I believe in conspiracies

The Spectator ^ | 1/17/2004 | John Laughland

[JohnGalt]

So what if they 'had' then?

They don't have them now...why do you keep trying to play both sides?

[Peach]

Hah! Both sides - how do you figure that?

I've said he had them. It's verifiably true. IF he got rid of them, he made a terrible mistake by refusing to allow the inspectors back in, didn't he? You consider that playing both sides?

Really, John - you are too silly.

[JohnGalt]

If he got rid of them, and made a terrible mistake, as you say, where exactly do you disagree with me?

[Peach]

Then why am I accused of being hysterical when I point out proof that he had them, if we are in agreement?

You just keep changing the benchmarks. Are you sure you aren't Terry McAwful?

[GigaDittos]

Well let's look at it this way, which is easier to believe....that
1)the Government pulled off a huge scam on the American people which was planned and executed by many people working in concert with European governments and Middle Eastern terrorists, or
2)that the Government screwed up.

Well, past performance leads me to the latter conclusion.

[JohnGalt]

Just post that its clear that he destroyed the weapons and that our intelligence services provided our President with bad information.

[tracer]

bumpinthenightbump

[dirtboy]

Well, past performance leads me to the latter conclusion.

You just gave the 9/11 conspiracy nutbars a shave ... with Occam's razor. Now if someone could just figure out how to get them to bathe...

[Peach]

I accept that officials lie. But to presume that all of UNSCOM (composed of many countries), all of the UN, all of the Clinton administration, the BUsh administration, the intel agencies of nearly all developed countries, lied, as well as authors, reporters, etc., is just too big a stretch for me.

As well, we know he had weapons because he USED them.

[Action-America]

Before I launch into defending the administration, I should let you know my opinion of Dubya. I won't vote for him. I believe that he has done more real damage to the Constitution in three years, than klinton did in his entire eight years in office. Oh, I'm sure that klinton would have done much worse, but he was blocked by a Republican Congress - more or less the same Republican Congress that now gives Dubya a pass for his disregard for the Constitution. In short, I think that Dubya's domestic cure for terrorism is much worse than the disease and far overshadows the good that he has accomplished in the military war. But, the key word is "domestic".

I just want the liberals out there to know where I'm coming from, before I shoot holes all through their ridiculous conspiracy theories. It's really easy to understand why their conspiracy theories don't hold water.

1. The vast majority of the world's journalists and editors are admitted liberals, who would like nothing better than to find any evidence of a conspiracy involving Dubya.
2. There are thousands of hungry would-be Woodwards or Bernsteins out there, digging into every little unexplained or suspicious event surrounding the war on terrorism, hoping to make it into the big time.
3. For there to be a government conspiracy, to make it look like a whole bunch of disparate groups are indeed linked to one organization, thousands of people, in both the US government and foreign governments would have to be involved.

There is an old adage that applies here.

"The only way two people can keep a secret is if one of them is dead."

There would have to be far too many people involved to keep it a secret. Some people would disagree with the strategy. Others would be slighted, for not getting the promotion that went to someone else. Yet, others would take advantage of the situation to claim their 15 minutes of fame. If it were a government conspiracy, there would be leaks all over the place.

There aren't!

The numerous leaks that would be inherent in such huge conspiracy, just aren't present.

In fact, the only credible person to come forward with anything close to evidence of a conspiracy, is Paul O'Niell and all that his evidence suggests is that the administration was preparing for war in Iraq. The fact that they were doing so long before the 9-11 attacks, just demonstrates adequate foresight. If the truth be known, they probably prepared for war with North Korea, Syria, Iran and even China, as well. In fact, I would imagine that they probably have plans for war in every Middle Eastern country. To do anything less, would be totally irresponsible. It's called being prepared. I wouldn't want to think that any administration didn't have a plan to invade or defend against any of our potential enemies. So, even O'Niell's statements don't qualify as evidence of a conspiracy.

If the administration were engaged in this type of conspiracy, there would be lots of smoke. We might not be able to see the fire, but the smoke would be evident all over the place. It isn't!

Even a grade schooler could see that the conspiracy theorists are just trying to invent reasons for people to dislike Dubya. By doing so, they do more harm to their cause, than good. That's because after falsely crying wolf so many times, when they turn their attentions to Dubya's all to real domestic transgressions, the people just dismiss those protestations, as well.

There are plenty of reasons to dislike Dubya, but his military policy is certainly not one of them. If I fault his military policy at all, it is in the time he took to act. But, I'll grant that once he did act, it was decisively and for that I give him credit.

The real problem with Dubya is not in his military policy, but in his domestic policy. In fact, Dubya's domestic policy is doing more damage to our country, by seriously subverting our Constitution, than the terrorists could have done, had they flown a hundred planes that day in September of 2001. Because of Dubya's domestic response to the 9-11 attacks, even if we kill every al-Qa'eda terrorist in the world, they will still have won, because the USA will never be nearly as free as it was before the attacks and Dubya's response to them. After all, history shows that once a people allow government to take away some of their rights, regardless of reason, that government will never return those rights to the people without bloodshed.

The operative word in that last sentence is "allow". We still have a chance to reverse these assaults on the Constitution. But, if we reelect Dubya, we will have effectively ceded the 4th, 6th and 10th Amendments to the federal government and neither we nor our children will ever get them back without bloodshed.

The liberals don't need to invent some imagined foreign transgression to make Dubya look bad. They have a plethora of good solid reasons right here at home. All that it requires is that they compare Dubya's actions to the limits on his power, as laid out in the Constitution and its amendments. Of course, that probably explains why the liberals don't want to attack Dubya on this issue. After all, liberals have no more use for the Constitution than does Dubya.

 

[FBD]

Interesting post dirtboy.

IMO, John Galt is pretty much a one note Somba, when it comes to the war with Saddam.
I believe he calls folks that believe there might still be WMD's in Iraq- "WMD-Deadenders" He is absolutely convinced that they were all destroyed. Fine.
I believe he also makes assertions that the AQ "cave dwellers" are a hyped up threat, and that the war on terrorism is a conspiracy to sneak this goofy amnesty deal through. OK.

However;
It's fair to consider JohnGalt's assertions that there are no WMD's in Iraq keeping this in mind:

1. There isn't proof positive that they still do exist.

2. There isnt proof positive that they DON'T still exist, or that some bio/nerve agents have been possibly smuggled out of the country.

*The fact that test results come back *inconclusive* on a weapon, or that they haven't *yet* been found, does not eliminate the possibility that they still do exist, especially when the world knows for a fact that Saddam did in fact use chemical and biological agents on the Kurds. *(see Falsifiability, below)*

Keeping an open mind;
The following is helpful to look at any conspiracy claims or assertions, Pro and Con.

A Field Guide to Critical Thinking
By James Lett; Professor of Anthropology

Excerpts:

Falsifiability
It must be possible to conceive of evidence that would prove the claim false.
It may sound paradoxical, but in order for any claim to be true, it must be falsifiable. The rule of falsifiability is a guarantee that if the claim is false, the evidence will prove it false; and if the claim is true, the evidence will not disprove it (in which case the claim can be tentatively accepted as true until such time as evidence is brought forth that does disprove it). The rule of falsifiability, in short, says that the evidence must matter, and as such it is the first and most important and most fundamental rule of evidential reasoning.

The rule of falsifiability is essential for this reason: If nothing conceivable could ever disprove the claim, then the evidence that does exist would not matter; it would be pointless to even examine the evidence, because the conclusion is already known -- the claim is invulnerable to any possible evidence. This would not mean, however, that the claim is true; instead it would mean that the claim is meaningless. This is so because it is impossible -- logically impossible -- for any claim to be true no matter what. For every true claim, you can always conceive of evidence that would make the claim untrue -- in other words, again, every true claim is falsifiable.

Logic
Any argument offered as evidence in support of any claim must be sound.

To determine whether a valid argument is sound is frequently problematic; knowing whether a given premise is true or false often demands additional knowledge about the claim that may require empirical investigation. If the argument passes these two tests, however -- if it is both valid and sound -- then the conclusion can be embraced with certainty.

An argument is said to be "valid" if its conclusion follows unavoidably from its premises; it is "sound" if it is valid and if all the premises are true. The rule of logic thus governs the validity of inference. Although philosophers have codified and named the various forms of valid arguments, it is not necessary to master a course in form logic in order to apply the rules of inference consistently and correctly An invalid argument can be recognize by the simple method of counterexample: If you can conceive of a single imaginable instance whereby the conclusion would not necessarily follow from the premises even if the premises were true, then the argument is invalid.

Comprehensiveness
The evidence offered in support of any claim must be exhaustive -- that is all of the available evidence must be considered.

For obvious reasons, it is never reasonable to consider only the evidence that supports a theory and to discard the evidence that contradicts it. This rule is straightforward and self-apparent, and it requires little explication or justification.

Honesty
The evidence offered in support of any claim must be evaluated without self-deception.

The rule of honesty is a corollary to the rule of comprehensiveness. When you have examined all of the evidence, it is essential that you be honest with yourself about the results of that examination. If the weight of the evidence contradicts the claim, then you are required to abandon belief in that claim. The obverse, of course, would hold as well.

[Peach]

A wonderful post; thank you for posting it.

[JoeSchem]

However, another aspect of a good conspiracy theory is that it should make more sense than the official version of events. Therefore, having al Qaeda fly planes into the WTC and having that event cause their collapse makes far more sense than a theory that they were brought down by a controlled implosion - without anyone noticing the massive preparatory work that would have been required.

Agreed, but let's bear in mind that the writer here isn't disputing the existence of al Qaeda. He's simply saying that it's a much smaller organization than Bush & Co would have us believe. It would require, after all, less than fifty members for al Qaeda to have destroyed the WTC. And isn't it odd that an organization with supposedly tens of thousands of members has launched only two terrorist attacks on US soil in 11 years? Apparently al Qaeda needs to cut its bureaucratic overhead BAD!