Al Qaeda a myth says Russian

[neilh]

re the examples of US/UK duplicity and/or state sponsorship of terrorism ... there's no example of either government sponsoring terrorism against its own citizens. (Alleged state-sponsored extra-legal killings against nationalists in Northern Ireland an exception, but one certainly not analogous to the 9/11 attacks.)

Also, Occam's razor tends to be fairly useful when it comes to conspiracy theories

remember it cuts both ways though - some folk will argue that the planes being hijacked by a trained al-quaeda unit and crashed into the twin towers and causing them to fall is a much simpler explaination than, for example, that the towers were secretly wired with explosives by some US secret agency without anyone who works there noticing or the plan leaking from those who were involved, but others will say the first one has more assumptions and the second one is simpler, as there's too many questions like, for example, how they managed to train without the US cottoning on then fly them all the way to the towers without being intercepted in the whole time after they were hijacked, or how the jet fuel managed to melt the supports, and make sounds that sounded to firemen like bombs going off, and still have enough to create a massive fireball outside.

I'm not trying to argue either side in this post, so the example things are just rough examples of what's said by either side; just trying to point out how to use occam's razor, first you've got to work out which option has the least, and most credible, assumptions, and that's what the whole argument tends to be about anyway.

 

[neilh]

re the examples of US/UK duplicity and/or state sponsorship of terrorism ... there's no example of either government sponsoring terrorism against its own citizens. (Alleged state-sponsored extra-legal killings against nationalists in Northern Ireland an exception, but one certainly not analogous to the 9/11 attacks.)

nearly forgot to mention the first part - i'm sure there'll be folk on this board who know more about what i'm trying to remember here, but was there not some thing from about a hundred years ago about the US destroying one of it's own ships to start a war with mexico by blaming it on them?

and also, if there isn't any examples of undercover terrorist operation(which some would suggest means either they haven't done it or they've never been caught) at least there have been examples of folk being killed by armed forces or police; and the fact that something's never happened before doesn't always mean it can't happen.

 

[laptop]

the fact that something's never happened before doesn't always mean it can't happen.

Neither would the fact that someone's done something before mean they did it this time.

It is, for example, well known that the US lied about an attack on one of its ships in order to justify intensifying its attacks on North Vietnam (the Gulf of Tonkin incident). This does not mean that the photos of the fuck-off big hole in the side of the USS Cole were fakes!

This is why it is necessary to keep juries in the dark about the accused's previous convictions. Some juries' sense of causality and appreciation of evidence is as bonkers as CTers' is. Instead of either, they propose arguments that boil down to "well, they could'a..."

 

[editor]

there's northwoods. never executed, but still planned and formulated.

Just like the "never executed, but still planned and formulated" manned missions to Mars in the 1970s, you mean?

 

[bigfish]

Neither would the fact that someone's done something before mean they did it this time...

No, it doesn't, but from the point of view of a criminal investigation it does point to propensity and therefore it demands to be investigated further.

But anyway, aren't you the guy who furnished this forum with the famous 'Mr Blobby Goes to Dulles' video as 'proof' that "Arab fanatics" boarded flight 77?

 

[sparticus]

First up, there are plenty of 9/11 whistleblowers. Those who claim otherwise don't know shit

As for those links I posted (and like I say they are a tip of a very big iceberg but are fine as a starting point) of course they demonstrate that elements of US and UK governments conspire to allow or coverup their involvement in terrorist acts eg FBI involvement in WTC bombing in 1993 PROVEN, prior knowledge of Pearl Harbour PROVEN, Coverup of further bombs found in the Oklahoma City bombing which dismantles their lone bomber story PROVEN, etc, etc, fucking etc.

Then there's biggest campaign of all of government sponsored terrorism, Operation Gladio.

William Blum wrote, for example, in September, 2004:

"Does anything done by the Bush administration compare to Operation Gladio? From 1947 until 1990, when it was publicly exposed, Gladio was essentially a CIA/NATO/M16 operation in conjunction with other intelligence agencies and an assortment of the vilest of right-wing thugs and terrorists. It ran wild in virtually every country of Western Europe, kidnapping and/or assassinating political leaders, exploding bombs in trains and public squares with many hundreds of dead and wounded, shooting up supermarkets with many casualties, trying to overthrow governments... all with impunity, protected by the most powerful military and political forces in the world. Even today, the beast may still be breathing. Since the inception of the Freedom of Information Act in the 1970s, the CIA has regularly refused requests concerning the US/NATO role in Gladio, refusing not only individual researchers and the National Security Archive-the private research
organization in Washington with a remarkable record of obtaining US government documents-but some of the governments involved, including Italy and Austria. Gladio is one of the CIA's family jewels, to be guarded as
such.

There is a full account of Operation Gladio at:

http://www.copi.com/articles/guyatt/gladio.html

 

[freke]

As soon as I saw that the 'proof' of Operation Gladio was the murder of Calvi I'm afraid I laughed. It's like saying the assassination of Kennedy proves an alien invasion ... as in the circumstances of the former are so disputed that to use it as proof of the latter is highly suspect. And Wilson's resignation?! Please. Imposing a simple narrative on disparate controversial historical events is the hallmark of any poor conspiracy theory.

And ...

"It ran wild in virtually every country of Western Europe, kidnapping and/or assassinating political leaders, exploding bombs in trains and public squares with many hundreds of dead and wounded, shooting up supermarkets with many casualties, trying to overthrow governments... "

Hmmm ... could we base our wild accusations on reality? Some names or events might help.

Also ...

"As for those links I posted (and like I say they are a tip of a very big iceberg but are fine as a starting point) of course they demonstrate that elements of US and UK governments conspire to allow or coverup their involvement in terrorist acts eg FBI involvement in WTC bombing in 1993 PROVEN, prior knowledge of Pearl Harbour PROVEN, Coverup of further bombs found in the Oklahoma City bombing which dismantles their lone bomber story PROVEN, etc, etc, fucking etc."

Is that "PROVEN" in the sense of "in a court of law" or "beyond reasonable doubt" or in the sense of "in my conspiracy-theory-believing mind"?! The internet - as we all know - provides a welter of material that 'proves' everything from the world being flat, the existence of aliens amongst us, the miraculous power of prayer etc etc

Anyone can distill a narrative that then 'proves' anything to themselves and fellow-believers. Occam's razor does tend to help, but yeah as the poster above pointed out it can work both ways. This is why a healthy sense of scepticism helps, but at what point does a healthy sense of scepticism drift into ideologically-loaded bias? Maybe open debate and putting the burden of proof on conspiracy theorists is the only way to filter through the mass of information.

 

[editor]

Is that "PROVEN" in the sense of "in a court of law" or "beyond reasonable doubt" or in the sense of "in my conspiracy theory-believing mind"?

Sadly, when sparticus is involved, it's always the latter.

 

[Jazzz]

Just like the "never executed, but still planned and formulated" manned missions to Mars in the 1970s, you mean?

But you aren't suggesting there was any practical or technical difficulty as to why Northwoods didn't happen. It was ready to roll. It didn't happen because Kennedy was having nothing to do with it. No spacecraft necessary.

 

[fubert]

Just like the "never executed, but still planned and formulated" manned missions to Mars in the 1970s, you mean?

if you mean "didn't happen" : then yes.

however it does show that some sick individual at the time was capable of proposing that the us military could kill its own citizens at home, blame someone else, and then invade their country based on it.

 

[freke]

The main problem I have with conspiracy theories and theorists is that they tend to spend huge amounts of time researching and pushing tendacious and/or thin ideas while there are so many more interesting, and relevant, and useful things to do in politics. It's all a bit 'how many angels are on the end of a pin' for me. Politics for me is a little more humdrum, but more important, than exciting shadowy James-Bond-esque plots involving secret agents with links to Nazis. But please, do go on, just my prejudice showing.

If you wanna believe in a world where we are but puppets to some hidden elite then I'm not gonna persuade you otherwise. I do wonder, however, why so many of my peers (I'm 28) want so fervantly to believe in secret elites and the inherent evilness of politicians (what I have called elsewhere 'lizardism').

 

[freke]

Now I spend a millisecond thinking about it, it's quite easy to see why some people want to believe that GWB knew about 9/11 beforehand - it's because they want to believe the worst possible thing about Dubya and/or the US. They have the incentive to believe, so compile the evidence to prove their prejudices. It happens all across politics, from left to right.

 

[exleper]

Good lord, this thread's still going? Blimey. I didn't know fela had it in him.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

<snip>. I do wonder, however, why so many of my peers (I'm 28) want so fervantly to believe in secret elites and the inherent evilness of politicians (what I have called elsewhere 'lizardism').

At a guess because it makes a more satisfying narrative than seeing the problems and events in question in systemic terms.

 

[fubert]

Now I spend a millisecond thinking about it, it's quite easy to see why some people want to believe that GWB knew about 9/11 beforehand - it's because they want to believe the worst possible thing about Dubya and/or the US. They have the incentive to believe, so compile the evidence to prove their prejudices. It happens all across politics, from left to right.

well bush and co were planning the invasion of iraq before they were even elected. source

all they needed was an excuse.

 

[sparticus]

Bernie, why is belief that global elites conspire against the people they purport to represent at odds with a systems based worldview that sees the global systems of economics, politics, law, media and militarism all to be intertwined and systemically corrupt? I have often seen this argument presented as if the two cannot live side by side. To me belief in 'conspiracy theories' is not some wacky worldview that sees all events directed James Bond characters, but that the conspiracies I have pointed to (and that I say are proven) are symptomatic of systemic corruption and denial. Sure the world's problems are systemic, but that system is controlled by a elite institutions and corporations which in turn are controlled by global elites and history shows that they have used events like the Reichstag Fire, Pearl Harbour, Tonkin Bay Incident, etc, etc to manipulate public opinion to justify and expand wars. So when there are so many anomolies and unanswered questions that still surround 9/11 is it so difficult to contemplate that this is another

And the reason to point to these conspiracies? Because they expose the systemic corruption and guide the way to how the systems should be reformed. Instead of pointing to 9/11 I could as easily point to global income distribution as proof of a conspiracy by global elites against the world's poor. But of course to most people poverty is not a conspracy of the rich against the poor, it is just a failure (or 'natural' byproduct) of the capitalism. I say the bankers that control the IMF and World Bank have deliberately impoverished and indebted the 60% of the world's population that live on less than $2/day and that is a conspiracy and a systems failure. The two are not incompatable

 

[sparticus]

Sadly, when sparticus is involved, it's always the latter.

Not true, editor, there are numerous examples of conspiracies being proven in a court of law. The FBI's involvement in the 1993 WTC bombing, Iran Contra, Watergate, Enron, US covert backing of right-wing death squads in Honduras by the International Court in the Hague, etc, etc. The strange thing is show how we are always encouraged to see these events as isolated incidents that are the exception to the rule, whereas they appear to me to be isolated incidents (in that they made it to court) that demonstrate the systems institutionalised corruption.

 

[editor]

But you aren't suggesting there was any practical or technical difficulty as to why Northwoods didn't happen. It was ready to roll. It didn't happen because Kennedy was having nothing to do with it.

So it went the same way as hundreds if not thousands of other deeply unpleasant military plans hatched during a different era with a completely different world order.

So why aren't you banging on and on about the Cold War mutual nuclear annihilation plans dreamt up by the US/UK/USSR in an equally distant past?

They make this Northwoods non event look like a tea party, but thankfully, they never happened either - so why keep on dredging up something that different happen from a different era?

 

[freke]

Bernie,

I suspect you are right, though systemic is probably not the word I'd use. Political action tends to be drawn from institutions and ideas, rather obvious ones really, which is why conspiracy theorists baffle me so. Politicians' behaviour tends to be easily explicable if you actually engage with what they say and believe. If, on the other hand, you reject all politicians' as "liars" (or lizards), and assume that they all have deeply cynical motives it is then the next step to start to believe that They are all out to get us, and everything can be explained by Operation This or US foreign policy that.

 

[sparticus]

Evidence of global elites conspiring against the people allegedly serve can be found from many sources and not just conspiraloon websites. Take Transparency International's recent report into global corruption in the construction sector as an example
http://www.globalcorruptionreport.org/download.html

 

[freke]

It's the pernicious effect of over-reading Chomsky and all the little sub-Chomskyites. Some of these guys must have had to read it Clockwork Orange style ... it seems to seep into their subconscious then erupt as this manic conspiratorial bile. They follow Chomsky (and Pilger's) style: put 2 and 2 and 2 together and make 7 million. Argh!

If you don't like the things that politicians do ... get into politics and try to make a real difference! What's the point in making up ever more bizarre stories?

Anyway, got work to do - did you know the world's capital markets are overloaded with cash? No conspiracy, am afraid, just surplus liquidity.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

You'll be telling us next that politicians are known to lie occasionally.

 

[sparticus]

So it went the same way as hundreds if not thousands of other deeply unpleasant military plans hatched during a different era with a completely different world order.

So why aren't you banging on and on about the Cold War mutual nuclear annihilation plans dreamt up by the US/UK/USSR in an equally distant past?

They make this Northwoods non event look like a tea party, but thankfully, they never happened either - so why keep on dredging up something that different happen from a different era?

You see it as a different era, I just see groundhog day. What it proves is that 1) the military chiefs of staff and planners are quite happy to seriously plan (this order was only blocked by kennedy shortly before his assination) false terror attacks on their own citizens in order to blame Osama Bin Castro
2) it can be kept secret for a long time and 3) like you say it was just one of numerous mad plans that show that the lunatics had taken over the assylum and they're still in control

 

[freke]

Just caught before I logged off ... I guess it's a lack of proportionality that's concerning ... in any system where there's power and money there will be corruption, but I don't see why this is proof that there's a global elite and dark plots everywhere. Human institutions tend to be flawed, so some people will exploit them, as they have throughout history.

Or are you Dan Brown researching his next book? (Sorry, I forgot, Mr Brown only has one (well-photocopied) plot.)

 

[Jazzz]

So it went the same way as hundreds if not thousands of other deeply unpleasant military plans hatched during a different era with a completely different world order.

So why aren't you banging on and on about the Cold War mutual nuclear annihilation plans dreamt up by the US/UK/USSR in an equally distant past?

They make this Northwoods non event look like a tea party, but thankfully, they never happened either - so why keep on dredging up something that different happen from a different era?

Because you still refuse to appreciate it's import. The plot to Northwoods reads exactly like a 9-11 conspiracy; it was possible, they would have got away with it - you have given no reason as to why not. And had it actually happened, it would still be classified. So it is only logical to assume that similar operations HAVE occurred (such as the Maine incident the plan mentions, way back)

... or do you believe that there is no iceberg below the water?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

- conspiracies have been planned
- conspiracies have happened, and could have happened
- therefore everything that has been accused of being a conspiracy must have been one

No, doesn't make sense to me either. Basic disconnect between 2 and 3 there.

Mind you, the Northwoods example is usually brought up in order to show us sheep that the CIA could have planned such a thing. To be a patronising arse, in other words. Clearly nobody else knows anything about the CIA, the USG and its history. It's all radical new truth discovered by internet warriors! Rather than discovered by decades of careful, evidence-based research and enquiry.

:fuckinghugerolleyes:

 

[editor]

The plot to Northwoods reads exactly like a 9-11 conspiracy; it was possible, they would have got away with it - you have given no reason as to why not.

Go to top of the fact-free supposition class and get a credit for shoe-horning a completely unrelated non-event from a different century into your 'argument'!

:fuckinghugerolleyes magnified:

 

[fubert]

Go to top of the fact-free supposition class and get a credit for shoe-horning a completely unrelated non-event from a different century into your 'argument'!

:fuckinghugerolleyes magnified:

so the mere existance of northwoods is totally irrelevant to any usg 911 conspiracy there could be ? there are similarities to the conspiracy people, remote controlled planes etc...

..at this point i'm actually reminded of blackadder 3. the one with the playwrights... "their mistake was to write down the entire plot and have it published in play manuscript form."

ah well.

 

[sparticus]

- conspiracies have been planned
- conspiracies have happened, and could have happened
- therefore everything that has been accused of being a conspiracy must have been one

So who said all conspiracy theories are true. Not me that's for sure. What I said is that because there have been so many (but not all by any means) CT's that turn out to be true might explain why so many of us doubt the official fairytale of 9/11

AND NO I DIDN'T SUDDENLY DISCOVER THE SYSTEM WAS CORRUPT WITH THE BIRTH OF THE INTERNET OR ON 12/9/2001

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Work it out. Northwoods is irrelevant apart from as an indication that the CIA weren't above organising such a thing, which nobody denies.

So basically it's irrelevant if you haven't proved anything else. Which you haven't.

No. I've seen your links. Don't bother. I've seen more than you have, I expect. I've seen every single fucking video imaginable. I wish I'd not bothered, but I'm careful like that, in case there's anything I've missed, and there've never been.