Marilyn Monroe and the Iraq war
Fringe conspiracy theories are often irritating or plain daft, but when peddled by governments and the mainstream media they can lead to the slaughter of thousands.
By Solomon Hughes
Morning Star
24 September 2010
Then Secretary of State Colin Powell, in his speech to the United Nations on 5 February 2003, holds up "evidence" of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, despite apparently fuming at the "bullshit" he was being forced to read out.
A secret committee of powerful but faceless men has met in their hidden HQ and ordered an attack on conspiracy theories.
Establishment figures are queueing up to do their bidding. Or maybe it's just a fashion in mainstream circles, but either way there is a little surge of conspiracy-theory-knocking.
Think tank Demos recently put out a pamphlet claiming conspiracy theories "can lead to extremism and can turn extremism to violence." Which seems very unfair on all those "9/11 was an inside job" types. They threaten to fill political meetings with daftness, but I don't think they are about to plant any bombs.
Irrational conspiracy theories are a distraction but not generally a danger, although I would make an exception for anti-semitic conspiracy theories. The politics of the Middle East are centre stage and anti-semitic theories are common in the region.
So all of society, including the left, is now exposed to more of this reactionary rubbish. The left needs to make particular efforts to challenge anti-semitic theories because they are political poison. But the main problem is they are racist theories, not that they are "conspiracy" theories.
Counter-terrorist
The Demos pamphlet is part of a trend in "counter-terrorist" circles to try policing ideas rather than just policing terrorism, and use the threat of terrorism to generally promote mainstream centrist views.
Demos conflates "extremism" with "violence" and wants to promote "public trust in governing institutions." Demos just wants to use the terrorist threat to promote the sensible centre against the "crazy" fringe.
Demos gets some of its arguments from journalist David Aaronovitch's recent book on conspiracy theories Voodoo Histories. Aaronovitch does not try to tie "conspiracy theory" and "terrorist" together like Demos. But he does otherwise inspire its pamphlet.
Aaronovitch argues that conspiracy theories are the crazy ideas of little people who don't understand the world. They are disoriented people suffering "status anxiety" - freaky scared hicks, suffering hysteria and paranoia and unable to trust the authorities. Conspiracy theories are "history for losers," politically and socially defeated, bewildered by modernity, in "a kind of historical revolt against the official version."
It's a "sensible centre" argument with a load of psychology thrown in.
But there is a big problem that Demos and Aaronovitch carefully step around. The biggest, most successful and dangerous conspiracy theory of modern times does not come from the fringe.
According to this conspiracy theory Saddam Hussein developed WMD to give to his friends in al-Qaida.
All the classic conspiracy theory features were in place - enemies who are secretly friends, a hidden plot against society, undercover meetings between Iraqi agents and September 11 hijackers in Prague, Iraqis training hijackers at a secret airfield, Iraqi anthrax spread by al-Qaida agents in the US, Smersh-style underground bases and mobile bio labs.
But none of it was true.
No WMD, no link between Saddam and Osama, no Prague meeting, no terrorist training at Iraq's Salman Pak compound, neither Iraqi nor al-Qaida involvement in the US anthrax attacks.
This theory wasn't peddled by small-time losers but by leading politicians and national newspapers in Britain and the US - with support from Aaronovitch himself who promised the Iraq war would stop "a future conjunction between anthrax and terrorism."
Former secretary of state Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations, waving around maps and satellite photos and imaginary teaspoons of anthrax now looks as crazed as any "9/11 truth" video. But while the 9/11 truth crowd may annoy, Powell's conspiracy theory led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Marilyn Monroe
This Iraq-avoidance creates some odd moments in Aaronovitch's book. He includes a long discussion of Marilyn Monroe conspiracies, about claims she had an affair with the Kennedys and was killed by the Mob for the CIA, or whatever.
Aaronovitch notes the evidence never seems to appear, nothing "has ever surfaced for examination. There have only ever been 'transcripts' or 'eyewitness accounts' of the hard evidence, which have always conveniently disappeared from history."
Which is weirdly like all the "evidence" in the WMD story. Aaronovitch even has a chapter heading on Monroe "More forgeries?" as if forged tapes about Monroe mattered, but forged "evidence" of a Saddam-Osama-WMD conspiracy does not.
In another disorienting moment Aaronovitch approaches the Zinoviev letter to debunk a conspiracy theory. This forged letter, supposedly from the Bolshevik leaders to their British supporters suggested that the Communist Party was close to launching a revolution in Britain in 1924 and that if Britain signed trade treaties with Russia this revolution would get much closer.
Aaronovitch wants to debunk the "conspiracy theory" that this was an MI6 forgery designed to embarrass the first Labour government by showing it was soft on the dangerous "reds."
According to Aaronovitch, the Foreign Office's historian says anti-communist white Russians forged it. MI6 merely passed the letter to the newspapers to hurt the Labour government. Which is not much of a debunking.
But Aaronovitch misses the more obvious fact that the Zinoviev letter was itself a conspiracy theory. The Times reported the letter under the headline "A hideous conspiracy unmasked."
This fed into other conspiracy theories. Tory shadow foreign secretary Lord Curzon made a widely reported speech on the Zinoviev letter saying Bolsheviks were a vicious gang. The Times quoted Curzon saying: "Few of them Russian by birth and most of them Jews by origin who were preying like vultures" on Russia.
What Aaronovitch calls conspiracy theories are just propaganda based on falsehood. We need to use some judgement, to try and separate truth from lies.
We also need to see conspiracy theories don't just come from the tinfoil hat brigade - many are professional jobs backed by governments or powerful right-wing media corporations.
Government or media backing helped the Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion, the red scares, the WMD plots and the wild claims that Barack Obama was some kind of secret Muslim terrorist. And then there are a few amateur efforts about Kennedy. I know which kind is more dangerous.
