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Conspiracy in history
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Message 1.Â
Posted by curiousGareth (U8383504) on Monday, 23rd March 2009
There are two fundamentally opposed theories of history. One is best expressed by Donald Rumsfeld's analysis of the Iraq War - 'stuff happens' - and the other is a more complex description of events in which individuals in high positions of power use their influence to shape events and configure history. The latter is best described by the incumbent Karl Rove.
'...when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'
Given that numerous high power individuals openly called for a 'New Pearl Harbor' as far back as 1996, is it not possible that 9/11 was another product of 'history's actors', or at least those in their employ?
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Message 2
Posted by MattJ18 (U13798409) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
No it's not.
There aren't two 'fundamentally opposed' theories of history. There are people, let's call them 'historians', who make judgements based on evidence and reason and there are people, let's call them 'conspiracy theorists', who make judgements based on little or no evidence and their own flights of fancy.
The facts surrounding 9/11 are pretty clear, so I don't want to get in to them. In general though I would say that there are not groups of politicians or high-powered individuals who form a clique that rules from the shadows. It ignores so much of human action: taking credit for one's actions, any sense of duty, patriotism and honour, and a genuine desire amongst leader to make the world a better place.
Unless its a conspiracy of one somebody would talk. Conspiracy theorists are actually more of an indication of the lack of power people feel they have in their everyday lives and the suspicions they have about their Governments. -
Message 3
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
The Pearl Harbor analogy works in so far as in 1941 the USA was attacked by Japan and responded by going to war against Germany first, much as in 2001 an excuse was provided to befuddle public opinion and have most Americans beleive that Saddam was behind 9/11, just as by 1991 most of them thought he was behind the attack on the USS Stark in 1987 when it had in fact been spying on the Iranians for him.
There are conspiracies, but they are mostly post-hoc misprepresentations of events to suit prior objectives.
You could also look at Tonkin 1964 and the USS Maine in 1899. -
Message 4
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
Matt you talk as if there was any point in history where the "people" (by that you mean the many, not the few) had any power over the ongoing historical developments.
Well I am sorry, that is not exactly true. You are in a history channel where we have to stick to the point. And the point is that historical events are largely the outcome of the decisions of the few rather than the outcome of even the general direction given by the many.
In that sense, historical events occur mainly due to conspiracies! Hence, there not even any need to talk about the notion of "conspiracy", merely trying to spot the real circle of power that decided on this or that event - however complex and extended that can be (cos "few" is not 5-6 leaders as people might think, "few" are always a net of inter-connected half-collaborating half-competing several 100s of people positioned in various key positions to take decisions).
In the case of 9/11 there is absolutely nothing clear. Even the 20% of Americans really cast a doubt on the official explanation joining in this the 90% of the rest of the world that does not accept it at all. -
Message 5
Posted by peteratwar (U10629558) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
Keep conspiracy theories down to 20%, 90% is ridiculous
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Message 6
Posted by MattJ18 (U13798409) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
@E_Nikolaos_E
People, and by that I mean the many not the few, do have power over the historical developments. They always have. History isn't made by small cliques of people, it's made by small cliques of people persuading large numbers of people to follow them. In the case of America recently the Bush administration (and its allies in the media and industry) was able to persuade the American people that going to war in Iraq was reasonable.
There's a lot of difference between a neo-conservative administration in America using a terrorist attack to conduct a questionable invasion of Iraq and the suggestion that a handful of neo-conservative rulers carried out a fake terrorist attack in order to carry out a long-held desire to invade Iraq. The first is something that could be argued as historically accurate, the other is the plot for a bad Tom Clancy book. That's why I said conspiracy theories are hokum. -
Message 7
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
Correct. But the inverse is not very possible in the sense that the many cannot persuade the few on anything simply because they cannot express something precise and coherent for forming and following particular proposal. At maximum they can dissuade the few from this or that plan but then the few have always plan A and plan B, too often investing in two contradictry and highly competing groups/teams/nations etc. In the end people will usually follow because they have no other attractive plan or somply no alternative plan at all.
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Message 8
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
JB-on-Sea much as in 2001 an excuse was provided to befuddle public opinion and have most Americans beleive that Saddam was behind 9/11Â This is not true. What you're describing is a straw man argument invented by anti-war politicians. The logical link between 9-11 and Iraq was articulated as follows: a) it was plausable that Saddam was pursuing WMD programs; b) it was plausable that Saddam had ties with various terrorist groups around the world; therefore regime change in Iraq (the policy formulated under Clinton, by the way) had to be implemented. One can argue the merits of this approach, but it is dishonest to misrepresent it.
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Message 9
Posted by curiousGareth (U8383504) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
So, amongst other aspects of that fateful day, you are reasonably contented with the explanation of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Myers' whereabouts during the events themselves?
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Message 10
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
No, it is what most Americans thought by 2003. The documentaries made of the initial strikes show USN personnel on several ships all watching aircraft and missiles taking off and saying, "Payback Time."
i) was plausible, but ii) was a hopeless muddle confusing the retired Abu Nidal the onetime Marxist Pan-Arab nationalist with Salfist Jihadi Al Qaeda. The idea that Saddam 'might give WMDs to terrorists' came from the Pentagon as the sort of simplistic narrative beloved of the Neocon followers of Theo Strauss. The grown-ups at the State Department knew this was nonsense, but the Bush White House never wanted to listen to them. -
Message 11
Posted by peteratwar (U10629558) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
Why not, unless it is suggested they were piloting the planes by remote control
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Message 12
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
JB-on-Sea No, it is what most Americans thought by 2003. The documentaries made of the initial strikes show USN personnel on several ships all watching aircraft and missiles taking off and saying, "Payback Time."Â I hope you do realize that it is a non sequitur. First, the documentaries of anything can hardly substitute surveys, especially conducted based on proper statistical samples. Secondly, what most Americans thought does not necessarily reflect the administration's position, when most Americans cannot even name their Secretary of State correctly, or at all for that matter.
The idea that Saddam 'might give WMDs to terrorists' came from the Pentagon as the sort of simplistic narrative beloved of the Neocon followers of Theo Strauss That is your opinion, ok, but it does not mean that the administration insisted that Saddam had been involved in 9-11 at all. -
Message 13
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
What the majority of Americans thought was documented in opinion polls and getting them to think it was part of the policy. The Strauss-ites were working to their established practice of having an official moralistic policy and what Al Haigh called a subterranean Machiavellian policy, and as I said before, you can trace it back to WR Hearst and the USS Maine in 1899: "...I'll supply the war."
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Message 14
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
JB-on-Sea
What the majority of Americans thought was documented in opinion polls and getting them to think it was part of the policy. The Strauss-ites were working to their established practice of having an official moralistic policy and what Al Haigh called a subterranean Machiavellian policy Again, opinion polls are not the evidence of your premise. But, that aside, show me your sources. Al Haig (I believe that this is who you are referring to) is my favorite American politician, so you have a leg up already. I don't believe that he was in the opposition to the Iraq war, though. Correct me if I am wrong, by all means. -
Message 15
Posted by curiousGareth (U8383504) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
There were successive remarks and press conferences organised by the Bush administration which repeatedly connected Saddam with Osama and al Qaeda, and thus, with 9/11.
But riddle me this boardsters, if everything is 'wrapped up' with 9/11, then why hasn't any NATO member produced a legal indictment against OBL and al Qaeda? After all, the US did raise article 51 of the NATO agreement. Why doesn't the FBI list 9/11 as one of Osama's crimes? Why in a response to this question (2007) did they claim to have 'no hard evidence' against OBL? Why are at least seven of the nineteen (clearly alleged) hijackers still alive? Why did the towers (and Building 7 which suffered no plane impact) fall at free-fall speed? How come physicist Steven Jones found evidence of a military grade incendiary in the dust collected from the massive dust cloud which followed? What was the dust cloud doing there anyhow, as such phenomenon (pyroclastic clouds) only occur after volcanic eruptions and controlled demolitions? Why did the military 'stand down'? Why weren't SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) followed? Oh wait, they were. Problem was that Rumsfeld changed them two months before 9/11 to require DoD authorisation for scramble orders! This changed back on 12/9. Those historians really have been busy haven't they? Well, they would have been had they not been sycophantically, and voyeuristically, parrotting the incoherent murmurings of Gitmo inmates after seven years of genital mutilation and waterboarding -
Message 16
Posted by curiousGareth (U8383504) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
If you read the record there are numerous explanations given for all their whereabouts. Similarly, there are at least two definitive versions of NORAD's whereabouts. For Cheney there at least three, one which includes the testimony of then Transport secretary Norman Mineta in front of the Commission.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDfdOwt2v3Y -
Message 17
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
Saddam till the very late 1980s had been the good boy for Americans doing all their favours in the Middle East. How did he become an enemy and why is still a thing to ask (every conspiracy welcomed there), in anyway if taken linearly, the worst thing that Saddam did against Americans was to try and sell oil in other currencies... any links with terrorism have to be sought rather inside Iraq concerning the clashes between his forces and the various peoples of the country (namely Kurds, shiites etc.).
US implication in the Middle East had 1 main target, not the control of ressources for the ressources themselves but for controlling the supplies of others (namely Europe). When US designates Libya as terrorist state it does so to hinder supply of Europe with Libyan oil (so close to Europe!), when US attacked Jugoslavia it was to fragmentate a large area between the European markets and Russian production, when US payed billions for little countries around Russia to maintain bad relations it was in the same context, when US aids US-drone Turkey it does so to keep is a an odd-country out that cuts-off direct contact of Europe to Middle East (despite apparances of as-if westernised Turkey), same goes for Israel (and for the civil war in Lebanon and the designation of Syria as a rogue state....
... one can clearly see the pattern, that US works hard to destabilise the region that essentially it is at the heart of the world for the very simple reason that the chessmaster will win only by controlling the center of the chessboard not remaining in the edges. This is no anti-US propaganda. I am mere stating what I see around us. I do not expect US to take any decisions based on any justice/humanist concerns - who else did that so that US has to do so? They are a superpower and they have to remain so, and to remain so they have to provoke problems and propose their versions of solutions. The terrorism pill is one such.
All the rest of hard talk about terrorists and such are for the "semi-illiterate". If you are too unknowledgeable to see or too unwilling to accept or even too afraid to admit is understandable. -
Message 18
Posted by Andrew Host (U1683626) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
Hi,
Conspiracy theories around 9/11 don't really fit the remit of the History board.
This would be better suited to the Five Live boards.
Thanks
Andrew -
Message 19
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
curiousGareth There were successive remarks and press conferences organised by the Bush administration which repeatedly connected Saddam with Osama and al Qaeda, and thus, with 9/11Â Show us the transcripts.
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Message 20
Posted by curiousGareth (U8383504) on Tuesday, 24th March 2009
It's Leo Strauss, by the way. He was a professor at Chicago University, teaching the likes of Paul Wolfowitz. You may also want to look into other neo-Nazi/neo-cons Carl/Gary Schmitt and Douglas Feith
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