http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/06/20/conspiracy-theory/
June 20 2011
Foreign Policy Journal
Conspiracy Theory
Paul Craig Roberts
While we were not watching, conspiracy theory has undergone Orwellian redefinition.
A “conspiracy theory” no longer means an event explained by a conspiracy. Instead, it now means any explanation, or even a fact, that is out of step with the government’s explanation and that of its media pimps.
For example, online news broadcasts of RT have been equated with conspiracy theories by the New York Times simply because RT reports news and opinions that the New York Times does not report and the US government does not endorse.
In other words, as truth becomes uncomfortable for government and its Ministry of Propaganda, truth is redefined as conspiracy theory, by which is meant an absurd and laughable explanation that we should ignore.
When piles of carefully researched books, released government documents, and testimony of eye witnesses made it clear that Oswald was not President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, the voluminous research, government documents, and verified testimony was dismissed as “conspiracy theory.”
In other words, the truth of the event was unacceptable to the authorities and to the Ministry of Propaganda that represents the interests of authorities.
The purest example of how Americans are shielded from truth is the media’s (including many Internet sites’) response to the large number of professionals who find the official explanation of September 11, 2001, inconsistent with everything they, as experts, know about physics, chemistry, structural engineering, architecture, fires, structural damage, the piloting of airplanes, the security procedures of the United States, NORAD’s capabilities, air traffic control, airport security, and other matters. These experts, numbering in the thousands, have been shouted down by know-nothings in the media who brand the experts as “conspiracy theorists.”
This despite the fact that the official explanation endorsed by the official media is the most extravagant conspiracy theory in human history.
Let’s take a minute to re-acquaint ourselves with the official explanation, which is not regarded as a conspiracy theory despite the fact that it comprises an amazing conspiracy. The official truth is that a handful of young Muslim Arabs who could not fly airplanes, mainly Saudi Arabians who came neither from Iraq nor from Afghanistan, outwitted not only the CIA and the FBI, but also all 16 US intelligence agencies and all intelligence agencies of US allies including Israel’s Mossad, which is believed to have penetrated every terrorist organization and which carries out assassinations of those whom Mossad marks as terrorists.
In addition to outwitting every intelligence agency of the United States and its allies, the handful of young Saudi Arabians outwitted the National Security Council, the State Department, NORAD, airport security four times in the same hour on the same morning, air traffic control, caused the US Air Force to be unable to launch interceptor aircraft, and caused three well-built steel-structured buildings, including one not hit by an airplane, to fail suddenly in a few seconds as a result of limited structural damage and small, short-lived, low-temperature fires that burned on a few floors.
The Saudi terrorists were even able to confound the laws of physics and cause WTC building seven to collapse at free fall speed for several seconds, a physical impossibility in the absence of explosives used in controlled demolition.
The story that the government and the media have told us amounts to a gigantic conspiracy, really a script for a James Bond film. Yet, anyone who doubts this improbable conspiracy theory is defined into irrelevance by the obedient media.
Anyone who believes an architect, structural engineer, or demolition expert who says that the videos show that the buildings are blowing up, not falling down, anyone who believes a Ph.D. physicist who says that the official explanation is inconsistent with known laws of physics, anyone who believes expert pilots who testify that non-pilots or poorly-qualified pilots cannot fly airplanes in such maneuvers, anyone who believes the 100 or more first responders who testify that they not only heard explosions in the towers but personally experienced explosions, anyone who believes University of Copenhagen nano-chemist Niels Harrit who reports finding unreacted nano-thermite in dust samples from the WTC towers, anyone who is convinced by experts instead of by propaganda is dismissed as a kook.
In America today, and increasingly throughout the Western world, actual facts and true explanations have been relegated to the realm of kookiness. Only people who believe lies are socially approved and accepted as patriotic citizens.
Indeed, a writer or newscaster is not even permitted to report the findings of 9/11 skeptics. In other words, simply to report Professor Harrit’s findings now means that you endorse them or agree with them. Everyone in the US print and TV media knows that he/she will be instantly fired if they report Harrit’s findings, even with a laugh. Thus, although Harrit has reported his findings on European television and has lectured widely on his findings in Canadian universities, the fact that he and the international scientific research team that he led found unreacted nano-thermite in the WTC dust and have offered samples to other scientists to examine has to my knowledge never been reported in the American media.
Even Internet sites on which I am among the readers’ favorites will not allow me to report on Harrit’s findings.
As I reported earlier, I myself had experience with a Huffington Post reporter who was keen to interview a Reagan presidential appointee who was in disagreement with the
Republican wars in the Middle East. After he published the interview that I provided at his request, he was terrified to learn that I had reported findings of 9/11 investigators.
To protect his career, he quickly inserted on the online interview that my views on the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions could be dismissed as I had reported unacceptable findings about 9/11.
The unwillingness or inability to entertain any view of 9/11 different from the official view dooms to impotence many Internet sites that are opposed to the wars and to the rise of the domestic US police state. These sites, for whatever the reasons, accept the government’s explanation of 9/11; yet, they try to oppose the “war on terror” and the police state which are the consequences of accepting the government’s explanation. Trying to oppose the consequences of an event whose explanation you accept is an impossible task.
If you believe that America was attacked by Muslim terrorists and is susceptible to future attacks, then a “war on terror” and a domestic police state to root out terrorists become necessary to make Americans safe. The idea that a domestic police state and open-ended war might be more dangerous threats to Americans than terrorists is an impermissible thought.
A country whose population has been trained to accept the government’s word and to shun those who question it is a country without liberty in its future.
Paul Craig Roberts was an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration.
PCR has a follow-up article up on conspiracies:
http://www.vdare.com/roberts/110703_conspiracies.htm
Ends with the line, 'Even the event Americans celebrate on July 4 was a conspiracy and was regarded as such by the British government and American colonials who remained loyal to King George. If we don’t believe in conspiracies, why do we celebrate one on July 4?'
A nice variation on Prof. Fetzer's 'what would Shakespeare have written about but for conspiracies against the kings and queens of England?'
No big deal, blogger software no doubt.
Sorry about that, fellist. My mistake. I will try to post them in order.
Obviously, the two comments above were entered in reverse order to that which they appear, my comment being based on PCR's article.
It's worth pointing out that the only site to publish all of PCR's articles is Vdare.com. Vdare is principally concerned with the global race-replacement of White peoples issue, but because police state, economic and geopolitical questions form part and parcel of that issue — no mass immivasion / little requirement for a police state, no universalist anti-Western-particularism here / little justification for disrespecting cultural-particularism in non-Western target nations — they also publish writers like PCR and Chuck Baldwin who have that focus.
Not to say PCR doesn't occasionally focus on the ethnic part of the war against the West. See, for example, "What WHAMs need to know about Affrimative Action":
http://www.vdare.com/roberts/whams.htm
"If you are a white heterosexual able-bodied male (WHAM), you need to understand that affirmative action is not about leveling a playing field. It is about leveling you."
"You need to comprehend, also, that you are already pretty much leveled. Even the most recent immigrant from the Third World arrives in the U.S. with more legal rights than you or your sons have."
Whether Western anti-war, anti-empire advocates can get anywhere respecting the ethnic sensitivities of non-Western target nations while continuing to tolerate and even encourage the dispossession and passivity of the Empire's first, native subject ethnicities I rather doubt. We might more easily be persuaded that it's moral to respect the sovereignty of other nations and cultures when these rights are also offered to us.
Why do you want to make everything out to be a conspiracy. Can't you just believe the facts and evidence as they were truly examined and presented? People who want there to be conspiracies about events in history have the same common denominator: attacking the obvious truth and overwhelming evidence. Without any proof of their own or evidence of their own to prove contrary to the obvious deductions of the investigators. Can't you just believe things happen in life to people. If you had a car accident where your loved ones were injured, would you not want to know who caused the accident. If someone then came up to you and said the accident was planed and said some other person caused the accident when you very well knew who really did it, would you believe the fabricator of false and childish accusations without him really knowing what really happened and who wasn't even there at the scene? Do you believe every thing your child tells you? Then if you do then that is foolish thought. Conspiracy makers: stop fabricating stories without evidence, you never give any true proof about anything. A child wants to make up stories about things. Put aside your assumptions and bias and misconceptions for what ever motives or agendas you might have, and truly research the facts and evidence and testimonies about an event and consider all the facts and weigh them, then come to a reasonable conclusion based on thus. People are not flawless and people do bad things to others with wrong motives. It would serve to make you look more intelligent and people of integrity to do things in the right way. Don't be like the child who always called wolf. Believe it or not you might be able to sway some people's minds but the majority see right through you. The only difference is that they just ignore you and will not give into your whims. A parent does not give in to a spoiled brat. The reasons I believe why conspiracy tellers parade around with their unsupported accusations is pride, a desire to have attention, a desire to have followers, a desire to control and a desire of monetary gain.
Thanks for posting Paul Craig Roberts' column. He's America's most insightful columnist the most ignored by our country's purblind elite