Alas, an old-friend has jumped on the whole ‘Boston bombing is a government conspiracy’ bandwagon. While I know I should know better, I engaged him in a (sort-of) Facebook debate. His idea is that only smoke bombs detonated on the day, and that once they went off ‘actors’ started throwing around fake blood and attaching/removing prosthetic limbs in order to pretend that there had been a real explosion (yeah, I know…). My main counter-argument went something like this:
Which got me to thinking: Just as a thought experiment, really, what would go into planning and enacting such a plot on the scale that the conspiracy theorists suggest? Yes, you’d have to hire the ‘actors’, as well as get law enforcement and emergency services on side. You’d also have to silence the media somehow, I suppose - but how could you ensure silence from everyone involved? Threats? Coercion? What else would go into it?
It may be time to exercise the defriend option. This idea is crazier by far than the moon landing and 9/11 CTs. What your old friend suggests is not even theoretically possible. Just think of the number of hospital personnel and EMTs that would have to have been in on it in advance. What the hell is wrong with these people?
Well, there’s the real dead people; I don’t think they’re acting.
The video footage shows a blast wave and concomitant blast damage, and the audio captured a very loud report (hundreds of eyewitnesses reported the same), so clearly these were not just smoke bombs.
There were EMT’s, hospital ER staff, and surgeons who worked their asses off to help these people survive. Either they were ALL in on this conspiracy, or they were ALL completely fooled by the realism of the special effects and makeup used to simulate the traumatic amputation of limbs.
The more people purported to be involved in a conspiracy, the more unlikely it is. The more devious a conspiracy, the more unlikely. Put the two together, and the probability that this was a conspiracy is infinitesimally small.
Add to that: There were how many tens of thousands of runners participating in the race? All of them running at different speeds, and arriving at the bomb location at different, unpredictable times. How would you ensure that all of the runners at that location at that time were in on your conspiracy? You’d pretty much have to recruit every single runner. And not one of them blabbed about it?
I woudl have more (not much, but more) respect for a conspiracy theory that involved the Government allowing or instigating the bombing (with callous disregard for the safety of its citizens) than a CT that proposes it was faked and had no real casualties. What, these people think their Cabinet-level Department of Conspiracies would deliberately *avoid *harming people to make their point? Don’t they remember 9/11?
I think the implication made by the ‘truthers’ is that they were all in on it. Even if you had *infinite *resources, that would still be pretty much impossible to orchestrate, right?
Yes. We’re talking about public streets, thousands of runners, random passersby, people who showed up on a last minute whim, reporters, TV cameras. Has your friend ever actually been out in public?
It seems to me that the only remotely practical way to fake such a thing would be though Soviet Union-like control of the media and public discourse. Manufacture the footage somewhere and broadcast it claiming the event actually happened, and everyone who knows better knows that saying so means they disappear. Which doesn’t match the actual situation in the US of course, but a country that did work like that would have a good chance of pulling such a media-based fake off I’d think.
But the scenario that the OPs friend believes in? No way. It’s kind of in a sweet spot of total implausibility; it’s way to big in scale and complexity for any conspiracy to manufacture with actors and smoke bombs, but much smaller in scale than a Soviet style “total control of the national media & discourse” scenario that might actually work.
There are some Conspiracy Theorists who insist that no one was killed on 9/11. That’s where the notion of the victims being “actors” comes from. They decided 9/11 was all a big show, so really, a couple of bombs would be far easier. This is now being applied to any event they have declared a conspiracy, and they declare everything to be a conspiracy.
Yes, they really are that crazy. Google “vicsims” if you want to see the whole disgusting display, although I personally don’t recommend doing that.
This is really the only way to have done it. If you have the government set off real bombs, they only need a couple people involved in the conspiracy. The tricky bit would be pinning it so convincingly on a couple random immigrants. Implausible that the Tsarnaevs are government actors in disguise, unless the crazy mother in Russia and the scornful uncle also are. Hmmm…
Such “thinking” boggles the mind. (It will sound elitist, but imagine how much better U.S. governance would be if such looneys were denied the vote.)
Here’s an argument that seems very strong to me (though it may have no meaning to the irrational looneys). Stipulate for the sake of argument that such a hoax would have 95% chance of succeeding undetected. (Yes, yes, that’s much too high, but read on.) No matter how evil you think Obama might be, would he do such a thing if there was even a 5% chance of being found out?
More implausibly: this plot would have to depend on the timely and efficient operation of the Green Line to get all of the conspirators to the right place!
Faked as in no bombs and no one killed or injured? No, that’s not possible.
However, it is possible more is going on here than what the media would have us believe. A little research reveals some strange things.
The uncle that called them losers was married to CIA official Graham Fuller’s daughter, and has ties to strategic oil ventures in Kazakhstan and Central Asia, as well as USAID. Katherine Russell, the dead bombers wife, is the granddaughter of Richard Warren Russell, Skull and Bones member and entrepreneur in the energy industry. The CIA is known to be a legacy organization, and the FBI was in contact with the older bomber over 5 year span.
Of course, all that may mean nothing, but I find it odd that the media is not really reporting on this.
I am gravely afeared of what conspiracy-mongers would “uncover” about my background if they ever had the inclination to do so. I am probably “linked” to any number of nefarious persons or groups.
And John Hinckley’s brother Scott was scheduled to have dinner with George H. W. Bush’s son Neil on the day that Reagan was shot. So what? Look hard enough and you can find coincidences in anything.
Theoretically I don’t even know if Boston really exists. I’ve never been there.
Sure there’s pictures, video, millions who say they live there or have been there but I’ve never seen the place myself. It could be one massive conspiracy against all of us who have never been there.
