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

[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]

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.