What the "Media" Won't Tell You!

New at Reason: What are the lessons of the Saddam conspiracy theories?

Comments

[Dylan]

That's so sane, it shouldn't even be allowed near the Internet. Nice little ditty, Tim.

[Mike Force]

There's a theory for every piece of good news from Iraq. As time goes on, the crackpots devise plots so far beyond belief that it seems as if they must be receiving them from France via the fillings in their teeth.

Because we all know the left values intelligence above all (especially courage, honor, duty), there can be only one explantion?they're all paranoid schizophrenics.

[Stephen Fetchet]

The lessons of the conspiracy theories are simple: for Bush enemies, nothing that Bush does, or the Executive Branch he leads accomplishes, can be allowed to be termed successful.

The Dems have to keep the "miserable failure" meme alive for domestic political purposes. If "miserable failure" doesn't stick, then the "base and corrupt politics" charges - see e.g. Enron, Halliburton, "plastic" turkey - might stick. Quite likely, Saddam conspiracy theories are more attractive than corruption charges to Dems, whose own party was also awash in Enron and Halliburton money, and not without its own presidential military poseur.

As for the "former Iraqi intelligence officers" and the "Arab street" - who allege the Kurds drugged Saddam and dropped him off for U.S. troops to pick up - they and Al Qaida are facing a similar crisis. Having had their butts whipped repeatedly in the last couple years, they can't allow their underground movement's morale to keep flagging. What's an Islamicist pan-Arabian nationalist to do? The easy way out is to simply downplay any Bush or U.S. triumph as not really a triumph, or the product of some insidious conspiracy by some mistrusted ethnic group, like the Israelis, the Kurds, or (fill in the blank). So no way could the demoralized, unprofessional young troops, who don't understand why they are in Iraq, have captured Saddam... it must have been those (ethnic) pesky Kurdish fighters who plagued our hero, Saddam, during the tabouli salad days of Baathism.

The most interesting development of the last two weeks is that the memes of prominent Democrats appear to be merging with memes of the former Iraqi intelligence officers...

[Andrew]

Maybe it is all disinformation, but I thought the Iraqi Governing Council got to see Saddam. Did he stay mum about the Kurdish abduction?

[rst]

Did he stay mum about the Kurdish abduction?

The government actually wiped his memory of the incident a la Bennifer in "Paycheck". But I wouldn't worry, because the Iraqi Governing Council is actually a collection of robots designed to fool the Iraqi people into thinking they have sovereignty, when really we're just going to use their children as fuel for our new Iraqi combustion engines.

[davidf]

yeah! like how it looks like Boomer is actually a cylon-terminator type humanoid-robot in the new series of battlestar Galactia!

actually, i think that saddam, nessie, and jack the ripper are all one and the same. (nessie is his nuclear (noo-qu-lar) submarine where his WMDs are).

just remember mr. mackay's song to mr. hand about christmas.

cheers!
drf

[HH]

When two of your most valuable anti-conservative memes come from articles in the National Enquirer and the London Express, you're in deep doo-doo.

[Tritter Michael]

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DATE: 01/22/2004 12:50:51
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