Terrence on Apr 28, 2008 at 11:28 AM:

So we have a Straussian going on about how ridiculous conspiracy theories are.

What's wrong with this picture?

Terrence on Apr 28, 2008 at 11:42 AM:

Johanan the REAL right understands that Bush = Clinton = globalism. OKC was an inside job as was 9/11.

Johanan Raatz on Apr 28, 2008 at 04:35 PM:

Terrence;

All of this is sourced, you don't have to take my word for it.

Geoff Loper on Apr 28, 2008 at 06:13 PM:

One more item for the fact that 9/11 was not an inside job...

A recent traffic accident in the San Francisco area caused a semi truck carrying gasoline to explode, and guess what happened??? the heat from the fuel expolding caused the metal rigging for the upper deck of the bridge to melt and collapse...

But jet fuel is sooo much less combustable than regular old gasoline...

Great article Johanan!!!

fan on Apr 28, 2008 at 10:59 PM:

i loved billy kristol in city slickers!!

source: http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000059TFL.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

FK on Apr 28, 2008 at 11:08 PM:

Ok, I agree about the 9/11 claim, in spite of the fact that there was little to nothing left of Flight 93 (very odd for a crash landing, regardless of speed). But Bush did not steal the 2000 election all of a sudden? You mean the recount was not decided by people who had close connections to Bush Sr? Very suspicious that the only ones who voted for the recount were not in Bush's inner circle. Care to explain that? As for the Iraq War, please do some digging into quotes by Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell from early 2001 in which they expressly stated that there was no evidence that Iraq had restarted a weapons program. Suddenly after 9/11 he starts up again? And what about all of that nonsense that Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden were working together? Anyone with any conception of Mideast politics would know that Saddam hated Al-Qaeda and considered them a threat to his power, which is why he did such a good job of keeping them from gaining any power in Iraq during his reign. Should you want to discuss Bush's military record and the fact that his superior officers have testified that he did indeed show up for duty, let me remind you that after Bush became president he became commander in chief, meaning that he could easily tell them to keep their mouths shut and they would have to follow orders. Come now Mr. Raatz, surely you are not so daft? As for your death toll in Iraq, you are right, however you see them as numbers, many of the people now dead in Iraq, in fact the majority, were civilians who were gunned down by a paranoid military. Just because the death toll isn't as high does not make it any less tragic. Frankly Sir, while your article has certain merits, for the most part you have avoided demonstration of any abstract thinking. As a matter of fact your details appear to have been lifted directly off of CNN.

FK on Apr 28, 2008 at 11:15 PM:

"But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt." -Condoleeza Rice, July 29, 2001

FK on Apr 28, 2008 at 11:17 PM:

"The sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction ... And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq ... " -Colin Powell, February 24, 2001

FK on Apr 28, 2008 at 11:19 PM:

"There's no question that the minute I got elected, the storm clouds on the horizon were getting nearly directly overhead." -George W. Bush, May 11, 2001

Hold the phone. on Apr 29, 2008 at 12:31 AM:

Johanan-

I agree with you. 9/11 was not an inside job, and this is amazing because it breaks a long streak of U.S. "inside jobs" to start wars, ranging from Vietnam and the admittedly bogus Gulf of Tonkin incident to the invention of a new border to justify the invasion of Mexico. But you know, since we funded and trained Osama Bin Laden in the ways of murder, that kind of makes him a U.S. operative, which kind of does make it an inside job afterall, doesn't it?

Also, since you know that your opponents believe that the U.S. is a corporatocracy, why is that you were only capable of sourcing corporate media sources? Why not just say, "These are all hoaxes because President Bush said so"?

Johanan Raatz on Apr 29, 2008 at 09:02 AM:

To fan:

"i loved billy kristol in city slickers!! http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000059TFL.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

http://www.miamibookfair.com/2005/2005%20mbfi%20author%20photos/good/Kristol_Bill.jpg

Dang I never realized how similar they look. That is funny. Must be synchronicity or something.

Johanan Raatz on Apr 29, 2008 at 09:42 AM:

To hold the phone:

"Vietnam and the admittedly bogus Gulf of Tonkin incident"

Well sometimes the government has to exaggerate the threat a little to make people realize what they need to do. That's just PR though.

"to the invention of a new border to justify the invasion of Mexico."

The Texans wanted to succeed and Mexico wouldn't let them, and then the Alamo happened. (and no the Alamo was not an inside job) The liberation of Texas was justified by the govenment in this context not some 'inside job'.

"that kind of makes him a U.S. operative, which kind of does make it an inside job afterall,"

That was over a decade and a half earlier during the Cold war. We could not possibly have known what he would do 15 years later.

"Also, since you know that your opponents believe that the U.S. is a corporatocracy,"

Believing that any source that disagrees with one beliefs must be part of "the conspiracy" is a typical sign of paranoia. Paranoia is a psychological disorder.

"why is that you were only capable of sourcing corporate media sources?"

Because this is a capitalist society and that usually means that when serious people rise to the top they usually do so in corporations, and so most of the serious sources happen to come from corporate sources. Questioning their validity because they are 'corporate' though is just an ad hominem attack on corporations though and doesn't pertain to the validity of their claims.

"Why not just say, "These are all hoaxes because President Bush said so"?"

Because that would be an appeal to authority and I believe in reasoned debate of the issues.

P.S. Ok really really seriously? (This comes straight from the inside so listen carefully and tell no one)Well you see I was at my weekly Skull and Bones meeting last Friday and the senior Bonesmen (who are actually part of the Illuminati and reptilian shapeshifters to boot) told me that people wouldn't believe me if I just refferenced Bush(who is also a reptilian alien) so they told me I would have to come up with more convincing propaganda to satisfy the masses with. The six high lords of the Secret Order of the Neocons and a couple of Halliburton CEO's then told me they would aid my effort by aiming a mind-control ray on the campus from an orbiting sattelite to make people more susceptible to my propaganda but only if I made it believable.

Besides that it would have made for a pretty short article if I had just done that.

Johanan Raatz on Apr 29, 2008 at 09:48 AM:

"Great article Johanan!!!"

Why thank you Geoff.

"One more item for the fact that 9/11 was not an inside job..."

That's interesting thanks for showing me that.

FK on Apr 29, 2008 at 03:55 PM:

Have you even read a Vietnam War history book? The threat was not exaggerated, they faked the whole thing to justify an escalation of the war so that they could continue to undermine the Soviet Union. Period. Nobody 'exaggerated' any threat, they created a threat themselves, put the blame on someone else and then backtracked when they were busted. My God, you must get your information from high school history books.

Johanan Raatz on Apr 29, 2008 at 05:07 PM:

"The threat was not exaggerated, they faked the whole thing to justify an escalation of the war so that they could continue to undermine the Soviet Union. Period. Nobody 'exaggerated' any threat,"

Well in that case the whole Tonkin incident WAS the exaggeration. It was necessary to make a big deal out of something that didn't happen because it would provide full to further undermine the Soviet Union which was the real threat.

However without the Tonkin incident to manufacture consent people would not have realized that they needed to oppose the Soviet Union as strongly as they should have.

JF on Apr 29, 2008 at 10:06 PM:

"Most statistics fall around 30,000, including the UN statistic of around 35,000."

The UN did not say that. Please source it. Those other statistics you are talking about are not estimates of total casualties. The ORB is the most accurate study done, and it is conservative in its estimate of 1.03 million. Most veterans at Winter Soldier expressed that 1 million Iraqi casualties seemed like an accurate figure. The reason for the difference between the Lancet and the ORB is the different points in time when they carried out their reports. The Lancet was mid-2006 and the ORB was early-2008. People died between then. The ORB and Lancet correspond closely. If you want to criticize the Lancet study, criticize either the methods or some kind of flaw you find in the survey. The Lancet is a medical journal which routinely does casualty estimates and its findings are rarely to never contested by scholarship.

Anyone who accepts the 30,000-50,000 figure for Iraqi casualties is denying the deaths of 1 million Iraqis. Any such person qualifies as a holocaust denier.

Johanan Raatz on Apr 30, 2008 at 09:19 AM:

"criticize either the methods or some kind of flaw you find in the survey."

I did:

"It turns out that this study was based on methods used in epidemiology.

This is a little peculiar since the Iraq War was fought with smart bombs. Weapons designed to hit precise targets can’t be approximated like widespread epidemics. It appears that the method was cherry-picked to produce the highest statistic possible."

Now it shouldn't be too hard to confirm Lancet and ORB all we have to do is count the gravestones in the cemetaries that must be exponentially exploding in number. No one I know of has found these though.

"Anyone who accepts the 30,000-50,000 figure for Iraqi casualties is denying the deaths of 1 million Iraqis. Any such person qualifies as a holocaust denier."

ROTFL You mean like our own government or respected thinktanks, or respectable media outlets and pundits? That's an awful lot of people in on the conspiracy. So let me get this straight we are left with the choice of either being a holocaust deniers and believing in sensible statistics or being moonbats who compare are own goverment to um war criminals and holocaust deniers? I sense I may have to use Godwin's law in a bit here.

If all of these people were killed then where are all of the bodies? It shouldn't be too hard to find a million dead bodies I mean if nothing else you could tell by looking at new cemetaries being erected all over the place, and if that was the case you could just count the bodies and not have to perform statistical analyses.

Johanan Raatz on Apr 30, 2008 at 11:25 AM:

As I suspected the methods used were cherrypicked and combined with cherrypicked samples: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/oct/24/iraq.internationalnews

The net effect was that they used the model(the epidemic model) that would result in equal casualty density everywhere and then found the areas with the highest casualty density to use as the average in an area.

Well of course your going to get ridiculously high numbers out of this.

If we are to take the Lancet and ORB studies at face value then we would have to draw the highly untenable conclusion that around 600 Iraqis are being killed a day. Simply from talking to friends I have who have served over there this scenario makes no sense. The study makes sense though in that the full methods were not published and the original Lancet study has since been discovered to have been quietly funded by George Soros.

http://poligazette.com/2008/01/13/lancet-study-was-funded-by-george-soros/

I had a friend over their for several months. He was in the Sunni Triangle (the most violent part of Iraq) and the only serious action he ever saw was when his company took out a terrorist safehouse. Only several terrorists were killed and the rest were taken captive, and the whole thing was mostly over before he even got to fight himself.

Here's another article about the Lancet study.

http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/databomb/index.htm

It even points out the a British anti-war group was critical of Lancet's inflated statistics. The funny thing was was that their death toll was about 45,000 (which would put them into your "holocaust denier" category Jeff).

These numbers aren't even accepted by all of the opponents of the Iraq war.

FK on May 01, 2008 at 12:23 AM:

Ever hear of cremation? Eh? Propaganda? We have a history of distorting the truth for the sake of making things seem rosy. That is why no one is admitting we are in a recession, and it is why no one is reporting our use of nuclear weapons in Iraq. We are the most powerful nation on earth, how can our citizenry have faith if we show ourselves to be cruel and weak?

Johanan Raatz on May 01, 2008 at 09:15 AM:

Ever hear of cremation? Eh? Propaganda?

Yeah I know I know. I have. I have also heard of the Roswell crash landing and the Area 51. Now until we have real proof of any of these things (not a grossly methodolically flawed Lancet study) they aren't credible.

Do you know how hard it is to cremate a body? You can't just do it. You need special equipment. I doubt every platoon in Iraq has access to this kind of stuff. If nothing else we would end up with a sudden surge in crematorium's being built. We don't find them.

"We have a history of distorting the truth for the sake of making things seem rosy."

Uhuh, and I suppose you also think we live in the Matrix.

"That is why no one is admitting we are in a recession,"

We are. Everyone knows it. The reason it is not at the forefront of everyone's minds is that it isn't very serious yet.

"and it is why no one is reporting our use of nuclear weapons in Iraq."

ROFL using depleted uranium doesn't count as using nuclear weapons. If we were using nukes in Iraq the war would be done long ago.

"e are the most powerful nation on earth, how can our citizenry have faith if we show ourselves to be cruel and weak?"

? Liberating two countries is a sign of compassion and strength.

FK on May 01, 2008 at 02:20 PM:

Do you live in fantasy world? I have yet to hear the White House make any official declaration of it, they just keep saying 'oh, the economy is slowing down'. Now, for the fun part. Liberating two countries? Don't make me laugh. We asked Afghanistan for Bin Laden, and they told us that they would hand him over if we could provide evidence that Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11. Please visit the FBI's website and look at his profile, you will not see any mention of 9/11 on it. We may not have been in on it, but we sure don't know who was. Buddy boy, let me remind you that the U.S. government attempted to block photos of caskets being returned home of U.S. troops killed in Iraq. Would that not be considered a type of propaganda? Out of sight, out of mind, perhaps? And yes, I do know how difficult it is to cremate a body, I've actually taken courses on this sort of stuff, and I also know that when you burn bodies en masse, which is exactly what an army would do in cases of numerous people being killed at one place and time, they tend to burn faster because the levels of body fat and other types of chemicals are different in each body, and the bodies with higher concentrations of it will cause the entire thing to burn much faster and much more efficiently. I want you to try to access a Baghdad newspaper sometime, and tell me if you are able to. Most of the newspaper sites for the Middle East, with the exception of Al-Jazeera, are blocked for the same reason that I mentioned above: out of sight, out of mind. You try talking to someone who actually has been on the recieving end of this treatment, and you will find it very hard to find any holes in their story. I'm very familiar with your editorial history, you're one of those 'America Rah Rah Rah!' blokes who thinks this country can do no wrong. Perhaps you're the one who lives in the Matrix Raatz, it's called propaganda, and it makes you a sucker.

KB on May 01, 2008 at 08:55 PM:

What's the number for the civilian death count being okay? I agree that a million or even 600,000 seems high, but where is the line? 45,000 civilians is abhorrent. What is number where everything is okay? 1000, 10,000, 100,000? Whether its 1000 or 1,000,000, its still unacceptable.

FK on May 02, 2008 at 07:04 AM:

By the way Johanan, here is the link to Bin Laden's profile, should you not believe me. http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htmofile

Johanan Raatz on May 02, 2008 at 09:36 AM:

FK;

"Perhaps you're the one who lives in the Matrix Raatz, it's called propaganda, and it makes you a sucker."

I don't live in the Matrix:

"there is a disproportion between the intransigent quest for truth and the requirements of society," ~Leo Strauss

That doesn't mean you are free of the Matrix though. Politics is about deception and this means that no matter what propaganda one side puts out the other side will create conspiracy theories and outrageous claims to trick people into their side.

You should probably try to look into whatever propaganda you may have ingested on your side of the political aile before looking for it elsewhere.

FK on May 02, 2008 at 12:29 PM:

I'm disappointed Johanan. I was expecting a bit more of a substantial response, so far every time that I have given you actual sources to support my argument, you have conveniently ignored them. Not everything is at it seems mate, just because CNN tells you the world is a certain way does not mean that is how it operates. Was 9/11 plotted by the government? No, I doubt it. Did they know it was going to happen? Definitely. Did they allow it to? I'd bet money on it, their actions before and since have given every indication of this fact, particularly the August 2001 memo which flat out said that Bin Laden was going to strike in the U.S. Now, as I mentioned before, the problem with that is the fact that we have no real evidence that Bin Laden was even responsible, which is why he has not been indicted for it. Please see the FBI profile for confirmation of that. Did we invade Iraq for oil? You know what, I don't know why we invaded Iraq, but we didn't do it to liberate the Iraqi people, Saddam did his worst in the 80's with our full blessings, he had been relatively quiet since the Gulf War ended. Obviously we have not cared a thing for the well being of the people because the UN as we speak is compiling a list of charges on which to indict key members of the Bush administration following his departure from office for war crimes. The amazing number of Constitutional violations of which Bush is responsible for would be enough to impeach him, yet he gets off scot free, while Clinton is crucified for getting off. You need to wake up, I've kept up on your articles for the past year and you seem to be little more than a regurgitator of the stuff that the "liberal" media gives to you, as your American empire keenly illustrates. You seem like an intelligent guy, far too intelligent to just fall for this crap, so I strongly advise you to do a bit more reading of worldwide sources, not just U.S. sources. Contrary to what you believe, we do have something to lose, which is why we lie to our own people. The people who are outside looking in do not benefit by our bullshit, which is why they are more credible. Check out the London Times, the Paris papers especially, and especially the German papers. Things are not what they seem.

Johanan Raatz on May 02, 2008 at 03:41 PM:

FK.

"I was expecting a bit more of a substantial response,"

Alright. I see what I need to do here. Take my quote of Leo Strauss above and lens much of what you've said here in terms of it.

Conspiracy theories usually occur because people are overly paranoid. They are often never mostly true, but people do also have a conspiratorial nature about them. So it's fairly believable that those in power would conspire to some extent (this is called deep politics and it goes on all of the time). Thus it can often appear that there is a big conspiracy when in reality it is a lot of little ones.

I understand that the government may have had alterior motives for going into Iraq. However, I've also investigated what some of these possible reasons could be and realized that many of these reasons were also good ones. The trouble is that the average person would likely have a knee-jerk reaction against them as we've been culturally programmed to dislike anything that smacks of imperialism.

So additional reasons are needed. These reasons aren't usually entirely fabricated like most conpiracy theories suggest (unless you get things like the Gulf of Tonkin) incident. But they do contort the appearance of things a little. People who are smart enough realize this but also realize that their knee-jerk reactions are illogical, but they also realize that many other people wouldn't realize that these knee-jerk reactions are illogical. As such they realize that at least to a small extent a "Matrix" is needed to keep things running properly.

"You need to wake up, I've kept up on your articles for the past year and you seem to be little more than a regurgitator of the stuff that the "liberal" media gives to you, as your American empire keenly illustrates."

Are you familiar with the analogy of Plato's cave? The people who escape the cave and learn the truth come back to explain to the people in the cave what the truth is and what needs to be done. However most of the people are unwilling to face this and prefer their shadow world. As such the only way for the people (or philosophers) who have escaped the cave to lead the cavedwellers properly is to manipulate the shadows in a meaningful way.

Because they talk in the language of the cavedwellers (in terms of shadows) they can appear to be cavedwellers even if they are not.

Now as for one last comment on this: A little truth is dangerous and this sometimes causes an additional trouble. Sometimes people who see the shadows being manipulated, are not yet outside the cave to see the reasons for why they are manipulated. So they exaggerate in their minds the degree to which the shadows are bent and become distrustful of those projecting them.

Johanan Raatz on May 02, 2008 at 03:54 PM:

"regurgitator of the stuff that the "liberal" media gives to you, as your American empire keenly illustrates. You seem like an intelligent guy, far too intelligent to just fall for this crap, so I strongly advise you to do a bit more reading of worldwide sources, not just U.S. sources."

Thank you for your compliment. Now if one looks closely at the news media in the last several decades it is neither liberal nor conservative. Actually it's both. The two have been engaged in a propaganda war with each other for sometime now. Only that it is imprudent for either side to admit it. Game theory suggests that the first side to admit it would be prone to losing. This isn't news to me. The question you have to ask yourself is which side is better?

The competeing sides:

(On the left): A conservative view of this side: http://www.academia.org/lectures/lind1.html

A liberal view of this side: http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/60spubs/65repressivetolerance.htm vs.

(On the right): A conservative view of this side: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=E1F7620E-B83A-4D01-869E-15391DEE2F02

A liberal view of this side: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6750.htm

I understand that it is a little disturbing that this goes on on either side but I personally find the left side of this to be more dangerous to my interests and values.

FK on May 02, 2008 at 06:47 PM:

You said it all in your last paragraph. YOUR interests and values. However, conservatism threatens my interests and values, namely a world in which people do not have to die so that one country can continue to have an edge over every other one.

FK on May 02, 2008 at 07:45 PM:

By the way, you are still tapdancing around the issue. I would like you to explain to me exactly why it is that September 11 is not on Bin Laden's official FBI profile. You can draw analogies between my blindness to the facts all you like, but you have yet to come up with any kind of significant rebuttal to any of the evidence that I have put before you regarding quotes from the Bush administration regarding the weapons in Iraq. Please tell me why the U.S. conducted an air raid on Baghdad in March 2001 which killed 30,000 Iraqi civilians, with absolutely no provocation from the Iraqi government. Was that not a terrorist act, and a prelude to war? If you think that you can simply insult my intelligence and explain how I am wrong because you happen to be acquainted with the theories of Greek philosophers, I advise you to avoid running for political office in the future, as you would never be able to hold your own with the big boys. If I am being manipulated by the truths before me, then so are you, the only difference is that I am actually presenting evidence to back it up. Your move.

JF on May 03, 2008 at 04:35 PM:

It’s not a lot of people who dispute the Lancet stats, it’s only a lot of institutions in this country, i.e. the country which is carrying out the slaughter or Iraqis. And those institutions happen to be politically conservative. Any country that carries out genocide denies the realistic estimates for their crime. The government will even tell “noble lies” to significantly downplay the effects of their aggression. The Turkish government still denies the genocide it committed a century ago against the Armenians. But this is standard practice by governments, and their media.
“It turns out that this study was based on methods used in epidemiology.” That’s the correct method to use. What are you talking about? Do you know what epidemiology is? Those are the commonly accepted methods used when estimating mortality in natural disasters and conflicts. The Lancet studies were “the only ones to use scientific methods” according to the Washington Post. I guess you put a lot of stock into those non-scientific studies. Please give me the source for your UN estimate of 30,000. The UN NEVER estimated that the TOTAL casualty figure in Iraq from the US invasion was 30,000. Do you believe the lies that you tell? Iraq is being carpet bombed and these corpses aren’t being put into cemeteries. As for your claim that we are not finding these gravestones anywhere, that’s because bodies rot in streets and get placed in mass graves. Plus, you act like there is a lot of investigation into these crimes. Who has been investigating but the few rare journalists who are willing to actually travel in Iraq? Most journalists never leave the Green Zone. Again, many veterans at Winter Soldier felt 1 million casualties was an accurate figure. When the Lancet released their study the UK’s Department of International Development said that the figure was “if anything an underestimate.” Lila Guterman, after writing a long article in January 2005 in The Chronicle of Higher Education, wrote a short article in the Columbia Journalism Review that stated: "I called about ten biostatisticians and mortality experts. Not one of them took issue with the study’s methods or its conclusions. If anything, the scientists told me, the authors had been cautious in their estimates. With a quick call to a statistician, reporters would have found that the probability forms a bell curve — the likelihood is very small that the number of deaths fell at either extreme of the range. It was very likely to fall near the middle." The Lancet study also avoided many of the most violent areas, like Fallujah, suggesting that their estimate was conservative. The casualty figure also is consistent with the other statistics which indicate the level of destruction Iraq has suffered. 1 out of every 5 Iraqis has had to flee their home since the US invasion. Oxfam reports that 11 million Iraqis are living in intense poverty. 75% of Iraqis are unemployed. Iraq is being run by death squads and most fear to go outside.

You are the moral equivalent of a Nazi propagandist. Maybe if it was your child that was bombed to death by an invading army that was “liberating” you, you wouldn’t be rolling on the floor laughing.

JF on May 03, 2008 at 04:40 PM:

Raatz: "I had a friend over their for several months."

I don't believe you have any friends.