Conspiracy Theories Unnecessary: The U.S. Government is Guilty of Terrorism

The Kony 2012 Madness

            Before we get into the bulk of this article’s argument, lets be as current as we can be. As “Kony 2012” continues to shatter internet records and inspire millions to fight for change in Central Africa, a small and ignorant group of bloggers and vloggers think they’ve figured out that Invisible Children is actually running a scam. The bat-shit crazy snippet of the far-left is claiming that just because the president is evangelical, the mission of Invisible Children is actually to convert Ugandans to Christianity. Meanwhile, the bat-shit crazy snippet of the far-right, notably Rush Limbaugh, has claimed that Invisible Children is an anti-Christian organization dedicated to stopping the in-fact Christian and humanitarian Lord’s Resistance Army. I’m not making this stuff up, folks. Amidst a firestorm of worldwide activism, there are plenty of loons trying to distract us.

Lets Stick to Facts

            These people use the same tactics as conspiracy theorists- a group of people most

notably associated with the belief that the U.S. government is committing a hidden genocide of minorities or has a secret agenda that involves massacring it’s own citizens at random.

            The fact of the matter is this: we don’t need wild theories to expose anyone. We can use cold hard facts. Why not go for a responsible debate over Invisible Children’s imperfect budgeting or inability to expose the Ugandan government for using tactics many respectable critics have compared to the LRA?

In a very different light, why not go after the U.S. government for actually financing war and committing acts of terrorism?

Syria 2012: Our Own National Disgrace

            While many of us don’t know about the 500,000 women and children and over 1 million people killed by the U.S. Military in Iraq, far less of us know about the United States very recent involvement with the conflict in Syria.

            As the Syrian government continues to slaughter hundreds of defenseless civilians every day, hundreds of thousands of people are now displaced within Syria. The humanitarian situation is rapidly deteriorating as the group United to End Genocide has made it their mission to go after the source that can be targeted most successfully: the United States. The fact is that the United States is doing business with the same company supplying weapons to this brutal regime. As their emails read, "While the United States calls on the world to sanction Syria's government, our own Department of Defense is signing contracts with a company that has provided $4 billion dollars' worth of weapons to the Syrian regime. This is unconscionable. " They continue, "Condemning Syria's regime is not enough. We must also condemn those who are engaging in business with the regime — and especially those that provide the means to enable the continued slaughter." The United States- guilty of blatant acts of terror throughout it’s past and present from Iraq to Vietnam, from Central America to Syria, should be held accountable. We don’t need wild radicalism to prove this. It’s really quite undeniable. Still, the loons will try to control the discourse of dissent with ridiculous conspiracy theories.

September 11th Conspiracy Theories and America as a Terrorist State

Whenever I hear about another loony C-list celebrity coming forward to join the loud and confused bandwagon arguing that the September 11^th attacks on America were an orchestrated by the Bush Administration, I laugh. Whenever I hear a CC student (and believe me, there are plenty) spew identical rhetoric suggesting 9/11 was an Inside Job, I cringe. Not because the range of theories- from there was no plane that hit the pentagon to explosives were used to bring down the Twin Towers to Israel was actually behind the attack- have all been thoroughly debunked from every imaginable angle from every imaginable source exhausting it’s time to respond to the wackos. Not because the idea that dozens of the anti-Bush, often anti-American media outlets of Europe, Asia and Latin America were all somehow made to be silent about the conspiracy is ludicrous. Not because denying the overwhelming bulk of evidence presented by 99% of eye-witnesses, historians, physicists and engineers is really no different than denying the 99% of scientists who recognize human activity has played a role in climate change. And not because the idea that after all of the unbearable horror stories of 9/11, hundreds, if not thousands of people working for the U.S. government have kept quiet for over a decade, is ridiculous. But because I like to think that innocent victims of any crime should at least be respected with basic historical accuracy. I understand the appeal of taboo theories and the desire to scapegoat our corrupt, often evil leaders. But, the fact is, we don’t need to create mistruths to prove how evil our government is. In fact, I think its time to argue that the best way to get people riled up about our government’s support and execution of mass murder is not to manufacture widely preposterous theories, but to use the cold hard facts that cannot be refuted.

The best man to turn to not only in debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories but in understanding the U.S. as a terrorist state, is philosopher Noam Chomsky. As he points out, by Bush announcing that America would continue to bomb the people of Afghanistan unless leadership turned over to us the people we suspected of carrying out crimes, he was in fact providing us with a "textbook illustration of international terrorism, by the U.S. official definition." The same can be said of our actions in Iraq. Until Saddam stepped down, we would continue to bomb the people of Iraq. We terrorized lower and middle-class Iraqi communities and killed innocent people. The same can be said of our actions in Vietnam, and so on. And when we are not committing acts of terrorism, we are funding them- in 1980s Nicaragua or Afghanistan, in 1990s Turkey and in present day Palestine. Each example can be thoroughly examined by Chomsky, by historians, by people of any political leaning- the facts come together with no need for doctoring or theorizing. The United States government has acted and continues to act time and time again as a government funding and executing acts of terrorism.

All that said (and I do mean this to be disrespectful, as I have no respect for ideologies that exploit the innocent dead) if you are still skeptical about what really happened on September 11^th, I have two suggestions for you. First, you should probably take a break from clinging to the worn-out and discredited theories old YouTube videos continue to propagate. And second, I think it’s time you decide something about who you are as an intellectual. Do you want to be seen by us folks who care about facts as a person who sits in the same boat at those who think Obama was born in Kenya or those who say there were no gas chambers used in the Holocaust or do you want to make some valid claims and criticisms using hard evidence? If so, I think there is plenty of common ground to be reached here. And moreover, I think we can start holding the evil-doers accountable, whether their acts of terror are being committed from the inside or not.

So, lets cut the crap and get real. Dissent, not senseless, is patriotic. We can take on our government for the crimes it has committed and continues to commit. But first, some of us have to take on those who wish to distract us from reality and bring down the otherwise credible crusade for justice. Without reason, there is no credibility. With reason, a somewhat idealistic person like myself would argue, there is hope.