How the pundits got it oh so wrong on Afghanistan
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Given the almost universal recognition that the Afghan campaign has become a bloody mess, it’s quite remarkable to revisit some of the pundits who initially sold us the war.
As the shoutiness of those rhetorical question makes clear, that’s Piers Akerman from the Sunday Telegraph on October 21, 2001, an article that reinforces Bertrand Russell’s old saying about how anything that could be put in a nutshell should probably stay there. Like, what could possibly go wrong in a war launched with a slogan from a comic book? These days, even Akerman seems to have changed tune. In June 2008, for instance, he cited Francis Fukuyama’s prediction that troops might be bogged down in Afghanistan for the next decades. But was this self-criticism? No, of course not. It was, naturally, an attack upon the ALP for withdrawing from Iraq. “Rudd is taking Australians out of a war that looks winnable [Iraq],” Akerman thundered, “and putting them in a conflict [Afghanistan] which has no apparent end in sight. Good one, Prime Minister.” Clearly, when it comes to Labor, Akerman employs the caged-monkey technique of punditry, simply flinging faeces at a wall until something sticks. Perhaps, then, he’s not the appropriate person to read. Let’s turn instead to someone with more gravitas. They don’t come more serious than Paul Kelly, at the time The Australian’s international editor. Surely he approached the Afghan commitment with more nuance? Not so much, no:
That’s from a column on October 13, 2001, in which Kelly essentially replicates Akerman’s good versus evil meme, except with slightly bigger words. Eight years on, it’s hard to read such stuff without astonishment at its light-mindedness, the utter glibness with which supposedly serious commentators signed up to an open-ended military commitment. Note, in particular, the contrast between garrulous anti-war academics and the sound intuitions of the “man in the street”. That was a key trope of the time, with almost every pro-war pundit adopting, to some degree or another, a swaggering anti-intellectualism that scorned argument and expertise in favour of Bush-style gut instinct and moral certainties. As part of it, the conservative commentariat devoted itself to attacking anyone who wouldn’t sign up to the childish “9-11 has changed everything script”. There were, you see, plenty who predicted, almost exactly, how Afghanistan would end up — and you can find most of them in a Michael Duffy piece for the Daily Telegraph on December 29, 2001. “The time has come,” Duffy writes, “to commiserate with those pundits who forecast doom and disaster for American and Australian forces in Afghanistan.” He goes on to attack Peter FitzSimons for fretting about distinguishing freedom fighters from terrorists in Afghanistan, a concern that seems particularly prescient now that the nice Mr Karzai has morphed into the vote-rigging despot we’re currently propping up. Duffy mocks Mike Carlton for implying that the conflict might go on for years, and for suggesting that “war from the air is of limited effect against a mobile guerrilla force” since “it is the civilians who die in large numbers”. Eight years on, in the wake of a strike that killed perhaps a hundred civilians, Carlton sure looks silly. Phillip Adams, Robert Fisk, the LA Times, Brigadier Adrian d’Hage: they all come in for a Duffy pasting for saying things that have subsequently proved entirely correct. Compare d’Hage, for instance, warning that “the present strategy is a potential quagmire [with] echoes of Vietnam” with today’s Australian and its headline about “Barack Obama facing his own Vietnam”. Vietnam it might be but Obama shouldn’t be facing on his own. Andrew Bolt, naturally, was entirely on the same page as Duffy: less concerned about thinking through the consequences of military intervention than scoring points about “the Jeremiah ‘experts’ who said we would be mired in the Afghanistan war for years look like being wrong again” (November 15, 2001). Again, the piece follows the same dreary script, denouncing “academics and commentators” for suggesting that “aerial bombing would never work, and our soldiers would have to fight the Taliban soldiers hand-to-hand”. Bizarrely, when it comes to Afghanistan, it’s The Australian’s Greg Sheridan who seems, at first, to stand up quite well. On November 1, 2001, he explained:
Whatever you might say about that, at least it’s less metaphysical than the war Akerman and Kelly wanted to fight. Why, Sheridan even provided criteria by which success might be judged. “Ask yourself this question,” he wrote. “In six or nine months’ time how does the Bush presidency look if bin Laden is still at large and the al-Qaeda network still operating?” The difficulty comes when you realise that, for Sheridan, the answer is not what you might think. For how does Bush look with bin Laden still at large? Well, here’s Sheridan on September 14, 2006:
But there’s a reason why Sheridan’s prepared to label all the Bush disasters triumphs: he enthusiastically backed every one of them. Let’s look at Afghanistan again. On December 6, 2001, Sheridan writes:
Yes, it did seem strange and, as the world knows now, it was strange: f-cking bonkers, in fact. But not for Sheridan, who never met a military offensive he didn’t like:
What can you say? The politicians who followed through on this insane plan eventually had to face the electorate, which is why, in part, the Republicans are such a discredited rabble. And yet, eight years on, Sheridan’s still at his desk, still a tremendously serious commentator. Think of a building worker whose constructions consistently fell down. He or she would be drawing dole faster than you can mouth “individual responsibility”, “industrial flexibility” or any other conservative watchword. Yet with the commentariat, it’s different. Part bully pulpit, part sheltered workshop, punditry never apologies, never explains. If anything, our emirs of error all have higher profiles now than in 2001. You can’t turn on Insiders, that shouting match in a formaldehyde jar, without finding Akerman, Duffy, Bolt or Sheridan opining on the issues of the day. They’re on the radio, they’re on the TV, and they’re still all over the press. It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry. |
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26 Comments
Spot on Jeff.
Laugh or cry? I think the answer is to cry.
Useless commentators should not be allowed to go on commentating in prominent ways. Just like a doctor who does shonky surgery, or a cook who keeps giving people food poisoning. But how does one actually bring that about? If the public keep giving them their ear…. the advertisers will keep paying.. the companies will keep using them. As stupid as they are.
Laugh or cry? Cry.
This week’s US strike in Kunduz, north Afghanistan, gives big pause for thought about whatever anti-insurgency strategy is being employed in Afghanistan - especially after the massive airstrike which killed hundreds last May in the southern province of Farrah and for which the US defence forces remain ambiguous, to say the least, on final civilian numbers dead. At the risk of banging on about it the best book on Afghanistan post 2001 remains Pakistan journalist Ahmed Rashid’s “Descent into Chaos”. Its forensic, detailed narrative exposes all the naked emperors, warlords and their various international backers, the failure of the international community to enable Afghans, at the beginning, to develop this benighted country and broken society. If you think that might have lead to massive corruption, the catchcry at the time by Westerners, tell me how it happened anyway when Westerners largely hold the pursestrings of aid and military expenditure. (The answers is not hard actually, ‘administrative fees’ have been paid by civilians and military to a range of players, most likely including the Taliban). In the face of insecurity, incredible remoteness of some of the largely provincial population, massive illiteracy the electoral authorities here organised the second Presidential and provincial elections. The international community has pressed for and paid for these. The money came late, the state of the electoral commission’s website gave cause for early concern about their capability to manage a larger database; Electoral Complaints Commission officials were being recruited and still looking for provincial offices that Afghans could access freely in July, a month before the election, leading many Afghans to claim denial of their rights to file complaints locally. At least eleven Afghan electoral officials died around voting day, statistics that probably got lost in the Western media’s concentration on military dead. I note that unknown numbers of international observers stayed secure on election day, not risking exposure to election violence: Afghan officials didn’t have that choice. Back in November 2008 media reports of alleged voter registration violations passed without comment or action by either the international community or local officials, so when Britney Spears was registered to vote in Kandahar this year no-one blinked. Amongst young Afghans there is both a hope for their future (free from ethnic tensions) and cynicism about how it might happen given warlords can run for parliamentary office and one may soon become Vice President. I marvel sometimes at this hope given the joblessness, lousy maternal and child health - but also some signs of progress in agriculture and education. I wish the ideologues who pronounce on this place might at least study Afghanistan little more closely before throwing their pre-packaged payloads. I don’t always agree with Jeff but he does his homework, has a view and puts the case, nice.
Four letters can aptly describe all of these consistently wrong commentators - News. As with Fox News, it’s time we started calling News Ltd staff what they really are - political operatives. Albrectsen, Sheridan, Ackerman, Bolt, Henderson, et al, are not journalists. They have sold their souls for Rupert’s mightly dollar. There is nothing wrong with this in practice, as long as they themselves admit as much. To pretend to be actual journalists stating facts is insulting to anyone with half a brain.
Just as in the US, the worst aspect of journalists like this and their journalism/opinion is that the public continues to reward it. Long ago I decides I would not read the worst of the worst (Albrechtson, Bolt, Devine, Ackerman) and only occasionally bother with Sheridan, Duffy and Henderson. Oh, and I do not buy News Ltd newspapers even though they have an absolute monopoly in my town. As I described in a Crikey Comment last week I tend to fast forward past Bolt, Ackers and Henders when they pollute the airwaves (and really Sheridan is not stupid but his TV appearances are about as informative as Paul Kelly — ie. dull and predictable).
Well written Brett and Michael. I broke my rule yesterday, to turn off Insiders at the immediate sight of Akerman and Bolt so taken was I by the lashings of makeup and powder used on Pitiful Piers, he could have been successfully used as a model (expired) at an undertakers convention. Its cruel, but damn hillarious to see his mouth almost set in a fiendish smirk as if the makeup has set like concrete. Its no wonder he could hardly get a full sentence in yesterday, but certainly improved the standard of debate. Perhaps this is Barry Cassidy’s method of filling the quota without having to hear much from the jowled one, cruel but very funny and couldn’t happen to more deserving nutter, Bolta being the exception.
thank god we have Crikey
Anyone who supports or takes notice of Piers Akerman cannot be taken seriously - he certainly cannot be. Yes, Australia needs to stop and reassess what is happening in Afghanistan and whether whatever goals we profess can in fact be achieved. I for one would have thought that if there was half the military expenditure and the rest of the mooney spent on social infrastructure in selected locations the sum total woud be a better country.
So Jeff Sparrow and others, the only comment worthy of note is one that agrees with your views. By the way, I can’t tolerate those so-called ‘journalists’ mentioned, but I don’t agree with the invasion, occupation and bloody destruction of Afghanistan,and I don’t support the troups. 9/11 was a criminal and horrific act, but the people of Afghanistan had nothing to do with it, nor did the people of Iraq for that matter. In fact, both Colin Powell and Condaleeza Rice both stated earlier in 2001 that Saddam was no threat to his neighbours or the US. He certainly was no threat to us, nor were the people of Afghanistan?There’s too many questions that need answering over 9/11, but I find it amazing, that in a few weeks in to the invasion of Afghanistan, probably more people were brutally killed than those who died in the TwinTowers, or Tower 7 either for that matter on 9/11? Kofi Anan stated that the invasion of Iraq was illegal. The ‘terrorists’ came from other parts of the Middle East, and the Taliban offered to hand over Osama bin Laden when the US provided evidence of his complicity - they either refused or ignored them. bin Laden isn’t even wanted over 9/11(have a look at the FBI site). I’ve read that he’s been dead for some time, but it suits the US to mention his name when ‘required’??Even George W changed his tune over bin Laden - he went from being wanted dead or alive, to Bush losing complete interest in him. I wonder why? Perhaps the fact that he didn’t do the crime of 9/11. It wasn’t a Pearl Harbour situation, it was a civil criminal crime - horrific though it was. There’s also culpability on the part of the FBI etc as they didn’t follow up information etc. Too many important questions don’t have rational, logical answers that point to bin Laden, but do point to a ‘cover up’ or a ‘not telling the whole truth’ flavour about them. Very smelly!
I’ve read several articles that point to the fact, that Afghanistan was going to be invaded anyway, 9/11 just gave a ‘plausible’ reason for Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Bremmer and the other authors of ‘Project for a New American Century’. It has more to do with the failed ‘discussions’ of both the Clinton and George W Bush’s administrations with the Taliban over oil and gas in the Caspian Sea(worth an estimated $16 trillion) which they wanted to pipe out via Afghanistan. The Taliban wouldn’t agree, and so were threatened with ‘bombs raining down in a carpet of gold’ or words to that effect. They only want/ed ‘stability’ in Afghanistan, they didn’t give a damn about what govt was in power or whether life would be horrific for women; “we can live with that” was the response. Now there’s thousands (at least) dead innocent citizens; people with horrific injuries, and a ‘puppet govt’ that houses war lords, thugs and Northern Alliance people(or all three). What absolute rubbish! The one woman elected, has to have a 24 hr guard after she was physically assaulted and threatened while she took up her elected position in the ‘parliament’? She’s too frightened to go back there! We’re fighting to preserve that? Are you serious?
Funny how nobody mentions the people of Afghanistan’s future these days - apart from the sickening comments of bringing ‘democracy’ to the people. Nobody asks and no answers are given re ‘numbers of casualties’ . Perhaps it’s due to that general who responded when asked about the numbers of dead in Iraq, “we don’t do body counts”? He should’ve added, ‘we don’t do the Geneva Conventions either’? Perhaps they really believe Rumsfeld when he insisted that the GC were outdated! How convenient, now we know about Abu Graib and the other jails in both Iraq and Afghanistan!
I find the whole election process in both these countries amazing. Did the Germans allow the people of France to have elections as usual while they were occupiers? Would they have allowed a ‘govt’ that didn’t agree with them? Did Vietnam have elections during the many years of that disgrace - also started on a lie! The whole concept of elections during ‘war time’ is just ludicrous, or is this how 21 century wars are run these days? The people of both these countries know its a farce - that the sham will result in whoever the US decides will be ‘elected’? We’re hearing all the rorts that some of us knew would happen. So-called journalists take what comes from the White House or the Pentagon and don’t question it. They’re the ones who make me angry - not a sceric of research, not one difficult question, no challenging views at all. Pathetic!
All the while, more people die, more kids will be born with defects due to the Depleted Uranium bombs, and people speak of ‘winning the war’ and nobody makes them spell out what ‘winning’ means? All peoples dead? The country totally destroyed? (except of course, that the oil and gas will still be there when this fiasco is over?) That’ll make it easy then won’t it- nobody around to protest!
If Iraq wasn’t about the OIL, why did the US build the biggest and most expensive ‘Embassy’ in Baghdad(after they bought the land and handed over the money to the people, of course???)Why are there permanent bases in that country if they really meant to leave? What rubbish! Now the babies with genetic defects are being born in Fallujia after that place was almost levelled via DU bombs? The whole sorry saga is sickening, and some people just calmly discuss it as though there’s no people there - but of course, they’re not ‘real people’ are they? Not like us! Nobody uses words like “kill” or “justice”
The other goal is to fill the people with fear and dread - so they’ll not fight back when they realize that their resources are being ‘stolen’ or close to it. If it’s about giving them democracy, why use these horrific bombs near ordinary civilians and then trying to lie about the 90 or 120 or 30 people burned to death via exploding petrol tankers? What did they think would happen if you bomb tankers? Not kill people, and lots of them? Of course that’s what would happen. The tankers didn’t drive themselves. And don’t give me the ‘the majority were known to be Taliban insurgents’ BS? Don’t believe that any more either - just say it’s been a few lies too many! I’m not that stupid - I catch on fast!
I recall the war mongers on the 7.30 Report before and during the first week/s of the Shock & Awe campaign in Iraq in 2003, and I turned them off, as I thought the whole calm, level headed debate and discussion an obscenity - I still do! It begs belief, the lack of any morality; the lack of any decency, and the ability to get away with not even abiding by the GC - not even mentioning the casualties, and I don’t recall the last time I heard a so-called journalist in any of the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ countries, even ask about the people - unless it’s to do with voting for example. How disgusting!We simply don’t give a damn about them, and someone like me is liable to be criticized for saying so! Well, I don’t care about that either. I’m ashamed of what my country is doing to these people! The people of these countries had no bad feelings towards us - what we’ve done is create 2 countries, and their neighbours, where generations will hate my great grand kids children, and I don’t blame them one bit!
There’s a key word that keeps recurring in these comments - “opinion”. All of the commentators mentioned appear in the Opinion pages of their respective organs. What they write is NOT journalism, it is, by its very definition “opinionated”. Don’t get me wrong, I would like to see every one of them paraded down George or Flinders street in stocks, but the fact is they are not paid to write impartial, factual pieces, they are paid to give us their opinions. That their opinions are bilious nonsense which is proved time-after-time to be wrong is not the point. It is their opinion.
I can’t believe I have just defended Piers Ackerman. Next I’ll be sticking up for Miranda Devine. Noooooooooooooooooooo!
I have to apologize Jeff! it’s obvious that I didn’t read your comment correctly - skimmed, and got the wrong impression. Sorry! Ooppss! Will be more careful in future!
Oh well, perhaps some of those so-called ‘journalists’ will read what you wrote and take note? I doubt it! I can’t stand Ackerman or Bolt or ???So depressing aren’t they? I don’t even turn Insiders on these days - can’t bear it!
When the Afghan thing started, I said to myself the Ruskies were there nine years. The US will have to beat that record, can’t have the Ruskies getting an edge. The only question now is how much will the US beat them by.
On the issue of opinions. I expect that I will get an “opinion” if I ask a man in the street. When I pay for a newspapaer I expect reasoned arguments based on facts with the final conclusion being a considered prediction of the outcome based on the writers final analysis of the argument. I don’t want jingoism and unsupported certainty when as any rational person knows a prediction is the subject of considereable uncertainty.
What you get from the Akermans of this world are predictions based on their political predjudice and allegiences with the outcomes predicted as if they are facts with no acknowledgement of the possibility that other outcomes postulated by their rivals might be distinct possibility.
I can get a free opinion from just about anybody. What makes Akermans’ opinions worth paying for?
WHen the Kunduz tanker deathtoll was “only” thought to be 90 or so, the NATO Commander (not the usual amerikan verbiage dispenser) claimed that 57 of the dead were Taliban.
IF HE THOUGHT for a nanosecond such a number was true they would/should have been proclaiming it from the rooftops as the largest, by a multiple of ten, body count ever
claimed, let alone achieved, against the wraith-like guerillas of Afghanistan.
Great article, Jeff. Hopefully the opinion writers you are calling to account will not see it as an attack, but rather as a chance for reflection. I enjoy reading well argued conservative viewpoints, as it challenges the strength of my own liberal leanings, and encourages me to critically assess whether I can rationally justify what I believe and why I believe it.
I watch in despair at the bunker mentality that has infected America, where people cluster around the like-minded, and political commentators of all stripes preach to a ‘base’ instead of engaging with opposing views in respectful debate.
A very good article.
In Australia, blatant pro-war hype, lies and propaganda are pumped out by News Corp empire, but the ABC promotes the same agenda in a more plausible - and therefore arguably more dangerous - way.
New Matilda featured an article by Philip Knightley a few days ago in which he bemoaned the loss of journalists to PR jobs. I think the more insidious danger is mainstream news organizations becoming first and foremost PR agencies, selling agendas such as the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (not to mention the 40+ so-called ‘anti-Terrorism’ laws rammed through our national parliament since 2001).
The greatest lie of all, in the opinion of a growing number of professionals, is the 9-11 story itself. It was the stated reason for attacking Afghanistan in the first place. Yet the official story is clearly bogus. There is now quite compelling evidence that the attacks entailed controlled demolitions, using state of the art nanotechnology. The notion that this very hi-tech crime was orchestrated from the Hindu Kush would make a good plot for a James Bond movie, but in this instance it’s an ugly and rather obvious war-selling lie.
It’s high time the real culprits behind 9-11 are brought to justice. Not too hard to figure out who they are.
To quote Doug Everingham, Minister for Health during the Whitlam Government:
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“Unless US and allied (including Australian) leaders move to demand independent investigation of the 9/11 catastrophe the military sequels in Iraq and Afghanistan must be widely seen as war crimes falsely labeled as a war on terror.”
Yes, Afghanistan is a Holocaust…and all the comments here have been astoundingly accurate.
Those “Prophets of Baal” in the daily press don’t stand a chance against you people…you guys absolutely slaughter their aganda based bullshit.
Keep at it…you heros of independent news.
SYD WALKER - I didn’t know about Tower 7, which imploded in exactly the same manner as Towers 1 & 2 until a couple of years ago. How did that happen? it wasn’t publicized at the time. There was also a Mosque in Iraq that was deliberately destroyed in exactly the same manner - insurgents were blamed for it, but it was a professional job. The bloke who was the in charge bastard in El Salvador(about 20 years ago) during the US ‘involvement’ in that country which involved the torture and murders of many civilians was sent to Iraq in 2004? just before all the so-called ‘insurgent violence’ between the Shia and Sunni started. Surprise! Surprise!
The slavish following of anything the US does militarily is sickening. At least 40 cents in each dollar is spent on the Military, and if there were no ‘wars’ there’d not be demand for weapons, Halliburton’s involvement(food, security etc) and too many other companies, particularly the oil industry. Corporate America would not be happy. As Arandanti Roy once said, ‘once weapons were manufactured to fight wars, now wars are created to manufacture weapons’! Too true!
@ Liz45
To be 100% accurate, the collapse of WTC-7 was reported by the mass media at the time. Actually, it was reported more than 20 minutes before it happened!
Soon afterwards, the western mass media lost all enthusiasm for covering the minor detail of that 47-storey collapsed building. Nor did the initial 9-11 Commission report see fit to mention WTC-7 at all.
The silence didn’t stopped leaseholder Larry Silverstein (a business partner of Frank Lowy) from rebuilding on that spot at breakneck speed.
There’s a new tower block there now where WTC-7 used to stand. It reopened three years ago with 52 stories - bigger than before! (and presumably not pre-rigged with hi-tech explosives on this occasion?)
Remember the fanfare of international media coverage over the re-opening of this most notable building?
Me neither
“…from rebuilding on that spot at breakneck speed. “
Careful with the hyperbole. This may be breakneck outside the US, but for here in the US there’s nothing odd about the “speed” with which 7 WTC was rebuilt.
@ Liz 45,
About the only area nearby that remained intact (although suffering damage) was the the WFC complex. Every other WTC building was ultimately destroyed. A couple of thousand news articles were published online through to Dec 2001 just on 7WTC. There’s nothing secretive about its collapse.
@GEF05
I’m grateful for the correction. Allow me to submit a corrected version:
To be 100% accurate, the collapse of WTC-7 was reported by the mass media at the time. Actually, it was reported more than 20 minutes before it happened!
Soon afterwards, the western mass media lost all enthusiasm for covering the minor detail of that 47-storey collapsed building. Nor did the initial 9-11 Commission report see fit to mention WTC-7 at all.
The silence didn’t stopped leaseholder Larry Silverstein (a business partner of Frank Lowy) from rebuilding promptly on that spot.
There’s a new tower block there now where WTC-7 used to stand. It reopened three years ago with 52 stories - bigger than before! (and presumably not pre-rigged with hi-tech explosives on this occasion?)
Remember the fanfare of international media coverage over the re-opening of this most notable building?
Me neither
Oh goodie. A choice between payed propaganda, which mobilises the public into a pointless political conflict, and conspiracy nuts who think that the whole thing actually makes sense if only the CIA was in charge. I prefer the line that planes actually did fly into the buildings, and that political opportunism doesn’t require the secret services to help it along.
Oh goodie or not, the CIA has form. No doubt Altakoi you also accept the ‘magic bullet’ killed JFK and carried on to hit
Connolly in 3 different bones, shattering one bone and after finishing this awesome task had barely a mark on it. There are so many examples of the CIA involvement in too many ‘plots’, it encourages conspiracy talk. Incidently why are they conspiracy nuts?
Frankly, I’ve seen perfectly mundane bullets do more magical things.
Altakoi that pathetic response really sums up your cloud 9 contribution, of no consequence.
((((A choice between payed propaganda, which mobilises the public into a pointless political conflict, and conspiracy nuts who think that the whole thing actually makes sense if only the CIA was in charge.)))))
Oh boy!…which shower or rain was it?
These days so called “conspiracy nuts” are company directors, business proprietors, members of the police force, school teachers, journalists…yeah even journalists and members of parliament etc etc…the parameters have widened from the days of right-wing nazi fruit-loops.
…but the Hidden Hand still loves to lump them all in the same basket. An effective method of knowledge control to say the least.
What gets my goat is when our own Federal Ministers come on interview and still link Afghanistan and Iraq with 911 as lunatic justification for “sending in da troops”…gimme a break!!!…it’s out there now, so stop insulting us with bullshit and spin.
Hmmm… yes, you can call people conspiracy nuts. The problem for me is that their conspiracy theories are no less credible than the state-controlled propaganda. So I choose to at least hear them out, read the (surprisingly lame) counter attacks by major broadcasters (my fave remains the BBC: “oh, we lost the tapes), and try to keep it all at an arm’s distance.
Yes, sorry for the pathetic response, damn gainful employment sometimes gets in the way of more lengthy posts. There are some remarkable richochets in the annals of trauma, however.
So, why do I think people are nuts to believe the CIA blew up the world trade centre.
For me the problem with this is that, for all the complicated thinking about what was done and how, the conspiracy theory has a laughably naive view of why anyone would blow up to WTC. At this point most conspiracy theorists pat me on the head in the belief that I am a poor naive waif who thinks the government is good but that is not the case. I don’t think the CIA is good, especially under Bush, it just that I think they are professionals.
A professional organisation doesn’t wire an enormous building with thermite while its occupied in the middle of one of the most densely populated urban centres in the world, killing thousands of people in a way which is guaranteed to attract years of detailed scrutiny, unless it has to. Why didn’t the CIA blow up the WTC - because it didn’t have to.
The usual reasoning is that the US needed an excuse to go to war. This is logically flawed because firstly it didn’t need any excuse. The war was fought for six years against widespread public opposition. If the US needed an excuse they could, and did, use the supposed weapons of mass destruction, supposed nuclear weapons programs, the bombing of their embassies, the attacks on foreign military bases. If they were going to blow something up it would have been a 3rd world embassy where no-one was looking or, at the very least, not every paranoid with photoshop and access to a blog.
The second problem with the reasoning is that, because the US government found the WTC bombing very good propaganda value after the fact, it does not follow that it would have thought it was a good idea before the fact. The bombing could easily have led the populace to turn against the Bush administration at the polls, it could have led the American public to become more isolationist. Certainly a plan to actually blow the building up would have the chance of being discovered and then it would have been the chair for all involved.
Can you see any senior manager or political advisor taking that risk for something they don’t need to do? Oh, and don’t worry, its just a few airlines, explosives experts, the population of manhattan, and the families of the passengers secretly assassinated who will have to be kept in the dark. What could possibly go wrong? Sign the approval here, and here.
So yes, the spooks have form. They have destabilised democratic governments, they have assassinated leaders, they have run torture cells and shadow prisons. But this is all basic stuff done with clear policy objectives and drawing the absolute minimum of attention to themselves. What professional evil doer is going to go for an insane stunt which would stretch credibility as the plot of a summer blockbuster? Which is why most bank heists involve a sawn-off and a lot of shouting rather than resembling Oceans 11. Its simple, its reliable, it works. Its not going to fail because someones false moustache slips.
This matters because, if you believe the James Bond conspiracy, you are likely to take your eye of the boring everyday conspiracies which matter. The incompetence and foreign policy mistakes which allowed the attacks to occur are more worrying than if the attack was planned all along. The willingness of politicians to lie, and the media to publish those lies uncritically for ratings, is more concerning than some evil mastermind.
While conspiracy theorists pretend to show the hard reality, this is ultimately what makes them the soft option for me. At the end of the day, it explains events which had real causes in which we were complicit and over which we should have exerted control in terms of powers which are remote, and for which we have no responsibility. If the CIA blew up the world trade centre, the world is actually a more safe and warm place than if they did not because someone is in control. Sowing that belief really is controlling people.
In fact, if the CIA had a role, I would bet it was in starting all the conspiracy sites. Keeping people disempowered, not looking at their leaders, or the corporate interests in war. That they probably do have an interest in.