Conspiracy Nuts Go Mainstream

John Laughland, in the UK's Spectator, on conspiracies, both private and public. The nub:

Writing in the Daily Mail last week, the columnist Melanie Phillips even attacked conspiracy theories as the consequence of a special pathology, of the collapse in religious belief, and of a ?descent into the irrational?. The implication is that those who oppose ?the West?, or who think that governments are secretive and dishonest, might need psychiatric treatment.

In fact, it is the other way round. British and American foreign policy is itself based on a series of highly improbable conspiracy theories, the biggest of which is that an evil Saudi millionaire genius in a cave in the Hindu Kush controls a secret worldwide network of ?tens of thousands of terrorists? ?in more than 60 countries? (George Bush). News reports frequently tell us that terrorist organisations, such as those which have attacked Bali or Istanbul, have ?links? to al-Qa?eda, but we never learn quite what those ?links? are.
….
By the same token, the US-led invasion of Iraq was based on a fantasy that Saddam Hussein was in, or might one day enter into, a conspiracy with Osama bin Laden. This is as verifiable as the claim that MI6 used mind control to make Henri Paul crash Princess Diana?s car into the 13th pillar of the tunnel under the Place de l?Alma. With similar mystic gnosis, Donald Rumsfeld has alleged that the failure to find ?weapons of mass distraction?, as Tony Blair likes to call them, shows that they once existed but were destroyed. Indeed, London and Washington have shamelessly exploited people?s fear of the unknown to get public opinion to believe their claim that Iraq had masses of anthrax and botulism.

Comments

[Shannon Love]

Les,

" trusting U.S. leaders who vigorously supported him (even after using WMDs on "his own people")"

Now who's lying? The anti-war movement specialized in using half-truths to tell big lies but the transmutation of the anti-Western, leader of a Soviet client state into American's most trustworthy ally beggars the imagination.

The entire truth in full historical context, is that the U.S. "vigorously supported" Hussein in his falling war against Iran by "vigorously" underwriting loans from the Gulf States and protecting tankers sailing from Kuwaiti ports from attack from Iran. The U.S. did so because the alternatives were to risk the collapse of Iraq and the rise of an aggressive Iranian super state right on the border of the Gulf States and/or direct Soviet intervention on the side of Iraq.

After the gassing of the Kurds the U.S. sponsored three separate condemnations of Iraq in the U.N. What else was the U.S. supposed to do given the alternatives?

The U.S. "supported" Hussein in his war against Iran for the same reasons we "supported" Joseph Stalin in his war against Hitler i.e. because the other real world alternatives appeared so much worse. Portraying it otherwise is lying.

[Fore]

I assume Brian Doherty reprinted this as an indication of how clueless the left is on the war--how they don't understand what is going on, either with our terrorist enemies or, more important, with their enemies on the right. But perhaps I'm being unfair--perhaps Laughland is just beind dishonest rather than stupid.

[Jean Bart]

bigslacker,

Only someone hopelessly obtuse or ignorant would make that statement.

The blood libel conspiracy goes back to the 1st Century BCE Greeks. It was used by them in relation to Jews. In the 2nd century it was used by Romans against Christians; from at least the 12th century and later blood libel statements were used by Christians against Jews, Cathars, Gypsies, Wiccans, "Druids," etc.

For an example, look to Torquemada, who prosecuted several blood libel cases during his reign of terror. In the 1870s, Roman Catholic Bishop Martin of Pederborn, Germany, wrote that Jews ritually murdered Christian children. Indeed, the first known case of the blood-libel myth being used by Christians against Jews was in 1144 CE; when Jews in Norwich, England were accused of the ritual murder. Jewish leaders in the area were executed, and as I recall by the next century, Jews in England en masse were deported from the country, partly as a result of the hysteria caused by this case.

And this is not the extent of anti-semetic hysteria - there is a litany of horribles one can draw upon.

693-4 CE: At the 16th & 17th church Councils of Toledo charged Jews with undermining the church, massacring Catholics, etc.

829 CE: St. Agobard, The Archbishop of Lyon, said that Jews were kidnapping Christian children and selling them to the Arabs.

1130 CE: Jews in London were accused of killing a sick man. They were fined 1 million marks.

1321 CE: Jews were charged of arranging with criminals to poison fountains in Guienne, France. 5,000 Jews were burned alive.

14th century: The Bubonic Plague, a.k.a. the Black Death, struck Europe in 1347. Jews were accused of poisoning wells (or planning to do this) in France, Spain, Switzerland, England and elsewhere. In excess of 20,000 were murdered across Europe. Chaucer gives vent to this blood libel myth in several of his "tales."

BTW, it was Christians who introduced the blood libel myth to Muslims in the 19th century (not that they needed any help in their prejudice against Jews).

[Jean Bart]

mak_nas,

"i think the idea, jb, might have been that religion provided an outlet for the mystical that has now been cut off in secular society, leaving people with a fear/curiosity of the unknown to form a sort of secular mysticism."

I think mine is a more fair reading. Of course I would have to read the original article that it was written in to be sure.

[Jean Bart]

BTW, in case you think that blood libel does not occur in the U.S., well a variant is fairly rampant in fringe circles in the U.S. - that Jews or Israel (depends on the the way it is written) are responsible for 9/11, and that Arabs are their puppets.

[Les]

Shannon,

The "entire truth" will never be known by the likes of you and me, so let's not pretend. We do know that the Carter administration assured Hussein before his war with Iran that we would support him in such a war because Iran was our enemy at the time and we were receiving lots of oil from Iraq.

"After the gassing of the Kurds the U.S. sponsored three separate condemnations of Iraq in the U.N. What else was the U.S. supposed to do given the alternatives?"

Gosh, I suppose we could have stopped supplying him with weapons. But there's nothing like a good old condemnation to put a mass-murderer in his place.

"The U.S. "supported" Hussein in his war against Iran for the same reasons we "supported" Joseph Stalin in his war against Hitler i.e. because the other real world alternatives appeared so much worse. Portraying it otherwise is lying."

This is pure nonsense and not a little insulting to WW2 vets. We "supported" Stalin because his enemies were the Nazis who were allied with the Japanese who attacked us. To equate our efforts in WW2 with the economic/political manipulations in the Middle East is either ignorant or disingenous.

Any time you'd like to address the facts that the current administration misrepresented the intelligence given to them in regards to WMD's and Al Quaeda ties, I'm all ears.

[Jean Bart]

During the Iran-Iraq war, when Saddam's regime was using chemical weapons against the Iranians, the U.S. and the U.K. blocked a U.N. resolution condemning the actions.

[R. C. Dean]

We "supported" Stalin because his enemies were the Nazis who were allied with the Japanese who attacked us.

Well, kind of. We supported Stalin in his fight against the Nazis because we and the Nazis declared war on each other, right after Pearl Harbor. The Nazi "alliance" with the Japanese never had anything to do with the military situation; neither provided any assistance to the other to speak of.

I think the analogy between our support for Stalin and our involvement in the Iran/Iraq war is fairly solid, myself - both illustrate the idea that you can provide some level of military support to a regime you are otherwise opposed to, when it is fighting a regime that you are opposed to even more.

Of course, the level of support we gave the Soviets utterly dwarfs anything we did for Saddam, so the analogy certainly can't be pressed too far. However, Saddam was always a Soviet client state first and foremost; the notion that the US was ever a significant prop for his regime flies in the face of the facts. He bought the vast majority of his weapons and WMD gear from some combination of Germany, France, and Russia - US material support was chump change.

[Jean Bart]

R.C. Dean,

Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S. in the days following Pearl Harbor; however, the U.S. had been fighting an undeclared war in the North Atlantic against Germany since sometime in early 1941, so its not as if Germany didn't have an incentive to formalize the contest.

Saddam's regime bought majority of its conventional weapons prior to 1990 from Russia, China, France, other Warsaw Bloc nations, etc. respectively. The fact that the U.S. encouraged France to sell to Iraq is not of course mentioned. And the vast majority of WMD materials that Iraq had came from three countries - Russia, the U.S. and France. There's a reason why Iraq owes the U.S. agriculture department a few billion dollars after all.

[bigslacker]

"Only someone hopelessly obtuse or ignorant would make that statement." - refering of course to my question of isn't blood libel a muslim thing.

I was not refering to ignorant people of religious history (because, er, uh, I would be "ignorant" or "hopelessly obtuse" if I did that!)- but ignorant people of the present. I have never met ANY person who actually has (has, present tense) such beliefs, and I'm guessing neither have you, but I have read news accounts of living people that, even today, teach such garbage to children as fact rather than as a historical curiousity. All the current accounts I have read involve Muslims. (I must admit I haven't seen any of these stories since way back in 2003...) Other modern conspiracy theories I have heard - but not blood libel. (example: Jews running MTV are promoting race mixing of our aryan youth, blah, blah, blah)

BTW, Jean...please tell me you don't write that stuff off the top of your head - dates and all! College notes maybe? Blood-Libel 201 perhaps?

[Jean Bart]

bigslacker,

I never went to college. 🙂 I am the graduate of a "Grandes Ecole." 🙂

And I would say that the promotion of the "Jews Caused 9/11" myth is a variant of blood libel; and it is not practiced exclusively by Muslims.

Here is another example out of Britain: http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=365051

[Jean Bart]

bigslacker,

BTW, I have "met" a person who has such beliefs; it was in Argentina, and he was a Catholic Priest.

[Shannon Love]

Les,

Again with the half truths.

Carter did not say we would "support" Hussein in his invasion of Iraq. He said, truthfully, that we would not intervene militarily to protect the Mullah's as we would have to protect the Shah.

The U.S, did not provide any weapons to Iraq during the war. We could not have done so, as the Iraqi military was a Soviet creation from top to bottom. They did not have the training or support infrastructure to use U.S, weapons in any useful quantities.

You might have felt that allowing a victory of the mass murdering, anti-Western, terrorist supporting Iranian regime and a possible superpower conflict resulting in a nuclear war was a practical alternative to propping up Saddam but I think it safe to say it is something that honest people can disagree with.

I take it that I have drawn blood since you played the victim card with the WWII vet reference. I won't deign to answer.

What people like you never understand is that good, decent, honest, unselfish, people have to make concrete decision in real time based on incomplete information. They must often choose not between good and evil but lesser and greater evils.

Saddam was judged the lesser of two evils just as Stalin had been but a lesser evil is still evil and dangerous. Nothing in US policy toward Iraq in the Cold War 80's had any relevance in the least as to whether he presented a threat in 2003.

[bennett]

Look, Les. Do you want the truth? Read the damn documents.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/special/iraq/

If you go to the urls, you can read recently declassified documents diplomatic communications, and learn exactly what the nature of the relationship between the US and Iraq was. You'll even see some stuff explaining what happened between the two governments after the gas attacks, and the tough choices our diplomats were making in what was a very complicated situation.

Shannon is right. We did not "vigorously support" the guy. In fact, after reading the documents and then reading your comments, Les, I can say with confidence that the whole "We created Saddam" meme is a perfect example of the conspiracy theory thing. All some people will see is the picture of Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand, and never read any further. I almost want to laugh.

[Dan]

Hussein had chemical weapons; this is a known fact, because he *used* chemical weapons. Now we can't find them.

But somehow, the theory "Well, he destroyed them" is equivalent to "MI6 used mind control to crash Princess Di's car"?

And people wonder why nobody takes the "anti-war" folks seriously.

[Don]

"Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S. in the days following Pearl Harbor; however, the U.S. had been fighting an undeclared war in the North Atlantic against Germany since sometime in early 1941, so its not as if Germany didn't have an incentive to formalize the contest."

US warships attempted to provoke U-boats, eventually resulting in the sinking of an American warship--something FDR no doubt hoped would lead to war. What really got the Germans to declare war (IMHO), was the material support we sent England and the Soviet Union. Without US material support, England would have likely had to sue for peace, and the Soviets would probably not have been able to turn the war around. Particularly critical: American trucks, which allowed the Red Army to become essentially fully mechinized (while their own factories concentrated on tanks, and the Germans relied upon horse transport to a great extent up to the very end), and American gun powder, of a higher quality than the Soviet stuff (allowing Soviet guns to take out Nazi tanks -- as it was, Red Army reports complained of the difficulty of knocking out German tanks up to about 1945, when the German steel became more brittle due to shortages).

[alma hadayn]

Steve wrote - "Prior to the fall of Baghdad, Iraq, & Saddam who didn't believe in the existence of WMD or the likelihood of Iraqi attempts to create 'nukular' devices?"

Rolf Ekeus, former UNSCOM chief, didn't believe in the existence of WMD as of at least 1998 (he said there were "probably some precursors".)

Mohammed el-Baradei, head of the IAEA, didn't believe in Iraqi attempts to acquire nuclear
weapons in recent history, and said so publicly in
March 2003, only to be denigrated by the apparently omniscient Dick Cheney, who insisted he knew better despite not having any information.

[alma hadayn]

Baradei: "After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq."

Cheney: "I think Mr. El Baradei frankly is wrong."

[Jean Bart]

Don,

Kursk was apparently a far closer affair than has generally been admitted in the past.

Hasn't the debate about Iraq taken on a "religious" quality for both sides?

[steve]

alma hadayn:

Sorry for not being exactly clear. My point was not that there was no one in the world who disagreed on the existance of WMD in Iraq; rather, I meant that the vast majority of world leaders believed the intelligence that said WMD existed and that Saddam wished to take on the West, and that this broadly held belief dated back to the early 90's.

So far it appears that all that intelligence was wrong - but it was not widely in dispute prior to the war; even France, Germany, and Russia agreed that WMD were in Irag's possession.

Thus, Bush, Blair, et al took us to war based on an - so far - incorrect premise. They didn't lie and they didn't conspire in the way asserted in the Spectator piece. They made a decision based on bad data.

Not a good thing and it is shocking that no one has been called on to account for the error(s).

[Andrew]

Libertarians are inherently inclined to be sceptical of government, but I would suppose that in any sophisticated version of Libertarianism they would be mindful of the differential effect of different incentives. It is always more sensible to credit the claims made by a democratic government (as Hume would have said-- "Nay, even France, Herself!") than claims emanating from a police state...or the claims of a competitive press (eg: the New York Times, despite Jason Blair) than NPR, or the smaller press culture of many foreign societies, or peer-reviewed science, or advertising claims made by established corporations etc.

I almost never follow the links put up by anti-American posters-- there isn't going to be anything there that isn't old, dubious, off the point or innocuous...a waste of time. When they do occasionally stumble on something interesting, they usually lack the conceptual sophistication to know what they have got.

Even legitimate information can have little value. The last time I purchased a car, I read a semi-annual car issue in Forbes, drove down an avenue near my home, and bought a used 95 Infiniti G-20 off a lot the same afternoon. Worked out OK as far as I'm interested...same with Iraq.

[alma hadayn]

By the way, I'd certainly concede that the notion that Iraq had chemical weapons had more credibility before the war than reports of MI6 bumping off Princess Di (but that would be a pretty low benchmark...)

Anyway, the important thing, as the President so eloquently put it is that "[f]or diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible, and no one can now doubt the word of America."

[Andrew]

Alma--

Measures of US credibility abroad remind me of that clock the Concerned Atomic Scientists put out-- when the Soviet Union collapsed, they backed the long hand from three minutes to "mid-night" to, like, five minutes. What would it take to back off to nine o'clock, and from there to zero?-- you have got to wonder how this guage is calibrated, or whether you would be concerned that it is always in the red zone.

Similarly, US approval abroad ranges from 3/4 think America is the Imperialist Great Satan (in France), to 90% suppose so (in Germany), depending on whether Clinton is giving away the store, or Bush is being such a dick about everything...a "measure" like that is crap!

And at the same time, nobody ever ACTS as if the US is the great monster-- the UN didn't invite us to Liberia because they thought we would rape the place for Halliburton. Nobody asks China to sort stuff out in Asia.

[Jean Bart]

Andrew,

3/4s of Frenchmen do not view the US as a "Great Satan." Indeed, most Frenchmen view the US as a nation rather positively.

[Les]

Shannon,

U.S. companies (not the govt.) certainly did provide Iraq with the materials necessary to make WMD's during the war with Iran. After Hussein gassed the Kurds the Reagan administration fought against legislation that would have disallowed U.S. firms from providing weapons materials. This is a documented, albeit uncomfortable fact.

"What people like you never understand is that good, decent, honest, unselfish, people have to make concrete decision in real time based on incomplete information. They must often choose not between good and evil but lesser and greater evils."

I don't doubt that there were some "good, decent, honest, unselfish, people" who made the decision to support Iraq over Iran. But those same people have no right to point their fingers and remind us that he gassed his own people when they made decisions that empowered him AFTER he committed those atrocities.

bennet, I've never claimed that the U.S. "made" Hussein.

The most important point (and what the article is about) is that our PRESENT leaders lied to us when they said they KNEW Iraq had WMD's and working ties to Al Quaeda. At least this is the conclusion those in the intelligence community have come to. Maybe you know something they don't. I wasn't against toppling Hussein, I just think it's a shame that our government felt it had to lie to the world to accomplish it.

[ralph]

"News reports frequently tell us that terrorist organisations, such as those which have attacked Bali or Istanbul, have ?links? to al-Qa?eda, but we never learn quite what those ?links? are."

Can you say radical Islam?

[steve]

Prior to the fall of Baghdad, Iraq, & Saddam who didn't believe in the existence of WMD or the likelihood of Iraqi attempts to create 'nukular' devices? It is hard to see such a colossal failure of the world's Intelligence apparatus as some sort of uber-conspiracy.

[Les]

Reason to believe:
http://theweeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp

[Jean Bart]

"...of the collapse in religious belief..."

Yes damnit, religious belief combats conspiracy theories! No, no, devout Christians never, ever spread conspiracies about Jews wanting to take over the world, or about secret blood sacrifices committed with Christian children! 🙂 Someone needs to take a remedial course in religious history. Millenial, etc. conspiracy theories abound in Christian history, and the histories of other religions.

[Bostonian]

I just love it when lefties tell me how stupid I am and how my fears have been exploited.

[alma hadayn]

For those who don't want to look at the documents, here's the byte:

Among Rumsfeld's instructions for his 1984 meeting was to reinforce the message that in spite of the United States' condemnation of Iraqi CW use, "our interests .... in improving bilateral relations with Iraq, at a pace of Iraq's choosing, remains undiminished."

Les wrote: "U.S. companies (not the govt.) certainly did provide Iraq with the materials necessary to make WMD's during the war with Iran."

It's much worse than that. According to the NYT, American intelligence provided satellite pictures of Iranain troop deployments knowing that Iraq would gas them. Retired DIA official Col. Pat Lang is quoted as saying "[t]he use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern." Another official said ?It was just another way of killing people?whether with a bullet or phosgene, it didn't make any difference.?

Former Defense Sec. Frank Carlucci said ?I did agree that Iraq should not lose the war, but I certainly had no foreknowledge of their use of chemical weapons.? Carlucci must not have been talking to State, who seem to have been aware of Iraqi CW use as early as 1983 (the assisstance apparently continued into 1988.)

[Hick American]

I guess the World Trade Centers were taken out by a highly improbable conspiracy theory.

[mak_nas]

i think the idea, jb, might have been that religion provided an outlet for the mystical that has now been cut off in secular society, leaving people with a fear/curiosity of the unknown to form a sort of secular mysticism.

Can you say radical Islam?

this is not a link -- it's a common philosophy. a link would be them getting on the phone and sharing battle plans or financing, and there's no obvious evidence of that.

[J. Alexander Lowman]

Steve, I never believed Saddam had WMD's or was really going to create nuclear devices to any extent that we should really be concerned. To me, Saddam was never a threat to many aside from his own people.

I don't necessarily agree with the article, but it makes some interesting, if funny, points.

[Shannon Love]

"Indeed, London and Washington have shamelessly exploited people?s fear of the unknown to get public opinion to believe their claim that Iraq had masses of anthrax and botulism."

Except that the UN Disarmament Verification Inspectors forced Saddam to admit in 1996 that he had produced 7500 liters of weaponized anthrax.

But no worries, Saddam promised that he had destroyed it all (even though he offered no proof) and as all the anti-war people repeatedly told us, "You can always trust a psychopathic dictator with a demonstrated track record of lying and bad judgment."

[bigslacker]

JB, I have never heard of Christians promoting blood-scarifice conspiracies. Did you mean Muslim?

[Les]

First, I'm not the "Les" that posted the link to the overconfident and generally over-reaching Weekly Standard (as unbiased a source as The Nation, let's remember).

Secondly, the issue isn't about trusting "a psychopathic dictator with a demonstrated track record of lying and bad judgment," but rather trusting U.S. leaders who vigorously supported him (even after using WMDs on "his own people") and who blatently and inarguably misrepresented the information that was being given to them by those in the intelligence community. Nobody should trust Sadaam Hussein, that's obvious. The question is, what have our leaders done to justify trusting them?

[Andrew]

JB--

Only meant to throw that out as a hypothetical. I know that last time they did one of those world surveys the US came off badly nearly everywhere...but then I wonder when it has been any different?

[Jean Bart]

Andrew,

I think those surveys aren't accurate.

LakeSide104,

Who is and who is not a "biblical Christian" is not for me to debate; indeed, its a silly debate from my standpoint.

[Jean Bart]

Andrew,

I would also like to say that U.S. has some skewed and rather incorrect visions of the world, and vice versa. Both need to hire better advertising firms.

[Lakeside104]

Jean Bart said:

"BTW, I have "met" a person who has such beliefs; it was in Argentina, and he was a Catholic Priest."

Technically, Catholics are not biblical Christians. There are Christians in that organization, but a bible believing Christian wouldn't be accusing Jews of blood libel. The Catholic church is poor representation of a lukewarm "christian" religion. It's actions and beliefs do not represent biblical teaching.

I agree that way too much "killing in the name of" is done by religious zealots, my point is that people that believe and live the teachings of Christ (not religion) do not participate in these libel practices.

Lakeside104

Lakeside104