Conspiracy theories, in themselves, are normally of little political use, as they can neither be proven or disproven with hard evidence. They are also usually complex, convoluted connect-the-dots schemes that therefore circulate among small, closed groups. They can only become useful when they are aimed at our political enemies - remember them? - and are believed by a large number of people (a requirement useful for politics :-). For that they have to meet two conditions: they must be conceptually simple, and they must be topical. Oh, and a third: they must blame our political enemies with the aim of corroding trust in the political regime.
Whether they are "true" or not is besides the point, since conspiracy theories are by definition impossible to prove or disprove. They are only to be believed or disbelieved.
The current topic since 911 is "international terrorism" and I submit that these latest spate of bombings in both Turkey and Saudi Arabia, as well as certain bombings in Bagdad, are to laid at the doorstep of agents of Israel or the United States - and/or the Saudis, separately or together. As well as 911 itself - why not? It is classic agent provocateur tactics in operation here, as they were in one of the best documented cases: the Pinochet coup in Chile. The difference is that the present operations are on a world scale. Next: bombs go off in Japan. It's too peaceful there.
This also has the side benefit of avoiding the fall into the trap of Al Qaeda apologetics, since the theory says that this reactionary group (of US/Saudi origin) didn't do 911 or these recent bombings. This reminds us that the left version of the 'counter-conspiracy' theory hinges itself precisely on this reactionary nature: Al Qaeda dosn't care about killing innocent or the wrong people, because they are reactionary. But this is just a theory, like the conspiracy theory it seeks to counter. As such, it is also a matter of belief, not "proof".
But it fails in one crucial respect: it doesn't focus on our main enemies. "Islamic" or religious fundamentalism is certainly an enemy, but it is hardly the number one enemy. Christian and Jewish fundamentalist are actually more dangerous opponents - they have more nukes, for instance. But even these aren't the main enemy.
Minimal criteria for gauging the political success of a conspiracy theory can be found in the now moribund JFK conspiracy theory thread. Eventually this theory generated both a major Hollywood film (Oliver Stone), and a sustained corporate media campaign against it. When Newsweek has to repeatedly rebut the theory that Sharon and Cheney are behind the terror bombings on the front cover of their magazine, then we know the agent provocateur theory is making progress in undermining trust in this regime they are trying to ram down our throats.
Note the key difference between agent provocateur terrorism and bonafide terrorism (in which category I include political assasination): the bonafides actually target their percieved enemies, as do the Palestinian and Iraqi suicide bombers for example. In this case we support the movement, but not the tactics. Except for the British embassy bombing, none of the recent spate meet these criterion, as does not the so-called "Al Qaeda" email. Oh well, (in a converse example) the Algerian resistance to the French wasn't perfect, either. More examples are given in the excerpt from an email dicussion on this topic below.
Of course the 'respectable' Left - with its own individual publishing and minor celebrity careers uppermost in mind, as always - doesn't like to soil itself with such disreputable filth. But that's just par for the course for the Savonarola Left, which generally refuses to "fight dirty" with our sworn political enemies. That's one reason why they never get anywhere.
Finally, Pug & Chip need not apply here, since they are the ones who have the explaining to do for their dogmatic, knee-jerk refusal to blame our enemies. Why NOT blame Sharon and Cheney? ----------------------------- ....
As well as the FTAA demos in Miami, where the cops did their usual rioting.
Another way of putting it is: what interest would Jihadi terrorists have in driving the Turkish regime (particularly the military) back into the arms of the US, when from what one would assume would be their own point of view, they had already achieved an important goal in the Turkish Islamicist goverment's refusal to participate in the US invasion of Iraq?
Otherwise, one would have to conclude that the jihadi terrorists _want_ a Turkish intervention in Iraq, against the Kurds of course, to heat up the situation in Iraq further as the puppet Iraqi Council also opposes Turkish intervention, and that they want this at the price of undermining the Turkish Islamicist government. Said intervention does not logically follow from the bombings, but neither did the US invasion of Iraq follow from 911.
Or else we are supposed to conclude, as we are being asked to conclude, that "the terrorists" are just a bunch of blood-thirsty lunatics killing "their own" people, because "that's just the way they are". But classical terrorism never deliberately took aim at what it perceived as "its own": the narodniki killed the Russian Czar, not peasants, the Serbian student killed the Austrian Archduke, not Serbs, the anarchist killed MicKinley, not other anarchists, and the famous iron tailings cart bomb in NYC in 1912(?) was parked in front of the New York Stock Exchange and JP Morgans' bank building on Wall Street, not in the Lower East Side. But how come Sharon is never a target?
Real terrorists go after their perceived enemies. Chechens went after Russians, not other Chechens - which reminds me that even in this case, there is strong evidence that the KGB (which means Putin) was behind those Moscow apartment bombings that helped launch the all out Russian offensive on Grozny. It even appeared in the US press, briefly.
Yes, these and the last Saudi bombing - which "luckily" killed Arabs and
Moslems - look all too convenient. If this keeps up, we'll know Cheney, etc. was behind 911.
Too bad all of this is of no political use without hard evidence. Unless you can get most of the world to believe it and act on that belief. In which case I will also "believe" - even if it weren't true - because this belief _harms our enemies_.
-Brad