Because I don???t view it as ???crap???. I view these as interesting articles that may or may not be true. Can you prove these articles are lies? I personally believe that viewing things from as many different angles as possible is very important. It creates a balanced viewpoint rather than the one-sided version of these events we get from government/media which creates closed minds, ridicule and condemnation.
wrong, the guy got in trouble with the MI5 cause he sold[/b] security secrets to a newspaper, so he is seeking riches, and I think he is seeking fame for the exact reason your saying he isn't, by getting on these nut job websites and by pushing the latest conspiracy theory he is trying desperately to keep his name out there
Does the fact that he sold his secrets mean he???s ???out to get rich???? Or does it just mean he lives in a world governed by money? He no longer had a high paying job at MI5 and presumably still had bills to pay. If every story sold to newspapers or every book published is instantly discredited by the fact that money has changed hands then what can we really believe? BTW how many rich famous conspiracy theorists can you name? Because when it comes to making money and getting yourself all over the mass media then talking about 9/11 being an inside job or any other conspiracy theory is really not the best way to go about it.
drugs, esp, light machines... michael moore dosen't even wild out like this
and she is writing a book (suprise suprise)
It certainly does sound X-Files plot but does that make it ???bullshit???? Is everything that sounds ridiculous a lie? And does the fact that she???s writing a book prove that she???s lying? Or that she has a story to tell?
you're very gulliable it seems. not that that is unusual.
You don???t even know what I believe. Obviously you???re assuming I believe these articles to be the truth when in fact all I said was they???re ???interesting??? and that they back up what a lot of people have been saying. Having an open mind doesn???t mean you believe everything you read it just means it???s not closed to things that don???t conform to your belief system.
For the record here???s what I believe. I believe that 9/11 was planned and carried out by the people have have gained the most from it. Ditto for the recent attacks in London. So I agree with much of what Shayler said. As for the second article I???m not sure what to believe. I know ???conspiracy theorists??? have been talking about ???population reduction??? for many decades so when an insider talks about it then I tend to take note. That doesn???t mean I assume it???s the truth. It just means I consider these topics to be incredibly important.
A report by the Defense Science Board, an advisory panel at the Pentagon, reported that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have united the once divided Islamist movement against the U.S.
The report said that U.S. public diplomacy with the Muslim world is in crisis and the White House and Congress hasn't done anything to fix it.
"At the root of the problem, the report says, is a fundamental misunderstanding of why many Muslims are hostile toward the United States. They "hate our policies," not our freedom, it said."
The report said the U.S.'s actions since 9/11 with the 2 invasions has supported what Islamists said the U.S. would do.
The Board's chairman aid, "To win a global battle of ideas, a global strategy for communicating those ideas is essential." The U.S. is not doing that. The U.S. is failing at understanding how people, especially Arabs, view the U.S.
From the report: "In the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering."
Another quote from the report: "U.S. actions appear, in contrast, to be motivated by ulterior motives and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim self-determination."
New York Times
10/31/04
U.S. commanders believe that most of the new Iraqi security forces being formed are full of spies for the insurgency. They're also afraid that beauracracy is slowing down reconstruction aid.
New U.S. intelligence also found that the insurgents are stronger and have more money then they thought.
The military was most concerned about the insurgents new campaign of intimidation against the new government. "If we can't stop the intimidation factor, we can't win," said Lt. Gen Sattler, a Marine commander in southwest Iraq.
The biggest issue was having the new government get more Sunnis involved, otherwise the insurgency would grow stronger.
U.S. officers were hoping that with new counterinsurgency efforts and the training of Iraqi security forces the U.S. would be able to start withdrawing U.S. soldiers in July 2005!
The U.S. is still not getting any good intelligence on the insurgency from everyday Iraqis.
Really, that lady sounds like a nutjob and you standing up for her by saying, well she might be a nutjob but that doesn't mean she's not telling the truth, doesnt' make it any better. It just shows your level of disbelief in the "establishment" and your willingness to believe anything sensational about the government. In my opinion most conspiracy theorists' ideas aren't based on facts and details, but rather a belief that the government always lies and is decietful, and can do absolutely anything in the world from hiding little green men from outerspace, to making an airplane disappear and blowing up the World Trade Center.
Really, that lady sounds like a nutjob and you standing up for her by saying, well she might be a nutjob but that doesn't mean she's not telling the truth, doesnt' make it any better. It just shows your level of disbelief in the "establishment" and your willingness to believe anything sensational about the government. In my opinion most conspiracy theorists' ideas aren't based on facts and details, but rather a belief that the government always lies and is decietful, and can do absolutely anything in the world from hiding little green men from outerspace, to making an airplane disappear and blowing up the World Trade Center.
I wasn't even gonna flatter this thread with a response but I wholeheartedly agree with this.
Also, I think all of these ridiculous conspiracy theories totally detract from all of the bullshit and moronic nonsense that the government has done OUT IN THE OPEN.
I don't believe in conspiracy theories either. But as one person said you have to believe in coincidence theories to believe in magic bullets, or that Building 7 collapsed because a couple of gallons of jet fuel burned up a couple of office windows. As far as aliens go I think the ones smart enough to be able to get themselves here are probably avoiding this place.
And the true value in investigating questions like these is that it could be that it's the only way to really and truly turn things around. Ie there was a coup in this country and 43 years later we still haven't really confronted this.
you're very gulliable it seems. not that that is unusual.
You don???t even know what I believe. Obviously you???re assuming I believe these articles to be the truth when in fact all I said was they???re ???interesting??? and that they back up what a lot of people have been saying. Having an open mind doesn???t mean you believe everything you read it just means it???s not closed to things that don???t conform to your belief system.
you called me closed minded, thats why I called you gulliable, so get over it. the rest of it was answered by motown, who just saved me from witing a bunch of shit, thanx motown
For the record here???s what I believe. I believe that 9/11 was planned and carried out by the people have have gained the most from it. Ditto for the recent attacks in London. So I agree with much of what Shayler said. As for the second article I???m not sure what to believe. I know ???conspiracy theorists??? have been talking about ???population reduction??? for many decades so when an insider talks about it then I tend to take note. That doesn???t mean I assume it???s the truth. It just means I consider these topics to be incredibly important.
so did dick cheney hipnotize the guys that flew the plane with this light machine the lady was talking about?
the thing that scares me the most is how many crazies out there believe this shit, i work with mothers and over 40 year olds that swear by this shit, i can understand the easily convinced college age crowd but this shit gets out of hand when mom is telling their kids that Bush made the towers go down
..."yes! we are on a diplomatic mission to bring mcdonalds and burger king to the starving middle east. that's all, don't need anything else from their oil-rich soil"...
The U.S. plan to hinder the insurgency by holding elections and restoring Iraqi soverignty hasn't worked. The insurgency is moving from attacking U.S. forces to trying to start a civil war.
Attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces have stayed steady over the last year at about 65 per day.
An Army intelligence officer said that the insurgency is replacing its loses in people and material faster than the U.S. can kill and stop them.
The U.S. also admits that it has no better information about the insurgency now then when it first started.
A conservative Sunni leader said that if the government doesn't include more Sunnis then the insurgency will grow stronger.
The kidnappings and attacks on foreign governments seems to be working as no Arab government has sent an ambassador to Iraq.
"In Baghdad, it is commonly understood that the recent success of the insurgency lies in part in the weakness of the Iraqi government."
San Francisco Chronicle 7/3/05
In a review of Larry Diamond's "Squandered Vicotry: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy To Iraq."
Diamond was a Stanford professor who was called up by Condeezza Rice to work for the U.S. Provisional Authority in Iraq to help rebuild the country. He became disenchanted at the lack of success.
According to Diamond:
Most of his work and the work of his collegues was ignored. 2 were killed by insurgents.
"Late March 2004, one of my CPA colleagues shook his head in exasperation and despair. 'We haven't had the will to confront the security challenges," he told me. 'In April this was ours to lose.' He did not finish the thought, but it was: 'And we are losing it.' "
San Francisco Chronicle 7/1/05
General Abizaid said that more foreign fighters have entered the country since the January elections and that the insurgency is as strong as it was 6 months ago.
Soldiers and think tank specialists interview believe that under the current strategy the U.S. can only have a stalemate with the insurgents.
The answer to ending the insurgency is getting more Sunnis involved in the political process.
For the record here???s what I believe. I believe that 9/11 was planned and carried out by the people have [sic] have gained the most from it. Ditto for the recent attacks in London.
Since the only people who have gained anything from the attaks are the media, who have increased their readers/viewers, I assume you agree with my anyalsis that none of this happened and it was all made up by Rupert Murdoch.
Since the only people who have gained anything from the attaks are the media, who have increased their readers/viewers, I assume you agree with my anyalsis that none of this happened and it was all made up by Rupert Murdoch.
I will respond to your questions and comments by the close of business. Gotta meet my man for lunch.
Vitamin
Now would be a good time to say something like this:
"I still believe that removing Saddam was the right and just thing to do.
In hindsight I realize that it has distracted from the far more important war against al Qaida who attaked us on 9/11.
Today it is clear that "intelligence shopping" (the administrations decision to use only to intelligence that supported their position and ignoring better intelligence that conflicted, even though much of the better intelligence was from the CIA) was a big mistake. If we had looked at all the intelligence and especially the best intelligence we would have known that Saddam had no active weapons programs after the early 90s. We would have known that we would be met with an insurgence not rose peddals. We would have known that Oil profits will never pay for the billions of dollars it has cost. Most importantly we would have known that Kurds and Shii would put regional ethnic intrests over national ones. This of course was not "liberal anti-Bush intelligence" we should have looked at the intelligence that Bush the 41st used when he decided not to march to Bagdad.
It is also clear that pretending that this war can/could be fought with out sacrifice from all Americans is/was a mistake. We now know that our country is much poorer for this blunder. It is time to raise taxes and cut back on spending at home. We need to tell Americans that their sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers will be going to fight in Iraq, many will not return. I am sorry that we did not do that before the war, I will start doing it now.
Getting rid of Saddam was the right thing to do, but we should have waited till we had gotten rid of al Qaida, and we should have prepared the American people for the long hard fight this will be."
Someday you will be writing words along these lines, better sooner than later.
For the record here???s what I believe. I believe that 9/11 was planned and carried out by the people have [sic] have gained the most from it. Ditto for the recent attacks in London.
Since the only people who have gained anything from the attaks are the media, who have increased their readers/viewers, I assume you agree with my anyalsis that none of this happened and it was all made up by Rupert Murdoch.
"cui prodest" is latin for "who stands to gain?" It's a way of analyzing events that many on this board like to resort to. It's also a terrible way to analyze these complex occurences. There will always be third party beneficiaries of terrorist acts that had nothing to do with their planning or execution; indeed, there are likely to be many more such parties than there are actual terrorist actors. And that's one of the many reasons terrorism sucks.
But seriously as an analytical method, "cui prodest" could not be more simplistic or misleading. "So, like, the architectual firms that are handling the WTC reconstruction gained financially from the attacks, so, like, they must be behind them, right?" THINK people. These analyses are just lazy.
"So, like, the architectual firms that are handling the WTC reconstruction gained financially from the attacks, so, like, they must be behind them, right?" THINK people. These analyses are just lazy.
"So, like, the architectual firms that are handling the WTC reconstruction gained financially from the attacks, so, like, they must be behind them, right?" THINK people. These analyses are just lazy.
the true face of terror...
I saw his Holocaust museum in Berlin several years ago (I snuck in before construction was completed)... pretty powerful spaces...
Apparently he's doing the Jewish museum in S.F. although, I think it's been delayed.
He's not actually the architect for the new WTC 'freedom tower', or whatever it's called. He did the master plan for the site, but his building design was worked over.
He's not actually the architect for the new WTC 'freedom tower', or whatever it's called. He did the master plan for the site, but his building design was worked over.
but he still benefited from the destruction of the towers, right?
These are some rough thoughts spurred by your recent posts I am going to put in a column next week. First off, it is a massive understatement to state the obvious fact that we are losing right now in Iraq. Levels of electricity, water and gasoline for average Iraqis is below levels of one year ago. The terrorists launch attacks unabated and no strategy--political or military--appears to stop them. There is something like 1 billion unaccounted for in Iraq. Where did it go. Minorities are fleeing the country at an alarming rate. In areas under the control of Muqtada al-Sadr's party, merchants are shaken down for selling alcohol. The police and security services we trained to stop the terror are in many cases cooperating with the terrorists. In the last 48 hours I have interviewed a number of people I trust on Iraq who are there or have just returned. Half of them say it is unwinnable at this point. As one source tells me, "No one can focus on the constitution or the role of Islam in society when they are hypnotized by the rhythm of their arms waving a fan because the air conditioning does not work."
At this point I hope it is winnable. But I am more pessimistic than ever before. I don't think the White House can continue to pretend that their strategy should not radically change. I also think more attention must be paid to the role big corporations played in wasting our tax dollars in the reconstruction.
All of that said, we must win. We can't let al-Qaeda and the Baathists sieze Iraq through force. But is the American military the force that can ultimately still them in Iraq? It must be the Iraqis, who are too scared because of our fecklesness to fight? As I said these are unfinished thoughts not meant as a polemic. I maintain the war was fought for good reasons, that al-Qaeda would have likely found other reasons to continue its attacks on the west and fellow muslims and that the horrors of Saddam are different than the horrors of the current near civil war, but it's foolish to say that the previous state was preferable to the current one. As I said this is not meant as a polemic.
Really, that lady sounds like a nutjob and you standing up for her by saying, well she might be a nutjob but that doesn't mean she's not telling the truth, doesn't make it any better. It just shows your level of disbelief in the "establishment" and your willingness to believe anything sensational about the government. In my opinion most conspiracy theorists' ideas aren't based on facts and details, but rather a belief that the government always lies and is deceitful, and can do absolutely anything in the world from hiding little green men from outerspace, to making an airplane disappear and blowing up the World Trade Center.
I didn't say 'she might be a nutjob but that doesn't mean she's not telling the truth' I said she what she's saying may sound[/b] 'crazy' to you but that doesn't mean it's a lie. It just means it doesn't fit in with your belief system or world view. There are three people in that article who all allegedly claim that these meetings took place. Now they could all be lying. They may have been invented by the author of the article. They could be telling the truth. There are many other possibilities too. If all these people do exist then are they all crazy? Are they all lying? Do crazy people get together and invent stories? If they're lying then what's their motivation?
I also don't believe 'anything sensational about the government' as I've already stated. My beliefs come from analysis of the facts. From reading big fat books, thousands of articles, watching documentaries and listening to radio interviews. I don't just sit around getting stoned dreaming up wild stories or believing any random article I find.
In my opinion most anti conspiracy theorists' ideas aren???t based on analysis of the facts and details, but rather insults, name calling, labeling and attempts to discredit the source aka shooting the messenger. I'm reading a lot of name calling, a lot of 'shooting the messenger' in this thread but little analysis of what these people are saying and why what they are saying is 'crap'. ???It sounds crazy???. Does that prove[/b] it???s a lie?
Conspiracy theories are happily swallowed whole by the masses on this planet. Everybody believes conspiracy theories. It's a fact of life that people conspire. And the nature of a conspiracy is that it's secret so if you want to know the truth and you???re not part of the conspiracy you have to theorize. Police/intelligence agencies do it on a daily basis. As do investigative journalists. We all do it to some degree but you never get ridiculed or marginalised for it unless you're pointing the finger of blame at a government, corporation or the 'ruling elite' in general. Funny that.
Look at the recent bombings in London. The official version of what happened is a conspiracy theory. But it's the conspiracy theory of the 'ruling elite' therefore it's okay to believe it even if it doesn't make sense. You???re certainly not going to get labelled a ???conspiracy nut??? for believing a bunch of Muslim extremists are out to destroy America or the UK. Only when you believe the government is conspiring are you insane. Why is that?
Question: What do you believe was the motivation for the invasion of Iraq? Do you believe it was about protection the world from 'weapons of mass destruction' and setting the Iraqi people free? Or do you believe it was about oil? Corporate profits? Reshaping the Middle East to suit Western interests? Because if you don't believe the official version of what happened then you're a 'conspiracy theorist'. The funny thing is that the belief that the invasion of Iraq was about oil/power/profit is rarely labeled a conspiracy theory. Why?
We???re living in a world of ever increasing surveillance, ever decreasing freedoms, endless wars within an endless and unwinnable war, fear, division and control. The profits of big oil corporations and the arms industry are way up thanks to wars that could not have happened without the attacks of 9/11. Is it impossible that those who have benefited most from the attacks (big government & big business) were behind the attacks? I don???t think it is and this is certainly something that???s worth discussing with an open mind. Yes?
PS ???The government???, whether yours or mine, does lie, is deceitful and is certainly capable of carrying out terrorist attacks.
Again, I'm sorry to say, but just because you don't believe the stated reasons why the government does something, doesn't mean you're a conspiracy theorist.
A couple years ago Clinton and the Congress passed welfare reform which kicked about 50% of the people off the system. They said it was suppose to help the poor. Now if I don't believe this does that make me a conspiracy theorist?
I didn't believe in the Al Qaeda-Iraq connection and thought the U.S. exaggerated the threat of WMD to invade Iraq, but does that make me a conspiracy theorist?
No, it makes me a critic in both cases.
Saying the U.S. planned the 9/11 attacks, blew up the World Trade Center itself, made a jet and all the passengers disappear, etc. Now those are what people call "conspiracy theories."
Comments
Because I don???t view it as ???crap???. I view these as interesting articles that may or may not be true. Can you prove these articles are lies? I personally believe that viewing things from as many different angles as possible is very important. It creates a balanced viewpoint rather than the one-sided version of these events we get from government/media which creates closed minds, ridicule and condemnation.
Does the fact that he sold his secrets mean he???s ???out to get rich???? Or does it just mean he lives in a world governed by money? He no longer had a high paying job at MI5 and presumably still had bills to pay. If every story sold to newspapers or every book published is instantly discredited by the fact that money has changed hands then what can we really believe? BTW how many rich famous conspiracy theorists can you name? Because when it comes to making money and getting yourself all over the mass media then talking about 9/11 being an inside job or any other conspiracy theory is really not the best way to go about it.
It certainly does sound X-Files plot but does that make it ???bullshit???? Is everything that sounds ridiculous a lie? And does the fact that she???s writing a book prove that she???s lying? Or that she has a story to tell?
You don???t even know what I believe. Obviously you???re assuming I believe these articles to be the truth when in fact all I said was they???re ???interesting??? and that they back up what a lot of people have been saying. Having an open mind doesn???t mean you believe everything you read it just means it???s not closed to things that don???t conform to your belief system.
For the record here???s what I believe. I believe that 9/11 was planned and carried out by the people have have gained the most from it. Ditto for the recent attacks in London. So I agree with much of what Shayler said. As for the second article I???m not sure what to believe. I know ???conspiracy theorists??? have been talking about ???population reduction??? for many decades so when an insider talks about it then I tend to take note. That doesn???t mean I assume it???s the truth. It just means I consider these topics to be incredibly important.
11/25/04
A report by the Defense Science Board, an advisory panel at the Pentagon, reported that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have united the once divided Islamist movement against the U.S.
The report said that U.S. public diplomacy with the Muslim world is in crisis and the White House and Congress hasn't done anything to fix it.
"At the root of the problem, the report says, is a fundamental misunderstanding of why many Muslims are hostile toward the United States. They "hate our policies," not our freedom, it said."
The report said the U.S.'s actions since 9/11 with the 2 invasions has supported what Islamists said the U.S. would do.
The Board's chairman aid, "To win a global battle of ideas, a global strategy for communicating those ideas is essential." The U.S. is not doing that. The U.S. is failing at understanding how people, especially Arabs, view the U.S.
From the report: "In the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering."
Another quote from the report: "U.S. actions appear, in contrast, to be motivated by ulterior motives and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim self-determination."
New York Times
10/31/04
U.S. commanders believe that most of the new Iraqi security forces being formed are full of spies for the insurgency. They're also afraid that beauracracy is slowing down reconstruction aid.
New U.S. intelligence also found that the insurgents are stronger and have more money then they thought.
The military was most concerned about the insurgents new campaign of intimidation against the new government. "If we can't stop the intimidation factor, we can't win," said Lt. Gen Sattler, a Marine commander in southwest Iraq.
The biggest issue was having the new government get more Sunnis involved, otherwise the insurgency would grow stronger.
U.S. officers were hoping that with new counterinsurgency efforts and the training of Iraqi security forces the U.S. would be able to start withdrawing U.S. soldiers in July 2005!
The U.S. is still not getting any good intelligence on the insurgency from everyday Iraqis.
Really, that lady sounds like a nutjob and you standing up for her by saying, well she might be a nutjob but that doesn't mean she's not telling the truth, doesnt' make it any better. It just shows your level of disbelief in the "establishment" and your willingness to believe anything sensational about the government. In my opinion most conspiracy theorists' ideas aren't based on facts and details, but rather a belief that the government always lies and is decietful, and can do absolutely anything in the world from hiding little green men from outerspace, to making an airplane disappear and blowing up the World Trade Center.
I wasn't even gonna flatter this thread with a response but I wholeheartedly agree with this.
Also, I think all of these ridiculous conspiracy theories totally detract from all of the bullshit and moronic nonsense that the government has done OUT IN THE OPEN.
My 2
I don't believe in conspiracy theories either. But as one person said you have to believe in coincidence theories to believe in magic bullets, or that Building 7 collapsed because a couple of gallons of jet fuel burned up a couple of office windows. As far as aliens go I think the ones smart enough to be able to get themselves here are probably avoiding this place.
And the true value in investigating questions like these is that it could be that it's the only way to really and truly turn things around. Ie there was a coup in this country and 43 years later we still haven't really confronted this.
you called me closed minded, thats why I called you gulliable, so get over it. the rest of it was answered by motown, who just saved me from witing a bunch of shit, thanx motown
so did dick cheney hipnotize the guys that flew the plane with this light machine the lady was talking about?
the thing that scares me the most is how many crazies out there believe this shit, i work with mothers and over 40 year olds that swear by this shit, i can understand the easily convinced college age crowd but this shit gets out of hand when mom is telling their kids that Bush made the towers go down
New York Times
7/24/05
The U.S. plan to hinder the insurgency by holding elections and restoring Iraqi soverignty hasn't worked. The insurgency is moving from attacking U.S. forces to trying to start a civil war.
Attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces have stayed steady over the last year at about 65 per day.
An Army intelligence officer said that the insurgency is replacing its loses in people and material faster than the U.S. can kill and stop them.
The U.S. also admits that it has no better information about the insurgency now then when it first started.
A conservative Sunni leader said that if the government doesn't include more Sunnis then the insurgency will grow stronger.
The kidnappings and attacks on foreign governments seems to be working as no Arab government has sent an ambassador to Iraq.
"In Baghdad, it is commonly understood that the recent success of the insurgency lies in part in the weakness of the Iraqi government."
San Francisco Chronicle
7/3/05
In a review of Larry Diamond's "Squandered Vicotry: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy To Iraq."
Diamond was a Stanford professor who was called up by Condeezza Rice to work for the U.S. Provisional Authority in Iraq to help rebuild the country. He became disenchanted at the lack of success.
According to Diamond:
Most of his work and the work of his collegues was ignored. 2 were killed by insurgents.
"Late March 2004, one of my CPA colleagues shook his head in exasperation and despair. 'We haven't had the will to confront the security challenges," he told me. 'In April this was ours to lose.' He did not finish the thought, but it was: 'And we are losing it.' "
San Francisco Chronicle
7/1/05
General Abizaid said that more foreign fighters have entered the country since the January elections and that the insurgency is as strong as it was 6 months ago.
Soldiers and think tank specialists interview believe that under the current strategy the U.S. can only have a stalemate with the insurgents.
The answer to ending the insurgency is getting more Sunnis involved in the political process.
Since the only people who have gained anything from the attaks are the media, who have increased their readers/viewers, I assume you agree with my anyalsis that none of this happened and it was all made up by Rupert Murdoch.
well he is a lizard person last time i checked
Now would be a good time to say something like this:
"I still believe that removing Saddam was the right and just thing to do.
In hindsight I realize that it has distracted from the far more important war against al Qaida who attaked us on 9/11.
Today it is clear that "intelligence shopping" (the administrations decision to use only to intelligence that supported their position and ignoring better intelligence that conflicted, even though much of the better intelligence was from the CIA) was a big mistake. If we had looked at all the intelligence and especially the best intelligence we would have known that Saddam had no active weapons programs after the early 90s. We would have known that we would be met with an insurgence not rose peddals. We would have known that Oil profits will never pay for the billions of dollars it has cost. Most importantly we would have known that Kurds and Shii would put regional ethnic intrests over national ones. This of course was not "liberal anti-Bush intelligence" we should have looked at the intelligence that Bush the 41st used when he decided not to march to Bagdad.
It is also clear that pretending that this war can/could be fought with out sacrifice from all Americans is/was a mistake. We now know that our country is much poorer for this blunder. It is time to raise taxes and cut back on spending at home. We need to tell Americans that their sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers will be going to fight in Iraq, many will not return. I am sorry that we did not do that before the war, I will start doing it now.
Getting rid of Saddam was the right thing to do, but we should have waited till we had gotten rid of al Qaida, and we should have prepared the American people for the long hard fight this will be."
Someday you will be writing words along these lines, better sooner than later.
Dan
"cui prodest" is latin for "who stands to gain?" It's a way of analyzing events that many on this board like to resort to. It's also a terrible way to analyze these complex occurences. There will always be third party beneficiaries of terrorist acts that had nothing to do with their planning or execution; indeed, there are likely to be many more such parties than there are actual terrorist actors. And that's one of the many reasons terrorism sucks.
But seriously as an analytical method, "cui prodest" could not be more simplistic or misleading. "So, like, the architectual firms that are handling the WTC reconstruction gained financially from the attacks, so, like, they must be behind them, right?" THINK people. These analyses are just lazy.
the true face of terror...
In school, it was all about Barragan, but I'm sure there are some younger firms at the forefront now.
I saw his Holocaust museum in Berlin several years ago (I snuck in before construction was completed)... pretty powerful spaces...
Apparently he's doing the Jewish museum in S.F. although, I think it's been delayed.
He's not actually the architect for the new WTC 'freedom tower', or whatever it's called. He did the master plan for the site, but his building design was worked over.
but he still benefited from the destruction of the towers, right?
he did it
game over
These are some rough thoughts spurred by your recent posts I am going to put in a column next week. First off, it is a massive understatement to state the obvious fact that we are losing right now in Iraq. Levels of electricity, water and gasoline for average Iraqis is below levels of one year ago. The terrorists launch attacks unabated and no strategy--political or military--appears to stop them. There is something like 1 billion unaccounted for in Iraq. Where did it go. Minorities are fleeing the country at an alarming rate. In areas under the control of Muqtada al-Sadr's party, merchants are shaken down for selling alcohol. The police and security services we trained to stop the terror are in many cases cooperating with the terrorists. In the last 48 hours I have interviewed a number of people I trust on Iraq who are there or have just returned. Half of them say it is unwinnable at this point. As one source tells me, "No one can focus on the constitution or the role of Islam in society when they are hypnotized by the rhythm of their arms waving a fan because the air conditioning does not work."
At this point I hope it is winnable. But I am more pessimistic than ever before. I don't think the White House can continue to pretend that their strategy should not radically change. I also think more attention must be paid to the role big corporations played in wasting our tax dollars in the reconstruction.
All of that said, we must win. We can't let al-Qaeda and the Baathists sieze Iraq through force. But is the American military the force that can ultimately still them in Iraq? It must be the Iraqis, who are too scared because of our fecklesness to fight? As I said these are unfinished thoughts not meant as a polemic. I maintain the war was fought for good reasons, that al-Qaeda would have likely found other reasons to continue its attacks on the west and fellow muslims and that the horrors of Saddam are different than the horrors of the current near civil war, but it's foolish to say that the previous state was preferable to the current one. As I said this is not meant as a polemic.
So there you have it.
Vitamin.
I didn't say 'she might be a nutjob but that doesn't mean she's not telling the truth' I said she what she's saying may sound[/b] 'crazy' to you but that doesn't mean it's a lie. It just means it doesn't fit in with your belief system or world view. There are three people in that article who all allegedly claim that these meetings took place. Now they could all be lying. They may have been invented by the author of the article. They could be telling the truth. There are many other possibilities too. If all these people do exist then are they all crazy? Are they all lying? Do crazy people get together and invent stories? If they're lying then what's their motivation?
I also don't believe 'anything sensational about the government' as I've already stated. My beliefs come from analysis of the facts. From reading big fat books, thousands of articles, watching documentaries and listening to radio interviews. I don't just sit around getting stoned dreaming up wild stories or believing any random article I find.
In my opinion most anti conspiracy theorists' ideas aren???t based on analysis of the facts and details, but rather insults, name calling, labeling and attempts to discredit the source aka shooting the messenger. I'm reading a lot of name calling, a lot of 'shooting the messenger' in this thread but little analysis of what these people are saying and why what they are saying is 'crap'. ???It sounds crazy???. Does that prove[/b] it???s a lie?
Conspiracy theories are happily swallowed whole by the masses on this planet. Everybody believes conspiracy theories. It's a fact of life that people conspire. And the nature of a conspiracy is that it's secret so if you want to know the truth and you???re not part of the conspiracy you have to theorize. Police/intelligence agencies do it on a daily basis. As do investigative journalists. We all do it to some degree but you never get ridiculed or marginalised for it unless you're pointing the finger of blame at a government, corporation or the 'ruling elite' in general. Funny that.
Look at the recent bombings in London. The official version of what happened is a conspiracy theory. But it's the conspiracy theory of the 'ruling elite' therefore it's okay to believe it even if it doesn't make sense. You???re certainly not going to get labelled a ???conspiracy nut??? for believing a bunch of Muslim extremists are out to destroy America or the UK. Only when you believe the government is conspiring are you insane. Why is that?
Question: What do you believe was the motivation for the invasion of Iraq? Do you believe it was about protection the world from 'weapons of mass destruction' and setting the Iraqi people free? Or do you believe it was about oil? Corporate profits? Reshaping the Middle East to suit Western interests? Because if you don't believe the official version of what happened then you're a 'conspiracy theorist'. The funny thing is that the belief that the invasion of Iraq was about oil/power/profit is rarely labeled a conspiracy theory. Why?
We???re living in a world of ever increasing surveillance, ever decreasing freedoms, endless wars within an endless and unwinnable war, fear, division and control. The profits of big oil corporations and the arms industry are way up thanks to wars that could not have happened without the attacks of 9/11. Is it impossible that those who have benefited most from the attacks (big government & big business) were behind the attacks? I don???t think it is and this is certainly something that???s worth discussing with an open mind. Yes?
PS ???The government???, whether yours or mine, does lie, is deceitful and is certainly capable of carrying out terrorist attacks.
Again, I'm sorry to say, but just because you don't believe the stated reasons why the government does something, doesn't mean you're a conspiracy theorist.
A couple years ago Clinton and the Congress passed welfare reform which kicked about 50% of the people off the system. They said it was suppose to help the poor. Now if I don't believe this does that make me a conspiracy theorist?
I didn't believe in the Al Qaeda-Iraq connection and thought the U.S. exaggerated the threat of WMD to invade Iraq, but does that make me a conspiracy theorist?
No, it makes me a critic in both cases.
Saying the U.S. planned the 9/11 attacks, blew up the World Trade Center itself, made a jet and all the passengers disappear, etc. Now those are what people call "conspiracy theories."