In his book, The Conservative Soul, Sullivan was absolutely right when he posited that a healthy level of uncertainty should be considered central to conservatism -- a socratic breed of uncertainy that leads conservatives to question themselves on what they know and what they do not. This breeds a sense of humility seldom found in the ideological opponents of conservatism. (It's also too seldom found in conservative ideologues.)
Sullivan has very seldom been right outside the pages of his book.
"What's depressing is the way in which liberal journalists are not responding to events in order to find out the truth, but playing strategic games to cover or not cover events and controversies in order to win a media/political war," Sullivan wrote.
But the story has since turned even on Sullivan, as it can't help but rub his nose in the most devestating self-humiliation of his career.
The matter pertains to the story that Sullivan bought hook, line and sinker -- to the extent that he continues to occasionally harp on it even today. That story, is the bizarre conspiracy theory suggesting that Sarah Palin is not the real mother of Trig Palin.
The story was brought to the attention of Journolist by Business Week's Ryan Donmoyer.
Dylan Matthews -- the blogger known as Minipundit -- quickly responded to the story by declaring it to be non grata in terms of political strategy:
"Obama absolutely cannot touch this. Even if it’s true.
I think the press would justify covering it on the issue of trust, but for me it’s offensive that she would refuse to allow her daughter the choice. She has no business deciding what to make of that pregnancy. If her daughter wanted an abortion, it speaks very ill of Palin’s character to deny her the option."
Matthews gave the matter just enough consideration to consider that it may actually be true. Some Journolisters seemed prepared to believe the story. But Donmoyer himself was not. He later wrote:
"This is one hell of a whacky conspiracy theory and I too agree it’s probably best left alone. I do wonder, however, whether at least one authoritative piece ought to be done to try to put the issue to rest — not as a hit job on Palin so much as to counter something that has already rapidly and viciously spread on the Internet and will only go more viral. As long as it’s in the rumor stage it rivals the disinformation disseminated about Obama — and neither is useful for the
public discourse."
This healthy skepticism on Donmoyer's part unfortunately seems not to have lasted. He would continue in the thread to compile a list of reasons he thought it was more likely that Trig Palin was actually Bristol's son -- resting his case on his belief that it's more likely that a 17-year-old girl would give birth to a child with Down's syndrome than a 43-year-old woman conceiving without medical help.
Much more eager to embrace the conspiracy theory was Health Beat's Maggie Mahar. Dylan Matthews also seemed to have bought the sorry tale.
Perhaps the most disgusting response came from Mark Kleiman, of the website Reality-Based Community. "I see no upside for our side here," he wrote. "There’s plenty of other stuff to work on that won’t get her any sympathy at all and won’t risk damage to her innocent children/grandchild."
To Kleiman, the only reason not to report on the conspiracy theory was that it would provoke sympathy for Palin. One can easily posit that Kleiman's use of "children/grandchild" suggested that he may have believed the story -- or was at least prepared to.
These examples -- with the exception of Donmoyer's initial skepticism -- are actually outliers amongst the Journolist cabal. The bast majority of them either expressed outright disbelief in the story, or simply ignored it.
With the exception of the noted outliers -- as well as a few others -- the "corrupt" Journolist crowd, who even when addressing this issue seemed far more interested in harming Sarah Palin than in reporting a factual story, were able to figure out very quickly that promoting the Trig Palin conspiracy theory was a fool's errand.
But not Andrew Sullivan. Still not Andrew Sullivan. Scarcely a week passes on his Daily Dish blog where Sullivan doesn't dredge it up again.
One should consider it the karmic end of the Journolist scandal: that even as Andrew Sullivan scorns the Journolist participants, they demonstrate judgement far superior to his own.
15 years ago, the Rwandan genocide slowly began to unfold.
The events began on April 6, 1994, and by April 17, 1994 had escalated into the wholesale slaughter of Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus.
The atrocities that unfolded during the Rwandan genocide have long stood as an example of why the western world needs to be prepared to intervene in order to prevent such human catastrophes.
But not to individuals like Keith Harmon Snow. Like the various loons who deny -- or at least conflate -- the Holocaust, Snow has a political agenda that is ill-served by the Rwandan genocide. Like Holocaust deniers (and 9/11 "truth"ers), Snow is so intent upon pushing that agenda that he's prepared to revise the history of the Rwandan genocide.
In an article appearing in Black Star News, Snow strings together a convoluted conspiracy theory in which human rights activists colluded against Hutus.
"The genocide label applied by Alison Des Forges and certain human rights bodies in May of 1994 was misdirected, used to accuse and criminalize only the majority Hutu people and the remnants of the decapitated Habyarimana government," Snow writes, "much as the genocide and war crimes accusations have been selectively applied against President Omar al-Bashir in Sudan."
According to Snow, not only did no genocide take place in Rwanda, but no genocide is currently taking place in the Sudan. Instead, as it turns out, these genocide charges are part of an American imperialist plot.
"The Clinton Administration refused to apply the genocide label," Snow explains. "To do so might have compromised an ongoing US-backed covert operation: the invasion of Rwanda by the Pentagon’s proxy force, the Rwandan Patriotic Front."
Interestingly, Snow has very little to say about the French involvement in the genocide. France had supplied weapons to the Rwandan government before and during the civil war that took place in accordance with the genocide. Many of those weapons were passed on to the Interhamwe by sympathizers within the Rwandan military's Hutu militias.
Moreover, Snow suggests that the plane crash taht killed Alison Des Forges may have been the work of Paul Kagame.
"According to U.S. intelligence insider Wayne Madsen, Des Forges’ criticisms of the US-brokered pact between Rwanda's President Paul Kagame and the Democratic Republic of Congo's President Joseph Kabila in December 2008 'earned her some powerful enemies ranging from the murderous Kagame, who will not think twice about sending his agents to silence critics abroad, and international interests who want nothing to prevent them from looting the DRC’s vast mineral and energy resources.'"
But Snow's conspiracy theory makes little sense. Although Des Forges' criticisms of Kagame's deal with Kabila -- -- was damaging, Des Forges' invokation of the genocide label marshalled a surplus of international sympathy for Kagame and the RPF.
Furthermore, Snow accuses Des Forges of helping unjustly indict the Habyanmara government.
"Billed as a 'tireless champion' and 'leading light in African human rights,' there is much more to this story than the western propaganda system has revealed," Snow muses. "Alison Des Forges and Human Rights Watch (HRW) provided intelligence to the US government at the time of the 1994 crises, and they have continued in this role to the present. Des Forges also supported the show trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), institutionalizing victor’s justice and shielding the Kagame regime."
"Alison Des Forges came across to many people as a wonderful human being with great compassion and impeccable integrity," Snow writes. "In the recent past, Alison Des Forges spoke—to some limited degree—against the war crimes of the Kagame regime."
"In life she did not speak about the deeper realities of 'genocide in Rwanda', and she had plenty of chances. In fact, she is the primary purveyor of the inversion of truth that covered up the deeper US role in the Rwanda 'genocide', and she spent the past 10 years of her life explaining away the inconsistencies, covering up the facts, revising her own story when necessary, and manipulating public opinion about war crimes in the Great Lakes of Africa—in service to the US government and powerful corporations involved in the plunder and depopulation of the region."
All of this, of course, is submitted without evidence.
"Kagame, Rwanda’s one-party president 'elected' through rigged elections, sued Charles Onana for defamation in a French court in 2002; Kagame lost the original trial and the appeal," Snow continues. "Kagame was the commander of the Rwandan Patriotic Front and a leading agent—with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and their US, UK, Belgian and Israeli backers—behind the massive bloodshed and ongoing terrorism in Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Congo, Sudan and Somalia."
Snow insists that the events of the Rwandan genocide -- which were not a genocide, despite the perpetrators' intent to kill every single living Tutsi -- were a conspiracy between human rights organizations, the United States, Britain, Begium and Israel.
"In his book, Onana accused Kagame of being the principle instigator of the missile attack of April 6, 1994 that brought down the plane carrying Rwanda's President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundi's Cyprien Ntaryamira," Snow continues. "Unlike the UN's ongoing high-profile investigation of the murder of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik Hariri, no major power has pushed for a similar probe into the murder of the two African presidents."
Yet much of the evidence that Kagame was responsible for shooting down Habyanmara's plane was actually rejected by a French parliamentary inquiry -- and considering France's bloody hands in relation to the genocide, the French had every motive to point the finger of blame at somebody else.
"But the U.S. military was heavily backing the RPF tactically and strategically already," Snow continues. "Key to the operation were 'former' Special Operations Forces (Ronco Company) providing military equipment and ferrying RPA troops from Uganda to Rwanda; the Pentagon's logistical and communications support; Defense Intelligence Agency and CIA operatives. Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), was also collaborating with the RPF, serving the Pentagon interest."
Snow would have done well to look into the circumstance Dallaire and UNAMIR found themselves in during the genocide. If UNAMIR were really a proxy force acting on behalf of the United States in support of the RPF, it was the smallest and most poorly-equipped proxy force in the history of proxy warfare.
Dallaire spent the bulk of his time convening between Rwandan political leaders while attempting to keep himself, his troops, and as many Tutsi refugees as possible, alive.
That meets a very odd definition of outright collaboration.
According to Snow even the news media were part of the conspiracy.
"Genocide in Rwanda became a massive psychological operation directed against media consumers using ghastly images—produced by RPA-embedded photographers like James Nachtwey and Gilles Peres—to infer that all cadavers were Tutsi victims of an orchestrated Hutu genocide," Snow insists, "meanwhile the text was racist disinformation produced by Joshua Hammer."
This despite the fact that journalists operating in the region secured footage of Hutu militias slaughtering Tutsis, and Red Cross workers active throughout the region shared many of the same stories.
According to Snow, Des Forges was central to the media conspiracy.
"Des Forges constantly influenced the US media through special briefings to the editorial boards and reporters of the New York Times, Washington Post, National Public Radio, and Associated Press, and she was frequently presented as an 'expert' on genocide in Rwanda for CNN, 60 Minutes, Nightline, All Things Considered, BBC, Radio France Internationale, and the Canadian Broadcasting Company."
"Such relations explain the mass media’s consistency in producing the monolithic disinformation about Rwanda that shielded the illegal U.S.-backed and covert RPF- Ugandan guerrilla insurgency," Snow continues. "The blanket media coverage falsely situated the 'Rwanda genocide' as it is now widely misunderstood: 100 days of genocide, 800,000 to 1.2 million Tutsis killed with machetes; the 'highly disciplined' RPF stopping the genocide."
Even on the basis of its most basic arguments -- that the Rwandan Patriotic Front was an external invader -- falls flat in the face of the fact that Paul Kagame and the other members of the RPF were all natives of Rwanda, and were acting against a government that was actively oppressing Tutsis.
Like Holocaust deniers, Snow plays fast and loose with the truth in the course of spinning a conspiracy theory that essentially "invented" the Rwandan genocide, despite the existence of nearly 1,000,000 Rwandans, the vast majority of them Tutsis.
Like the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide is most effectively commemorated by the mass graves of its victims. Anyone who cares to examine the evidence of the genocide first-hand can travel to Rwanda and tour the killing fields. In many cases, the bones of the victims remain where they were piled.
Like Holocaust deniers, Rwandan genocide deniers like Keith Harmon Snow have to ignore the strongest evidence for the events -- the corpses of its victims, and the nearly 1,000,000 Rwandans who, in the course of a media-broadcast 100-day slaughter, ceased to be.
One wonders how individuals like Keith Harmon Snow can look themselves in a mirror.
The 9/11 "truth" movement has been known to be the refuge of aggressive and obnoxious conspiracy theorists, often searching for any opportunity to push their agenda on anyone at any time.
Their credo seems to be twofold, but rather simple: if someone says something about 9/11, the goal of the 9/11 "truth" movement is to make them regret it. If someone doesn't say something about 9/11, the goal of the 9/11 "truth" movement is to make them regret that, too.
No forum is considered off-limits to the Alex Jones-edifying loons of the 9/11 "truth" movement, and its members are almost always looking for any particular opportunity to strike.
One 9/11 "truth" nut in particular seemed to think he had found an opportunity on the Edmonton LRT yesterday. The opening he thought he'd seen?
I was reading a copy of Vast Left Wing Conspiracy by Byron York.
"Why is it that it's always the left wing that has the conspiracy," he asked, "when it was the right wing that conspired to destroy the World Trade Center, and fake the evidence so they could blame terrorists and go into Afghanistan?"
To which I could only tell him that he's an idiot, and that the US government didn't plan 9/11.
"It's physically impossible for a building like that to collapse in on itself without a planned demolition," the nut attempted to explain.
"Then I guess it's a good thing they didn't," I replied.
"There's 1.6 trillion reasons why they did," he insisted.
To which I could really only offer a dismissive "...ooooookay..."
Interestingly enough, I wasn't even reading this book out of the belief that there is any kind of a left-wing conspiracy. Rather, I was reading it for a chapter on viral politics.
The title was actually an adverse take on Hillary Clinton's speculation that a "vast right-wing conspiracy" had aligned against her husband during the clearly politically-motivated Republican effort to impeach him over the Monica Lewinski scandal.
Overall, the book is about the politically-motivated (duh) attempts to defeat George W Bush in the 2004 Presidential election, and the way many 527 groups (called such because of the tax code that allows them to collect unlimited donations) broke the law in order to contribute to the Democrat campaign (they're forbidden from acting on behalf of any particular political candidate).
Did this particular nut have any idea about that before he jumped on it as an opportunity to spread his 9/11 "truth" nonsense? Probably not. While one cannot pretend that the book's title isn't provacative -- no question it is -- this is clearly an individual who was waiting for what he thought was the perfect opportunity to spread his conspiracy theories.
Not much unlike the individual who was "generous" enough to donate a 9/11 "truth" book to a Raise a Reader event I staffed this past weekend. (I exercised my prerogative to dispose of that particular book appropriately.)
It's impossible to feign patience with the 9/11 "truth" movement. Not when virtually none of their arguments stand up to scrutiny.
It all comes down to minor details -- such as the fact that if the World Trade Center was really a planned demolition, as this particular kook insisted, it was the most poorly-executed planned demolition in history, as the building didn't fall in its own footprint, as planned demolitions are designed to do.
Rather, the debris field extended more than 500 feet in all directions, but not equally in all directions.
Even the "facts" regarding WBC Building 7 they attempt to pass off as evidence of the WTC having been a planned demolition turn out to contradict the accounts of the structural damage taken from firefighters at the scene, and are often based on comically poor-quality video taken of the building's collapse.
Even their claims that the World Trade Center was designed to withdstan the impact of an aircracft are based on smaller and lighter aircraft carrying smaller fuel loads than the planes crashed into the building that day. And conveniently ignoring the fact that, when designing buildings as tall as the World Trade Center, one cannot test the buildings for airplane crash scenarios in the real world, for reasons that are clearly obvious.
Not to mention the entirely contradictory nature of the majority of 9/11 conspiracy theories, ranging from theories that the building owner planned the attacks to collect on the property insurance on the buildings, to theories that the Juice did it (theories to which Alex Jones reacts rather viscerally).
This is, of course, the trouble in dealing with people who consistently cannot be taken seriously. The fact that no one takes them seriously only prods them to become more aggressive and obnoxious with their message. When speaking counter-factually to a room with 10 people in it becomes tiresome they take to the streets and accost anyone who they think offers them an excuse -- such as an individual minding his own business on the train.
But they may be in for a taste of their own medicine. They have a convention in Edmonton coming up, and someone just may be there asking them some uncomfortable questions.
Questions like "how many hijacked airliners have ever been shot down over US territory?" (Answer: zero.)
Questions like "how many real-world examples are there of a Boeing 747 being flown into a 110-story building in order to test its ability to withstand the crash?" (Answer: zero.)
Questions like "how many eyewitness accounts match the accounts of Building 7's collapse that 'experts' have made based on asessment of poor-quality video?" (Answer: zero.)
After all, what's good for the goose has to be good for the gander. If the 9/11 "truth" movement can indulge itself in the politics of loud mouthery, so can anyone else.
With the trial of the Toronto 18 now underway, some of the predictable conspiracy theorists are coming out of the woodwork, once again trying to insist that the so-called Toronto 18 were entrapped.
Entrapment is defined as a condition under which law enforcement officials encourage or coerce a person or persons to commit a criminal act in order to obtain an arrest.
As part of the charge on behalf of this particular claim is a film entitled Unfair Dealing: The Toronto Homegrown Terror Threat, appearing in six parts on Youtube.
In the film, Toronto-area broadcaster David Weingarten, who has a show on the University of Toronto's campus radio station, basically alleges that the Toronto 18 were entrapped as a result of an insidious conspiracy to push through Canada's anti-terror laws.
Unfortunately for Weingarten, his film doesn't stand up to scrutiny. In a film in which he claims a vast conspiracy is withholding the truth from Canadians, he himself goes to some remarkable lengths to conceal -- or obscure -- the truth.
A good deal of the film seems to depend largely upon the testimony of Tariq Abdelhaleem, identified as the father of Sharif Abdelhaleem, one of the terror suspects.
Unfortunately, for mr Abdelhaleem, however, he can't seem to maintain a coherent argument throughout his testimony -- this will become more and more apparent as the film progresses.
For example, Abdelhaleem doesn't seem to understand how an expressed desire to cut someone's head off can be taken "against the person". He claims his son didn't know any of the other terror suspects -- except as friends. Aside from that, the best defense he can seem to offer in this particular segment is the "6 degrees of Kevin Bacon" defence.
He also insists there was "no group". But we'll see very differently later in the documentary.
To make matters worse for Weingarten, he wants to rely almost exclusively on the evidence that is still available for public discovery. However, ClearGuidance, the reputedly militant website on which two of the suspects are alleged to have interacted, has been removed. Even so, some of the comments made via that site have been preserved elsewhere, and they are not pretty.
Interestingly, Weingarten rushes over such comments, refusing to pay them little heed. But here's a brief excerpt of some of the comments made on this site:
"In future we will see more of this stuff until those drunk leave Chechnya. And even then, many of the Mujahideen have said they will pursue them on their own land to avenge the 400 years of oppression they hammered down upon us.
And eye for an eye.
The Russians owe as a mountain of eyes."
"All Praise be to Allaah. I ask: If the Taaghoot (example: a president of any Arab country today) were to send him on a special mission, for the sake of his own personal Taaghoot good and that of the regime... what you mentioned will happen to your parents if you go for Jihaad for Allaah's Cause... but for the Taaghoot nothing? Is the Taaghoot greater and more honored in their eyes than Allaah?!?
The answer: If Jihaad is Fard 'Ayn upon someone, there is no permission sought nor obedience of the creation in remaining behind, because there is no obedience of the creation in disobedience to the Creator. And Allaah Knows best."
"Considering that most of us live in lands where the kuffar gov's come after even those remotely related to the mujahideen, shouldn't extra care be taken by the brother going in the Path of Allah? ie. In preparing for the family some sort of protection, (and indeed Allah is sufficient as our Protector but we know we have to make efforts as well).
I don't think I'm alone in having heard of stories of the families of the mujahideen being abused (in the least) back home. I remember this bro crying for the families of the mujahideen, subhan Allah. It made me realise how we tend to forget about them in our du'as, may Allah forgive us.
So if there was anything that addressed this, do post it insha Allah. Because I feel that some may interpret the answer above as "heck care, just leave them". The irony being that part of the jihad is to liberate the oppressed Muslims and in the meantime, you expose your own family to such danger."
The site was clearly used as an online meeting place for individuals with a rather keen interest in jihad. Of course, Weingarten doesn't want this to be fully known, because of the implications for the argument he's trying to make.
Weingarten also makes an effort to dismiss the poem "A Little Muslim From Palestine", reportedly posted by one of the suspects on the site:
"'ll always be a contender Yes, I know my bones are very tender And by Allah you won't see me surrender Look at my eyes? You'll see no butterflies My home is filled with cries... due to all the lost lives But I swear by Allah I'll never compromise I'll still throw the stones even with my broken bones Why can't I hear from you, don't you have any phones? Ya I forgot, your not on the chase, try it out and put your self in my place Soon I'll return to my lord , the one that deserves every grace Oh you don't have to worry cause of me you'll find no trace It really is to late, why did you wait? You could have sent me at least one dinner plate I guess it is my fate And La Ilaha Illa Allah is my mate."
At first glimpse it seems like a rather benign protest poem to the "occupation of Palestine" by Israel. But two lines in particular stand out. The author is returning to his lord. You'll find no trace of him.
Perhaps as in a suicide bomber?
This piece of evidence, in particular, however, is largely speculative, and wouldn't be admissable in a court of law, except perhaps during the course of testimony on behalf of the suspect, who cannot be forced to testify, and likely would not be forced to answer the question even if he did.
Weingarten also takes aim at a Globe and Mail article that cites the following message written in a High School friend's yearbook: "Before us there were many... after us there will be none... we are the ones."
Weingarten then tries to suggest that the passage is taken from Jay-Z's "Encore". (The line is actually "what the hell are you waiting for? After me, there should be no more", and actually refers to what Jay-Z had promised to be his imminent retirement -- he has since returned to making music.)
Once again, this particular piece of evidence is purely speculative, and inadmissable in a court of law. But Weingarten is clearly skimming over portions of the truth.
But Weingarten turns the conspiracy dial nearly up to full blast in the second segment of his film:
In the second segment, Weingarten basically suggests that, as early as 2005, then-Liberal MP (now Conservative MP) Waijid Kahn was hatching a plot with Prime Minister Stephen Harper to betray the Muslim community in exchange for a job as the as-yet-unelected Conservative government's Middle East advisor, and a seat in the government caucus.
Despite the fact that, later, in the same year, Kahn would run for election as a Liberal. Yet somehow he was an "agent of Stephen Harper," in Abdelhaleem's words.
He starts off by noting that it was Kahn who initially complained about a speech given at the Al-Rahman Islamic Centre by Qayyam Abdul-Jamal, an individual known to hold extremist views -- even by those within the Mosque.
"I'm not surprised by the raids," remarked Fahim Bukhari, director of Al-Rahman. "I knew his views."
His neighbours had also noted suspicious behaviour from Jamal. Again, this evidence is speculative, and inadmissable in a court of law.
"Did Waijid Kahn sell out his fellow Muslims as initiation? To prove he was the right man for the Middle East position?" Weingarten asks. "We can only speculate."
In particular it notes the flagging of ClearGuidance (17 November 2004), the August 2005 arrests of pistol-toting Yasin Abdi Mohamed and Mohammed Dirie -- caught smuggling weapons into the country in a car rented by fellow suspect Fahim Ahmad -- the winter 2005 training exercises and the summer 2006 attempt to buy three tons of ammonium nitrate.
Weingarten and Abdelhaleem also take aim at Mubin Shaikh, one of the undercover operatives used in the investigation.
"Mubin is a confused person," Abdelhaleem insists. "His problem is he wants money, he's a drug addict, he has some good intentions inside him. He doesn't want to hurt many people. He wants to hurt people enough to get the money."
In the course of editing, Weingarten goes out of his way to make Shaikh sound like as shady character a person possible. At one point in the film, Shaikh says, "...we're the potheads out in the corner there, and just it was an easy life."
Unfortunately, Weingarten ignores the next part of the interview, wherein Shaikh admits, "I got burned out. That's what happened. I was living — the fast lane was too slow. I was living the passing lane."
"After 9/11 happened, I remember I was on my way to work and I told the story that "Oh, yeah, plane hit a building," and just right after that, somebody else came on and said, "A plane hit a building," and I was like, "I just said that," and he said, "No, another plane."
So I go upstairs and I'm working for a company that contracts for the federal government. And I'm hearing the Pentagon and this and that and everything else, and I'm like, what the hell is going on? I felt really bad because now I knew that every Muslim male or female who was identifiable was now on the defensive. Now you couldn't go to buy eggs without somebody saying, "Hey, why don't you go back to where you came from." Or "Hey, don't you know this is Canada, you don't have to wear that here."
And I remember specifically being at that stage where I was ready to go to Chechnya, I was ready to go to Afghanistan. I wanted to do some jihad-oriented thing, but I was lucky that I was exposed to people who, you know, who I could talk to, who could, you know, correct my understanding."
Shaikh would actually know an Islamic fundamentalist quite well. Before recognizing the error of those ways, he flirted with becoming one himself.
When more of Shaikh's views emerge, the subtext between Weingarten's treatment of him and Waijid Kahn begins to take on an alarming subtext: that the views expressed by Islamic militants are perfectly acceptable, and that any Muslim moderate who tries to nip that militancy in the bud is a traitor.
"I go to Syria 2002 to 2004. I come back in March 2004, and I read in the paper Mohammad Momin Khawaja is arrested on terrorism charges. I know the family very well. We grew up together. His father taught us when we were younger. And so we have a good connection with the family.
So what happened was I contacted CSIS. I phoned them and I said, "Listen, I know the family, I know this guy, Momin, is there some way that I can help, you know, give some information in that, look, I've grown up with him, you know, I don't know him to be like this or his brother, definitely not his family, like his parents are not extremists."
So they're like, "Oh, Momin Khawaja, first terrorism case, sure, we'll talk to you." The guy comes down, he was head of the unit supposedly. We met at Timmy's, and, you know, I'm wearing my pin, the Canadian flag and the Metro police pin, because I was also doing I guess you can call it ethno-cultural religious awareness with the Toronto police, and just to let them know, you know, different things that could be of use to them, and so I met with the CSIS guys, and they were very interested in me now. So basically, you know, they put to me the prospect of working with them, giving information on people, certain groups, getting to leaders of certain groups, talking to them, seeing what kind of views they had and reporting on those views because I am convinced that I'm the best guy for them to have to comment on the different groups, because I have a solid foundation in Islam, you know, I'm born and raised here.
I mean, Toronto's home. So I understand what concerns they have, but at the same time as a Muslim, I understand what concerns Muslims have. So I felt that I could be a link between the two sides."
If Shaikh has any particular biases, it's pretty clear that they aren't against Islamic militants.
Weingarten also does a clever job of editing the CBC interview to confuse the issue of who, precisely, asked Shaikh to conduct the 10-day guerrilla warfare training. The complete unedited video, however, is available on Youtube.
As such, it may have been possible that, as a recent factum filed by defence council suggests, that Shaikh had the only gun present at the training exercise. However, the ringleaders of the plot asked him to conduct it, and the participants probably went along knowingly and willingly.
Weingarten's response to all of this is that Shaikh was acting as an agent provocateur. It's only one small piece in his overall conspiracy theory.
Weingarten also takes issue with the fact that Shaikh, while working as a CSIS agent, was actually paid for his services -- apparently, he must imagine that all of Canada's police offers and intelligence operatives are unpaid volunteers. It's outrageous, he suggests. He was paid with "your tax dollars".
"He is a drug addict," Abdelhaleem reiterates. "And this was published at the time. ...He is a drug addict."
Abdelhaleem also brings up an assault charge filed against Shaikh by a pair of 12-year-old girls who taunted him by shouting "Look look look, it's bin Laden, it's Taliban boy, it's Taliban boy."
Shaikh -- who in a court of law is considered innocent until proven guilty -- insists the story is "fabricated and exaggerated grotesquely", and that the girl tripped and fell on her own.
"He's not highly educated," Abdelhaleem adds. "He could not have a regular job. That's what I keep telling people."
Apparently, Abdelhaleem and Weingarten's response to the challenge Shaikh's background and testimony presents to their argument is to engage in a protracted attempt at character assassination.
"Because there's a presumption of innocence in any free country," Weingarten insists, "we won't refer to him by sensational labels."
Like drug addict? Whoops. Too late for that one.
But character assassination is not reserved for Shaikh -- or Waijid Kahn -- alone. Weingarten and Abdelhaleem also take aim at the other informant involved in the case. He's currently enrolled in the witness protection program and cannot be identified.
Weingarten in particular focuses in on Globe and Mail reports that the informant is an Agricultural Engineer. Weingarten then notes that, according to the MacKenzie institute's John Thompson, "trying to buy three tons of ammonium nitrate will get you thrown into jail pretty quick."
Which, of course, makes it necessary that he also obscure the fact that the suspects started attempting to buy the fertilizer in late May, and were arrested on 2 June, 2006.
They got thrown into jail pretty quick.
Weingarten notes that the informant's Agricultural Engineering degree enabled him to buy the fertilizer without suspicion -- although he probably would have still had some 'splaining to do regarding the fertilizer's urban Toronto delivery address -- but what Weingarten can't seem to answer is this: was this particular informant planted by CSIS, or did he come forward after being recruited into the terror ring?
As it turns out, the informant allegedly asked CSIS for $14 million in exchange for his services. Odds are, he came forward on his own.
But Abdelhaleem, predictably, has a few things to say about the second informant. "He is not smart whatsoever," insists Abdelhaleem "He is not a smart boy. That spy? He is not smart. He is criminally smart. ...We established ourselves in this country. This guy came. He became a failure. He couldn't find a good job to work."
Abdelhaleem also suggests that he only paid various debts only under CSIS direction (despite his alleged multi-million dollar payday). Although a later slip by Abdelhaleem -- "he negotiated from 12 down to four million dollars -- makes one wonder how much of Abdelhaleem's on-camera testimony was fabricated.
After all, it isn't as if an informant rendered entirely anonymous by witness protection can defend himself against such claims.
With few further details about the informant's past, it's hard to know what his past was before his participation in the investigation. But if it's anything like Mubin Shaikh or Waijid Kahn's, one can imagine the subtext Abdelhaleem and Weingarten would push pretty quickly: he's a traitor for opposing Islamic militancy.
From this sad, sad display, Weingarten moves on to the review of anti-terror law.
Ah, yes. There it is: the centrepiece of the conspiracy: the review of anti-terror legislation.
But Weingarten really drops off the deep end when he starts using footage from Alex Jones'9/11 Mysteries: Demolitions (when selling conspiracy theories, one may as well go for gold, one figures).
In essence, he suggests that the Toronto 18 were framed so CSIS and the RCMP could maintain their level of funding.
In order to try and support this thesis, Weingarten cites, through Richard Cleroux, RCMP Operations Project Shock and Operation Thread.
Considering that his argument is that the arrest of the Toronto 18 was done only to ensure that CSIS and RCMP continued to enjoy pre-budget cut levels of funding, one would in fact find it curious that the RCMP had been so active in tracking and detaining terror suspects before the 2006.
He cites a 1999 speech given by CSIS director David Harris as somehow being evidentiary of it.
Weingarten at this point also decides to lace his conspiracy theory with vague accusations of racism, noting that, in the course of Project Thread, "only the Mohammads were arrested".
But he fails to address what some of the "irregularities" provoking the investigation in the first place were. Consider the case of Anwar Mohammad, who, in the course of pilot training, he chose the airspace over and around an Ontario nuclear plant for his training flights.
That's a pretty alarming "irregularity".
Weingarten even suggests that the terror arrests even benefited the passage of the Conservative government's budget, and plans by Stockwell Day -- allegedly years in the making despite the fact that Day had been in office for mere months -- to expand Canada's intelligence and security capabilities.
"It's the political agenda of the Conservative party in order to justify their subservience to the Bush administration and to send troops to Afghanistan to serve Bush," insists Abdelhaleem, despite the fact that it was Paul Martin's Liberal government that committed to the war in Afghanistan in the first place, as well as the current combat mission in Khandahar.
In part five, Weingarten really takes a page out of the self-aggrandizing Alex Jones' playbook, insisting that the Toronto bomb plot somehow qualifies as "false flag terrorism".
Weingarten chronicles numerous illegal activities committed by the RCMP intelligence agency that were committed in the course of fighting Quebec separatism and communism.
He even attempts to milk the Air India tragedy as an example of "secrecy and scandal", despite the fact that the Air India bombing actually proves that Canada was in need of greater intelligence and security capabilities.
Weingarten notes that the ammonium nitrate purchased by the terror suspects was delivered to a warehouse in New Market, Ontario, one of the few cities in Ontario where an RCMP detachment exists. Moreover, the warehouse was less than a kilometer from the RCMP detachment.
"We don't want to insult your intelligence by telling you how suspicious that is," Weingarten says.
Too late.
The fact of the matter is that the suspects were doing something at that warehouse in order to be arrested there. And there just coincidentally happened to be three tons of ammonium nitrate -- or, rather, the white powder that it had been swapped for mid-transit -- there as well.
We don't want to insult anyone's intelligence by saying how suspicious that is.
However, according to Ken Kerr, who manages Magic Motorcycles, a motorcycle shop in the neighbourhood, he was told months later by the owner of the warehouse in question that "it was a set-up".
Weingarten insists that the RCMP must have rented the warehouse, although the building owners refuse to confirm or deny that.
However, this is by no means an admission -- implicit or otherwise -- that the arrests were the result of entrapment, but rather that some of the suspects, at certain stages of the plot, may have been unwitting dupes.
That is what we have criminal trials for: to ascertain guilt, and exonerate the innocent.
While the film does raise some important questions about who and isn't guilty in the Toronto bomb plot, the simple fact of the matter is that all of Weingarten's "evidence" that the plot was simply the result of a mass conspiracy between -- now, follow this closely -- Stephen Harper, Waijid Kahn, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, CSIS, the RCMP, George W Bush, Mubin Shaikh, Stockwell Day, Paul Martin and David Harris.
All of whom, according to Weingarten's feeble attempt at a slick editing job to conclude his film, are "terrorists", intent on leading Canada into "fascism".
Yet he can't even make his own case, and in the end has sold little more than another intellectually bankrupt Alex Jones-esque conspiracy theory.
Fortunately, the truth regarding the Toronto 18 will come out in a court of law. The reason why David Weingarten doesn't want that to happen will be harder to ascertain.
If you watch the online "documentary" film Zeitgeist closely enough, it isn't too hard to decode the film's central message:
Hey, you. Yeah, you. You're fuckin' stupid.
"The last thing the men behind the curtain want is a conscious, informed public, capable of critical thinking," the film's omnipresent narrator insists. "Which is why a continually fraudulent zeitgeist is outputted via religion, the mass media and the educational system. They seek to keep you in a distracted, naive bubble. And they are doing a damn good job of it."
Zeitgeist is broken down into three parts, taking aim at religion, 9/11, and banking.
In the end, however, the film falls flat on its face because of its premise: you, the viewer, are fucking stupid.
It makes this assumption, and quickly unravels in the intellectual grasp of anyone who isn't stupid: provided they bother to check the necessary facts.
In the first part of the film, entitled "The Greatest Story Ever Told", Zeitgeist takes aim at religion: specifically, Christianity. By noting a number of alleged similarities between Jesus Christ and various other religious figures throughout history.
In particular, the film claims that the Egyptian god Horus possesses all the characteristics of Jesus Christ. However, they have to rely on Harpur's un-anotated and unsupported work in order to do so.
Perhaps the film's producers believe they made a novel point when they relied on scholarly work that scoured the world's various religions and mythologies for figures that passed any spurious resemblence to Jesus Christ, then labelled Christianity as "plagiarism" and "fraud".
Then one remembers that what moderate Christians the world over agree is really important about Christ is his benevolent message.
Oops. Better pretend he never existed. (More on this later.)
In the second chapter of the film, entitled "All the World's a Stage", Zeitgeist portrays 9/11 as a "false flag operation" carried out against the United States by its own government.
The film predictably attempts to make the case that the World Trade Center was actually the result of a planned demolition.
Despite the persistence of these conspiracy theories, they have been consistently and chategorically disproven. Only those who are predisposed to insist that a malevolent conspiracy is the only plausible answer continue to believe them.
The less time wasted on these conspiracy theories, the better.
In the film's third part, "the Men Behind the Curtain", the film insists that central banking, and existence of the United States federal reserve, is part of a grand conspiracy theory to give international bankers control over the United States, and enslave its citizens via the distribution of currency.
In particular, the film accuses international bankers of warmongering, and various U.S. presidents (including Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt) of war mongering on their behalf, and dragging the American people into wars "they wanted nothing to do with," even insisting that the Lusitania was "sent" through German-occupied waters during WWI in a bid to force American entry into the war.
Essentially, Zeitgeist argues that belief in religion -- specifically, Christianity -- builds a foundation for people to believe the so-called "lies" the "establishment" feeds them regarding historical events.
The film concludes by raving over the so-called "North American Union" they argue is imminent, and claim that it, along with European Union, African Union, and Asian Union, will lead to a greater amalgamation, and "One World Government".
In the end, however, Zeitgeist can be reduced to nothing more than Michael Mooreism at its very best (or, depending how you look at it, its very worst). What the producers can't prove, they distort. What they can't effectively distort, they simply ridicule. What they can't prove with evidence, they simply make up.
Ultimately, however, the film finds its downfall in its online format. Thanks to the fact that the film must be watched online, every "fact" cited in the film can be checked through little more than a rudimentary Google search.
All too often, these so-called "facts" don't stand up to scrutiny.
For example, the film at one point claims that there's no evidence that Jesus Christ ever existed, noting that no active historians of the day took note of a man wandering about and performing miracles.
And certainly, this is true. If only it were the entire story.
Unfortunately for the producers of the film, there is a good deal of archaeological evidence for not only many of the historical events described in the Holy Bible, but also for the existence of Jesus himself (albeit indirect evidence in this particular case).
In the end, the film relies on the many similarities between Christianity and various pagan religions to disprove Christianity entirely. Of course, this falls intellectually flat to anyone who's so much as read The Da Vinci Code, who know that pagan traditions were adopted into and adapted to Christianity, and with good reason.
In another case, the producers claim the United States Federal Reserve is a private corporation with no culpability to the U.S. government.
The chairman and vice chairman are similarly appointed by the president, to four-year terms.
The film sustains yet another factual black eye when it claims the pre-Vietnam war Gulf of Tonkin incident never happened.
Which, if you refer only to the second attack alleged during the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which would actually be true. However, the initial naval battle on August 2, 1964 did occur. This being said, the entire incident was demonstrably manipulated in order to support overt American entry into the Vietnam war.
For the average commentator eager to denounce American foreign policy, this alone would be enough. Unfortunately for the producers of Zeitgeist, they didn't simply need to demonstrate that the truth regarding the Gulf of Tonkin was twisted, they needed to pretend it never happened, so they could link it to what is clearly their prime target: 9/11.
Sometimes, the claims made in the film don't even stand up to the most basic scrutiny, such as the case wherein a 9/11 survivor claims that he felt a massive explosion from the World Trade Center's basement mere moments before feeling the impact from the plane hitting the building.
This despite the fact that the tower took more than an hour to collapse, making the implied theory that the so-called "basement explosion" was part of a planned demolition entirely untenable.
Perhaps the most telling image within Zeitgeist, however, is the constantly-displayed image of the Earth in a cage, suggesting Earth has become something of a Prison Planet -- one may draw their own conclusions in regards to this.
Zeitgeist clearly leans heavily on the half-boiled "revelations" offered by self-aggrandizing would-be conspiracy messiah Alex Jones. It's very plausible the film may be more than merely a convenient platform for his ideas.
Zeitgeist is a film so eager to cut away the so-called "fallacies" that it targets that it ultimately falls on its own sword. In the end, its own premise becomes its downfall, as anyone prepared to do even a precursory amount of critical thinking can quickly dismiss the film as sheer garbage.
"The more you educate yourself, the more you understand where things come from, the more obvious things become, and you begin to see lies everywhere," the film insists.
This is actually a very fitting quote for the film. The problem with Alex Jones and his breed of conspiracy theories is that they see lies everywhere, even where they don't exist. Worse yet, they aren't above a little dishonesty themselves in order to "prove" the fallacy of these so-called lies.
People used to agree that such dishonesty was a bad thing.
The convenient thing about dealing with ignorant people, however, is that they generally don't bother to double-check what they're being told. They accept it at face value.
The producers of Zeitgeist assume the viewer is stupid. As such, they make themselves easy prey for those who aren't.
According to Dr Jones, the 650 degree celsius temperature generated by the fires from burning jet fuel from the two airliners would have not been enough to melt the steel girders of the two buildings. He also argues that, historically, when such buildings have collapsed (most often as a result of earthquakes) they have always toppled over sideways.
Dr. Jones even claims he can identify microexplosions, where thermite demolition devices are being detonated sequentially as the building collapses.
However, Dr. Jones' "peer-reviewed work" quickly falls into credibility pitfalls. For example, his work is consistently touted as peer-reviewed -- but it was never peer-reviewed by a civil engineer. He is noted to have no experience in building collapse forensics. Even his own university rejected his paper. Dr. Woodruff Miller, BYU's chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering said, "the structural engineering professors in our department are not in agreement with the claims made by Dr. Jones in his paper, and they don't think there is accuracy and validity to these claims."
Dr. Jones' "peer-reviewed work" was not even peer reviewed by the engineers at his own university. Perhaps there's some sort of "consipracy" at work here, too.
Dr. Jones' claims rely on skepticism regarding the alleged "pancake effect" where the floors fall neatly into each other at freefall speed, as in a professional demolition. For evidence of this, he relies on video footage. Yet, when the video footage is more closely examined, it becomes ovbious that this "pancake effect" never truly occurred. Much of the debris fell faster than the debris cloud, which fell faster still than the building itself. Dr. Jones' primary argument holds no credibility.
Even then, Dr. Jones' claims suffer from one fatal flaw: demolitions charges need to be set up before they can be used to demolish a building. Yet, no one working in the World Trade Center reported seeing anyone setting up such charges. Not one.
Another speaker at the Vancouver 9/11 Truth Conference, Robin Hordon, describes himself as a commendated air traffic controller, certified air, ground and facility instructor and designer of the Boston Center Descent and Metering Program. He has worked on numerous in-air emergencies, and two hijackings.
Hordon insists that he knew 9/11 was a "false flag" operation (an attack carried out under the guise of another country or group) hours after. He insists that "there is absolutely no way that four large commercial airliners could have flown off course for 30 to 60 minutes on 9/11 without being intercepted and shot out of the sky by our jet fighters unless very highly placed people in our government and our military wanted it to happen."
Despite the fact that no hijacked plane in the history of the United States has ever been shot down, Hordon does begin to make a persuasive case. He notes that a sophisticated system was in place, prior to June of 2001, that would enable fighter jets to intercept any suspicious airliner within 10-15 minutes of a potential problem.
Yet Hordon's claims over look two very serious issues: firstly, a number of war game exercises were being conducted on September 11, 2001, diverting figher jets that otherwise would have been available to intercept the jetliners. Secondly, the FAA was not dealing with one hijacking on 9/11. They were dealing with four largely simultaneous hijackings.
Hordon is actually much more revealling as to his true motivations for his claims when he begins to discuss his political views. "I see September 11th as being a symptom of a far bigger problem. A problem that Dwight David Eisenhower had brought to our attention as he left office in the 1950s when he he warned [the United States] about two significant elements of our economy looming above us: the Military Industrial Complex and the Military Industrial Congress. 9/11 served the goals of both those elements."
"That I can show how Rumsfeld's Military reshaped interceptor protocols so that 9/11 could happen without the airliners being shot from the sky, is but a small bit of evidence that is flooding past the Bush regime," Hordon insists.
Yet, Hordon is exaggerating the Pentagon's eagerness to shoot down hijacked airliners, particularly when full of civilians. Despite the 75-150 high-speed scrambles he notes were performed by military aircraft each year in the United States for ten years, not a single plane was ever shot down. Surely, at least one of these 1,500 scrambles would have been related to a plane off course for at least 30-60 minutes.
Finally, there is the matter of shooting down civilian airliners over populated areas, such as New York City. When examined on merely the basis of the procedures in place to deal with hijacked aircraft, Hordon's claims are very persuasive. When compared to the actual situation on 9/11, they don't hold water.
Furthermore, it isn't as if events such as those surrounding Hurricane Katrina don't demonstrate that the proper procedures can fail when human error causes them to be disregarded.
Like any good 9/11 conspiracy theorist, however, Hordon doesn't seem to let facts or even proper analysis get in the way of politics. While shooting down flights 11 and 175 could have prevented the World Trade Center disaster, it still would have resulted in thousands of casualties. The decision to shoot down the planes would have also had to have been made at a time when the applicable authorities couldn't have known the true goal of the hijackers.
Certainly, there is a degree of negligence in the FAA's handling of 9/11. But negligence doesn't demonstrate complicity, and certainly not in the conspiracy that Hordon and his cohorts allege.
In short, Hordon has traded his air traffic controller's hat for that of a base conspiracy theorist, and surrendered his credibility for activist cred. It isn't as good a fit as he'd like to think.
Among one of the most amusing claims about 9/11 is made by British author Rowland Morgan, who will be speaking at the conference as well. Morgan actually claims that a drone Boeing 747, painted with American Airlines colours, was flown into the Pentagon.
He, along with his co-author Ian Henshall (who together wrote 9/11 Revealled) make this claim despite the positive identification of all 64 passengers & crew of the downed aircraft.
Rowland will also speak to his claims that United Airlines flight 93 (crashed in Pennsylvania) was actually shot down, as opposed to being accidentally crashed in the process of re-taking the plane from the hijackers. This, despite the number of family members of UA 93 victims who reported that their loved ones had told them of their intention to re-take the plane, and the lack of any confirmation of orders to shoot down the plane.
Remember also that one of Robin Hordon's complaints is the lack of any such order (an absense he feels lends credence to conspiracy theories).
This demonstrates the greatest weakness shared by the entire "9/11 truth movement" -- a myriad of competing, contradictory, and usually far-fetched claims about an event that unfortunately lends itself to shameless sensationalism.
The conference will also feature a collection of social and political commentators, whose area of expertise is related to the consequences of 9/11. This is a much fairer point. There is a litany of concerns shared by citizens of many countries the world over, ranging from US President George W Bush and his War on Terror to the errosion of civil liberties in many countries around the world -- particularly western democracies that are under threat of further attack.
Consider also that an order to shoot down a hijacked airliner is much more likely to be issued today, in the post-9/11 era, than six years ago.
These speakers, such as Ken Fernandez and Connie Fogal, have much more solid ground to stand on. At least they don't need to resort to trying to contradict facts, hide contradictory evidence, or (often) engage in often-vicious anti-semitic rhetoric or counter-factual arguments in order to make their case.
There is a great deal of room to debate the consequences of 9/11. The actual events? Not so much.
The fact is that all too many 9/11 consipracy theorists make it immediately apparent that they don't exactly represent the best and brightest our civilization has to offer. Take, for example, Youtube denizen Dadabase 2006, who posted a video in which he makes the suggestion that people should vote for the embattled Potvin based on his beliefs regarding 9/11 -- essentially turning a Canadian federal election into a referendum on 9/11.
"Dadabase", as well as his bestest-buddy Kevin Potvin, will most certainly be sitting front-and-center throughout this (mostly) perverse conference in Vancouver.
Fortunately, the public at large is more than able to identify these individuals for what they are: politically deranged kooks, looking to distort one of history's greatest tragedies into fodder for their own extreme political views.
In that sense, they really aren't that much different from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his guests at the Holocaust denial conference in Tehran. Whomever may actually show up to attend their conference, one thing is certain: their minds are made up, and any conclusions drawn from the Vancouver 9/11 Truth Conference will reflect their predecided conclusions.
If you've had the unfortunate experience of waching CNN recently, or even coming within twenty feet of a FOX news broadcast (not recommended by physicians), you've probably heard all the frantic talk about the "Third World War".
Certainly, the armed conflict currently taking place in Lebanon (like Iraq, without the benefit of a declaration of war) has brought the world's alarmists and wingnuts to a state of absolute frenzy.
On a recent installment of Meet the Press, Newt Gingrich, for one, made his views on the matter clear. " is absolutely a question of the survival of Israel, but it's also a question of what is really a world war," he said. " ...I mean, we, we are in the early stages of what I would describe as the third world war, and frankly, our bureaucracies aren't responding fast enough, we don't have the right attitude about this, and this is the 58th year of the war to destroy Israel."
He quickly drew allusions to the war in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and the situation regarding North Korea. " I believe if you take all the countries I just listed, that you've been covering, put them on a map, look at all the different connectivity, you'd have to say to yourself this is, in fact, World War III."
Wow. That's heavy stuff. It's downright biblical, in fact.
Speaking of biblical, the most famous World War III prophecy comes, in fact, from the bible. The famous "Revelations" prophecy, which many people have interpreted and endorsed as a prophecy of a third global-spanning conflict, which will eventually bring about the endtimes.
A look at the prophecy itself foretells the third world war in a prelude and six acts. In the prelude, the stage is set as the events leading up to the third world war first begin to happen. In act one, the middle east is engulfed in more and more of that dreaded conflict. In act two, Israel finally goes on the warpath, and starts laying the smackdown. Act three brings a new element to bear: the machinations of those mischevious far-easterners. In the fourth act, confidence in "the system" is "eroded". In act five, the economies and moral systems of the western nations (including the U.S.) collapse. The whole affair wraps up with act six, and the signifcant reduction of population.
According to www.threeworldwars.com, the events leading up to the Third World War have already begun to take place.
The prelude, according to the site, began September 11, 2001 (quelle surprise!). Certainly, this was a date that changed the world, in almost every way that anyone can imagine. If any event of the past ten years "set the scene" for a global war, it was certainly 9/11. Fair enough.
The site kicks off act one with the invasion of Iraq 555 days later (isn't 666 more of a foreboding number? Oh, well) on March 10, 2003. According to this site, Iranian or Pakistani radicals may, in the near future, use a nuclear weapon in the region. Act two, according to the site, is what we are seeing right now. Fed up with having their soldiers kidnapped and missiles fire at them by Hezzbollah, Israel is expected to move into southern Lebanon in a full-scale invasion later today. But after this, things start to get a little bit hazy.
Act three, as previously noted, concerns troubles in the far east. But there's been trouble in the far east for the past fifty years. Repeated problems with the South Korean missile program, as well as nuclear proliferation by India and Pakistan (mostly over the hotly-contest Kasmir region) have been significant news topics over the past five years. Suddenly, act three predates act two.
Act four, erosion of confidence in the system is nothing new, either. It's been happening in many countries (particularly the United States) ever since the 1980s, when voter turnout first started to tank. So now, act four predates act three, which already predates act two.
Act five, some warn, is currently in the process have happening. The collapse of the American economy has been forecasted by a number of economists for a little while now. Once again, nothing new, but at least this one has yet to pass.
Act six, however, could be argued to be underway. The site notes that the population reduction in question could happen by way of natural disasters. Hurricane Katrina, recent earthquakes in Indonesia, and the Tsunami that obliterated the south western Pacific basin come to mind. So, act six, predates act five (which has yet to happen), which is predated by act four, which is predated by act three, which predates act two.
Now, certainly, the chronological order of the events probably shouldn't matter much to those who subscribe to the biblical WWIII prophesy. The fact that enough of the events can be argued to have happened, or be in the course of happening should be unsettling enough for most.
Is the Third World War ongoing as we speak? It may already have been for at least five years now. If anything, the War on Terror is a global war, taking place on two or more continents -- the historical definition of a world war. Regardless of whether or not Israel's campaign in Lebanon sparks a nightmarish global war, historians may one day recognize the war on terror as World War 3 -- or World War 4, if you agree with those who consider the Cold War to have been World War 3.
Certainly, much of the "news coverage" of the ongoing "World War 3" is simply alarmism. But if left untended (and no world leader has yet to make a serious peace overture), this situation could easily balloon into a world war.
While it's easy to simply throw our hands in the air in an act of exasperation over the drama, we must resist the urge to do this, and pressure our leaders to help Israel find the most peaceful resolution possible with Hezbollah and Lebanon. Certainly, Israel cannot permit Hezbollah to continue attacking them, but an all-out war is something that simply must be avoided, if at all possible.
Otherwise, what has existed for the past fifty years in the way of a small regional conflict breaking into occasional wars could become something much bigger, and much, much worse.
For as long as there has been conspiracy theorists, three words have struck fear into their hearts and minds: new. World. Order.
An idea of unrelenting paranoia, "new world order" theories essentially deal with the idea of one world government. Many proponents of such theories have kicked their rantings into high gear recently, as the ultra-secretive Bilderberg group meets in Ottawa.
Daniel Estulin claims the Bilderberberg group is a group of powerful people bent upon establishing a monolithic super-state, which would force the world to be united under one government, constitution, religion and currency. He claims that they have already had their fair share of successes: " ...you're seeing it right now as you have NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and you have the European Community (EC)," Estulin insists.
Yikes. Certainly, this is scary stuff.
More notably, Estulin concludes -- using information that he says has been supplied to him by concerned CIA, MI5 and Mossad agents -- that the group pulls the strings of the mainstream media, deciding what will and what will not be considered news in the following year. He claims that they discuss how best to eliminate resistance to their agenda (the alternative truth movement and American Christian patriots have been reportedly been considered in recent years). Ultimately, he suggests the Bilderberg group would take control of the UN -- newly empowered with the ability to directly tax all citizens of the world -- in order to complete its goal of world unification.
But imagine what it would mean for the world if Estulin's frightening theory were true.
For one thing, it would mean that many people who have participated in this conference and who are, we are lead to believe, political opponents are actually complicitly working together toward the same machavellian goals. For example, Liberal Prime Ministers Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien have both attended this conference. In 2003, while serving as leader of the opposition, current PM Stephen Harper attended.
This would suggest that Chretien and Harper were "playing for the same team" as it were -- even as they faced each other across the parliamentary floor. Certainly, this would be a conspiracy unparallelled in Canadian history.
Certainly it wouldn't only be Canadian leaders who would be cooperating with each other in this vast conspiracy. The heads of dozens of major corporations -- who, by nature, must compete against each other on a regular basis, have also attended. Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry attended in 2001. In 2003, Republican Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld attended.
This is only a sampling of people who have appeared at Bilderberg conferences -- the group, which claims its purpose is to foster understanding between North America and Western Europe, is shrouded in astounding secrecy. At this year's conference, the Brook Street Resort has expelled all of its guests, and is allowing nobody -- which the exception of a very select few, who have undergone stringent security checks -- is being allowed in or out of the building, or even the parking lot. Unlike other high-profile events, where the arrivals of participants are covered extensively by the press, the Bilderberg conference takes place under a complete media black out -- one that Estulin claims is self-imposed by the media elites who attend the conference on a regular basis. Simply put, we the public don't know who attends the conference.
Certainly, this is disquieting. The presence of people such as Henry Kissinger (who Victor Marchetti identifies as a leader of the C.I.A. "cult of intelligence") doesn't exactly help to lay the suspicions of conspiracy theorists -- or even the general public -- to rest.
If the concernts of individuals such as Daniel Estulin are simply paranoid rantings, perhaps there is no reason at all for the secrecy surrounding the Bilderberg conferences. But if they aren't up to anything, then why all the secrecy?
Perhaps there is more going on under our noses than the Bilderberg group (or the alleged "new world order") would like us to believe. The question is: what? It's a fair question.
