the only example. MK Ultra was comparable to Cointelpro in size, duration, and illegality, and is even less “credible” by far. At least Cointepro had well-defined and rational objectives; it is still not entirely clear what the government thought it was up to with MK Ultra.

Katherine, you started out make very general objections to conspiracy theories and did state them as applying to “most” conspiracy theories. Indeed, you specifically said that “most” conspiracy theories rely on the deaths of alleged witnesses as primary evidence. I agree that perfect competency is preposterous, but you have not even argued, much less established, that any conspiracy theory, much less the bulk of them, requires perfect competence. You simply assert that conspiracy theories generally require everyone to get everything right and no one to betray. In the very conspiracy theory that initiated this discussion, the 9/11 theory, the most-widely accepted explanation of Flight 93 is that it was a fuck-up. The passengers were going to take over the flight, so the government had to shoot it down. You’re attacking conspiracy theorists for postulating plans that require perfect execution, when, in fact, imperfect execution is, quite often, part of the conspiratorial narrative.

Now, I’m all in favor of respectful discourse, and I have not attacked you personally; I have only attacked your arguments. I will note in passing that conspiracy theorists are seldom treated to respectful discourse, though your condenscension was comparatively mild.

What’s missing around here is some barely left of center type who laughs at the notion that high-ranking American officials could be war criminals and dismisses any radical critique of American foreign policy as “conspiracy theorizing”. There aren’t any such folks left in this thread (if there were any) and so you’ve been drafted by a couple of people to serve as strawman.

Oh honestly, what are you on about? Please get serious. My comment seems to have become the candle around which a debate is flickering that actually doesn’t have anything to do with me and about things I have never actually said.

Where have I ever said, please, that there are no conspiracies? Where have I said, please, that I would refuse to believe whistleblowers? Where have I said, please, that there no difference between tinfoil hat wearers and people with scary inside info, or in fact that people will scary inside info are all tin foil hat wearers? Nowhere, that’s where.

I think that you may have just accused me of “not getting involved” and, effectively, getting rid of my conscience. Well, pal, you really don’t know anything about me. Much of this comment conversation has been playful and polite and interesting, but that is offensive and ignorant.

Again, I take issue with the “not believing” part of your characterisation of my view point on this. I’ll make the point again, I do not think it impossible for conspiracies to exist, merely unlikely. And I reserve the right to be sceptical about a conspiracy that complies with the general characteristics I outlined above.

If one of your reasons for not believing conspiracy theories is that they are hard to hold together, then Abb1 pointing out a conspiracy which was held together for 12 years and is still very poorly publicized would seem to me to constitute a reasonable argument against your position, as opposed to mere contrarity.

Anyhow, to get back to the subject of theoretical other conspiracy theories, I think abb1 that you are now just being contrary, my dear. Nowhere have I written above that very large and complex conspiracies are impossible, merely unlikely (probability approaching 1, I think I said, reading back).

I hesitate to say, for fearing of starting the whole think off again, that the fact that you know about cointelpro tends to support my theory. I have no shadow of a doubt that there may well exist out there conspiracies of a scary nature, possibly never to see the light of day. nature, we can’t possibly know how many.

But until the world of perfect information comes to be, I reserve the right to be sceptical of people who tell me about shadowy groups of mysterious power-wielders who secretly control the world without slipping up, except to reveal their presence to networks of dedicated foil hat wearers by means of disguising murders as heart attacks.

I think you put your finger on my specific area of disagreement with you. While I consider it highly unlikely that the Bush et al ACTIVELY planned, and executed, the events of 9/11, I do not consider the possibility “preposterous’ given that I believe they would do whatever they believe they have to do to advance their agenda.

Therefore, I certainly would not rule their accomplice status, if only in a passive sense. IOW….they knew something was coming. Specifically knew, and yet allowed, and in some cases, perhaps, facilitated it coming about. And for the sake of intellectual consistency, if not, some may argue, accuracy, I think this was the same dynamic behind Pearl Harbor.

My point here is less about 9//11 than about the state of mind of the people ruling America right now. And what they are capable of. And for the record I think fear, professional and/or physical,and very short attention spans, in a world where lots of ‘images’ and ‘sounds’ are constantly bombarding the general population, are much more effective at covering up things than “competence” is.