The Attraction Of Conspiracy Theories
Author: Sodacan (CC)
Via ScienceDaily:
Distrust and paranoia about government has a long history, and the feeling that there is a conspiracy of elites can lead to suspicion for authorities and the claims they make. For some, the attraction of conspiracy theories is so strong that it leads them to endorse entirely contradictory beliefs, according to a study in the current Social Psychological and Personality Science (published by SAGE).
People who endorse conspiracy theories see authorities as fundamentally deceptive. The conviction that the “official story” is untrue can lead people to believe several alternative theories-despite contradictions among them. “Any conspiracy theory that stands in opposition to the official narrative will gain some degree of endorsement from someone who holds a conpiracist worldview,” according to Michael Wood, Karen Douglas and Robbie Sutton of the University of Kent.
To see if conspiracy views were strong enough to lead to inconsistencies, the researchers asked 137 college students about…
What The Government Told Gizmodo About Osama Bin Laden’s Body
Amazing read. Sam Biddle writes on Gizmodo:
Months ago, I asked the Pentagon for its visual records of Osama bin Laden’s sea burial under the Freedom of Information Act. Today, I received a thick packet of No— a complete denial that any records exist. Read it.
The core of the response is this: the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, United States Special Operations Command, and the Department of the Navy all had their records searched. Nothing. Admiral Mike Mullen’s email was scanned. Nothing. The Pentagon claims not a single person aboard the USS Carl Vinson, where Bin Laden’s remains were disposed of, took a single picture. Not a single email from the ship makes reference to photo or video. Essentially: nobody in the military has evidence. So did these things ever exist? If so, they’re in a filing cabinet at the CIA, where they’ll be safe for the rest of time.
‘SEAL Target Geronimo’ Claims Bin Laden Kill Mission Took 90 Seconds
Chuck Pfarrer, a former Navy SEAL and author of SEAL Target Geronimo, offers a different account of those events in early May 2011 on The Dylan Ratigan Show:
When War is Promoted As a Remedy for Terror
Anthony Hall writes on Salem News:
In early May President Barack Obama announced his administration’s most dramatic commemoration of this, the tenth-anniversary year of the 9/11 debacle. He boasted to the world that his government had murdered in Pakistan Osama bin Laden, who the US president described as “al-Qaeda’s leader and symbol.” “The death of bin Laden,” Obama declared, “marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al-Qaeda.”
In this military operation “Geronimo” was the code name used to identify bin Laden or his impersonator. The skeletal remains of Geronimo’s head form part a key part of the Bush clan’s family lore with its deep intergenerational connection to Yale University’s Skull and Bones Society. Skull and Bones is not a myth, but its secret rituals are legendary. As is well documented, Yale’s Skull and Bones Society has been an important seeding nursery for the national security state,…
The Strange Case of Benazir Bhutto’s Claims and Osama bin Laden’s Death
Jennifer Briney wrote back in 2008 on Little Country Lost:
In a November 2, 2007 interview, less than two months before she would be assassinated, Benazir Bhutto was asked by reporter David Frost of Al-Jazeera English about a letter that she had sent to Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf. The letter outlined who she believed should be investigated in the event of her assassination. While giving her answer, she listed as one of the suspects a “key figure in security … a former military officer in Pakistan” who had dealings with, among others, “Omar Sheikh, the man who murdered Osama bin-Laden.”
If that name, Omar Shieikh, sounds familiar it’s because he was a key figure in some huge stories between 1999 and 2002. His full name is Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and multiple variations of those names are used to describe him including Omar Sheikh and Saeed Sheikh. Here’s how you may have…
Who–and What–Are Behind the “Official History” of the Bin Laden Raid?
Russ Baker writes for WhoWhatWhy:
The establishment media just keep getting worse. They’re further and further from good, tough investigative journalism, and more prone to be pawns in complicated games that affect the public interest in untold ways. A significant recent example is The New Yorker’s vaunted August 8 exclusive on the vanquishing of Osama bin Laden.
The piece, trumpeted as the most detailed account to date of the May 1 raid in Abbottabad Pakistan, was an instant hit. “Got the chills half dozen times reading @NewYorker killing bin Laden tick tock…exquisite journalism,” tweeted the digital director of the PBS show Frontline. The author, freelancer Nicholas Schmidle, was quickly featured on the Charlie Rose show, an influential determiner of “chattering class” opinion. Other news outlets rushed to praise the story as “exhaustive,” “utterly compelling,” and on and on.
To be sure, it is the kind of granular, heroic story that the public loves, that…
Navy SEAL Team 6 Members Killed in Afghanistan Helicopter Crash Not Osama bin Laden’s Killers
So official sources say. A dramatic loss of life to one of America’s elite military forces. Christine Haverkamp reports on the AP via KTLV:
U.S. officials tell the Associated Press that they believe that none of the Navy SEALs who died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan had participated in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, although they were from the same unit that carried out the bin Laden mission.
Sources say that more than 20 Navy SEALs were among those lost in the crash in Afghanistan.
The operators from SEAL Team Six were flown by a regular Army crew. That’s according to AP military sources.
Another source says the team was thought to include 22 SEALs, three Air Force air controllers, seven Afghan Army troops, a dog and his handler, and a civilian interpreter, plus the helicopter crew.
The sources thought this was the largest single loss of life ever for SEAL Team…
CIA Held Fake Vaccination Drive To Get Osama’s Children’s DNA
A-ha! For years I’ve been telling everyone that so-called “vaccinations” are a government scam to harvest our DNA (and render us autistic to boot). The Guardian reports on a beyond-bizarre CIA plot:
The CIA organised a fake vaccination program in the town where it believed Osama bin Laden was hiding in an elaborate attempt to obtain DNA from the fugitive al-Qaida leader’s family. A senior Pakistani doctor was recruited to organize the vaccine drive in Abbottabad, even starting the “project” in a poorer part of town to make it look more authentic.
DNA from any of the Bin Laden children in the compound could be compared with a sample from his sister, who died in Boston in 2010, to provide evidence that the family was present. It is not known exactly how the doctor hoped to get DNA from the vaccinations, although nurses could have been trained to withdraw some blood in the…
Salvage Diver Plans To Recover Bin Laden’s Body From Sea
Photo: Hamid Mir (CC)
After the disposal of Osama Bin Laden’s body at sea many were skeptical, including Bill Warren. While everyone else was talking up their conspiracy theories Warren decided there was only one way to know the truth, go down there and get him. Via TIME:
Talk is cheap. That’s why Bill Warren won’t elaborate on his conspiracy theory regarding bin Laden’s death. Instead, he’s taking action. The Fallbrook, Calif. salvage diver is planning a mission to retrieve bin Laden’s body from the bottom of the Arabian Sea.
Having been in the business of salvage diving for more than 30 years, Warren is aware of the dangers and difficulties of rescue missions. The body, he says, “will look like a cigar at the bottom of the ocean.” It’s a mission that will require some heavy – and costly – technology. So is the proof worth the purchase?
To Warren, that’s affirmative. Casting aside…
Media Roots Radio: Osama Propaganda, Police Power, GOP & Obama’s 2012 Run-up
Via Media Roots Radio:
This episode covers new Bin Laden propaganda, the recent ruling giving police the power to break into homes without warrants and the media circus surrounding the GOP and Obama’s election run-up for 2012.
Florida Man Angers His Church By Asking Them to Pray for Soul of Osama Bin Laden (Video)
Brian Hamacher reports for NBC Miami:
The South Florida man whose prayer for Osama bin Laden caused a holy mess at mass this past Sunday is speaking out to defend the bizarre benediction.
Henry Borga paid $10 to put bin Laden’s name on the prayer list at Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church in West Palm Beach over the weekend, according to WPTV. The name appeared with four others under the mass intentions section in the church’s pamphlet, with a cross next to bin Laden’s name.
While putting the name on the list has caused quite a hubbub, Borga, who said he also prayed for the victims of 9/11, said it was about mercy. “He was a very bad man but he deserved to be punished in life, not by losing his life,” Borga said. “He needs forgiveness and compassion from God.”
Was Osama Bin Laden A US Prisoner Before Being Killed?
The Times Of India reports:
Al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden was a prisoner in US custody for “sometime” before he was killed by the American military, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said.
“I have exact information that bin Laden was held by the American military for sometime… until the day they killed him he was a prisoner held by them,” the hardline president said in a live interview on Iranian state television.
“Please pay attention. This is important. He was held by them for sometime. They made him sick and while he was sick they killed him,” Ahmadinejad added.
He accused US President Barack Obama for announcing the al-Qaida leader’s death for “political gain.”
“What the US president has done is for domestic political gain. In other words, they killed him for Mr Obama’s election and now they are seeking to replace him with someone else,” Ahmadinejad said without elaborating.
Bin Laden was shot dead on May…
Christopher Hitchens Vs. Noam Chomsky on Osama Bin Laden
Hitchens Photo: Trockennasenaffe (CC) / Chomsky Photo: Duncan Rawlinson (CC)
Christopher Hitchens takes issue with Noam Chomsky’s recent Guernica article in Slate:
Anybody visiting the Middle East in the last decade has had the experience: meeting the hoarse and aggressive person who first denies that Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center and then proceeds to describe the attack as a justified vengeance for decades of American imperialism.
This cognitive dissonance — to give it a polite designation — does not always take that precise form. Sometimes the same person who hails the bravery of al-Qaida’s martyrs also believes that the Jews planned the “operation.” As far as I know, only leading British “Truther” David Shayler, a former intelligence agent who also announced his own divinity, has denied that the events of Sept. 11, 2001, took place at all. (It was apparently by means of a hologram that the…
Disney Trademarks ‘Seal Team 6′
Alex Weprin writes on FishBowlNY:
In a perfect example of a big media company looking to capitalize on current events, The Walt Disney Company has trademarked “Seal Team 6,” which also happens to be the name of the elite special forces team that killed Osama Bin Laden.
The trademark applications came on May 3rd, two days after the operation that killed Bin Laden… and two days after “Seal Team 6″ was included in thousands of news articles and TV programs focusing on the operation.
Disney’s trademark applications for “Seal Team 6″ cover clothing, footwear, headwear, toys, games and “entertainment and education services,” among other things.
Osama Bin Wankin’
Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post once again demonstrates that his tabloid “newspapers” (he owns The Sun in the UK among others) are in a class of their own when it comes to cover headlines.
In addition to this classy example, the Post suggests that some of the titles in Osama’s porn collection include:
- Talibuns
- Oral Qaeda
- 1,000 Arabians In One Night
- Debbie Does Abbotabad
… and the list goes on. Makes you wonder what’s in Rupert’s own collection…
Osama Had Gigantic Porn Stash In Compound
I’m slightly skeptical of this story — not because I can’t imagine Osama bin Laden having a propensity for porn, but because the military would be saying it regardless of whether or not it were true. The Los Angeles Times notes the breaking geopolitical news:
It appears Osama bin Laden may not have been totally disconnected electronically. Despite reports that he didn’t have Internet connection or mobile service, Pentagon officials say the Navy SEALs found pornography — and a lot of it — at Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, consisting of “modern, electronically recorded video.”
No word on how it got there. But some analysts are speculating it may have been transferred by thumb-sized flash drives that he used to send emails while in hiding. Or it could’ve been through the satellite television that he used to watch Al Jazeera.
Taliban Terry Arrested In Ireland For Obama Death Threat
Is there a nuttier Irishman than Khalid Kelly, a/k/a Taliban Terry? He’s one of the main characters in Stephen Marshall’s acclaimed documentary Holy Wars (see trailer below), and is now vowing revenge for the killing of Osama bin Laden. Via AP:
Police arrested Ireland’s most notorious Muslim convert Thursday over his reported death threats against President Barack Obama.
Police said Khalid Kelly, a 44-year-old dubbed “Taliban Terry” by Dubliners, was arrested at his Dublin residence on suspicion of threatening to kill the U.S. leader. He could be held for up to three days before being charged or released.
The arrest came 10 days before Obama’s arrival in Ireland and four days after a British newspaper, the Sunday Mirror, printed an interview with Kelly. He is Ireland’s most outspoken supporter of al-Qaida and its slain founder, Osama bin Laden.
Kelly was quoted as telling the newspaper that he expected al-Qaida to kill Obama during his visit to Ireland…
The CIA Created Fake Drunken, Gay Osama Campfire Video
What a sitcom pilot it would have made. Via Parapolitical:
A post on the Washington Post’s defunct blog “Spy Talk” from May of 2010 detailed the CIA’s plans to produce fake Osama bin Laden videos.
Yesterday, the BBC reported on neighbors of the alleged Bin Laden compound in Abbottabad expressing skepticism as to the authenticity of videos released by the White House purporting to show Osama bin Laden watching television.
Osama Is Dead, But Congress Wants a Wider War…
For all of you who chanted “USA! USA!” the night of the night of 1/2 May, if you are truly patriotic, you’ll ask what the hell is going on NOW. Spencer Ackerman writes in WIRED’s Danger Room:
Osama bin Laden is dead. 9/11 was ten years ago. So it’s not the most obvious time for a key congressional panel to expand the war on terrorism.
But that’s exactly what a section of the fiscal 2012 defense bill proposes to do. The so-called “Chairman’s Mark” of the bill, currently before the House Armed Services Committee, wants to update the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force, to reflect that the al-Qaida of the present day is way different than the organization that attacked the U.S. on 9/11.
While the original Authorization tethered the war to those directly or indirectly responsible for 9/11, the new language authorizes “an armed conflict with al-Qaida, the Taliban, and associated…
