Skeptic Project

Is it 2003?

Sorry to sound like a dick, but that was really popular in 2003/2004. Alex Jones and others held on to it for much longer, some still think it's coming. Michael Ruppert said it'd be Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela, but 6 years have come and gone and there's no sign at all of anything like that happening.

*IF* there is an invasion of Iran, it won't be while Obama is president, it'd likely be under another neoconservative president, which could be after 2012 (see similar conservative backlash after Jimmy Carter) or could be after 2016 or whatever. Even then, Afghanistan and Iraq will still be in memory and it's highly unlikely even the dumbest (bravest to some) neoconservative president would get congress to wage war against Iran.

Here's my prediction: barring Iran launching a direct attack on the US (which won't happen) there won't be an invasion.

The Iran stuff is dead now, but I guarantee in 10 years we'll still be hearing about, just like we'll still be getting questions about how buildings can "collapse into their own footprint."

They also thought of putting LSD in one of Castro's cigars so he'd make himself look crazy in public.

No man, no offense taken. This is old hat stuff. Just taking another look at the dusty thing.

So what is the verdict on those wars? Where they to stamp out dictators and terrorism?

Ya, they probably wouldn't invade Iran as things are now. Maybe it's too big and probably just easier to help it collapse on its own or something, huh?

Sometimes it does seem to me that the US "energy-military-industrial-complex", if I can throw in extra terms, had much more motive do be involved in something like 9/11 than anyone else.

How much would Bin Laden's network gain from taking out just 2 buildings and then getting pulverized by the US war machine?

How much did the above mentioned US complex gain?

Shouldn't there be a claim, at least, to blowing up the towers? Isn't that how terrorism often works?

Did anyone come forward to directly claim responsibility for the attack, besides the dark and grainy video that they supposedly found of Bin Laden, where he is caught on camera talking amongst his peers about the attack? This isn't exactly a direct claim of responsibility to the face of the attacked.

Even if there was such a direct claim. As we agree now, CIA can and does sometimes plan to produce false videos, right?

Stuff like this CIA plot to make dark grainy gay videos of Sadam show that this agency, at least, does this stuff.

The CIA seems fairly good at tricking the populations of other countries. Would its methodologies work on us, as well? What other government agencies are capable of such things.

Of course, this is all indirect stuff. Doesn't prove anything.

But on this proof note: Is there really that much proof for who perpetrated the attack? Some financial bank trials that the commission says they got?

I should take another look at the 9/11 commission report, but maybe somebody wants to write a couple sentence summary to remind me of how they expect us to believe that they so assuredly know who perpetrated 9/11, and why we should believe the facts (eg financial facts) they report as true.

>> Some, but still no where near as much as they had during the cold war.

OIC, how much bigger was the complex then? It must have been hungry coming down of that Cold War high.

>> What? The towers weren't blown up, so I'm not sure why anyone would claim that, and if they did, nobody would believe them.

I meant claim hitting the towers with the planes.

>> Yes, and when they do, they're made fun of by their own agency.

A bit different situation, I suppose, when you are perpetrating against another country. Maybe there'd be more secrecy, high level staff, more care, etc when doing something really bad.

>> Yes, but there are a lot of videos, including ones with the hijackers.

Oh, I don't remember seeing the ones with the hijackers. There is so much CT BS out there than the main info doesn't make its way up google search results and stuff...

>>Yes, they *all* could have been made by the CIA, but then you run into the problem that if they were, then how did 9/11 happen? Space Beams? Missiles? Remote controlled planes?

Well, everything else could have been the same except that, in perhaps the simplest CT explanation, the gubberment allowed the attack to take place.

Prove to me that FDR didn't like springrolls?

No, but, prove to me that US complex doesn't like war to establish military bases in oil rich lands in militarily strategic regions, even if it does like it a little less than Cold-Wars. Actually, having come of the Cold War high, it seems the addiction would need to be satisfied.

>> OIC, how much bigger was the complex then? It must have been hungry coming down of that Cold War high.

I'm not sure as for a percentage or anything, but just before the collapse of the USSR, I was studying nuclear physics, and only because it collapsed did I switch to computer science, because the surplus was lost. I'm not sure how old you are, but for those who were older -- especially adults -- at the time, there were massive industries. Hell, the Internet is rooted in the cold war as well.

>> A bit different situation, I suppose, when you are perpetrating against another country. Maybe there'd be more secrecy, high level staff, more care, etc when doing something really bad.

Yeah maybe. There are some decent examples of successful black propaganda in the past.

>> Oh, I don't remember seeing the ones with the hijackers. There is so much CT BS out there than the main info doesn't make its way up google search results and stuff...

I don't have links to them or anything, but they're out there, we should probably get them on the site.

>> Well, everything else could have been the same except that, in perhaps the simplest CT explanation, the gubberment allowed the attack to take place.

Basically the only possible conspiracy theory, in my mind, is the "LIHOP" of which there's no evidence for anyway.

>> No, but, prove to me that US complex doesn't like war to establish military bases in oil rich lands in militarily strategic regions,

We already had bases in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

>> Isn't it more realistic to look at it in terms of following the money, the power, the 18" rims?

Ask Paul Wolfowitz.

>> You think they really thought Saddam had WMDs at the think-tank level?

Well, even going back to the Clinton administration there was the belief and intellegence that he had weapons. We know he had them at some point because we (among other countries) gave him the weapons or the means to create them, even after he had used them on innocent people (Kurds). It's possible that any WMDs he had left he sold the the Ba'athist government of Syria, but I have no proof of that, it's just my opinion.

>> But why would they care so much about the weapons all of a sudden? Other countries have weapons too?

They cared a lot through the 1990s, and Bush from day 1 had wanted to invade Iraq and it's my belief he would have regardless of 9/11. 9/11 just made it easier to do so.

>> Were those documents Colin Powell showed legit? Seemed childishly fake to me, at the time.

Which ones? Do you have a title or description of what was in them?

>> What president would say we need to go invade a country because we want to establish bases around its oil and power and such?

Likely not many, but why invade a country to add a base when you already have bases in countries around it, and threaten to gain more enemies in the region? Not only that, if you intended on using their own, why then let the conquered people keep all the oil, the money from the oil, and choose how to spend it?

>> Why Saddam? It is interesting to talk to someone obviously very intelligent that doesn't think the same way about these things.

I think it's because he was a thorn in the side of the US since we didn't "take care of him" during desert storm. There were neoconservatives at the time that really wanted to. GWB is more of a neoconservative, while GHWB (his father for those who don't know) is more of a Reagan-style conservative and he wasn't interested in conquering Saddam.

>> Moreover, it makes me think that even though you guys are super smart, maybe you are wrong about bigger issues that I'm on the fence about.

It's certainly possible we're wrong, but I haven't seen much evidence to say so thus far.

Some CTs think the Afghan war was partly about building an oil pipeline through x to y, I forget exactly, and that Unocal had plans to do since 1998.

1 CT friend of mine thinks the US wants to build a pipeline from the ME to Haifa, Israel. He is a pretty extreme Fed anti-Zionist HC denying nut, though.

Sil, yup. Not sure where it was supposed to go, lol. Guess the CTs will say it will take Iran stability to build it. Can't pass through Iran now.

I don't buy this one. They might build it after having control of the region, but it is a little bonus, not a reason to attack 1/2 the world. Not sure though. If global politics were a game of Civilization, I might attack the whole middle east, put my foot in the door of ALL the big oil countries, not just some, meanwhile, my war machine is getting fed, I'm flexing my strength to others and keeping them from taking hold there, etc. and maybe build a pipeline to the Mediterranean through one of my most loyal and influential ally's (though I think that last one is really out there).

How about the defense contracts and all the Carlyle group and Halliburton stuff?

Could these companies influence American politics almost as much as their US equivalents could: Shell, Petronas, and CNPC?

It's amusing to hear people bringing up the possibility of an invasion of Iran as if it is somehow equivalent to Iraq or Afghanistan. It isn't by a long way. Iran has half a million men under arms with about 300,000 reservists. There are somewhere in the region of 11 million 'paramilitaries'. Iran is 4 times as big as Iraq and isn't in the same state of political fragility as Iraq was, (don't confuse the pro-democracy movement with being a pro-West movement).
Then there is the issue of where to launch from. There are only three real options, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Of these Afghanistan would seem to be the easiest politically, but most difficult logistically as it would involve supplying an invasion force through hostile, pro-Iranian, tribal areas. Pakistan is politically too difficult and to use Iraq would likely require a new invasion, not to mention having the same problem of local hostilities with the Shia population.
Incidentally, Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon is much easier to understand, and indeed sympathise with, when one realises how much the West has encroached on its borders since 2003.
CTers seem to have this belief that all wars are fought for money and therefore all wars must be engineered by people who want to make money (you know, 'international financiers' etc). The real world is both more complex and infinitely more interesting than that.

On the matter of the reasons for the Iraq war:

People like Kashmiri Petrov have sought to tie the trade of oil in Euros and dollars as a principle reason for the invasion. That is, Petrov argues that because Saddam Hussein was not playing by the "rules" set out by the United States, and because he had threatened or was in the process of selling oil in Euros and not dollars, the United States decided to invade Iraq. There is a very convincing argument at first, but once a critical look is taken at the complexities of economics and power, we find that it is not satisfying in the least. For one, the power of American currency is far more likely to come from its markets and consumption, not from its use in oil trade. THe volume of traded oil is not enough to give American currency legitimacy, rather American dollars are traded for oil BECAUSE they are percieved to have legitimacy. So arguments along this line invert the order of power. Furthermore, if such goals were in mind, it makes little sense why the United States would not have taken over the oil trade explicitly in Iraq under any set of justifications. Instead, private companies from outside the US continue to control oil production and exportation. Ultimately, oil does not give us a satisfactory understanding of the Iraqi conflict and is instead based on a very limited view of how international conflicts relate to currency matters.

The Petrov article is found here:

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_05/petrov011606.html</p>

So why the war at all? Well, it's an incredibly difficult question to handle, and unfortunately one left solely to speculation and rudimentary evidence. I am not going to forward a theory for the invasion, I believe that has been covered by a wide breadth of scholars and would-be scholars alike. And it all depends on what theory of International Relations you find convincing.

But what about a subsequent Iranian War? Could the reasons used to invade Iraq also be used against Iran? Is the US not primed to invade from the east (Afghanistan) and the west (Iraq)? I would say no for the following reasons:

1) Military strenghth, even for the US, is limited. Indeed, even the current occupations and conflicts are largely outsourced to Privitized Military Firms (PMFs) like Haliburton. For the United States army to launch yet another attack, especially at a time where a much more serious crises is taking place in Korea, would cost too much and stretch resources too thin. And although the conflict in Iraq appears to be winding down, the US has already spent too much diplomatic and military capital in the last 7 years. Another war just doesn't make fiscal sense

2) Iran is internally set up very differently than Iraq. Hussein was a secular dictator, the Iranian government is religious in nature. Indeed, even if the government were to be toppled, it would make no difference as the voice of power is really in the Ayatollah. And should the US decide to kill him, well its not hard to imagine the uproar that would take place not just in Iran, but across the Islamic world. To kill a religious leader is highly taboo and engenders more insurgent and terrorist behaviors. One could argue that Iran's religious government isn't very popular in the region, and that would be something that would need to be supported by evidence. But in the end, a religious leader is a religious leader, and having "The West" kill one is sure to cause more problems than to solve them.

I'll cut my post here, it's gotten a tad long. If any one wants to discuss this further, I'd love to. Specifically the idea that PMFs can somehow cause a state to go to war. I think that theory has some serious flaws.

I'm a little wary of people who claim to be "on the fence" regarding CTs and CT explanations. In my experience, 99.9% of the time people who are "on the fence" are hard-core conspiracy theorists, and they're pretending to be agnostic so as to give themselves a fig leaf to look more reasonable than the raving nutbars.

The war in Afghanistan was fought as a retaliation against 9/11, to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and to try to stabilize a country that had become (and largely still is) a haven for terrorism.

Iraq was very complicated. I agree that Bush had plans to attack Iraq since the day he got into office. We'll probably never know for sure, but I think the main reason was that we wanted a permanent site for bases for large numbers of U.S. troops that was not contingent upon the continued assent of a government we don't particularly like (Saudi Arabia, our previous base country).

Conspiracy theorists love to claim that wars are fought for profit, as if all the defense contractors are out there begging for handouts in peacetime. War isn't the best or easiest way to make money, and it's silly to believe that people start wars to make money. This is James Bond supervillain stuff.

I don't think there will be an invasion of Iran. Nobody in the U.S. government is that stupid. There's no way we could win, and everybody knows that. Even "limited" airstrikes against their nuclear capability would be incredibly foolish. It's not at all comparable to Iraq or Afghanistan, and even if it wasn't a suicide mission to begin with, we've been so badly mauled in Iraq and Afghanistan that we have no serious military capability left to be able to project into Iran in the first place.

I think once we ramp down from Iraq (we're already almost finished) and Afghanistan (Obama will have to get out before 2012 at the latest), the United States will not fight any wars for the next 20 years, at least not any major ones. Why? We won't be able to afford it.

"Much of the Shia world that is, as Sunni Muslims consider various parts of Shi'ism to be heretical in nature."

That's true, though its not hard to imagine groups in the Middle East being less concerned with the branch involved and more that the death of any clerical leader would be seen as more "imperialist western" aggression. And yes, its very possible that the insurgency that would be spawned from an invasion would be magnitudes worse than in Iraq.