Conspiracy Theories

Since I decided to join the Army, a lot of people have been asking why since I am a huge conspiracy theorist. The truth is that I haven't really been a conspiracy theorist (at least in the popular sense) for quite some time. I still think it is plausible that there could be a small shadow government, but I couldn't possibly describe what scope of power they would have or what their purpose or goal would be. The notion that an extensive government conspiracy could pull off such horrendous acts like 9/11 yet fail so utterly at anything else just seems ludicrous to me.

Before I begin explaining why I don't buy into conspiracy theories anymore, let me get into the 9/11 conspiracy theory and the conspiracy theory in general. My journey into this theory all began when someone in high school pointed out to me that President Bush was a member of the Skull and Bones fraternity. From there, I got really into X-files, UFO mythology, the Illuminati, and -of course- 9/11 conspiracies. Even from when I was a little kid, I always thought that aliens visited Earth, but the government was covering it up. While books and TV shows kept my interest, it really wasn't until the Internet was more accessible that I really began to dive in. I know it was some time during late high school that I discovered the websites explaining the Illuminati and the 9/11 conspiracy theories.

What is the Illuminati?

I'm sure Dan Brown and other websites can tell you different things, but essentially they are the guys in the shadows that supposedly control all major world events. This is in essence - the Conspiracy. It seems ludicrous as I am writing this, but there are some creepy things that compelled me to this idea. First, I was really into the Left Behind novels at the time, so the notion of a Satanic world-wide government wasn't a huge stretch. And then like providence, I discovered Alex Jones and specifically his video documentary about the Cremation of Care.

To this day, I'm still not sure exactly what to make of it. It is an apparent fact that the elites do gather here for some purpose, but at the time it was just fuel for my belief in the Illuminati. There are also organizations such as the Bilderbergs and others that do seem to point at a real life Illuminati. While these organizations do exist, to ascribe to them the power that conspiracy theorist believe the Illuminati have is nonsensical. The other big piece of evidence is the supposed rigging of US elections where candidates are stacked. The 2004 election in particular where John Kerry and President Bush both happened to be members of the very same Skull and Bones Fraternity referenced earlier. Inevitably all of these actual things pointed me towards 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Who was behind 9/11?

The yellow arrows point to alleged controlled demolitions.

To be fair, the 9/11 conspiracy theorists never could come to a consensus on this, but many of them pointed to the Illuminati versus Muslim terrorists. Now explaining the entirety of the 9/11 conspiracy theory would take me more time than I care to explain, but I'll get into the things that seemed off and set off everything.

Probably the biggest event that set off conspiracy theorist's minds were just how quickly and neatly the twin towers collapsed. If you go through the footage of the tower's collapse, you can see little jets of smoke coming out as they collapse. Documentaries such as Loose Change put into your mind that these are proof of controlled demolition. Now how explosives were secretly planted into the building without anyone noticing and why they would bother with crashing a plane into it; I'll let Loose Change and Alex Jones explain that.

The other evidence that they will commonly point to is the Pentagon where Donald Rumsfeld described it as a "missile" and the collapse of WTC7. The Rumsfeld comment was explained fairly easily as a man using military rhetoric, but again -at the time- it was just another suspicious comment. There were some other eerie things such as the size of the hole in the Pentagon and discrepant eye witness accounts, but WTC7 is what kept me believing in this theory the longest because it was the most mysterious. No plane crashed into it, yet it collapsed in a similar manner as the twin towers.

While the who (although many would credit President Bush or Vice President Cheney with masterminding it) was contended, the supposed reason for why They conducted 9/11 was to get us involved in the Middle East and reestablish our country as the sole super power. A document entitled the Project for a New American Century alluded to the US needing a "Pearl Harbor-like event" to serve as a catalyst. This and the recently declassified Operation Northwoods, proved that many powerful people were open to this idea. But could they actually do it?



Hell no!

It's kind of hard to exactly pin point when I stopped believing in conspiracy theories, but I think a lot of it started when the 9/11 Truth Movement actually became somewhat mainstream compelling people to debunk it. The most popular debunker being Popular Mechanics. In hindsight, I think my biggest problem was that I never really bothered to research an opposing viewpoint because none existed. Interestingly, as I got more involved in politics and as the Iraq War was proving to be much harder than previously thought, it really made me question the legitimacy of the idea that the government could pull off such an elaborate crime yet fail at finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. If the government was so clever, why not just plant WMD's and save face?

As for the Illuminati, even if an organization like it existed, why would people listen to them? Is it really plausible that a group of powerful rich guys can seriously hold the world hostage with an army of assassins? It just seems completely ludicrous in hindsight and I honestly don't even know how it would work. Using Occam's Razor, it is more likely that groups like Bilderbergs are just like-minded people trying to accomplish mutual goals using their resources. Now they could have sinister motives, but world domination and enslaving everyone is ludicrous. Chances are I would probably only disagree with their means versus their goals. Lastly, the fact that President Obama had no affiliations and is black (not a part of the racist Illuminati) means that either They are not as powerful as the conspiracy theorists give them credit or simply don't exist.

There are some weird things in this world, and I think it was bizarrely comforting thinking that some shadow organization were secretly behind all of the bad things in the world. In the end, there are some really bad people in the world and sometimes chaotic events seem to create a pattern when there actually isn't any. Even if Popular Mechanics and others didn't debunk 9/11 for me, I think I would've ended up with the same conclusion inevitably. No matter how it seems like the world is going in a particular direction, something comes along to mess it up. Ultimately, I blame a lot of these beliefs on being young and not experiencing a lot of the world. I can't explain Alex Jones and some of these other conspiracy theorists that are really old, but I think as events play out, I'll further believe that conspiracy theories are nothing more than mere fantasy, and that -whether we like it or not- some shadow organization is not responsible for all of the world's problems. If nothing else, this entire experience has taught me to think more critically about what I believe and why I believe them.