As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Conspiracies; but governments are so stupid
devoir
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/08/AR2007100801817.html?hpid=topnews
I pulled this from Fark and I think one of the points raised early in the discussion over there regarding this news item is how it affects the whole "Government conspiracy" thing, especially in regards to such classics as "WTC attacks were a government ploy".
Now, I know we've seen (specific to the WTC case) a bunch of government people come out and say that there was incompetence and head-in-the-sand approaches taken leading up to the event, but doesn't the above article reinforce the notion that Government and bureaucracy in today's world means that a conspiracy of the kind described in regards to WTC would be near impossible?
I don't want to turn this into a WTC thread, it was just the most obvious example of the kind of theory thrown around about the American government. It could equally apply to any other national security issue, or hell even alien aircraft.
A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.
Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.
The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group's communications network.
I pulled this from Fark and I think one of the points raised early in the discussion over there regarding this news item is how it affects the whole "Government conspiracy" thing, especially in regards to such classics as "WTC attacks were a government ploy".
Now, I know we've seen (specific to the WTC case) a bunch of government people come out and say that there was incompetence and head-in-the-sand approaches taken leading up to the event, but doesn't the above article reinforce the notion that Government and bureaucracy in today's world means that a conspiracy of the kind described in regards to WTC would be near impossible?
I don't want to turn this into a WTC thread, it was just the most obvious example of the kind of theory thrown around about the American government. It could equally apply to any other national security issue, or hell even alien aircraft.
devoir on
0
Posts
Entropy Kid I choose you!
Wait for it...wait for it.
I'm not sure how you're putting the two together.
They usually do.
There is no grand conspiracy, people are just stupid sometimes.
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
Okay, Mayan prophecies, what the hell?
It sure doesn't help calm down the 'truthers' when Osama Bin Laden took years to admit that he was behind 9/11 and the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist page for Osama Bin Laden doesn't mention 9/11.
Basically, any series of steps involving people will result in a cluster of fuck ups which every now and again lead to a grand fuck up. But what bends people's minds is that they can't imagine how that can be.
Or to summarize: god I hate conspiracy theorists.
Oh sweet mother of god no.
Also, even beyond ineptitude, there is a certain barrier that any conspiracy theory must overcome: whistle-blowers. Everyone involved has to carry the secret with them to the grave or it will come out.
To use an example: The moon-landing conspiracy theory. To fake the moon landing, the government would have to have permanently silenced thousands of people, and the vast majority of them would be people with relatively little (if any) ideological investment in the conspiracy, and no doubt many of them would have had an ideological investment in revealing such a conspiracy. Now, if a conspiracy can be trimmed down to a very small group of highly dedicated individuals, the bar is lower, and conspiracy becomes more plausible.
Seems like most conspiracy theorists forget this.
Why? What about their actions says they could have organized, planned and executed such a grand plan without a single shred of evidence arising after 6-7 years?
What of the dead on the planes?
Because anything that may be evidence is brushed aside by people who say that anyone making such claims or presenting cases are crazy, tinfoil-hat-makers.
And what of the dead?
Well, if the tinfoil hat fits...
I'm not saying that conspiracy theorists are always crazy or wrong, but in a case so blindingly obvious as 9/11 it is ridiculous to suggest that no one in the government who was supposedly part of this "plan" would object to killing thousands of American citizens. Surely there would be an easier way to instigate a war with Iraq.
suilimeA's post summed up the idea pretty well.
99.9% of conspiracy theories are crap imagined by people who imagine much more order and stability than there actually is.
But every once in a while...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MK_Ultra
Yeah, because government agencies such as the CIA or the FBI have never been able to keep anything secret over the years. . .
And really, there wouldn't have to be a large number of people 'in' on the conspiracy to help plane hijackers crash into a building.
You'd have to keep a significantly larger portion of people quiet about an operation which drove faux 747's into the towers. And this operation was most definitely not for beneficial purposes.
And what of the dead? The planes were real, as were the pilots. For this operation to have been government, all flight controllers would have to have been in on it, as well as pilots, and all who operated the place where those real planes landed. Then they would have had to kill all the passengers, as well as the pilots if they weren't in on it. And I suppose the just went down the line, killing everyone who wouldn't call a loved one and give a fake goodbye.
But when shit like MKUltra (or, my favorite, Operation Midnight Climax) goes down, we have actual evidence, not stupid bullshit like "olol I don't know how teh phyzzicks work and the building that got hit last fell down first so clearly bush and teh jews did it!!1"
Well said.
Who gains from a divided Korea besides Kim Jong Il?
Conspiracy theorists have trouble with the idea that something as terrible as killing a president or blowing up a building can be done by 1 or a handful of people. Surely you can't just wake up one morning and walk to a building and aim a gun at a president and pull the trigger. It must take more than that.
Wait, I really want to hear the logical process that goes from "the only one who benefits from a divided Korea is Kim Jong Il" to "The US must be sabatoging the negotiations!"
I mean, isn't the logical conclusion that, y'know, North Korea is sabatoging the negotiations? Maybe it's just me.
Also - I'd like to prosecute practitioners of chiropractic adjustment, reikki and homeopathy.
Not all chiropractors are crazy, and a friend of mine practices reiki just as a massage method without any wacky pseudoscience bullshit.
Homeopathy is a load of crap no matter what way you slice it, though.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Like, totally dude. Only this guy with a history of fraudulent activities knows the real answers
But...but...you're a hippy, Shinto.
@Azio -- honestly, what you say doesn't sound terribly far-fetched to me.
The problem is that it is, almost surely impossible to prove. Why weaken your argument by making inflammatory claims when the level of sheer incompetence and corruption which provably happened is damning enough? Hijackers being let into the country despite expired visas and being on terrorist watch lists merely because they were paid for by the Saudi Royal Family (or, rather, members of it, because it's hardly a unified body)? That's some corrupt bullshit that allowed these attacks to happen. Same goes for top-down orders to freeze investigations into funding sources for al-Qaeda when those investigations got too close to some of the Bush family's buddies, including the Saudi Royal Family and the bin-Ladens (oh man, I can hardly remember the details of the incestuous relationship between the Bushes and the bin-Ladens, but they have strong monetary ties. I need to dig up The War On Freedom again).
Same goes for allowing some of the hijackers to learn how to fly at secure U.S. military installations, again, merely because they were bankrolled by some Saudis.
Does this add up to suspicion of perhaps purposeful inaction? Maybe so, but you can't prove it, but it does provably add up to incompetence and corruption of the Bush administration leading directly to the deaths of 3,000 Americans and that's frankly enough.
• Bush and co. planned to purposefully fail to act to prevent 9/11 so that they could take advantage of the flag-waiving aftermath, or
• Bush and co legitimately failed to prevent 9/11 and then took advantage of the flag-waiving aftermath.
Option B requires less assumptions and seems the simpler explanation. There are plenty of cases in history of people turning legitimate fuck ups and tragedies into political advantages.
In any case, those two bullet points really are the only logical explanations, and arguments can be made for and against both. Silly conspiracy theories about how Bush was an instrument to the actual attacks are just that, silly conspiracy theories, and it just gets sillier from there, with planned demolitions and missiles that look like 767s.
While it's my inclination to agree with you Azio, again, it comes down to provability. Maybe it'll come out some day, Gulf of Tonkin style, but until then stick with what you can prove.
Just a quick point, the briefing regarding Bin Laden attacking the US was a broad description. Even if we knew how the attack was going to be carried out like it was what could have been done. I mean, even now after 9/11, pundits and the public still can't agree on the no fly list and even when its in effect it grounds more ex-rock singers than terrorists. You think that program was going to fly PRE-9/11, not a chance.
Both Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi were on FBI terrorist alert lists and both entered the country before Bush even took office, in 2000 and 1999 respectively.
I don't care for Bush for a lot of reasons, some that are expressed on these boards, some not, but to suggest Bush either a)planned the attack or b) purposely let the plan go through to score points after the fact are grasping at straws. The former adminstration would have to been in on it as well, and what sense does that make?!
Skull and Bones!
Which is exactly why I don't vote.
CHOICE IS AN ILLUSION!
I think if anything the politicians and policy makers at the centre of key US foreign and internal policy at the start of the 21st Century are just opportunists, plain and simple. Not super cunning, not super insidious, just opportunists. They wouldn't (in my opinion) have purposefully let the attacks happen, but they'll be damned if they don't try to make the most of it once it had.
Yes, but you also have to remember there hasn't been a military coup in North Korea, either. The brainwashing indoctrination and patriotism can't be that strong - how is it a military leader hasn't stepped up and whipped Kim Jong Il's ass and reversed his policies? Stalinist regimes aren't known for being honest. Those generals and such must know there's a delicate relationship between Chairman Kim and the US and any hint of instability will disrupt the relationship.
NK is being paid in aid to be crazy. The US now gets a foot in the door; NK is starting to become dependent on foreign aid. A poor NK means a gateway into China should WW3 ever start. Maybe there wouldn't many excuses to keep military bases in SK if NK didn't act crazy ... as soon as Korea is unified, 'Yankee Go Home!' will follow. Well, much more than usual.
The other guess I've heard is America and South Korea are trying to be nice and our side is postponing reunification just so we can get our figures straight - we don't want to just absorb NK's economy and military like West Germany sucked in and assimilated East Germany. So we have to take it slow and plan.
I like the crazy first theory better.
Wasn't that a minor plot point for the James Bond movie Die Another Day? 'We made a list of who profited from 9/11 ...'
We don't really need a gateway into China if there's another world war because let's face it, there'll be a global exchange of nuclear weapons and cockroaches will inherit the earth. Besides, China isn't particularly likely to go to war with us anyway, our economies are too intertwined.
Er, I don't see the need for hare-brained conspiracy theories to explain something like this. Complex diplomatic and political subterfuge, maybe, but you don't have to go into tinfoil hat country.
There's a pretty practical reason why SK and the west would be nervous about reunification: the immediate aftermath. You have one of the most backwards and repressed countries in the world next to a modernized, open one. The risk of a bunch of refugees running south and the problems in bringing the economic and political situations in line are very high obstacles even if you had a NK not run by a madman who only cares about maintaining control.
Add into that the normal concern about spheres of influence and so forth in international politics and it's pretty clear to see it is not a simple matter.
Uh, Im saying that if this was a conspiracy, the only people who would be in on it would be the government and the hijackers. Im saying if it was a coverup conspiracy tinfoilhat job, that the people on the planes were real and died and the planes were purposely crashed. Who the fuck says the planes werent crashed into the towers and they were secretly switched out? That's just retarded.
Im saying that if it was a conspiracy, the government wouldn't give a shit about the people on the planes or in the towers and the point of them doing it would be so that all died. And for what reason? To further an agenda in the Middle-East and strengthen government control and increase government control and create an authoritarian government that is after your bodily fluids.
/tinfoilhat adovcate
Don't underestimate Taiwan which is still a major source of national shame for China and the likeliest cause of war between the US and China in the future. Though not the immediate future. China's 'navy' is years away from even trying to challenge the US navy and no naval support means no way to support ground troops.
Aaah! Don't say that out loud - you might jinx it!
*knocks on wood*
:P
It was discovered after his death that Stalin had a filing cabinet full of strategies on how to invade the West. General MacArthur even presented a plan to the public on how to invade Soviet Land before he got the boot. I bet we've got filing systems brimming with tactics and plans on how to invade China by land like they have for us ... just in case. There's always a plan.
In the next thirty years, China's expected to hit a depression when their one child per family policy catches up to the demands on the work force. If we hit them, it'll be then. We'll be at odds with NK for at least thirty more years. Our robot troops (armed with lasers and hover tanks) will kick so much ass across that continent ...