h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Where to start or end??

>the being whose many names include Arnie< Della you're making him sound like something out of 'Revelations'

<>

As far as it goes, I personally don't have an alternate theory, and don't feel I am required to have! However, in a court case aboput this, were I on a jury, I'd insist there's 'reasonable doubt'. The main question is "who benefits"?

Neocons, that's who...

I think that if there is evidence that doesn't fit with the official explanation, it's reasonable to have doubts and to look for an alternative. However, the evidence on that website is pretty weak - much of it is unsubstantiated and some (even if true) is irrelevent.

I'm no fan of the Neocons. But I find it very hard to believe that they would bring about (or simply passively allow to happen) the events of September 11th. To accept this, you have to believe that Neocons were prepared to sacrifice 3000 of their fellow countrymen and women (and that's important - 3000 Americans, not 3000 foreigners).

Imagine that you wanted to bring about the political climate for a neocon agenda, and you were prepared to do anything to make it happen. Imagine that you concluded that a Pearl Harbour style outrage would be the only way to make it happen. Imagine that you have access to world class equipment, technology, and intelligence. How would you go about it? Personally, I'd keep it simple. Why fly planes into buildings - too many people involved, too many variables, too much to go wrong. Why not just plant a huge bomb somewhere important? Or an assassination - or lots of assassinations?

It's also implausible to me that the neocons would be (a) so wicked as to do that to their own people (I'd believe it of atrocities abroad), they they would (b) use those methods.

I'm not suggesting that you need to have a fully worked out alternative theory, but this just makes no sense at all. I've argued previously why "who benefits" is not a good logical way of approaching things. Proof of benefit does not equal proof of guilt.

I think the point about religion was that there are many people who believe all *kinds* of things, whether it's X dozen virgins waiting in paradise, witches being to blame for turning milk sour (or anything else going wrong), alien space-lizards trying to control the Earth, a cult-leader deserving the right to screw any woman believer he encounters, spacecraft coming in comet-tails to take away people who have shed their Earthly Bodies or whatever, it's evidently true that there are many people of all kinds of religions, philosophies and political persuasions that believe in all kinds of rubbish (even if the odd one is right, most must be wrong).
People believe those things for no more reason than that they have been told those things are true.
Whether it's because they are susceptible to believe things in general, they are vulnerable to a particular *kind* of belief because it fits with how they already think things are or want things to be, the beliefs are presented by someone persuasive, the arguments in support of the beliefs have been honed over time to be persuasive, or that social pressures make believing (or claiming to believe) desirable may vary from person to person, but what can't be denied is that people can be caused to believe all kinds of stuff despite a lack of evidence, or even despite significant contrary evidence.

Many beliefs may be harmless, some may be positively beneficial, but such potential Usefulness doesn't mean they are any more True.

I'm sorry, what were you saying Della/Annie/Vicky/DA?

Isn't Satan the ultimate conspiracy theory?

There is a war that has been waged secretly for thousands of years all across the Earth. For the battling sides, our very minds are the battleground. We alone know this, because one side has confided their true nature to us in order to help us escape the other side, who intend to corrupt and enslave us all!

Arnie you forgot Apple!

"I'm no fan of the Neocons. But I find it very hard to believe that they would bring about (or simply passively allow to happen) the events of September 11th. To accept this, you have to believe that Neocons were prepared to sacrifice 3000 of their fellow countrymen and women (and that's important - 3000 Americans, not 3000 foreigners)."

Otto, you might want to consider that with all this talk of "neocon" agendas you're buying into something quite similar to conspiracy-theory. Personally I think that had the Democrats been in the Whitehouse much the same response to 9/11 would have happened. People just wouldn't have been able to find this obscure group of Republicans called "neoconservatives" and claimed they were pulling all the strings. Clinton had already taken action against Al-Quaida and it was him, not "neocons" who drew-up plans for a US invasion of Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein (albeit after a rebellion against Saddam had been brought-about which the US would invade to "support"). The US right peddle a myth about Clinton "ignoring" Al-Quaida and Bush and the Republicans taking the fight to the enemy (in fact the opposite was true, Bush opposed Clinton's "meddling" in 2000 on the basis that it created resentment to the US) and I've even seen someone attempt to brush-aside the fact that Clinton drew up plans to invade Iraq by claiming that he "didn't mean it" (nice try).

Like it or not, what's happened after 9/11 isn't a madcap new scheme but an extension of US foreign policy from the Clinton era and the Bush era before that - "nation building" and military intervention against "rogue states" and to protect US and allied interests. It's nothing new, it's not always good but it's not part of some madcap new scheme. People with their own agendas just spin it that way.

That's interesting, but it would leave me wondering where US foreign policy *resides* between administrations - I thought that administrations tended to change most people in positions of power.
Are there persistent government employees in whom ideas persist strongly enough to override the opinions of incoming politicians and their chosen advisors?

I don't disagree - I think it's right to stress continuity in US foreign policy. It's easy in hindsight to make Clinton into some kind of saint, but the fact is that he authorised various pre-emptive strikes on what turned out in one case to be a paracetemol factory. As for whether Clinton or Gore would have done the same as Bush after September 11th - I've really no idea.

But I do detect change too. I think Clinton was genuinely interested in finding a solution to the Israel/Palestine problem, and I don't think that Bush is. Domestically, I think there are big differences between the two. So while I don't believe that the neocons are some kind of shadowy group - rather too much is known about them for that to be true - they do exist and their agenda is different from Clinton's. Though Zagreb's point about contiuity is well made.

"I don't disagree - I think it's right to stress continuity in US foreign policy. It's easy in hindsight to make Clinton into some kind of saint, but the fact is that he authorised various pre-emptive strikes on what turned out in one case to be a paracetemol factory. As for whether Clinton or Gore would have done the same as Bush after September 11th - I've really no idea.

But I do detect change too. I think Clinton was genuinely interested in finding a solution to the Israel/Palestine problem, and I don't think that Bush is. Domestically, I think there are big differences between the two. So while I don't believe that the neocons are some kind of shadowy group - rather too much is known about them for that to be true - they do exist and their agenda is different from Clinton's. Though Zagreb's point about contiuity is well made."

First, I never said Clinton was in any way a "saint" or even an especially good President. The strike on Sudan was in retaliation for Al-Quaida attacks on US targets, incidentally, it wasn't pre-emptive although he did hit a dud target.

As for domestically, yes Clinton and Bush are quite different (although not, from what I can gather, as their cheerleaders say they are) but I was talking exclusively about foreign policy.

As for Israel/Palestine, I think Bush does want peace and a two-state solution (he has stated this time and time again, in spite of the fact that the two-state solution is unpopular with some of his supporters) but I think that he places too much emphasis on what the Palestinians need to do and too little on what Israel needs to do.

I think diplomats themselves are generally in permenant employment, sort of like a civil service position, but with a lot more perks. I suspect that they'd just carry on with previous orders between governments.

Interesting quote from the British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper who was given the task of unravelling the last movements of Hitler:

"Myths are not like truths; they are the triumph of credulity over evidence. The form of a myth is indeed externally conditioned by facts; there is a minimum of evidence with which it must comply, if it is to lie; but once lip-service has been paid to that undeniable minimum, the human mind is free to indulge its infinite capacity for self-deception.... When we consider upon what ludicrous evidence the most preposterous beliefs have been easily, and by millions, entertained, we may well hesitate before pronouncing anything incredible."

>Personally I think that had the Democrats been in the Whitehouse much the same response to 9/11 would have happened.<

An interestingly moot point.

Of course, what we do know is that Bush and the White House dismantled much of the intelligence network set up by Clinton's White House after the attack on the USS Cole, thus making it considerably easier for the attack to take place. It's entirely possible that had the Democrats been in the White House, the attacks may never have happened.

The two *are* conected, but not deliberately so. I just think Bush and Co took their eyes of the ball called 'Al Quaeda' because they wanted to kick a different one which was called 'Iraq'. Eventually they got to play connect the dots and make an utterly spurious link between the two, mind.

Mmm.

Wasn't Trevor Roper the one taken in by the 'myth' of the Hitler Diaries?

Not sure he'd be the man I'd turn to if I wanted to discuss the difference between 'history' and 'myth'.

Au contraire, if Trevor-Roper was the guy in question, who is better placed to comment on the difference