Three Rules for an Airtight Conspiracy Theory, or: How To Tell A Bullshit Conspiracy Theory

[icarus]

The boyfriend has a coworker who is absolutely certain that the Bush adminstration destroyed the Twin Towers on 9/11 as an excuse to go into Iraq. I keep explaining to wildernessguru why this is idiotic. The trouble with specific conspiracy theories is that people (who hate and distrust Bush, for example) want to believe them so badly, logic starts to fray in the face of their fervor.

I'm not against all conspiracy theories. I believe that JFK was assassinated by more than one shooter. But the JFK assassination theory passes my Three Rules.

Wait. You haven't heard of my Three Rules?

Three Rules for an Airtight Conspiracy Theory, or: How To Tell A Bullshit Conspiracy Theory From One That Makes Sense

Rule One: No cherry-picking the facts.

The conspiracy theory has to take into account all the facts available, even if the theory argues with them. If any inconvenient facts are dismissed out of hand ("oh, of course the government says that"), you have a crackpot theory – do not pass go, do not collect $200. The strength of a good conspiracy theory is in the additional information not covered by the mainstream media not in ignoring well-established facts.

Rule Two: No one is a super-genius (except in James Bond).

The conspiracy theory can't presume the culprit becomes suddenly brilliant and competent when they've proved to be a bumbling idiot in the past and since. The bad guy (or guys) has to be capable of pulling it off. A good conspiracy theory doesn't expect the culprit(s) to act out of character or be any smarter than they are on an average day.

An off-shoot of this is the cast of thousands all acting like super-geniuses rule. The more people that are involved in a conspiracy, the more likely the secret will get out, and the more likely the conspiracy will make mistakes. Ask any general. The bigger the operation, the more problems multiply.

Rule Three: No one has a crystal ball.

The conspiracy theory can't assume that the bad guys can read the future. If the bad guy's motive depends upon a complicated chain of events – "See, first they did X, then Y happened, and then Z, and then N, then after that there was W and then, voila! They got what they wanted" – the theory is a house of cards. Vast numbers of conspiracy theories fail because they project what we know in the present ("this is what happened") onto the past ("so they must have known this would happen"). A good conspiracy theory assumes a measurable and predictable result which could have been known at the time.

This is not to say that all conspiracy theories are wrong. Sometimes, they are out to get you. ;) But let's shoot down the stupid conspiracy theories, shall we?

Comments

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Or, you know, hilarious. :D

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, that does sound familiar, doesn't it?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

It will take a generation at least to clean up his mess. But... I'd like an ejector seat for the day he leaves office. Think we can clear back wall?

[auburnnothenna.livejournal.com]

I'd settle for security escorting his person off the premises.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Loose Change might be okay on rule one, I'd have to look at it again, but it fails rule two and three badly.

Rule two, no super-geniuses: As military operations go, much as I hate to say it, the 9/11 attack was competent and well-planned. Bush and his neo-cons have never demonstrated the capacity for a well-planned and executed campaign. We have five years of incompetence in Iraq and six years of incompetence in Afghanistan to show that Bush doesn't utilize the planning skills or advice of his military. He couldn't pull it off.

Rule three, no crystal balls: The proposed motive for the 9/11 attack--that Bush and his neo-cons wanted to use it as an excuse to go into Iraq and get the oil--relies on knowing that the Iraq invasion would be the future result. Did he eventually use it as an excuse? Oh, hell yeah. But in fact Bush wasn't able to go into Iraq. He had to go into Afghanistan instead (where's all that Afghan oil? What have they got besides poppy fields?). He couldn't even prove a connection between Iraq and 9/11. So he had to whip up a complicated lie about Iraq having WMDs a year later.

So... can we really say that Bush plotted the 9/11 attack so that he could...

a) go fight a country he had no interest in, then
b) spend a year flailing for an excuse to attack Iraq, then
c) invent a flimsy theory of WMDs that was refuted by a state department official the moment it hit the air, and then
d) finally attack Iraq a year and a half later?

Clever.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

With a kick me sign on his ass.

[ariadne83]

It was the argument that there wasn't enough debris at the Pentagon for there to have been a *real* crash that made me see red. If that's true, where did it go? Where are all those people who supposedly died?

[jya-bd-cp-ttgb.livejournal.com]

Except, most of the online conspiracy theories about 911 that are popping up on the internet -- like Loose Change -- have mostly been done by people who were born after Vietnam, were too young for most of the Iran Contra type stuff, and were teenagers during Desert Storm. That's....eh...okay, sort of growing up in a war, but nothing like my nieces and nephews are doing now. They knew from age two what the yellow ribbons around trees mean. They know other kids who have parents in the sandbox. They know about the plans to take their eldest siblings -- boys -- to Canada if the man on tv ever says "reinstating the draft."

While most people I've spoken to since this conversation started believe utterly that Kennedy was killed by the government, but they're split down the middle about 911. It seems that those who don't believe in the conspiracy are the ones who chant about Bush and how good for the country he is, even while they bitch about gas prices and whatnot.

As a parting statement, I applied your rules to Loose Change, and...I'm sorry, it's made me believe even more that Bushie and his buddies did something naughty and got all those firemen, policemen and civilians killed.

[jya-bd-cp-ttgb.livejournal.com]

The reason he picked Afghanistan is simple -- he'd never get anyone to believe that Saddam Hussien had anything to do with it, whereas Bin Laden had already gone after the World Trade Center once before. Also, they knew Bin Laden was in seclusion, which would make it that much easier to slander him without anyone screaming and having a hissy fit.

And there was a real crash at the Pentagon, but my own brother was down there pulling survivors out, my cousin repairing the building, and both of them wanting to know where the wings and tailfins went in. The hole in the Pentagon is perfectly circular, and no where on any picture taken are the wings and tailfins shown laying on the ground where they sheered off.

Kerosene == still can't spell today -- doesn't burn hot enough to vaporize the titanium steel combo that planes are made of. It just doesn't. And if it did, there's still the concrete and glass that was undamaged, right next to the hole and the explosion.

One of the men killed in the Pentagon attack, the pilot of the hijacked plane as a matter of fact, was involved in simulations just a few months before the attacks for the exact scenario he died in.

Bushie and his buddies aren't the only superpower in the world that might have an interest in Afghanistan, but Bin Laden was a great scape goat for them.

Though, where does the United States get it's poppy seeds for all it's perfectly legal medicine? I mean, are there poppy farms somewhere in the US? Can I buy one?

[jya-bd-cp-ttgb.livejournal.com]

The flimsy excuse of WMD was enough to get us into Iraq, where all Bushie's buddies wormed their companies in with rebuilding and supply contracts that have generated billions/trillions of dollars for them. Who cares whether we win or lose in Iraq? We've spent all that money either way, and we'll never get it back. The fear he generated kept him in office another four years, giving him a chance to continue funneling money around. A war makes a great money laudering operation, because it's sure not getting where it's supposed to go. There's still troops over in both countries who are scavenging through scrap yards for stuff to make armor with.


You don't have to be a military genius to win a battle you don't give a flying damn about. You just have to be sociopathic enough to start it in the first place.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I've gone through the evidence there (and my boyfriend is a military analyst): this is where Loose Change appears to be right. What hit the Pentagon was clearly a missle, not an aircraft.

I just don't see how the conspiracy theorists leap the logical chasm from "missile" to "we did it ourselves!"

I can see why the Pentagon wouldn't want to admit the terrorists got their hands on a missile. Especially if Al Quaida got their paws on one of our own missiles.

There are many military bases in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area. I know of at least one military base that was being closed. (Weirdly, the Bush administration has closed more military bases than Clinton.)

Historically, closing military bases often lose track of their inventory as it's being boxed up and shipped around. When the Soviets shut down their military bases in eastern Europe, corrupt arms dealers basically stole everything and sold it on the open market. So... what happens when the US shuts down their military bases? And can you bribe someone to "lose" a missile in the process? I imagine you can.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Your proposed motive fails the crystal ball test: Bush "picks" Afghanistan so that he could scapegoat Bin Laden (so then he can later develop a second theory that would enable him to go into Iraq to... etc., etc.) requires advance knowledge of how the cards would fall.

There is nothing that the US wants in Afghanistan. Not even the poppy fields.

As for what hit the Pentagon, it was clearly a missile, not an aircraft.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yes, I wouldn't argue with any of this. Bush took full advantage of the opportunity.

But the 9/11 attacks themselves were--I'm sorry to say--brilliantly planned and executed.

At no point has Bush shown the competence, planning ability, or even capacity to listen to his military to have pulled it off.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

It seems that those who don't believe in the conspiracy are the ones who chant about Bush and how good for the country he is, even while they bitch about gas prices and whatnot.

I don't believe the theory and I think Bush should be shot.

I note the illogical connection you've made here: if you don't believe this theory, you must be a Bush supporter. That's one of the thirty-seven methods of deception listed by the CIA: "if you're not with us, you're with them." I think that your logic is flawed and I resent the suggestion.

While most people I've spoken to since this conversation started believe utterly that Kennedy was killed by the government, but they're split down the middle about 911.

Who?

Except, most of the online conspiracy theories about 911 that are popping up on the internet -- like Loose Change -- have mostly been done by people who were born after Vietnam, were too young for most of the Iran Contra type stuff, and were teenagers during Desert Storm. That's....eh...okay, sort of growing up in a war, but nothing like my nieces and nephews are doing now. They knew from age two what the yellow ribbons around trees mean. They know other kids who have parents in the sandbox. They know about the plans to take their eldest siblings -- boys -- to Canada if the man on tv ever says "reinstating the draft."

I was referring to the military decision-making that led to the domino theory (the philosophy for fighting in Vietnam), not conspiracy theories.

[ariadne83]

... That's very creepy, and plausible. Thanks for the correction.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

It's a standard practice among Maoist insurgents: make the enemy supply you with their weapons.

The former mujahideen (who are the main trainers and fighting forces of various terrorist organizations) were well-trained in how to use American missles. By us, when we taught them how to use the weapons we supplied them to fight the Soviets in the late 80s.

According to Dangerous Places, as little as seven years ago there were huge stockpiles of American Stinger missiles, etc., for sale -- cheap -- abandoned on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Where do Bin Laden and other terrorists have training grounds/hide-outs? Oh, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border (and Syria).

Whether terrorists bought a missle on the border of Pakistan (and disassembled, smuggled it in, and reassembled it here), or managed to get a missile from the many arms dealers in the US (both legal and illegal, the US being one of the largest arms dealers in the world) there were many means to procure one, and they certainly knew how to use it.

[jya-bd-cp-ttgb.livejournal.com]

Who?

Customers at the gas station where I work mostly, my Coven and fringepeoples who wander in and out of my family's sphere of conversation. *shrug* There's no point posting to my journal because the discussion is already right here if they want to put their two cents in.

It's a small number of people because I work graveyard, but I'd say three out of ten think Bushie is the bees knees and can't do anything wrong. If he were up for reelection, he'd win their vote.

One thinks he had secret reasons for going into Iraq that date to his father's time in office and we should just shut up and let the man do whatever he pleases. I'd love to ask Mr. Bill more about those secret reasons, but he's gone fishing in Ocean City till June.

Two or three think like you do, he had nothing to do with it, but want to give him an M16 enema anyway. One of those believes Bush should step down and let Cheney run things. That's why I'm not sure whether I should say three want him castrated florentine or not, and one I only found out last night -- he's a regular, that I misunderstood something he said. His comment was that he would've voted again for Bush in 2004 -- not that he'd do it now. It was Katrina and her aftermath that did his faith in Bush in, not the war.

Of the other three, one's withholding judgement because she's 'too damn old to wait thirty years for the truth' -- that's Ms. Martha, and the other two pointed me to conspiracy books on the mainstream market to go with my copy of Loose Change.

It's not an us against them thing, it's literally talking about people I've spoken to.

I can't talk about Vietnam, because I never studied it. I can only go on what my mother's told me, and that information amounts to finding her classmates' names on the Wall down in D.C. and keeping her gas tank full in case of rationing. Not exactly helpful info during a debate.

[jya-bd-cp-ttgb.livejournal.com]

1999 NORAD did all the legwork for the WTC attacks. 10/24/2000 a simulation called NASGOW -- NASCOW? did all the legwork for the Pentagon attack. It was the NASGOW simulations that the American Airlines pilot who died at the Pentagon was involved in.

April 2004, someone at NORAD came up with another plane in the Pentagon scenario and had it tossed out as inconceivable.

Bush didn't have to come up with stuff on his own, he just had to plagiarize all the people who were actually trying to defend this country from crazy people.

To what you said about our own weapons against us...the gas station and hotel videos would prove that a terrorist did it - you'd actually have the face of the 'mad Arab' or whatever firing the missile off at the Pentagon.

Why such an elaborate plane into the building hoax when you could just deny that it was our own country's armament doing the damage? That seems a lot easier than claiming a jet - complete with passengers - rammed into the place. They came up with a cover story and a casualty list pretty quick to cover up something they couldn't predict.

*sigh* Look, I hate when RL bounces all over my fun time. In fifty years, someone will declassify something and we'll find out what happened one way or another. Or our kids/grandkids can tell us through a Ouija board fifty years after that, I don't know. I just wanna go back to the reason I friended the journal - fic and recs and fandom stuff. Can we chalk this out to You say tomato, I say tomahto while we're both making spaghetti sauce?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

1999 NORAD did all the legwork for the WTC attacks.

Really? And what proof do you have for that?

Bush has never used his military advisors. I don't buy it. He's fucked up in Iraq because he doesn't listen to them. Look. My boyfriend is a military analyst and he can tell you: Bush. Doesn't. Listen. He doesn't use his military people as advisors on how to do operations. He fires (or forces into retirement) anyone who tells him how things should be done. Total incompetence has been the result.

Look down the list of commanders: Gates, Abizaid... all the back. Not one of them he's listened to.

July 2002, Washington Post reported that �top generals and admirals in the military establishment, including members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff� believe that Saddam Hussein�s regime �poses no immediate threat and that the United States should continue its policy of containment rather than invade Iraq to force a change of leadership in Baghdad.� Bush ignored them.

Wesley Clark, Joseph P. Hoar, John M. Shalikashvili, Tony McPeak, Gen James L Jones, Gen Norman Schwarzkopf, Gen Anthony Zinni, Gen Henry H. Shelton and Thomas G. McInerney all spoke out before the war that the US couldn't sustain a war in Iraq. Bush ignored them.

General James L. Jones, the four-star commander of the Marine Corps who took over as NATO�s supreme allied commander was against the Iraq war. Bush ignored him.

Brent Scowcroft the National Security Adviser to President Bush�s father was against going into Iraq. Bush ignored him.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger published an op-ed piece in the Washington Post against going into Iraq. Bush ignored him.

Brent Scowcroft wrote an op-ed against going into Iraq in the Wall Street Journal. Bush ignored him. F

Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleberger said on ABC News that there was no reason to go after Saddam Hussein. Bush ignored him.

Brzezinski, the former National Security Adviser to President Carter said we shouldn't go into Iraq. Bush ignored him.

Retired General Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded allied forces during the Gulf War, warned against invading Iraq without the support of allies. Bush ignored him.

Retired Marine General Anthony Zinni, who served as special envoy to the Middle East, said again we shouldn't go into Iraq, there were other more pressing issues. Bush ignored him.

James Baker, former secretary of state and a close friend of the Bush family, wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times stating that the US would suffer internationally if they didn't have world support for going into Iraq. Bush ignored him.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Dick Cheney blindsided the CIA, the State Department, and Colin Powell, making a statement (which was unvetted by either Bush or the CIA and later proved to be a full-on lie) that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons. The state department official who gathered the intelligence Cheney based this on denied this was the conclusion of his report. Cheney's office then vengefully leaked the CIA identity of the man's wife, Valerie Plame (Scooter Libby was later sentenced to prison but pardoned by Bush).

David Albright, respected nuclear physicist who had investigated Iraq's nuclear weapons program after the first Gulf War, said there was no evidence for nuclear weapons and that the press wasn't looking into the facts. Bush ignored him.

Secretary of State Colin Powell broke with Dick Cheney and said we should do inspections instead of an invasion. Bush ignored him.

House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), opposed to military action against Iraq, told Bush that Iraq would be a quagmire. Bush ignored him.

James Webb, a former assistant secretary of defense and secretary of the Navy published an op-ed in the Washington Post warning that the neoconservatives' plan to invade Iraq would commit the US to a long term occupation of Iraq. Bush ignored him.

William Rivers Pitt, a journalist, and Scott Ritter, a former US Marine and UN inspector in Iraq publish a book against invading Iraq, stating "The case for war against Iraq has not been made." Bush ignored them.

During the Middle East Institute's annual conference, retired Marine General Anthony Zinni presents an extensive argument against the Bush administration's plans for invading Iraq. Bush ignored him.

Former US diplomat Joseph Wilson warns in an interview with Knight Ridder that a post-Saddam occupation could turn into "a very, very nasty affair." Bush ignored him.

John Brady Kiesling, a career diplomat of 20 years, resigned from his post as a political counselor at the United States Embassy in Athens, citing his opposition to the administration's Iraq policy. Bush ignored him. John Brown, PhD.--a career US diplomat of 22 years, who served in London, Prague, Krakow, Kiev, Belgrade and Moscow--submitted his letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin Powell, citing his opposition to the Iraq war. Bush ignored him.

Tony McPeak, a retired four-star general who headed the US Air Force during Desert Storm, criticized the Bush administration's failure to build a multilateral coalition to disarm Iraq. Bush ignored him. When Rumsfeld said we could invade with a small force, the Pentagon said it would take hundreds of thousands of troops to hold Iraq. Bush ignored them.

This was all before the invasion of Iraq.

A senior national security professional at one of America's military-sponsored think tanks told journalist James Fallows that the Bush adminstration was "full of shit" and said: "In my view we are much, much worse off now than when we went into Iraq. That is not a partisan position. I voted for these guys. But I think they are incompetent, and I have had a very close perspective on what is happening." Autumn 2004

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

There is no sign of competence or the Bush administration listening to any military professional, NORAD or otherwise. The 9/11 attack, I'm sorry to say, was brilliantly executed. "Bush as culprit" fails the super-genius test. Not even taking into account the cast thousands it would take to cover it up.

Bush didn't have to come up with stuff on his own, he just had to plagiarize all the people who were actually trying to defend this country from crazy people.

The person who would have been in charge of that operation would have been Rumsfeld. He's a cocky go-getter who insisted the US could hold Iraq with a minimal force and insisted on the retirement of the general who opposed him. He also insisted on using unarmored Humvees instead of US APCs stored in Kuwait (so that US would not appear to be an occupying force), resulting in the maiming of thousands of US troops. That dildo could never have pulled off the 9/11 attacks. It fails the super genius test again.

To what you said about our own weapons against us...the gas station and hotel videos would prove that a terrorist did it - you'd actually have the face of the 'mad Arab' or whatever firing the missile off at the Pentagon.

I lived in the DC area for ten years. If you go to DC, you'll see that there are many people of many different ethnicities, because of all the embassies up and down Massachusetts Avenue and elsewhere in the city. An arab (or someone else of another nationality who hates us) is not a remarkable sight. This isn't Nebraska. They would not stand out.

Why such an elaborate plane into the building hoax when you could just deny that it was our own country's armament doing the damage?

Oh, that's clear to any military professional: you do not want to announce your weaknesses. The US could not get around the fact that everyone knew we'd been hit by airliners. No way we'd want to admit we'd been successfully attacked by anything else.

As for the speed of creating the passenger list? Untrue. I remember. They were really slow in releasing the names of the passengers involved in any of those crashes, citing their need to contact the bereaved first.

*sigh* Look, I hate when RL bounces all over my fun time. In fifty years, someone will declassify something and we'll find out what happened one way or another. Or our kids/grandkids can tell us through a Ouija board fifty years after that, I don't know. I just wanna go back to the reason I friended the journal - fic and recs and fandom stuff. Can we chalk this out to You say tomato, I say tomahto while we're both making spaghetti sauce?

Personally, I'm not particularly upset because I enjoy research, so this has been fun for me. If hasn't been for you, I'm sorry. Do enjoy the fic and the recs. :)

[jya-bd-cp-ttgb.livejournal.com]

Normally, I enjoy debates about any subject imaginable, but lately everything to do with Bushie and his buddies, 911 and the wars has been driving me insane and I see my blood pressure going through the roof and then some. I thanked the Gods that it was him in office when the attacks first happened because I believed Reagan's people, his father's people, and somewhat Clinton's people, would help him find the bastards responsible and blow them off the face of the planet.

I was happy he was there, because I thought -- and remember please, I was a little kid during it -- that Reagan and Bush Sr. were decent Presidents. I didn't know about Reagan and AIDS or his Altheimer's, and again with the not being able to spell worth ducks today -- and I didn't know some of the stuff that Bush Sr. screwed up either. I thought "he's got two good men behind him, and the remains of Clinton's bunch. He's good to go."

But when he started talking about Iraq, I remembered some of the stuff I'd heard. His father's people and Clinton's people kept telling him to ignore Hussein the same way we ignore Castro now. That the danger to the States was in North Korea, stay out of the sandbox. Then all the stuff broke about no WMD were found, no this that or the other thing. ... Katrina hits and he and his people royally screwed it up and continue to screw it up. Gas goes up, this goes up, yadda yadda...and people start comparing Iraq to 'Nam. Rumors of the draft being started up again - which thank all the Gods again that they haven't tried that little stunt yet -- then gas rationing - thanks Mom. All the cheerful stuff, you know? My brother insisting that something wasn't right with the whole Pentagon story - I said in an earlier post, he was there and so was my cousin. When I got Loose Change, and watched it, I went straight to my brother and asked : Is this what you're talking about? "Yup. Can't fucking tell me it was a plane."

To me, that was the nail in the coffin. Bush and his friends pulling an Xfiles strength conspiracy and fucking over every man, woman, and child in America, Afghanistan and Iraq for money, power and oil. Then I started reading the books my customers told me about and here we are.

I know he's fired/retired a zillion people since this whole mess started. You need a scorecard to keep up. My brain insists that he's fired them because as long as the war is going on, he can keep funneling money to his buddies. If he wins in five minutes, they don't get the trillions, just a couple hundred billion you know?

It also insists that if I thought about the 911 conspiracy like a fanfic, I'd come up with an exact number of people needed to pull everything off, and it would be less than a hundred actually In the Know about the full extent of the plan. You can make less than a hundred people disappear easily if you've got the money.

My heart's just sick of the whole thing, and for once, I gotta listen to it.

I'm off to reread Tanlines now. My finals words in this section are to poke you for more from that 'verse -- like maybe T&D from John's POV? :)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I'm an Asian studies major, so at least some study of Vietnam comes with the territory.

As for the "who?" well, a random group of people... that's anecdotal evidence, not quantitative evidence.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I've been looking into this whole "it was a missile that hit the Pentagon" theory, and I'm not so convinced any more. There was a group of National Geographic bigwigs on flight 77 that hit the Pentagon. The news reports the day after on September 12, 2001, record that they died.

The "missile theory" doesn't account for the dead. Although I've heard crazy nutjob claims like "there never was a flight 77" and "flight 77 landed and the government killed them." *eyeroll*

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Ah, Tanlines was written for Auburn under special circumstances. Also, I'm not going to be writing anything but Out Of Bounds until it's complete. Frankly I really can't see myself writing anything else in that universe.

As for the draft, I wrote a newspaper article and did research into that. There were two simultaneous bills drafted for the House and Senate arms committees in late 2003 to restart the draft. They've stalled in committee and no one will even consider it for a war this unpopular.

I double-checked this out by staying up all night reading the US budgets for the draft board (we are required by law to keep the draft board operational in case of an attack). The budgets stayed at bare minimum and did not increase any more than they had over previous years. There was some chatter online about draft board positions that were advertised, but those were mostly squawks by people who weren't aware that the draft board has been operational since the draft ended.

The draft is a dead issue. You can stop worrying about it with regards to this war.

Last food for thought: Bush doesn't have to have started 9/11 to profit from it. A politican's job isn't so much to create events as it is to use them to his own advantage.