Conspiracy Theorist

My car pool conspecific gets to hear a lot of my anti-state rants during our 45 minute commute. He sometimes refers to me as a "conspiracy theorist". Originally, this was dismissive, but the seeds of mistrust I have sown have begun to sprout, and he now calls himself a "conspiracy theorist".

James Leroy Wilson had a great post last month on conspiracy theories and their plausibility http://independentcountry.blogspot.com/2005/07/what-makes-conspiracy-theories.html, and I have been trying to keep more of an open mind about seemingly crackpot claims. One of the usual ways conspiracy theories are dismissed is to cite their implausibility --- "That many people could not keep a secret." James points out that most of the actors executing a plot probably do not even know about it; they are just doing their jobs, and each person plays only a small role in the affair. It is necessary only for a small inner circle to know what is really going on.

I have heard some folks claim that George Bush was aware of the attack on the World Trade Center before it occurred, and I always dismissed this out of hand. I do not want to believe that someone that evil occupies the presidency, and I did not think a massive conspiracy could be hidden. Over time, however, I have become somewhat more open minded because of a number of things:

1. George Bush has demonstrated that he has no qualms or uneasiness about spending other people's lives, whether US servicemembers or Iragi or Afghan civilans to advance his agenda.
2. The attack on the WTC was to George Bush's benefit in that it rallied Americans behind him and served, thanks to predictable American stupidity, as a casus belli for the aggression against Iraq that he wanted all along. George Bush wanted to be a "war president", because being at war would provide him with a lot of political wiggle room and allow him to expand his power. If the US were not at war, he would probably have been thrown out of office due to the ineptitude and corruption of the regime. As it was, he won or stole re-election in a squeaker.
3. George Bush is cozy with the Saudi regime and never holds the Saudis to account for anything, and there are some indications that Saudi agents may have been involved in funding some of the WTC attackers (or so said author Posner this morning on Morning Sedition). It is plausible that Saudi complicity may run even deeper.
4. A scheme cooked up between George Bush and the Saudis would benefit both Bush and the House of Saud. Bush gets his global struggle, partial immunity from criticism in wartime, and expanded power. The Saudis get rid of Saddam Hussein, get the unconditional support of the US regime, and the discrediting of potentially violent Islamist extremists who share power with the House of Saud.
5. Only a handful of people in the Saudi and US regimes would need to know about the scheme, and they have no incentive to talk.
6. The press would never explore any Saudi or administration complicity because this is out of the mainstream and would involve actual work.

Don't get me wrong. I do not claim that the scenario I described actually happened. I claim only that it is plausible. I can't rely on the president not to be evil, and I can't dismiss the charges as implausible; therefore, I am more likely to examine the evidence and to consider the charges than I once was.