The Boston Bombings: Why Think Conspiracy?

Occams razor: The less unnecessary assumptions you make, the greater probability that your argument will remain reasonable.

I think of it like this. In your own lives, how often do you make mistakes? How hard is it to deceive those around you - your boss, your siblings, parents, wife, children?? Now magnify that thousands of times, and you arrive at a complex scenario that if pulled off without a hitch, defies all predictability.

The people who throw accusations of conspiracy around aren't very deep thinkers. Their assumptions are many, and quite grand. First, they imagine that theres some enormous conspiracy, which implies some agenda, where killing people in a dramatic manner would prove beneficial. Second, such motivation implies a malevolence redolent of movie villains. Apparently, there are hundreds of people in prominent positions (or perhaps all of them? :wow who don't give a lick about the lives of strangers. Not only do they collude with others in misleading the public about these attacks, but they must also have an impressive dearth of humanistic feelings, like compassion, generosity, love; or for that matter, the oppressive feeling of guilt.

Lets take a time out: in your own life, how important has the emotion of love, compassion, and generosity been? What does being good mean to you? Does being good possess intrinsic meaning?? When you do something you know is bad, yet make an effort to suppress the thought of it, are you able to do it, or does it creep up on you, regardless of your efforts to ignore it?

Psychologically speaking, people who assume conspiracy whenever something like this happens are the most cynical people imaginable. They probably aren't even aware of how blotchy their consideration of mankind is.

So on these two points, the complexity of orchestrating terror attacks, which involves controlling so many variables, selecting the pawns who will take the fall (which involves a ridiculous degree of supervision of their activity), which to enumerate some of what that means, it means finding people with radicalized views, in this case, apparent connections to extremist Islamic organizations in chechnya; then, this person has to be interested in carrying out an attack, which in this case involved him building bombs at his house. Then, you would have to arrange their being present at the marathon on the day of the planned attack. Then, just to boot, since conspiracies of these sorts are always so impeccably executed, one of them goes on twitter to speak glibly about the attacks (yet they weren't involved; an enormous coincidence that they show such indifference to people getting murdered!); when the older brother steals a car, he brags to the driver (who has nothing to gain by making the claim) that he was responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings. And Oh, these patsies also happen to possess firearms, and also have no problem shooting at the police in car chases - or killing other people in the process!

The amount of assumptions, just in analyzing the material evidence itself, is enormous. If you choose to ignore the cogency of the evidence, you still have to bridge it by making a whole new set of assumptions: that the police, witnesses, media, government, etc, are all colluding together to sell the public a lie. And they collude with such efficiency that we hear nothing about it.

And finally, for what purpose??? You and I both know that the no gun law bills are going to be passed as a result of this, there will be no passage of martial law bills. 2 months from now the public would have forgotten it, and the status quo will have remained the same as before the attacks.

So why? Why the compulsion to think conspiracy?

i don't know why, but it sure is catchin' on!

This post isn't receiving the attention it deserves.

I wish I had the eloquence of stating what I mean like you on matters of politics. Brilliant post. I'm so glad your here on ATS. Your one of the posters that make it worth it - being here.

Blessings,
Cirque

There is this little thing called"once bitten twice shy "
or as the quintessential official story promulgator GWB said:

“There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.”

www.goodreads.com...

WTC 95 bombing:

The transcript quotes Mr. Salem as saying that he wanted to complain to F.B.I. Headquarters in Washington about the Bureau's failure to stop the bombing, but was dissuaded by an agent identified as John Anticev.

Mr. Salem said Mr. Anticev had told him,

"He said, I don't think that the New York people would like the things out of the New York Office to go to Washington, D.C."

Another agent, identified as Nancy Floyd, does not dispute Mr. Salem's account, but rather, appears to agree with it,

whatreallyhappened.com...

while I am not certain that I agree with the OP
SanF for a well written post DR

reply to post by dontreally


I think it's a fallacy to treat everything so black and white.

For one thing there are many historical examples of real conspiracies. Conspiracies are something that actually happens. Sometimes they are successful. Sometimes they fail. Tthere is an ATS topic on real conspiracies here: ATS - Top Ten Real Conspiracies. Rather than delve into a list of real conspiracies, how about we start with a crazy, obvious conspiracy we all forget about.

The United States of America was founded by a group of conspirators operating on both sides of the Atlantic.

We are a nation of conspirators; founded by conspirators.

Our two major political parties engage in legal conspiracy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in a bloodless war filled with recursive coup d' tats and metaphorical assassinations.

One of our Presidents, in the past half-century, engaged in a conspiracy that was serious enough and ill-thought-out enough, that it forced him to resign.

Also, don't ignore the danger nor the power of passive conspiracies.

Edmund Burke: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

What if foreign enemies have implanted subversive elements in our military and law enforcement organizations? These individuals would not have to do anything other than "look the other way" when a significant file came across their desk.

That's a simple and apparent possible conspiracy that is certainly not so outside historical bounds that it can't have occurred.

Nothing is absolute. Everything exists on a spectrum.

I think ideas like "crisis actors" and "staged events" are absurd.

But I know that people are people and they do a lot of stupid things and sometimes they do evil things and sometimes they do those evil things together.

[People do lots of good and great things too]

reply to post by dontreally


Well we are on a conspiracy site and a proportion on here see a conspiracy in EVERY event some are more selective,we also have our star & flag hunter members who will create threads they know will get them stars & flags because that's what pushes their buttons and then we have other members that will look at all scenarios rather than jump to a conclusion one way or another.

reply to post by dontreally
Good question (referring to point of thread and final question).

Perhaps it's entertained as a possibility because the family members of the suspect suggested it was staged on national television.

When the Dad says it's staged, Aunt says it's staged, long time friends say they were set up and so on, you're going to have people considering that angle. Then of course you have the preexisting conspiracy community who are inclined to lean that direction, anyway.

Hopefully that brings some clarity to the big mystery of why people think conspiracy.
What do I personally think? *shrug* Whatever the jury ultimately decides, I'll go with that.

The amount of assumptions, just in analyzing the material evidence itself, is enormous. If you choose to ignore the cogency of the evidence, you still have to bridge it by making a whole new set of assumptions: that the police, witnesses, media, government, etc, are all colluding together to sell the public a lie. And they collude with such efficiency that we hear nothing about it.

No. The Government is selling a lie, and the MSM is buying it hook, line, and sinker and pushing it in our faces.

It disappoints me that a large portion of the members of this site have begun to believe every single event is a conspiracy.

All real evidence points to this being EXACTLY what it was reported to be, but no one is satisfied with that.

Actually there are a lot of "conspiracy theorists" who would like to be PROVED wrong
PROVED Wrong mind you
Proved
rhetoric does not cut it when proof is naturally expected
and all to often rhetoric is all they get
which is what you get when there is no proof

see this anonfiles.com...

reply to post by Danbones


I think there is an obvious conflict of interest with the 'evidence' you adduced. Mr. Salem is a Muslim. Most probably an Islamist. Therefore, surely he has an intrinsic interest to deflect negative attention from Islam and Muslims. If this means lying, it simply confirms in practice what Islamic theology and jurisprudence already ratifies: that a Muslim is required to lie to defend Islam (a practice called Taqiyya). Of course, not all Muslims think this way, but Salafi's, Wahabists, in their minds, the end justifies the means. Conspiring against an enemy (western imperialists, kafirs/infidels) is merely a means to the end of Allahs absolute rule (in their minds). The end is the absolute state, therefore, anything that comes before is obviated, erased, rendered irrelevant, by it's ontological primacy.

In short, with just a little knowledge of how Islamists think, we can better deduce from the total knowledge what is probabilistically happening when a Muslim, Mr. Salem, makes claims about the FBI.

Don't think Islamists like this aren't smart enough to manipulate the 1st amendment and the liberal doctrine of political correctness, where intuition and logic are suppressed in favor of abiding by incoherent rules which elevate feeling over reason

In short, Muslims, being a minority group, are like gays, immigrants, women, protected by a hyper sensitive media, which despite its 'noble' intentions, oftentimes stifles intelligent conversation.

reply to post by PointDume

I think it's a fallacy to treat everything so black and white.

For one thing there are many historical examples of real conspiracies. Conspiracies are something that actually happens. Sometimes they are successful. Sometimes they fail. Tthere is an ATS topic on real conspiracies here: ATS - Top Ten Real Conspiracies. Rather than delve into a list of real conspiracies, how about we start with a crazy, obvious conspiracy we all forget about.

The United States of America was founded by a group of conspirators operating on both sides of the Atlantic.

We are a nation of conspirators; founded by conspirators.

Our two major political parties engage in legal conspiracy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in a bloodless war filled with recursive coup d' tats and metaphorical assassinations.

One of our Presidents, in the past half-century, engaged in a conspiracy that was serious enough and ill-thought-out enough, that it forced him to resign.

I acknowledge and accept all that you have said. But there's a very big difference between the occurrence of conspiracy and the prevalence of tragedy; in short, in terms of statistics, based on the conspiracies we do know of, how many politically notable events, or tragedies, can always be chalked up to government design?

Knowing something about Islam - the target implicated by most recent terrorist attacks - particularly Islamism (political Islam, idealogues like Hassan Al Banna, Sayd Qutb, Mohommad Iqbal and Ayotollah Khomeini) in short, knowing that political Islam is not "created" by the west, isn't the invention of the CIA or British intelligence, but quite naturally grew out as a response to Islamic degradation, political subjugation of the Umma (Islamic Community) to Infidels, and Christians to boot, helps to confirm my belief that this attack is the result of an alien body, acting outside the knowledge of the intelligence agencies, who may know of them, but aren't infallible, that is, they are capable of failure - of losing sight of a possible terrorist.. They do not possess some secret technology to keep an eye on every person at every time (although they would no doubt like such a technology) At the present moment, our technological sophistication is still too primitive.

Additional to knowing something about Islam is buttressed by a sociological understanding of the effect of the European Enlightenment on Islamic civilization and culture . It wasn't and still hasn't been, an easy transition for the Islamic world into modernity. Their theological - metaphysical and epistemological - worldview, has not yet accommodated the needs of a modern state. This is why these socieites are so fractured. The modern world has created an enormous rift between the religious and the secular - a division btw foreign to Islamic thinking. It has disenfranchised either secular or religious, depending of the government in place (now, it would be the secular, but before the "arab awakening", it was the religious). And no, the west cannot be held responsible for this because they exploited them for a 150 years or so. Look at the eastern world, which, despite also being exploited by the west (China, Japan, India, have all at some point been exploited by the west, China for a good 250 + years, by the Europeans) have managed to produce bustling or thriving economies.

Radicalism sprouts in places that are politically unstable. Everyone knows the middleeast is politically unstable. That political instability spawns radical Islamic organizations is also true. That these organizations are hostile to western ways of looking at things, and so, western states, is also well known.. If this is all known and accepted, its not to much of a jump to deduce that this Boston Bombing may have been the latest episode of Islamic terrorism. It happens in Indonesia, India, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Israel, and many other countries, all the time. That it should happen sometimes in the USA is inevitable.

Knowing something about Islam - the target implicated by most recent terrorist attacks - particularly Islamism (political Islam, idealogues like Hassan Al Banna, Sayd Qutb, Mohommad Iqbal and Ayotollah Khomeini) in short, knowing that political Islam is not "created" by the west, isn't the invention of the CIA or British intelligence, but quite naturally grew out as a response to Islamic degradation, political subjugation of the Umma (Islamic Community) to Infidels, and Christians to boot, helps to confirm my belief that this attack is the result of an alien body, acting outside the knowledge of the intelligence agencies, who may know of them, but aren't infallible, that is, they are capable of failure - of losing sight of a possible terrorist..

Beg to differ...

Islamic fundamentalism has existed in various forms for centuries.
But it wasnt until the post world war two era that it became a reactionary y counter revoltuionary phenomenon.
It was mainly used the the UK and the USA to crush left wing aand progressive movements in muslim countries and as a hedge against soviet expansionism.

The "radical fundamentalism" that we are told drives the majority of these Islamic terror groups didn't exist until 6 months prior to the russian invasion of Afghanistan on the 24 December of 1979 and was included in a package deal worth between 3 and 6 billion dollares of arms bought from China, eygpt and Iran over the 10 year period.

Jimmy Carter signed a presidential order on the 3rd of july 1979 allowing the USA to secretly fund and arm the opponents of the soviet regime in Kabul, this coupled with islamic fundamentalism would keep the soviets busy for 10 years, and would end in the fall of the iron curtain.

Note the dates, the USA started to arm the mujahadeen 6 moths BEFORE the russians invaded, knowing that this would guarantee a soviet military intervention, which was anyway inevitable.

As Brzezinski said - "What is most important to the history of the world. The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire, some stirred up muslims or the liberation of central Europe and the end of the cold war.

It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries."

Stopped reading at

''The people who throw accusations of conspiracy around aren't very deep thinkers''

I could let myself be trolled, an emoticon will have to suffice

reply to post by andy1972

The "radical fundamentalism" that we are told drives the majority of these Islamic terror groups didn't exist until 6 months prior to the russian invasion of Afghanistan on the 24 December of 1979 and was included in a package deal worth between 3 and 6 billion dollares of arms bought from China, eygpt and Iran over the 10 year period.

Hassan Al Bannahs Muslim Brotherhood was either sponsoring or directly carrying out terror attacks against Egyptian secularists in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. Not to mention the terror of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohommad Aimin Al Husseini, the mastermind of the Safed and Hebron Massacres, as well as the 1936-1939 Jaffa riots. Islamism was built in the 1920s. First, as a response to the westernization of Islamic society (which hardlined Muslims saw as the subjugation of Islam, and thus, a calamity), and second, as a response to the Zionist movements interest in procuring land in Palestine. The Brotherhood concentrated mostly on the former, while Husseinis goons dealt with the latter. But make no mistake, religious-fueled rhetoric spurred violent activity against infidels in both cases.

As for the terror organizations that proliferated after the soviet invasion - very few of them were actual responses to Soviet aggression. In fact, the soviets were merely regarded as one among many kafirs who threatened Islamic civilization. The others were the European powers, and eventually, America. All together, Russia, Europe and America = westernization.

Israel too is both rightly and wrongly interpreted as westernization. In one sense, they are an ambassadorial western presence in the middle east. In another sense, Israel is reflective of the ancient Jewish aspiration for self governance. As such, you have Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews, bringing with them both European and Arabic culture, with their own Jewish twist, to the middle east.

Hezbollah and Hamas (amongst others) are religious extremist responses to Israel's existence. As any thoughtful analyst knows, there opposition to Israel is fully religious, but to make it seem legitimate to atheistic westerners they have to cloak it in humanitarian terms. This means, as scandalous as it sounds, either fabricating evidence of genocide, or, actually generating civilian casualties by luring soldiers into precarious scenarios. The Islamists are smart: the end always justifies the means. The death of the poor saps who stand in crowds while terrorists shoot at IDF soldiers are termed "martyrs" by extremist clerics.

Note the dates, the USA started to arm the mujahadeen 6 moths BEFORE the russians invaded, knowing that this would guarantee a soviet military intervention, which was anyway inevitable.

No offense, but I fail to see the salience of this point. Brezinski, like Kissinger dealing with China, was right to prefer the Mujahadin to the Soviets. It was a catch 22. In such scenarios, you choose the lesser of two evils.

In fact, if it weren't for their failure in Afghanistan, one wonders whether the Soviet Union would be around today. Would Iran have been safe? How bout China??? China had to deal with a million plus Soviet troops on their northern border. How would they feel about their western provinces if the Soviets succeeded in Afghanistan? Surely, there would have been war between them, as many feared.

It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam.

Everyone except those with their heads buried in the sand understand that Islam is a problem. But the west really has no sure 'policy' to deal with it. To even say so betrays a lack of knowledge of the situation. On the right, you have people with more bellicose, or "hands on" ideas about how to deal with Muslims. After all, the eastern world is catching up, even though the west exploited jus as handedly as they did the Islamic world. But the Eastern world is not as dogmatically hamstringed as the Islamic world. The Eastern world in inclusive - it's able to accommodate western ways without feeling like they're surrendering their identity. The Islamic world conversely, by and large, is struggling with it's self identity. Some Muslims - the ones promoted and encouraged by western countries - are trying to bring the Islamic world into modernity; some have tried to so through secularism, others have tried to do so through reformism. Even though, scripturally speaking, the reformist attempt is incoherent from the traditional orthodox perspective, there's no fundamental reason why the core ideas of Islam (God, morality) and modernity can get along. But again, Islam is so radically different from Judaism and Christianity. Christianities scriptural apoliticism set up the reformation, which prepared the Christian world for the enlightenment. Judaism had 2000 or so years of political subjugation, enough time to extirpate from the tradition grandiose ideas nowadays associated with Islam. Rabbinic Judaism is rather apolitical; it forfeits political rule to another time (some indefinite future). It therefore prepared the way for reformation. But Islam has had no such precursor. Islam had only caliphates - kingdoms ruled by Islamic rulers, structured around Islamic ways of thinking and living.

Note the progression: first there changes at the theological level, and then comes ideological shifts in society. Without a theological shift - without discrediting earlier modes of thought, how exactly is a new way of thinking going to emerge? This is Islam - and the worlds - dilemma. This is why Islamic radicalism exists. America is not the cause, anymore than science, technology, and democracy is the cause. America is a vehicle of societal transformation called "westernization", just as Europe was the century before. It is predominately THIS which Islamic fundamentalists have a problem with.

reply to post by dontreally

The Boston Bombings: Why Think Conspiracy?

Because there are too many people on a "conspiracy site" making posts defending the "official story" to be coincidental.

The people who throw accusations of conspiracy around aren't very deep thinkers.

Ah, Ad homenim in the opening paragraph, eh?

Psychologically speaking, people who assume conspiracy whenever something like this happens are the most cynical people imaginable.

And there is another ad homenim.....

That's a real nice track record you got there in one post.... For deliberately attacking Conspiracy Theorists... really lets us know where you stand on the whole issue....

reply to post by ErtaiNaGia


Those were extremely tepid 'ad hominems', especially considering that they weren't specific, and logically speaking, they're entirely true.

Deep, means taking into consideration all the things I did in that post. It was never meant to mean that conspiracy doesn't occur, as a previous poster showed, it happens sometimes. However, it shouldn't be turned to as the most probable explanation as often as it happens in our day and age.

As for the second "ad hominem". Cynical means to think less of people. In this case, to imagine that every politician is bad, or capable of being bought off; that our police officers are all crude, or that our media has no real intention to promote the public good, in short, to suspect that all these people - who are individuals first and foremost - collude in some masterful, yet nefarious way - is remarkably cynical.

Only someone so committed to these views is able to blind himself to his own (albeit, unreflected upon) cynicism.

Yep, let's just believe whatever we're told. Media=truth, apparently.

Originally posted by dontreally
reply to post by ErtaiNaGia

 

Those were extremely tepid 'ad hominems'

edit on 25-4-2013 by dontreally because: (no reason given)

No, you attack the people not the message, that is Ad hominem in a nutshell.

You have been badly sussed, give it up.