I’m sorry, you thought it was my conspiracy theory. It wasn’t, in fact, until you brought it up I hadn’t even heard it. I’m just saying that assuming that anyone with a stethoscope is there to help you is a claim that requires verification.
Just as I’m not using the the fake vaccination program to assume that all medical relief programs are fraud I’m not using the presence of real medical relief programs to assume that all of them are real either.
The existence of good doesn’t mean there is no evil, and the existence of evil doesn’t mean there is no good.
By the way, the fake vaccination program; in addition to being instrumental in the murders of real medical workers administering vaccines in other areas and damaging efforts to eradicate polio; was a failed mission not responsible for finding Bin Laden.
The theory that the Tea Party resurgence of the right was nurtured and funded not by grass roots working class downtrodden folks, but very wealthy folks who tricked the TP into backing big tax cuts for the rich and the abolition of the estate tax, which helped only the very rich down-treaders.
Saying “The CIA once faked a medical program, so therefore this completely unrelated medical program is fake” is classic conspiracy theory logic. It’s like saying that the mob has assassinated people, so therefore the mob assassinated JFK. Yes, the White Helmet could be terrorists, but since there is absolutely no evidence that they are, we have to assume that they aren’t. Evidence - specific evidence, pertaining to the case being discussed - is the only thing that counts.
“The White Helmets could be terrorists,” is exactly the point. They aren’t terrorists, obviously, but they could be. Nothing about the conspiracy theory requires magic, or aliens, or Atlantis. As conspiracy theories go, it’s not “exceptionally weird,” it’s just wrong.
I don’t disagree with any of that, but let’s be careful not to downplay it.
This kind of propaganda is used to justify killings of medical workers, both directly and indirectly (indirectly by, for example, dampening popular concern about the real war crimes).
Anyone that hears a conspiracy theory of this form should be extra skeptical, as it is a very convenient CT that several bad actors would love people to believe.
Yeah, to get into Q levels of weirdness it would have to be something like “don’t accept help from foreign medical personnel because they’ve been directed to sterilize the population”, which exists but isn’t really a left wing conspiracy theory.
Even there, “The government is illicitly sterilizing people,” is a thing that’s actually happened in history. Exceptionally weird theories are things like, “The Queen of England is a lizard person,” or “California forest fires were started by Jewish space lasers.”
The left wing conspiracy of that currently is the idea that the government is secretly using the COVID vaccine as a way to sterilize black people which is 100% true according to my one coworker.
I find the ‘Jews used space lasers to start forest fires’ very confusing. The stereotype is that we’re very cheap. Why use a space laser when sending some shlub with a few cans of gasoline and some matches is so much more cost effective?
Besides Tuskegee, the US government had a long love affair with eugenics. Wasn’t it Oliver Wendell Holmes who ruled for a mandatory sterilization saying “Three generations of morons is enough!” ?
Afganistan does have some oil, 1-3 billion barrel reserves depending how you count, but that is really not very much, it’s also up in the north on the Tajikistan border and there really is no where to go unless you fancy building pipe lines over some pretty serious mountains down to Pakistan.
I was skeptical that anyone would seriously consider a pipe line for Caspian oil, but apparently they did, but the Caspain oil is not north of afganistan but about 1000 miles west.
For Caspian oil you would need to take oil out of Baku , build a 200 mile subsea pipe line to Turkmenistan, which is a basket case country and very difficult to deal with ( great people though) then build 1000 mile pipeline across Turkmenistan which is relatively flat, it has gas infrastructure but no real oil pipeline infrastructure, then run south at afganistan and build another 1000 mile section perpendicular to the fold belt, ie have to give up and down and up and down over many ridge lines , then through a desert and over more bad terrain, past the sign saying beware of the tiger , then build a port for a million barrels a day out put.
You could link in the khazak tengiz oil field which is pretty big but sour oil and needs a whole other set of pipe lines to link up , and maybe the north Caspian stuff and see if you can compete with the Russian pipe line rates .
Now the pipeline from Baku through Georgia and Turkey was not easy , but 1000 miles less and it’s not such a big deal to put it on a suezmax tanker and sail it round to India and points east.
@everyone arguing that “the Syrian White Helmets are terrorists” conspiracy theory is wrong but not all that weird: no, it’s that weird.
The conspiracy theory is that all of the documented atrocities that the Assad regime has carried out against its own people were actually carried out by ISIS under the guise of the White Helmets. Supposedly, the White Helmets don’t respond to bombings and chemical attacks after they happen to render aid, instead they either (a) carry out those attacks themselves or (b) stage fake attacks with crisis actors, then falsely portray themselves to Western media outlets as a relief organization and pretend that they’re rendering aid to victims who are either (a) the victims of the White Helmets themselves or (b) crisis actors. Evidence that the Syrian regime is responsible for the attacks and literal tons of independent evidence that the White Helmets are a relief organization are simply brushed aside.
It’s a fucking weird conspiracy theory, that whitewashes war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Assad regime.
(The “weak” version is that the White Helmets aren’t neutral but are allied with rebel groups, and play up regime atrocities and make collateral damage from regime operations seem worse than they are while playing down similar violence by rebel factions. That version isn’t weird, but the “White Helmets are terrorists” version is).
A lot of talk about why these theories really are weird, which, o.k., maybe some are. But I simply have never even heard of probably 80% of them – not even in passing.
The article is generally irritated that the Pentagon would have the audacity to expect good treatment in a film and a degree of editorial oversight in exchange for low/no cost use of facilities, personnel and equipment. Which seems a bit absurd to me; what’s in it for them to cooperate otherwise?
Modhat: It is specifically against the rules to change someone’s word in a quote. You’ve been here long enough to know better. Please do not do this again even in jest. I’ll remove the misquote.
This is just a guidance, not a warning. Nothing on your permanent record.