Conspiracy theory logical fallacies

First topic message reminder :

As we seem to have these kind of threads in abundance these days, I thought I would post these standards for people to eaily see the fallacies within such conspiracy theories:








Most conspiracy theories don't make sense nor withstand any scrutiny. They usually involve operations so immense that it's basically impossible for them to be kept secret, and all the proof given by conspiracy theorists usually have a very simple explanation (usually much simpler than the explanation given by the theorists). Yet conspiracy theories are very popular and appealing. Even when they don't make sense and there's just no proof, many people still believe them. Why? One big reason for this is that some conspiracy theorists are clever. They use psychology to make their theories sound more plausible. They appeal to certain psychological phenomena which make people to tend to believe them. However, these psychological tricks are nothing more than logical fallacies. They are simply so well disguised that many people can't see them for what they are. Here are some typical logical fallacies used by conspiracy theorists:

Appeal to the "bandwagon effect"

The so-called "bandwagon effect" is a psychological phenomenon where people are eager to believe things if most of the people around them believe that too. Sometimes that thing is true and there's no harm, but sometimes it's a misconception, urban legend or, in this case, an unfounded conspiracy theory, in which case the "bandwagon effect" bypasses logical thinking for the worse. The most typical form of appealing to the bandwagon effect is to say something along the lines of "30% of Americans doubt that..." or "30% of Americans don't believe the official story". This is also called an argumentum ad populum, which is a logical fallacy. Of course that kind of sentence in the beginning of a conspiracy theory doesn't make any sense. It doesn't prove anything relevant. It's not like the theory becomes more true if more people believe in it. Also the percentage itself is always very dubious. It may be completely fabricated or exaggerated by interpreting the poll results conveniently (eg. one easy way for bumping up the percentage is to interpret all people who didn't answer or who didn't know what to say as "doubting the official story"). Even if it was a completely genuine number, it would still not be proof of anything else than that there's a certain amount of gullible people in the world. That kind of sentence is not proof of anything, yet it's one of the most used sentences in conspiracy theories. It tries to appeal to the bandwagon effect. It's effectively saying: "Already this many people doubt the official story, and the numbers are increasing. Are you going to be left alone believing the official story?"

Appeal to rebellion

Conspiracy theories in general, and the "n% of people doubt the story" claims in particular, also appeal to a sense of rebellion in people.
As Wikipedia puts it, "a rebellion is, in the most general sense, a refusal to accept authority." People don't want to be sheep who are patronized by authority and told what they have to do and how they have to think. People usually distrust authorities and many believe that authorities are selfish and abuse people for their own benefit. This is an extremely fertile ground for conspiracy theories. This is so ingrained in people that a sentence like "the official story" has basically become a synonym for "a coverup/lie". Whenever "the official story" is mentioned, it immediately makes people think that it's some kind of coverup, something not true. Conspiracy theorists are masters at abusing this psyhcological phenomenon for their advantage. They basically insinuate that "if you believe the official story then you are gullible because you are being lied to". They want to make it feel that doubting the original story is a sign of intelligence and logical thinking. However, believing a conspiracy theory usually shows, quite ironically, a great lack of logical thinking.
This is an actual quote from a JFK assassination conspiracy theory website. It's almost as hilarious as it is contradictory:

In the end, you have to decide for yourself what to believe. But don't just believe what the U.S. Government tells you!

(In other words, believe anything you want except the official story!)

Shotgun argumentation

"Shotgun argumentation" is a metaphor from real life: It's much easier to hunt a rabbit with a shotgun than with a rifle. This is because a rifle only fires one bullet and there's a high probability of a miss. A shotgun, however, fires tens or even hundreds of small pellets, and the probability of at least one of them hitting the rabbit is quite high. Shotgun argumentation has the same basic idea: The more small arguments or "evidence" you present in favor of some claim, the higher the probability that someone will believe you regarldess of how ridiculous those arguments are. There are two reasons for this: Firstly, just the sheer amount of arguments or "evidence" may be enough to convince someone that something strange is going on. The idea is basically: "There is this much evidence against the official story, there must be something wrong with it." One or two pieces of "evidence" may not be enough to convince anyone, but collect a set of a couple of hundreds of pieces of "evidence" and it immediately starts being more believable. Of course the fallacy here is that the amount of "evidence" is in no way proof of anything. The vast majority, and usually all of this "evidence" is easily explainable and just patently false. There may be a few points which may be more difficult to explain, but they alone wouldn't be so convincing. Secondly, and more closely related to the shotgun methapor: The more arguments or individual pieces of "evidence" you have, the higher the probability that at least some of them will convince someone. Someone might not get convinced by most of the arguments, but among them there may be one or a few which sounds so plausible to him that he is then convinced. Thus one or a few of the "pellets" hit the "rabbit" and killed it: Mission accomplished.

I have a concrete example of this: I had a friend who is academically educated, a MSc, and doing research work (relating to computer science) at a university. He is rational, intelligent and well-educated.  Yet still this person, at least some years ago, completely believed the Moon hoax theory. Why? He said to me quite explicitly that there was one thing that convinced him: The flag moving after it had been planted on the ground. One of the pellets had hit the rabbit and killed it. The shotgun argumentation had been successful. If even highly-educated academic people can fall for such "evidence" (which is easily explained), how more easily are more "regular" people going to believe the sheer amount of them? Sadly, quite a lot more easily. Most conspiracy theorists continue to present the same old tired arguments which are very easy to prove wrong. They need all those arguments, no matter how ridiculous, for their shotgun argumentation tactics to work.

Straw man argumentation

A "straw man argument" is the process of taking an argument of the opponent, distorting it or taking it out of context so that it basically changes meaning, and then ridiculing it in order to make the opponent look bad. For example, a conspiracy theorist may say something like: "Sceptics argue that stars are too faint to see in space (which is why there are no stars in photographs), yet astronauts said that they could see stars." This is a perfect example of a straw man argument. That's taking an argument completely out of context and changing its meaning. It's actually a bit unfortunate that many debunking sites use the sentence "the stars are too faint to be seen" when explaining the lack of stars in photographs. That sentence, while in its context not false, is confusing and misleading. It's trying to put in simple words a more technical explanation (which usually follows). Unfortunately, it's too simplistic and good material for straw man arguments. I wish debunkers stopped using simplistic sentences like that one. (The real explanation for the lacking stars is, of course, related to the exposure time and shutter aperture of the cameras, which were set to photograph the Moon surface illuminated by direct sunlight. The stars are not bright enough for such short exposure times. If the cameras had been set up to photograph the stars, the lunar surface would have been completely overexposed. This is basic photography.)

Citing inexistent sources

There's a very common bad habit among the majority of people: They believe that credible sources have said/written whatever someone claims they have said or written. Even worse, most people believe that a source is credible or even exists just because someone claims that it is credible and exists. People almost never check that the source exists, that it's a credible source and that it has indeed said what was claimed.
Conspiracy theorists know this and thus abuse it to the maximum. Sometimes they fabricate sources or stories, and sometimes they just cite nameless sources (using expressions like "experts in the field", "most astronomers", etc).
This is an actual quote from the same JFK assassination conspiracy theory website as earlier:

Scientists examined the Zapruder film. They found that, while most of it looks completely genuine, some of the images are impossible. They violate the laws of physics. They could not have come from Zapruder's home movie camera.

Needless to say, the web page does not give any references or sources, or any other indication of who these unnamed "scientists" might be or what their credentials are. (My personal guess is that whenever the website uses the word "scientist" or "researcher", it refers to other conspiracy theorists who have no actual education and competence on the required fields of science, and who are, like all such conspiracy theorists, just seeing what they want to see.)

Citing sources which are wrong

A common tactic of conspiracy theorists is to take statements by credible persons or newspaper articles which support the conspiracy theory and present these statements or articles as if they were the truth. If a later article in the same newspaper corrects the mistake in the earlier article or if the person who made the statement later says that he was wrong or quoted out of context (ie. he didn't mean what people thought he was meaning), conspiracy theorists happily ignore them. Since people seldom check the sources, they will believe that the statement or newspaper article is the only thing that person or newspaper has said about the subject. This is closely related to (and often overlaps with) the concept of quote mining (which is the practice of carefully selecting small quotes, which are often taken completely out of context, from a vast selection of material, in such a way that these individual quotes seem to support the conspiracy theory).
Sometimes that source is not credible (because it's just another conspiracy theorist) but people have little means of knowing this.

Cherry-picking

Cherry-picking is more a deliberate act of deception than a logical fallacy, but nevertheless an extremely common tactic.
Cherry-picking happens when someone deliberately selects from a wide variety of material only those items which support the conspiracy theory, while ignoring and discarding those which don't. When this carefully chosen selection of material is then presented as a whole, it easily misleads people into thinking that the conspiracy theory is supported by evidence. This is an especially popular tactic for the 9/11 conspiracy theorists: They will only choose those published photographs which support their claims, while outright ignoring those which don't. The Loose Change "documentary" is quite infamous for doing this, and pulling it out rather convincingly. The major problem with this is, of course, that it's pure deception: The viewer is intentionally given only carefully selected material, while leaving out the parts which would contradict the conspiracy theory. This is a deliberate act. The conspiracy theorists cannot claim honesty while doing clear cherry-picking.
Just one example: There's a big electrical transformer box outside the Pentagon which was badly damaged by the plane before it hit the building. It's impossible for that box to get that damage if the building was hit by a missile, as claimed by conspiracy theorists (the missile would have exploded when hitting the box, several tens of meters away from the building). Conspiracy theorists will usually avoid using any photographs which show the damaged transformer box because it contradicts their theory. They are doing this deliberately. They cannot claim honesty while doing this.

Argument from authority

Scientists are human, and thus imperfect and fallible. Individual scientists can be dead wrong, make the wrong claims and even be deceived into believing falsities. Being a scientist does not give a human being some kind of magic power to resist all deceptions and delusions, to see through all tricks and fallacies and to always know the truth and discard what is false. But science does not stand on individual scientists, for this exact reason. This is precisely why the scientific process requires so-called peer reviews. One scientist can be wrong, ten scientists can be wrong, and even a hundred scientists can be wrong, but when their claims are peer-reviewed and studied by the whole scientific community, the likelihood of the falsities not being caught decreases dramatically. It's very likely that someone somewhere is going to object and to raise questions if there's something wrong with a claim, and this will raise the consciousness of the whole community. Either the objections are dealt with and explained, or the credibility of the claim gets compromised. A claim does not become accepted by the scientific community unless it passes the peer reviewing test. And this is why science works. It does not rely on individuals, but on the whole. Sometimes some individual scientists can be deceived into believing a conspiracy theory. As said, scientists do not have any magical force that keeps them from being deceived. Due to their education the likelihood might be slightly lower than with the average person, but in no way is it completely removed. Scientists can and do get deceived by falsities. Thus sometimes the conspiracy theorists will convince some PhD or other such person of high education and/or high authority, and if this person becomes vocal enough, the conspiracy theorists will then use him as an argument pro the conspiracy. It can be rather convincing if conspiracy theorists can say "numerous scientists agree that the official explanation cannot be true, including (insert some names here)". However, this is a fallacy named argument from authority. Just because a PhD makes a claim doesn't make it true. Even if a hundred PhD's make that claim. It doesn't even make it any more credible. As said, individual scientists can get deceived and deluded. However, as long as their claims do not pass the peer review process, their claims are worth nothing from a scientific point of view.

Argument from ignorance

In this fallacy the word "ignorance" is not an insult, but refers to the meaning of "not knowing something".
Simply put, argument from ignorance happens when something with no apparent explanation is pointed out (for example in a photograph), and since there's no explanation, it's presented as evidence of foul play (eg. that the photograph has been manipulated).
This can be seen as somewhat related to cherry-picking: The conspiracy theorist will point out something in the source material or the accounts of the original event which is not easy to immediately explain. A viewer with no experience nor expertise on the subject matter might be unable to come up with an explanation, or to identify the artifact/phenomenon. The conspiracy theorist then abuses this to claim that the unexplained artifact or phenomenon is evidence of fakery or deception. Of course this is a fallacy. Nothing can be deduced from an unexplained phenomenon or artifact. As long as you don't know what it is, you can't take it as evidence of anything. (In most cases such things have a quite simple and logical explanation; it's just that in order to figure it out, you need to have the proper experience on the subject, or alternatively to have someone with experience explain it to you. After that it becomes quite self-evident. It's a bit like a magic trick: When you see it, you can't explain how it works, but when someone explains it to you, it often is outright disappointingly simple.)
It might sound rather self-evident when explained like this, but people still get fooled in an actual situation.

Argument from (personal) incredulity

In its most basic and bare-bones from, argument from incredulity takes the form of "I can't even begin to imagine how this can work / be possible, hence it must be fake". This is a variation or subset of the argument from ignorance. Of course conspiracy theorists don't state the argument so blatantly, but use much subtler expressions. Example: Some (although not all) Moon Landing Hoax conspiracy theorists state that the Moon Lander could have not taken off from the surface of the Moon, because a rocket on its bottom side would have made it rotate wildly and randomly. In essence what the conspiracy theorist is saying is "I don't understand how rocketry can work, hence this must be fake", and trying to convince the reader of the same. The problem of basic rocketry (ie. how a rocket with a propulsion system at its back end can maintain stability and fly straight) is indeed quite a complex and difficult one (which is where the colloquial term "rocket science", meaning something extremely complicated and difficult, comes from), but it was solved in the 1920's and 30's. This isn't even something you have to understand or even take on faith: It's something you can see with your own eyes (unless you believe all the videos you have ever seen of missiles and rockets are fake).

Argument from coincidence

In the real world things that can be considered coincidences happen all the time. Sometimes even coincidences that are so unlikely that they are almost incredible. Of course most coincidences are actually much more likely to happen than we usually think.
Just as a random example, suppose that an asteroid makes a close encounter with the Earth, and the same day that this close encounter happens, a big earthquake happens somewhere on Earth. Coincidence? Well, that's actually very likely: Every year there are over a thousand earthquakes of magnitude 5 or higher on Earth. The likelihood that on a very specific day a significant earthquake happens is actually not that surprising. The two incidents may very well not be related at all, but just happened on the same day. In conspiracy theory land, however, there are no such things as coincidences. Everything always happens for a reason, and everything is always related somehow. For example, did some politician happn to cancel a flight scheduled on the same day as a terrorist attack involving airplanes happened? In conspiracy theory land that cannot be a coincidence. There must be a connection. (It doesn't matter that all kinds of politicians are traveling by plane all the time, and cancelling such flights is not at all uncommon, and hence some random politician cancelling a flight for the same day as the terrorist attack happens isn't a very unlikely happenstance. Except for conspiracy theorists, of course.) Or how about the Pentagon having blast-proof windows on one of its walls, and a plane crashing precisely on that wall? Given that the Pentagon has 5 outer walls, the likelihood of this happening is roughly 20%, which isn't actually all that small. One in five isn't very unlikely, except of course in conspiracy fantasy land, where it cannot be a coincidence. It's not impossible for even extremely unlikely coincidences to sometimes happen, but conspiracy theorists just love to take even the likeliest of coincidences and jump to conclusions. Just to add another piece of "evidence" for their shotgun argumentation.

Pareidolia

Pareidolia is also not a logical fallacy per se, but more a fallacy of perception.
Pareidolia is, basically, the phenomenon which happens when we perceive recognizable patterns in randomness, even though the patterns really aren't there. For example, random blotches of paint might look like a face, or random noise might sound like a spoken word (or even a full sentence).Pareidolia is a side effect of pattern recognition in our brain. Our visual and auditory perception is heavily based on pattern recognition. It's what helps us understanding spoken languages, even if it's spoken by different people with different voices, at different speeds and with different accents. It's what helps us recognizing objects even if they have a slightly different shape or coloring which we have never seen before. It's what helps us recognize people and differentiate them from each other. It's what helps us reading written text at amazing speeds by simply scanning the written lines visually (you are doing precisely that right now). In fact, we could probably not even survive without pattern recognition. This pattern recognition is also heavily based on experience: We tend to recognize things like shapes and sounds when we have previous experience from similar shapes and sounds. Also the context helps us in this pattern recognition, often very significantly. When we recognize the context, we tend to expect certain things, which in turn helps us making the pattern recognition more easily and faster. For example, if you open a book, you already expect to see text inside, and you are already prepared to recognize it. In a context which is completely unrelated to written text (for a completely random example, if you are examining your fingernails) you are not expecting to see text, and thus you don't recognize it as easily. Pareidolia happens when our brain recognizes, or thinks it recognizes, patterns where there may be only randomness, or in places which are not random per se, but completely unrelated to this purported "pattern". As noted, pareidolia is greatly helped if we are expecting to see a certain pattern. This predisposes our brain to try to recognize that exact thing, making it easier. This is the very idea in so-called backmasking: Playing a sound, for example a song, backwards and then recognizing something in the garbled sounds that result from this. When we are not expecting anything in particular, we usually only hear garbled noises. However, if someone tells us what we should expect, we immediately "recognize" it. However, we are just fooling our own pattern recognition system into perceiving something which isn't really there. If someone else is told to expect a slightly similar-sounding, but different message, that other person is very probably going to hear that. You and that other person are both being mislead by playing with the pattern recognition capabilities of your brain.
Conspiracy theorists love abusing pareidolia. They will make people see patterns where there are none, and people will be fooled into believing that the patterns really are there, and thus are proof of something.

Misinterpreting photographic evidence

One thing conspiracy theorists really love to do is inspecting photographs of the events and trying to find "flaws" and signs of fakery.
The thing about photography is that it's very easy to misinterpret what the photo is showing. Details that were in the actual scene might get lost in the photo, making it look different than what it really was. Also, photos often suffer of artifacts that are caused by the physics of photography, making things appear in photos that weren't there in actuality (I have written an entire article on why photographic evidence is almost worthless precisely because of all the artifacts and loss of information that is inherent to photography.) The conspiracy theorists will often abuse this (intentionally or not) to make claims of fakery.
Take, for instance, this analysis of one of the photos related to the Kennedy assassination, apparently depicting an inconsistent shadow of Lee Harvey Oswald:

Pretty convincing, eh? Clearly something is going on here because the shadow is physically incorrect?
Well, no. The mistake that this analysis makes is to assume that the ground is completely flat and level. It isn't. The computer rendering is done assuming a completely flat ground. The differences in height of the original ground are mostly lost due to the poor quality of the photo, the ground being overexposed and details being lost. (Quite ironically, the irregularities in Oswald's shadow is not a sign of fakery, but on the contrary can be used to determine some of the original geometry of the ground that's not apparent directly in the photo.)
This is especially so because the image on the left above has been manipulated by the analyst to increase contrast. The original photograph looks like this:

Any unevenness of the ground is lost in the heavy contrast enhancement. Also notice how the shadow is actually blurry in the original image, while it's suspiciously sharp in the enhanced image. (Also note how the computer model's head does not correspond perfectly to Oswald's.)
Another thing that these analyses typically fail to do is to explain how exactly the photo was allegedly "faked" in such way that it causes the alleged artifact. By the way, reading the original Warren Commission Report on how they determined these photographs to be genuine is interesting and enlightening. I recommend doing that. They were not idiots.



http://warp.povusers.org/grrr/conspiracytheories.html

Lots of official stories have more holes than a swiss cheese... yet you still regard them as absolute truth!

Tommy Monk wrote:Lots of official stories have more holes than a swiss cheese... yet you still regard them as absolute truth!

So you claim there is many holes.
Under close scrutiny, in many conspiracies, there is little to no holes at all.
All you are doing is buying into a claim made by others, where in many scenarios, they wrongly perceive something. This is done because their starting position is one of paranoia. Where they fear they have no control over their lives. They thus take the view everything is orchestrated by governements. With such a paranoia to start with it is no wonder people fall very easily for conspiracy theories.

Based on what evidence do you say that?

JFK for a start, I seriously doubt he was killed by Oswald. I don't know who did- but that is one 'official story' I don't believe.

But most conspiracies are nonsense

Eilzel wrote:

eddie wrote:

Laughing Out Loud wrote:I think people should be able to believe conspiracy theories without the risk of ridicule .  

It's only because they've been labeled as "conspiracy"
If the same story was in the news people would call it the "truth"

See, you agree with LoL here because it is confirmation of what you already believe- yet you avoided my points above.

This kind of follows through with all your talk on conspiracies. Its confirmation bias. Anything that remotely indicate some kind of conspiracy you jump to as quick as anything. But any questioning or anomalies raised about the conspiracy and you simply discard it or ignore it.

There can be no reasoning then. Which would be fine, except that you come out with things like those of us who dismiss conspiracies as people 'who swallow everything the are fed by the media'.

Hi les

I don't know how many times I've said it but I will say it again.

I don't believe a lot of the official "stories" fed to us regarding 9/11 - and lots of others.
However.

That doesn't mean I necessarily believe EVERY story that says different either.

It means I remain open to looking at possibIlites - I've already heard or read most of the gumph put out by the powers that be thank you - so I will look elsewhere for answers.

Some, I don't believe, others I do

What you don't seem to realise is that you and dodge do the exact same things you accuse me of!!

Now the moon landing....never really looked into that tbh so can't comment

Good thread on flap about it Eddie... thoroughly blown apart the story that it happened.

eddie wrote:

Eilzel wrote:

See, you agree with LoL here because it is confirmation of what you already believe- yet you avoided my points above.

This kind of follows through with all your talk on conspiracies. Its confirmation bias. Anything that remotely indicate some kind of conspiracy you jump to as quick as anything. But any questioning or anomalies raised about the conspiracy and you simply discard it or ignore it.

There can be no reasoning then. Which would be fine, except that you come out with things like those of us who dismiss conspiracies as people 'who swallow everything the are fed by the media'.

Hi les

I don't know how many  times I've said it but I will say it again.

I don't believe a lot of the official "stories" fed to us regarding 9/11 - and lots of others.
However.

That doesn't mean I necessarily believe EVERY story that says different either.

It means I remain open to looking at possibIlites - I've already heard or read most of the gumph put out by the powers that be thank you - so I will look elsewhere for answers.

Some, I don't believe, others I do

What you don't seem to realise is that you and dodge do the exact same things you accuse me of!!

Now the moon landing....never really looked into that tbh so can't comment

Actually I have no problem with people believing conspiracy theories. MY earlier post was just saying I think they go TOO far when they are given serious consideration in education, law and health issues.

As long as they don't start impacting on public health, influencing laws and policy, or interfering in education, then there isn't such a problem.

However, in terms of debate, the implication I get from you and tommy and others 'believers' (for want of a better word) is that you are somehow smarter for not believing the media- which makes no sense, you just accept one version of events (with arguably less evidence) over another.

Eilzel wrote:

eddie wrote:

Hi les

I don't know how many  times I've said it but I will say it again.

I don't believe a lot of the official "stories" fed to us regarding 9/11 - and lots of others.
However.

That doesn't mean I necessarily believe EVERY story that says different either.

It means I remain open to looking at possibIlites - I've already heard or read most of the gumph put out by the powers that be thank you - so I will look elsewhere for answers.

Some, I don't believe, others I do

What you don't seem to realise is that you and dodge do the exact same things you accuse me of!!

Now the moon landing....never really looked into that tbh so can't comment

Actually I have no problem with people believing conspiracy theories. MY earlier post was just saying I think they go TOO far when they are given serious consideration in education, law and health issues.

As long as they don't start impacting on public health, influencing laws and policy, or interfering in education, then there isn't such a problem.

However, in terms of debate, the implication I get from you and tommy and others 'believers' (for want of a better word) is that you are somehow smarter for not believing the media- which makes no sense, you just accept one version of events (with arguably less evidence) over another.

The issue I take with many of the claims, is no matter if you show 2 or 3 of the claims to one conspiracy to be flawed, this is ignored and they just move onto another claim within the conspiracy, even though the ones who have shown to be flawed make the conspiracy fall apart.
Like I say the problem stems from the start for thse who buy conspiracies, because their starting position is one of distrust already for the Goverment. A paranoia has set in where they believe they have little to no control on their lives and that everythin is being orchestrated.
If that is the starting position then it is no wonder they easily straight away dismiss evidence.
Then anything that follows thier world view pattern is easily taken on board.
This has more to do with paranoia and fear than anything else.
Of course come sonspiracies have been seen to be true, but like I said like with 9/11 the major damning argument against it being a conspiracy is Edward Snowden. Here is a man that stole thousands of files to expose governements secrets. he would have not held back if 9/11 had been covered up. In fact he talks about 9./11 how intelligence was not taken seriously enough, but at no point does he claim it was all orchestrated.
It is things like this that they vitally ignore and he really shows the conspiracy has no validity. Yet they still believe it is a cover up and why?
Paranoia

Hmmm. I think youve hit the nail on the head!
Most people do dislike people who do believe alternative stories thinking that these people think themselves "above everyone else"

Thing is: we dont!

It's you lot, that think that, about us

You know like when you're a kid and someone says
"You think you're so pretty!"
And in your head you're going "Erm no...YOU think I'm so pretty!"

Hahahahaha just joking with ya


Edit: oh gawd, just realised I called didge, dodge
My iPad keeps changing it to the word
Sorry!

What if an official story is a lie and has impact on us, our society, the law, restricting freedoms, invading privacy, foreign policy etc...!?

Cuchulain wrote:

Eilzel wrote:

eddie wrote:

Hi les

I don't know how many  times I've said it but I will say it again.

I don't believe a lot of the official "stories" fed to us regarding 9/11 - and lots of others.
However.

That doesn't mean I necessarily believe EVERY story that says different either.

It means I remain open to looking at possibIlites - I've already heard or read most of the gumph put out by the powers that be thank you - so I will look elsewhere for answers.

Some, I don't believe, others I do

What you don't seem to realise is that you and dodge do the exact same things you accuse me of!!

Now the moon landing....never really looked into that tbh so can't comment

Actually I have no problem with people believing conspiracy theories. MY earlier post was just saying I think they go TOO far when they are given serious consideration in education, law and health issues.

As long as they don't start impacting on public health, influencing laws and policy, or interfering in education, then there isn't such a problem.

However, in terms of debate, the implication I get from you and tommy and others 'believers' (for want of a better word) is that you are somehow smarter for not believing the media- which makes no sense, you just accept one version of events (with arguably less evidence) over another.

The issue I take with many of the claims, is no matter if you show 2 or 3 of the claims to one conspiracy to be flawed, this is ignored and they just move onto another claim within the conspiracy, even though the ones who have shown to be flawed make the conspiracy fall apart.
Like I say the problem stems from the start for thse who buy conspiracies, because their starting position is one of distrust already for the Goverment. A paranoia has set in where they believe they have little to no control on their lives and that everythin is being orchestrated.
If that is the starting position then it is no wonder they easily straight away dismiss evidence.
Then anything that follows thier world view pattern is easily taken on board.
This has more to do with paranoia and fear than anything else.
Of course come sonspiracies have been seen to be true, but like I said like with 9/11 the major damning argument against it being a conspiracy is Edward Snowden. Here is a man that stole thousands of files to expose governements secrets. he would have not held back if 9/11 had been covered up. In fact he talks about 9./11 how intelligence was not taken seriously enough, but at no point does he claim it was all orchestrated.
It is things like this that they vitally ignore and he really puts a spanner in this claim.

Everything you just wrote: right back at you.

Don't you get it yet? Neither of us can prove it.

You
Wasn't
There

So all you're believing is other peoples stories!!!

eddie wrote:

Cuchulain wrote:

The issue I take with many of the claims, is no matter if you show 2 or 3 of the claims to one conspiracy to be flawed, this is ignored and they just move onto another claim within the conspiracy, even though the ones who have shown to be flawed make the conspiracy fall apart.
Like I say the problem stems from the start for thse who buy conspiracies, because their starting position is one of distrust already for the Goverment. A paranoia has set in where they believe they have little to no control on their lives and that everythin is being orchestrated.
If that is the starting position then it is no wonder they easily straight away dismiss evidence.
Then anything that follows thier world view pattern is easily taken on board.
This has more to do with paranoia and fear than anything else.
Of course come sonspiracies have been seen to be true, but like I said like with 9/11 the major damning argument against it being a conspiracy is Edward Snowden. Here is a man that stole thousands of files to expose governements secrets. he would have not held back if 9/11 had been covered up. In fact he talks about 9./11 how intelligence was not taken seriously enough, but at no point does he claim it was all orchestrated.
It is things like this that they vitally ignore and he really puts a spanner in this claim.

Everything you just wrote: right back at you.

Don't you get it yet? Neither of us can prove it.

You
Wasn't
There

So all you're believing is other peoples stories!!!

I do not have to be there off the last point I made Eddie.
Think about it, the one man who fled his country to expose the US goverment and stole thousands of secrets.
Why did none of them back your claim?

eddie wrote:Hmmm. I think youve hit the nail on the head!
Most people do dislike people who do believe alternative stories thinking that these people think themselves "above everyone else"

Thing is: we dont!

It's you lot, that think that, about us

You know like when you're a kid and someone says
"You think you're so pretty!"
And in your head you're going "Erm no...YOU think I'm so pretty!"

Hahahahaha just joking with ya


Edit: oh gawd, just realised I called didge, dodge
My iPad keeps changing it to the word
Sorry!

So when you say 'you believe everything you're fed' what you mean is? .....

And the whole 'you weren't there...' doesn't really wash overall. I mean, take Sandy Hook, what do you say, face to face with someone from that town who was there? What do you say, face to face with Buzz Aldrin? What do you, face to face with an al-Qaeda plotter of 9/11?

Do you tell them they are liars?

Of course you needn't worry about such scenarios- because they are all far far away and therefore those stories are open to flights of fancy

But if people take vaccine fears and start banning vaccines- we have a massive problem. If climate change deniers suddenly reverse measures to ease or control climate change, we have a problem. When creatonists do stop the teaching of correct science in schools, we have a problem.

Conspiracy theories should be confined to chit chat and forums and nothing more. Then it becomes damaging based on fantasy.

What if an official story is a lie and has impact on us And our society, changing the law, restricting freedoms, invading privacy, foreign policy etc...!?

Tommy Monk wrote:What if an official story is a lie and has impact on us And our society, changing the law, restricting freedoms, invading privacy, foreign policy etc...!?

Again explain why Edward Snowden would still hundreds of thousands of intelligence secrets, flee the country to tell the world and not back the 9/11 conspiracy?

Irrelevant waffle dodge...

Eilzel wrote:

eddie wrote:Hmmm. I think youve hit the nail on the head!
Most people do dislike people who do believe alternative stories thinking that these people think themselves "above everyone else"

Thing is: we dont!

It's you lot, that think that, about us

You know like when you're a kid and someone says
"You think you're so pretty!"
And in your head you're going "Erm no...YOU think I'm so pretty!"

Hahahahaha just joking with ya


Edit: oh gawd, just realised I called didge, dodge
My iPad keeps changing it to the word
Sorry!

So when you say 'you believe everything you're fed' what you mean is? .....

And  the whole 'you weren't there...' doesn't really wash overall. I mean, take Sandy Hook, what do you say, face to face with someone from that town who was there? What do you say, face to face with Buzz Aldrin? What do you, face to face with an al-Qaeda plotter of 9/11?

Do you tell them they are liars?

Of course you needn't worry about such scenarios- because they are all far far away and therefore those stories are open to flights of fancy

But if people take vaccine fears and start banning vaccines- we have a massive problem. If climate change deniers suddenly reverse measures to ease or control climate change, we have a problem. When creatonists do stop the teaching of correct science in schools, we have a problem.

Conspiracy theories should be confined to chit chat and forums and nothing more. Then it becomes damaging based on fantasy.

Firstly les I have never said ban all vaccines. I've said "don't give us unnecessary ones and make them safer"
Wouldn't you agree on that?

I'm not going into the rest of your post becaeue it's a bit irrelevant, and this is why:

Ive grown up hearing and listening to the news and media (always on in my house as a child) and being told a story then within a week the story has changed.
I've grown up being told butter is bad then it's good then it's bad....and you know what I know?
They don't really fucking know!!

Media makes up bollocks and mixes it with a bit of truth here. A dab of exaggeration there

The difference is with me, and I'm like this with everything (haven't you noticed?), is that I don't think anything is either black or white....but every shade of grey.

The truth about these events like 9/11, Sandy Hook, Al Quaeda, the moon landing...?

There the official truth
The alternative truth
And something in between

Shades of grey. Always. In events, and people, and every situation you read or see.

That's really,and exactly, where I sit.

Tommy Monk wrote:Irrelevant waffle dodge...

How can it be irrelevant Tommy?
He stole files to reveal to the world wrongs done by the US Goverment.
His intent was to expose the US Goverment.
It leaves your argument sunk.

Cuchulain wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:Irrelevant waffle dodge...

How can it be irrelevant Tommy?
He stole files to reveal to the world wrongs done by the US Goverment.
His intent was to expose the US Goverment.
It leaves your argument sunk.

Tell me Didge, when Hitler was in power, if someone had stolen his plans and exposed them to the world, would they have been wrong?

sassy wrote:

Cuchulain wrote:


How can it be irrelevant Tommy?
He stole files to reveal to the world wrongs done by the US Goverment.
His intent was to expose the US Goverment.
It leaves your argument sunk.

Tell me Didge, when Hitler was in power, if someone had stolen his plans and exposed them to the world, would they have been wrong?

People did know his plans and they did warn the world.
Stalin ignored the plans to ilnvade Russia for example, but then he was paranoid funnily enough.
So ayour argument has just fallen apart.
So why is it Snowden has not come out and stated 9/11 was a cover up?
The answer, because there was no cover up.
There certainly was inaction with intelligence known, of which he does go on about

eddie wrote:

Eilzel wrote:

So when you say 'you believe everything you're fed' what you mean is? .....

And  the whole 'you weren't there...' doesn't really wash overall. I mean, take Sandy Hook, what do you say, face to face with someone from that town who was there? What do you say, face to face with Buzz Aldrin? What do you, face to face with an al-Qaeda plotter of 9/11?

Do you tell them they are liars?

Of course you needn't worry about such scenarios- because they are all far far away and therefore those stories are open to flights of fancy

But if people take vaccine fears and start banning vaccines- we have a massive problem. If climate change deniers suddenly reverse measures to ease or control climate change, we have a problem. When creatonists do stop the teaching of correct science in schools, we have a problem.

Conspiracy theories should be confined to chit chat and forums and nothing more. Then it becomes damaging based on fantasy.

Firstly les I have never said ban all vaccines. I've said "don't give us unnecessary ones and make them safer"
Wouldn't you agree on that?

I'm not going into the rest of your post becaeue it's a bit irrelevant, and this is why:

Ive grown up hearing and listening to the news and media (always on in my house as a child) and being told a story then within a week the story has changed.
I've grown up  being told butter is bad then it's good then it's bad....and you know what I know?
They don't really fucking know!!

Media makes up bollocks and mixes it with a bit of truth here. A dab of exaggeration there

The difference is with me, and I'm like this with everything (haven't you noticed?), is that I don't think anything is either black or white....but every shade of grey.

The truth about these events like 9/11, Sandy Hook, Al Quaeda, the moon landing...?

There the official truth
The alternative truth
And something in between

Shades of grey. Always. In events, and people, and every situation you read or see.

That's really,and exactly, where I sit.

You don't say to ban vaccines- but too many would.

And I don't see the world in black in white- nor do most on this site I don't imagine (debate lovers rarely do do they?).

And of course there are those truths you mention- but ultimately there is one truth. Which we may never know. But one of those is closest to it. The thing I find difficult to understand is how can people can put more stock in conspiracies, with coincidences and incidental facts; as being on the same level as the general consensus, which questionable as it may be, has more going for it.

That makes the discussion interesting of course. But it remains baffling.

eddie wrote:

Eilzel wrote:

So when you say 'you believe everything you're fed' what you mean is? .....

And  the whole 'you weren't there...' doesn't really wash overall. I mean, take Sandy Hook, what do you say, face to face with someone from that town who was there? What do you say, face to face with Buzz Aldrin? What do you, face to face with an al-Qaeda plotter of 9/11?

Do you tell them they are liars?

Of course you needn't worry about such scenarios- because they are all far far away and therefore those stories are open to flights of fancy

But if people take vaccine fears and start banning vaccines- we have a massive problem. If climate change deniers suddenly reverse measures to ease or control climate change, we have a problem. When creatonists do stop the teaching of correct science in schools, we have a problem.

Conspiracy theories should be confined to chit chat and forums and nothing more. Then it becomes damaging based on fantasy.

Firstly les I have never said ban all vaccines. I've said "don't give us unnecessary ones and make them safer"
Wouldn't you agree on that?

I'm not going into the rest of your post becaeue it's a bit irrelevant, and this is why:

Ive grown up hearing and listening to the news and media (always on in my house as a child) and being told a story then within a week the story has changed.
I've grown up  being told butter is bad then it's good then it's bad....and you know what I know?
They don't really fucking know!!

Media makes up bollocks and mixes it with a bit of truth here. A dab of exaggeration there

The difference is with me, and I'm like this with everything (haven't you noticed?), is that I don't think anything is either black or white....but every shade of grey.

The truth about these events like 9/11, Sandy Hook, Al Quaeda, the moon landing...?

There the official truth
The alternative truth
And something in between

Shades of grey. Always. In events, and people, and every situation you read or see.

That's really,and exactly, where I sit.

And you are right to sit there. Few things are black and white. Some of the official stories on things I don't believe (JFK, Area 51, 9/11) others I do. Do they tell us the whole truth? of course not. Do they lie to us? Of course they do. The truth - is it really absolute? Or are we all in shades of grey?

I always liked an expression one of my college professors used all the time: "There are two ways to get through life without having to use your brain -- believe everything you hear, or don't believe anything you hear."

Well, regardless of what any of us are ultimately able to find out, there is unquestionably an absolute truth at the bottom of everything. Its hidden beneath all the messy newspaper clippings, TV broadcasts and endless websites full of drivel

Eilzel wrote:Well, regardless of what any of us are ultimately able to find out, there is unquestionably an absolute truth at the bottom of everything. Its hidden beneath all the messy newspaper clippings, TV broadcasts and endless websites full of drivel  

That's all I've been saying.

Trouble is, if you out an idea up on here - everyone thinks you've written it in your own blood!

And Les, I think there are one or two, who absolutely, and without a doubt, see things in only black or white.


@Ben, love that saying!! I know who I am!

eddie wrote:

Eilzel wrote:Well, regardless of what any of us are ultimately able to find out, there is unquestionably an absolute truth at the bottom of everything. Its hidden beneath all the messy newspaper clippings, TV broadcasts and endless websites full of drivel  

That's all I've been saying.

Trouble is, if you out an idea up on here - everyone thinks you've written it in your own blood!

And Les, I think there are one or two, who absolutely, and without a doubt, see things in only black or white.


@Ben, love that saying!! I know who I am!

You do realise that you have just made a claim to there being no point in teaching basically everything?
You say you "see things in black and white". You do realise that is a simplistic view of right and wrong or good and bad. I think Vic and myself go into great lenghts with our debates into the morals and ethics of many things. So you are confusing a phrase there Eddie and its meaning. I actually find it a tad insulting to be honest that you would claim the likes of me and some others who actually do look into great deapths about a great many things, because we are inquistors, ae close minded. The reality speaks otheriwse. Like I say with how I have really researched into religions to come to the conlusions I have or on history, which can be an open subject where new evidence comes into play. Though I have as well as others who have studied history a very good understanding of events which you can peice together. I will not come to know everything from an event, but I enjoy trying to piece all the cluess together.

All I have seen is where you have placed ideas and they have been challenged and even evidence offered that rebukes a claim, you do constantly ignore what has been presented to you and just move onto another claims. Its like I said, a postion you hold from the start has already persuaded your view on something. Now we certainly do not know everything, but we can at least piece together the evidence that we do know.
If we are to follow the pattern of not believeing any scientific findings for example, then are knowledge will only go backwards and not fowards. It is humanities abilitiy to strive for things that we once thought impossible and have made possible was achieved by believeing that we can.

Think about that Eddie.





I will leave you some studies on conspiracies which are interesting about the people:
















Encouragingly, Uscinski and Parent found that education makes a difference in reducing conspiratorial thinking: 42 percent of those without a high school diploma are high in conspiratorial predispositions, compared with 23 percent with postgraduate degrees. Even so, that means more than one in five Americans with postgraduate degrees show a high predisposition for conspiratorial belief. As an educator, I find this disturbing. Other factors are at work in creating a conspiratorial mind. Uscinski and Parent note that in laboratory experiments “researchers have found that inducing anxiety or loss of control triggers respondents to see nonexistent patterns and evoke conspiratorial explanations” and that in the real world “there is evidence that disasters (e.g., earthquakes) and other high-stress situations (e.g., job uncertainty) prompt people to concoct, embrace, and repeat conspiracy theories.”



A conspiracy theory, Uscinski and Parent explain, is defined by four characteristics: “(1) a group (2) acting in secret (3) to alter institutions, usurp power, hide truth, or gain utility (4) at the expense of the common good.” A content analysis of more than 100,000 letters to the New York Times in 121 years turned up three pages' worth of such conspirators, from Adolf Hitler and the African National Congress to the World Health Organization and Zionist villagers, catalogued into eight types: Left, Right, Communist, Capitalist, Government, Media, Foreign and Other (Freemasons, the AMA and even scientists). The common theme throughout is power—who has it and who wants it—and so the authors conclude their inquiry with an observation translated by Parent from Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince (a conspiracy manual of sorts), for “the strong desire to rule, and the weak desire not to be ruled.”



To those who so conspire, recall the motto of revolutionaries everywhere: sic semper tyrannis—thus always to tyrants.


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-people-believe-in-conspiracy-theories/

Didge I'm not reading your studies.
Sorry.

I'd rather listen your PoV than a book or a study or a blah blah

I've already done this to death now.
I've said all I can say and most of us believe that the truth lies somewhere in between.

If you want to stick all your proverbial truths into one basket....well that's your choice.

eddie wrote:Didge I'm not reading your studies.
Sorry.

I'd rather listen your PoV than a book or a study or a blah blah

I've already done this to death now.
I've said all I can say and most of us believe that the truth lies somewhere in between.

If you want to stick all your proverbial truths into one basket....well that's your choice.

Thatis fine Eddie, then instead just respond to my post, because you certainly did not read anything I wrote
Like I said I exhaust looking at evidence to come to conclusions, hence I find it poor you would think otheriwse

So again for you to respond to:

You do realise that you have just made a claim to there being no point in teaching basically everything?
You say you "see things in black and white". You do realise that is a simplistic view of right and wrong or good and bad. I think Vic and myself go into great lenghts with our debates into the morals and ethics of many things. So you are confusing a phrase there Eddie and its meaning. I actually find it a tad insulting to be honest that you would claim the likes of me and some others who actually do look into great deapths about a great many things, because we are inquistors, ae close minded. The reality speaks otheriwse. Like I say with how I have really researched into religions to come to the conlusions I have or on history, which can be an open subject where new evidence comes into play. Though I have as well as others who have studied history a very good understanding of events which you can peice together. I will not come to know everything from an event, but I enjoy trying to piece all the cluess together.

All I have seen is where you have placed ideas and they have been challenged and even evidence offered that rebukes a claim, you do constantly ignore what has been presented to you and just move onto another claims. Its like I said, a postion you hold from the start has already persuaded your view on something. Now we certainly do not know everything, but we can at least piece together the evidence that we do know.
If we are to follow the pattern of not believeing any scientific findings for example, then are knowledge will only go backwards and not fowards. It is humanities abilitiy to strive for things that we once thought impossible and have made possible was achieved by believeing that we can.

Think about that Eddie.

No didge
I said I DO NOT see things in black and white - that was the crux of everything I've said


Honestly? I'm done with this now

The truth lies somewhere out of our knowledge

eddie wrote:No didge
I said I DO NOT see things in black and white - that was the crux of everything I've said


Honestly? I'm done with this now

The truth lies somewhere out of our knowledge

The phrase was used out of context to what you were implying to others. As seen I have pointed this out.
Look it seems clear to me you do not want to engage the points I made.
I am fine with that

Cuchulain wrote:

eddie wrote:No didge
I said I DO NOT see things in black and white - that was the crux of everything I've said


Honestly? I'm done with this now

The truth lies somewhere out of our knowledge

The phrase was used out of context to what you were implying to others. As seen I have pointed this out.
Look it seems clear to me you do not want to engage the points I made.
I am fine with that

I do hope so Dodge because your deliberate misunderstanding and lying about what posters have said
really boring now.
You have admitted you only come her to let of steam so why should we have to endure your fuckwittery?
Cant you take up one way long distance running?

Nems wrote:

Cuchulain wrote:


The phrase was used out of context to what you were implying to others. As seen I have pointed this out.
Look it seems clear to me you do not want to engage the points I made.
I am fine with that

I do hope so Dodge because your deliberate misunderstanding and lying about what posters have said
really boring now.
You have admitted you only come her to let of steam so why should we have to endure your fuckwittery?
Cant you take up one way long distance running?

Yes thanks for that post which had utterly no relevance to the actual debate Nems.
Yes at times I do let off steam on here, so what?
I debate more posts than many on here and is it not funny how inflap since I left is slowly dying and that many have come over here again?
So what you are saying is you want me to leave then Nems.
I take as praise , where you wish to silence opposition to your views.

So do you wish this to descend into a spat or would you like this to continue in a debate?

Eilzel wrote:

eddie wrote:

Hi les

I don't know how many  times I've said it but I will say it again.

I don't believe a lot of the official "stories" fed to us regarding 9/11 - and lots of others.
However.

That doesn't mean I necessarily believe EVERY story that says different either.

It means I remain open to looking at possibIlites - I've already heard or read most of the gumph put out by the powers that be thank you - so I will look elsewhere for answers.

Some, I don't believe, others I do

What you don't seem to realise is that you and dodge do the exact same things you accuse me of!!

Now the moon landing....never really looked into that tbh so can't comment

Actually I have no problem with people believing conspiracy theories. MY earlier post was just saying I think they go TOO far when they are given serious consideration in education, law and health issues.

As long as they don't start impacting on public health, influencing laws and policy, or interfering in education, then there isn't such a problem.

However, in terms of debate, the implication I get from you and tommy and others 'believers' (for want of a better word) is that you are somehow smarter for not believing the media- which makes no sense, you just accept one version of events (with arguably less evidence) over another.

So nothing can be a conspiracy according you then lol

I'd like for someone to explain to me how any government or other group could manage to control or dupe every noteworthy news organization in the world.

Some people in important positions are on the payroll... and I don't mean just paid by the news organisations...

Ben, that's been one of my points on this in the past- countries like Russia and China in particular have plenty of reason to undermine US or western news sources or government lies. Yet on all these issues they never have.

Ben_Reilly wrote:I'd like for someone to explain to me how any government or other group could manage to control or dupe every noteworthy news organization in the world.

how could 6 control enough media to dupe the world


so the explanation is buy shares in rivals until they own enough to control rival

the question should be, How did 6 media tycoon/tyrants get to control 90% plus of the western media outlets?

Owning those companies and controlling them enough to cover up a vast conspiracy are two different things, though.

Think of the media that poured into the greater NYC area after the 9/11 attacks -- thousands of journalists asking eye-witnesses, authorities, checking out the aftermath for themselves, and most importantly, giving live, running commentary that couldn't possibly have been censored.

It would be so hard for anyone to control all of that, and then, as the kicker, we're expected to believe that the group that pulled it off was the Bush administration?

Eilzel wrote:Ben, that's been one of my points on this in the past- countries like Russia and China in particular have plenty of reason to undermine US or western news sources or government lies. Yet on all these issues they never have.  

Exactly -- and in the case of our countries' governments, we also have the rival parties with all the incentive to dig up dirt on one another.

the only realistic 9/11 conspiracy is that the CIA/gov't knew about it before hand and decide not to act. for the purpose of false flag operations.

the idea they planned it i think is unrealistic largely because they wouldn't have to, it's not like there isn't millions of individuals in the world that would have done it if they could. All it would take is not 'following up' reports of suspicions like the 'training to fly but not to land' etc.

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Eilzel wrote:Ben, that's been one of my points on this in the past- countries like Russia and China in particular have plenty of reason to undermine US or western news sources or government lies. Yet on all these issues they never have.  

Exactly -- and in the case of our countries' governments, we also have the rival parties with all the incentive to dig up dirt on one another.

Except that in reality they are both on the same side... putting on a show...!!!



And veya, yes quite possibly, or were involved in the set up but masquerading as AL Q...

Tommy Monk wrote:

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Eilzel wrote:Ben, that's been one of my points on this in the past- countries like Russia and China in particular have plenty of reason to undermine US or western news sources or government lies. Yet on all these issues they never have.  

Exactly -- and in the case of our countries' governments, we also have the rival parties with all the incentive to dig up dirt on one another.

Except that in reality they are both on the same side... putting on a show...!!!



And veya, yes quite possibly, or were involved in the set up but masquerading as AL Q...

Except that in reality, the claim they're just putting on a show is unsupported by any evidence and contradicted daily.

veya_victaous wrote:the only realistic 9/11 conspiracy is that the CIA/gov't knew about it before hand and decide not to act. for the purpose of false flag operations.

the idea they planned it i think is unrealistic largely because they wouldn't have to, it's not like there isn't millions of individuals in the world that would have done it if they could. All it would take is not 'following up' reports of suspicions like the 'training to fly but not to land' etc.

Now, there is evidence that the Bush administration didn't take AQ seriously as a threat. If you wanted to run with that you could conjecture that they purposely did nothing, but that's also attributing something to malice when it was probably just incompetence.

In this specific case, I think Bush was so intent on getting into a conflict with Iraq that he wasn't paying attention to AQ. This would at least fit with how clumsily the administration jammed the Iraq invasion into the war on terror.

I think Veya is nearer the Mark than you Ben.

Edit I don't mean a man called Mark. No idea how a cap got there lol

eddie wrote:I think Veya is nearer the Mark than you Ben.

Edit I don't mean a man called Mark. No idea how a cap got there lol

The problem is that Veya's explanation requires a lot of people to be working together to knowingly allow a horrible attack on their country, whereas my explanation only requires their attention to be deficient so that they unknowingly allowed a horrible attack on their country. I think that makes my explanation more plausible.

Except the CIA has done a lot worse than that to US citizens in the past.

Also is assumes they recognize nations and not their own corporate oligarchy as leadership. Being as US citizen doesn't necessarily make you 'one of them' from their perspective

Not even most need to be working together, just a couple 'handling' a specific threat. letting it fall through the cracks in the bureaucracy.

I would assume if this were real that Bush is just a pawn.

As I said in another thread is is very strange that we cant defeat ISIS when they are only a fraction of Saddam's army.

I don't necessarily think that it is true just that it is possible. Like you say easily could be incompetence instead of malice, but then why go into Iraq and then why stop the military intervention when genocidal religious fanatics start taking over