Conspiracy Theory Part two

In Conspiracy Theory part one I looked at classification of conspiracy theories and here I look at event conspiracies and some rules for evaluating a conspiracy theory with especial reference to 9/11.

  it I is not irrational to believe governments will sacrifice some of their citizens in order to get policies accepted that would otherwise be unenforcable. The Northwood Document, which escaped shredding by human error, shows the CIA planned an atrocity to be attributed to Cuba in order to manipulate public opinion, and in “Spycatcher” Peter Wright describes unofficial plans within MI5 for a plot against then Prime Minister Harold Wilson, which he reported to the then director, who apparently squashed it successfully for there is no record of such a plot in the official files. The zeal with which Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher trued to get the book banned only fuelled the belief in the plot.

On a less lethal level policy laundering is common, where a government will lobby for a policy it's citizens would find unacceptable to be accepted as an internationally binding regulation and then 'regretfully' tell their citizens they have no choice but to accept the new rules. The UK government has been especially active in policy laundering and many believe they lobbied for many policies at the behest of the US government. The only comfort I can take from this is to wonder why the US government wanted the EU to mandate straight bananas. There have also been serious suggestions that the UK Independence party which is dedicated to pulling the UK out of the EU was funded and indeed created by the CIA in order to split the UK from the EU.

The wikipedia entry on conspiracy theory given in part one acknowledges the existence of Event Conspiracies noting that political and economic leaders have sometimes engaged in conspiracies at the same time promoting conspiracy theories about their targets and that some claims dismissed as conspiracy theories later proved to be true, but notes that Systemic Conspiracies have been rejected by historian Bruce Cumings.

Since SOME conspiracy theories are true and no conspiracy theory is totally irrational the investigators needs some guidelines to anchor themselves via this mixed metaphor, to reality. There are a number of criteria that may prove helpful.

As an example here is a preliminary analysis of that contested event September 11^th

Stupidity is more likely than Malice

The conspiracy theory explains events better than the offiicial theory

It is unclear who benefited. though many people made money selling airline shares just before the event and I read some of these trades were traced to high levels in the CIA, though I have not seen the evidence and jhave to treat this with care.

The conspiratorial argument seems founded on evidence and logic

The official theory matches the psychology of the alleged hijackers

The conspiracy theory matches what is known of alleged conspirators if the alleged conspirators were unknown but highly placed members of the administration.

I cannot see what would falsify the conspiracy theory other than discovery and revelation of the plans for the event which can be independently verified.

It is falsifiable – see point 6

Many proponents have no vested interest, and have indeed suffered. Some like Jim Marrs, made money from books on the event. Incidentally He was taken to hospital for an injury to his knee  and died from a blood clot int he heart a few hours later.

9/11 and 7/7 in the UK both occurred on the day a security drill was taking place designed to test response to the disaster that actually happened. MY take on this is either that the authorities were involved,  there was a massive cockup in the drill, or that  the security forces  had less ability to keep things secret than a sive has to hold water.

The preliminary analysis does not allow decision either way.

As an aside there were, apparently, far fewer people than normal in the towers the planes struck. Long ago a psychologist called Cox analysed the records of plane crashes and found that trains that crashed were emptier than usual and that the cariages most affected were also unusually empty. Perhaps this is evidence of collective unconscious psychic ability

In later hubs I hope to look at some other conspiracy theories. The theories I mention will not necessarily reflect my views