The putdown “You’re not a conspiracy theorist?” has had its day

It’s usually an excuse for not doing homework. As to the events of Sept. 11th, it’s those who cling to the “official story theory” that have a lot of explaining to do, not those raising many, many troubling questions

Dateline: Monday, March 04, 2002

The use of the term "conspiracy theory" is highly problematic, notwithstanding its being so widely tossed about, always accompanied by a rolling of the eyes, etc. It's high time that the illegitimacy of this term is exposed.

Let’s take the first word first: conspiracy.

[a] There are such things as conspiracies, large and small. Conspiracy is recognized in law as a crime. There's "conspiracy to defraud," "conspiracy to commit murder," and so on. Individuals are charged and found guilty of conspiracy charges every day.

[b] People seem to have forgotten about some of the really large conspiracies. For example, the Holocaust. A small number of Nazis, in secret, lay plans to deceive everyone possible about their plans - executed all too successfully - to exterminate 6-million Jews. And also, let us not forget, millions of Communists and socialists (the only two groups that consistently saw through Hitler during his entire rise and consistently opposed him). As well as Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, homosexuals, Slavs and others.

[c] There's an uncomplicated definition of conspiracy. It's when a small group, operating in secret, plan actions which harm the public interest. This not only happens, but happens frequently, on small and large scales. In my series “What Really Happened on Sept. 11th?” I spelled out a few, including “Operation Northwoods,” the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the Kuwaiti incubator babies who never died at the hands of Iraqi soldiers. The word "conspiracy" is not tainted. It is not rhetorical.

[d] The fact that there are people who hold theories outlandish on the face of them (that there’s a secret society at the centre of the earth, that aliens walk among us, that there remains an underwater city called Atlantis) in no way disproves the existence of evidence-based conspiracies, past and present. As in all areas, one must use one’s faculties to sort the wheat from the chaff, not blindly assert all is chaff. To so blindly assert is demeaning of the intellectual process. This is where the homework must begin. An unthinking, unquestioning, under-informed populace is at extra risk of being deceived about the most important, life-and-death issues.

[e] By the way, the question “Who benefits?” is terribly important in all this. For instance, who would benefit from the phrase “You can’t fight City Hall” being widely used? Well, the folks at City Hall, because the phrase is demoralizing and defeatist. Who benefits from the putdown phrase “You’re not a conspiracy theorist, are you?”? That’s right, people who are conspiring.

Now take the word theory:

[a] There are such things as theories. Theorizing is a key tool in the scientific method, and indeed is used by all of us in our everyday lives, also.

[b] Theorizing consists - when we face something puzzling - of marshalling as many already-known facts as possible, to see which combination of these best explains the puzzle.

[c] At any given time one theory will generally be held most promising. Its position among competing theories will change as more facts are brought to bear.

Now put the words together: conspiracy theory.

[a] This term, combining these two uncontroversial words, should be used without fear or favour as a descriptive term. It is demeaning and anti-intellectual to accompany its use with rolling of eyes, certain tones of voice, etc. as a putdown of any person who brings forward a theory that there is, or may be, a conspiracy in connection with a particular event or series of events.

[b] Turning now specifically to the events of Sept. 11th, the official narrative (one bad guy and his network did it; the whole of the U.S. military, intelligence and political establishment was caught totally off guard) surely must be classified as a theory, albeit one promoted by the largest propaganda effort in world history.

It is incumbent on all those who hold to this theory, no matter how large their number, to attempt to explain not just some, but all of the following:

- Why did no USAF interceptors move a wheel until it was too late to defend anything?

- Why did the defensive capabilities built into the White House not kick in, when a large menacing aircraft known at the time to be on a suicide mission flew directly over the White House?

- Why was there was insider trading in United and American Airlines stock prior to the events of Sept. 11th?

- How it can be ruled out that the long and closely-knit activities of the CIA and U.S. special forces with the Al-Quaeda and other terrorist groups and individuals was not relevant to the events of Sept 11th?

- Why was George Bush videotaped "first hearing the news" at 9:05 on Sept 11th when there's plenty of evidence - including his own words - that he knew of major trouble previously?

- Putting aside for a moment the matter of what he knew and when he knew it, why did he, once he indubitably and irrevocably and certainly knew at 9:05 - as the world has seen in the famous video - after his chief of staff Andew Card informed him of at least the second plane, why did he at Booker Elementary School continue to listen to a student talk about her pet goat, and so on for 25 more minutes?

- Why, for hours later that day, did he do nothing relevant to the events?

- Why did he not vigorously push, shortly after, for a full investigation of the USAF failure, the CIA failure and other associated failures?

- Why has he shown no interest to this day in full investigation?

- Why instead, to this day, is he asking that investigation into the events of Sept. 11th be LIMITED!

- What are we to make of the evidence that a war by the USA against Afghanistan was discussed and planned up to four years ago?

- What to make of the fact that leading members of the Bush administration have long and deep interests in the oil reserves of the world, the last of which are in the area of Afghanistan?

- Why should the tried-and-true test of detectives about means, motive and opportunity not be applied to the crimes of Sept 11th?

- What might be the relevance of the fact that Zbigniew Brzezinski, a prime security advisor to a series of US presidents including the incumbent, states in his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard (page 36) that "the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being."?

- Why has Osama bin Laden gone so mysteriously missing? Why did Donald Rumsfeld suggest - at the time the war on Afghanistan was just getting underway - "We may never find bin Laden"? Why has no credible evidence of bin Laden's connection to the events of Sept 11th yet been put forward by the U.S. administration?

- Why has the "war on terrorism" been seized by the Bush administration to roll back civil liberties, push for an obscene boost in military spending, push for an illogical investment in the missile shield [which has to be very far from part of an alleged war on terrorism, unless terrorists are floating around in space]?

- Is the resumption of the poppy crop in Afghanistan related to all this in any way [one thing the Taliban had done was end poppy planting]?

- Why haven’t US authorities, including the FBI, attempted to this day to deny that a member of Pakistani intelligence (ISI) wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta - the lead hijacker - shortly before Sept. 11th?

- Why, in that connection, we should not consider it relevant that the CIA and ISI have worked hand-in-glove for years?

- Why, further in that connection, should we not discuss the allegation publicly made more than once that the CIA essentially has run the ISI?

Let me add that this list by no means exhausts the highly relevant and troubling questions that can, and must, be pursued for the public good, in the USA and everywhere. Several websites contain compilations of questions. One of the best is www.whatreallyhappened.com .

Now, if anyone feels that one or other or some combination of these questions points in a direction that the reader finds ridiculous or too “far out,” that person still has an intellectual responsibility to ponder the other facts and questions. And also to ponder these facts and questions collectively.

Say your neighbour, trying to help you, says he saw several suspicious goings-on around your house while you were away. One of these you know not to be suspicious, but normal. Would you nevertheless dismiss all the other goings-on he’s telling you about? -

- The facts and questions based upon them are only a few of those needing yet to be addressed. Not by me or others already addressing them, and the many more to address, which I and others are working on. -

No, these are only a few of the facts and questions that need to be addressed by anyone who - rather than deal with the above - simply states that to even raise these facts and questions is to be "a conspiracy theorist."

I think the shoe finally is on the other foot. Anyone continuing to place his or her faith in the official story of the events of Sept 11th, must, so far as I can see, be:

- An "incompetence theorist," or

- A "coincidence theorist."

These are the theories that are most in need of defence. I’m willing to challenge anyone to defend them. Where’s the evidence for coincidence? Where’s the evidence for incompetence? Where’s the admission by anyone ­ from low station to high ­ that he or she had the phone off the hook, was in the shower, hadn’t had enough coffee to be awake, was having computer problems? -

- The phrases “incompetence theorist” and “coincidence theorist” too could be accompanied by eye-rolling, but I don’t intend to engage in that kind of arguing (the old eye-roll argument). -

- This response to one SG correspondent, who labelled me a “conspiracy theorist” has turned into an essay. I would challenge the correspondent and any ready also to apply the term to me as a putdown, to e-mail me with your defense of your own theory about the events, be it the incompetence theory, the coincidence theory, or some other theory. That will be helpful, because then people who peruse our correspondence will be able to compare the different theories to determine which is most persuasive.

#3 - As to the "quest for objectivity," let's dispose of the pernicious fiction of objectivity once and for all, shall we?

There never has been an objective painting painted, an objective sculpture sculpted, or an objective news story written. Selection alone (why write a given story, rather than a trillion other stories that could be written in the same time and place?) alone proves this.

All of us, all the time, from the time we're born, are necessarily subjective. This is the floor, the starting point. All claims of objectivity are not only bogus, but objectionable, pernicious.

As New York Times writer Tom Wicker observed in the 60s when there was a fad called "advocacy journalism:"

"Objectivity in journalism is advocacy for the status quo."

The "quest for objectivity" is as doomed as a quest for beauty, and will be less productive.

Readers, I need your subjective response. There's an urgent need for greater understanding and no time to waste. As H. G. Wells said: “History is a race between education and destruction.”

E-mail: bzwicker@sympatico.ca

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Reprinted for fair use only