A Game of Conspiracies

What a powerful word, the word conspiracy. It was Tony's lawyer in the Sopranos that said, "you put three guys in a room and that's a conspiracy." And true to his words, Americans everyday are prosecuted for conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to defraud, and so on.. Hell, if you find yourself in the same vicinity as someone affiliated with Al-Qaeda -- let alone the same room -- you are likely to get taken out by a Hellfire missile; even if you are a government negotiator. So, for an American prosecutor, the ability to allege a conspiracy is very straightforward and simple.

However, something interesting happens when it is not a prosecutor, an agent of the state, that is alleging a conspiracy against a civilian, but rather a civilian alleging a conspiracy against government agents; it becomes a "conspiracy theory." For some reason, this carries a largely negative connotation in the English language. Like the phrase "alien abduction," the phrase ''conspiracy theory'' carries those elements that make us nervous and roll our eyes. But this is not the case everywhere outside of America.

If I were, for example, sitting around a table full of Dominicans and alleged that the Dominican military was working with the Haitian military to bring drugs into the country, the people around would most likely inquire further. Even if someone were to say that my allegation was a "teoria conspirativa," it would have little meaning to the Dominicans around the table.
If I were sitting around a table full of Americans and said, "the CIA is bringing crack into the inner city," most would choose not to further inquire, and if someone at the table said, "that's a conspiracy theory!" then it would be an instant indication that it's best to change the subject.

So, I asked a random Dutch woman with whom I have no romantic involvement, "when you hear the word complottheorie, what is the first thing that comes to mind?"
She answered: "I'm always suspicious of people who believe complottheories, but I guess it depends on the topic."
I asked her: "if I tell you that the government carried out 9/11 and offered you evidence to back up that assertion, would that be a complottheorie?"
She answered, ''yes.''

I continued: "what if I allege that the government killed JFK and offered evidence to back that assertion, would that be the same as the assertion about 9/11?"
She answered: "yes."

I continued: "What if I allege that the government came into contact with aliens and offered evidence to back up that assertion, would that be the same as the assertion about 9/11 and JFK?"
She answered: "no."
I asked: "why?"
She replied: ''because to me aliens are less believable."
I asked: "so, it basically comes to how believable the assertion is?''
She answered: "yes."

Now, this randomly selected Dutch woman has what I would describe as "mainstream" theories -- as they are propagated in the media. In the mainstream world, "conspiracy theories" are all lumped together and then sorted based on how believable it is to the listener. But to me this seems not only unscientific, but also problematic. In fact, I believe that there should be a new phrase: "prosecutorial theory."

Does an assertion about aliens involved a known crime for which there should be a prosecutor and an accused?
No!
Does the assertion that Bin Laden did not fully carry out 9/11 involve a known crime for which there should be a prosecutor and an accused?
Of course!

Now, it doesn't take learning many different languages to notice that culture and language greatly trains us to react emotionally to certain phrases and words. The emotions we associate with certain words and phrases affects our ability to ask questions and demand answers.

While at Yale, I was the only person I knew willing to publicly ask questions and demand answers. In private, engineering and architecture students agreed with me regarding 9/11. In public, the possibility that they could be branded as modern day blasphemers, as conspiracy theorists, was too risky for their careers, and they didn't speak publicly or ask questions. The fear of a label is not going to stop me from forcing the government speak the truth about 9/11.

Many people are skeptical and want another investigation. They want someone to be prosecuted and accused. To summarize my argument, 9/11 was a crime and there has been no proper prosecutor accusing someone in a manner that is consistent with democratic transparency.

Thomas Kean, the head of the 9/11 commission, the man who himself said he was stonewalled by the CIA, is in my opinion nothing resembling an investigator or prosecutor. In fact, my entire reason for leaving and fearing returning to the land of the free can be encapsulated in this short video.

Yes, we don't know if anyone died there, so there's no reason to investigate. It's like finding two buses and a minibus at the bottom of a ravine and neglecting to mention the minibus because no one died in the vehicle. I wouldn't hire this guy to be the prosecutor in a traffic case, much less the biggest crime in American history. No one died in that building -- to the best of our knowledge -- because the steel was shipped off to China before getting properly analyzed. Yet, people don't want to talk about 9/11 because to do so would be something that in America scares and is referred to as a "conspiracy theory."