Given 1) the rhetoric coming out of the White House about how all of our lives are under constant threat, 2) the (perhaps intentional) failure of Trump’s travel ban, 3) Trump’s need to be worshipped as a hero, and 4) the cries of impeachment seem to only be getting louder, it would be foolish to NOT suspect a false flag attack. And I’d expect an immediate investigation to make absolutely sure that it isn’t.
I’m curious if I’m the only person who’d feel this way.
I’m also curious if there is any way we’d be able to express our suspicions without looking like another Truther or Sandy Hook Hoaxer. We’d certainly be portrayed in that light–maybe even by folks who share our political leanings. But the comparisons wouldn’t be fair, IMHO.
I would certainly wonder. But it would still take a lot to convince me that it was. There are certainly all-too-real terrorists around, although none from those 7 countries apparently.
One problem is that the genuine terrorists would presumably be just as happy to see an authoritarian government arise in the US. I recall that one of the comments after 9/11 was that we must not let it change our way of life. I think it is perfectly obvious that it has. Start with the TSA.
Seriously, I am probably the world’s biggest anti-conspiracy theorist (I’m always cynical that people can get it together to pull things off with that level of complexity and secrecy), but with this administration it would probably be my first thought.
Sure; it’s like anything else. Wait until facts have been gathered and ground your suspicions in a reasonable evaluation of the available evidence, rather than the reflexive political antipathy and violations of physical laws that animate the obsessives of the world. Basically, evidence is what separates theory from conspiracy theory.
Wiki doesn’t have a handy catch-all page for Yemen but there were deadly attacks there in March and July last year too. One in Sudan last March. One in Libya last January. And just last June the state department released a report stating that Iran is the top state sponsor of terror.
Did the terrorists from these countries kill Americans? No. But the common refrain that there are “no” terrorists in any of the seven countries on the list, and therefore nothing to worry about, is naïve.
Just because they can commit acts of terror in their home countries doesn’t mean they can come here with the same ease.
This administration I wouldn’t consider capable of safely lighting a firecracker let alone stage a false flag operation.
I do believe they will take any attack and twist/lie/take advantage of it to push their agenda.
I would wonder if it was a false flag, an attack orchestrated by Russia and blamed on Muslims, or an attack that happened due to incompetence by the Trump admin. Terror attacks happen no matter who is president.
I really do worry what happens when a muslim commits a terror attack (lets be honest, there will not be much if any pushback from this administration when right wing white supremacists commit terrorism, only Muslims). I’m worried even if it is a lone wolf who only wounds a few people that this administration will declare full on war against the judiciary, media, congress, liberals, free speech, freedom of assembly, etc.
That’s really hard to do these days – standard policy of the party in power these days is to forbid the gathering of evidence in anything that might “get on them.” Rational critical thinking requires evidence, which requires the ability to question, investigate, and discover. None of those are allowed (or done, by those in a position to do them) in today’s climate.
Can’t buy it for the same reason (on a much smaller scale) that I can’t buy the Apollo moon landing hoax. It would take too many people, working in too organized a fashion, to remain secret for very long.
That’s only half the refrain, though. The other half is that thousands of Americans have been killed by folks from countries not on the list, which more or less demonstrates that whatever the major criterion for the list is, it’s not “the safety of Americans.”
But we’re getting astray from OP. A false flag would certainly occur to me as a possibility (it seems very like Trump’s folks–especially Bannon–to orchestrate such a thing, and I’m sure they could convince themselves that arranging to have a bunch of Americans killed was for the good of the country), but it’s countered by their seeming incompetence at actually organizing things or keeping secrets.
My first suspicion, though, would be that it was a real attack triggered as a response to Trump’s anti-Muslim/Mexican/Black/Liberal/Women/etc./etc. hysteria and policies. That would also be my first suspicion in the case of an assassination, for what it’s worth: Trump stepped way over still another line and the GOP once again disabled or ignored all of the usual checks and balances, so someone with nothing to lose figured it was the only way to restore normality.
I fully agree with you about conspiracies, and for exactly the same reason. What’s heartening to me is that a Trump false flag attack would be so bungled that it would be obvious very quickly.
What horrifies me is that Bannon might run it! :eek::eek::eek:
I’d be much more worried if it seemed that he was getting along better with the intelligence agencies.
As hard (or even impossible) as it would be to cover up some sort of false flag operation, it would only be feasible if you have the intelligence agencies under your thumb.
It would have to be a small attack, anything on the scale of 911 would involve way too many people to keep quite even up until the event, much less afterwards.
Our country’s national security responses are currently being coordinated by a paranoid, unqualified Fox News contributor.
I’m less worried about false flag, and more worried that the inevitable crisis is going to be badly mishandled, making it much worse. And then the GOP will use the chaos to strengthen Trump.
I think it depends partly on what happens to the perpetrators. If it’s a suicide attack - such as a suicide truck bomb going off in NYC - it would be hard to believe it was a false flag, because what perpetrator is willing to sacrifice his life for the sake of the US government?
If the perpetrator neatly, mysteriously, gets away and disappears, though, that could raise false-flag suspicion. And if it’s a domestic-type of attack - (a shooting spree, for instance, is often seen as an American thing, whereas a hijacked airliner comes across as a Middle Eastern-perpetrated thing) that could feed false flag suspicion as well.
Of course, you wouldn’t need to set up a false flag at all.
Just keep doing what the so-called president is doing, pissing off everyone around the world, while also gutting and sidelining our intelligence agencies, while also reprioritizing law enforcement to immigration issues, and our chances of being attacked go up dramatically.
Then they can use that attack that they allowed to happen through incompetence to seize more power to be used ineffectively.
If they are trying to be clever, it’s not all that hard to “volunteer” a suicide bomber. I’ve seen at least one show (maybe 24) with that as the plot.
Once again, I do not think that this administration is clever enough to perpetuate a false flag untied shoe, much less an attack that could precipitate major policy changes, but just the fact that it was done by a suicide bomber would not, in my mind, completely clear it from suspicion.
This has me wondering whether the rally-around-the-flag effect that happened after 9/11 (Bush’s approval rating shot up to near 90% immediately after the attack) was strictly a one-time phenomenon.
I wonder if a similar-sized attack had happened later on again in the Bush presidency, or in the Obama presidency - if instead of rallying-around-the-flag, it would have caused a national meltdown and make the POTUSes’ approval rating plummet to 20 percent or so.
And with Trump, well, it’s hard to see the country rallying around him as a whole even if another Pearl Harbor happened.