Conspiracy Theories

I am currently showing my AP Government juniors Bill Moyer's documentary on Iran-Contra and the CIA's role in Latin America during the Cold War called "The Secret Government." The premise of the documentary is that there has been a nefarious secret government, controlled by the CIA, acting on behalf of the American people without their knowledge. The implication of the documentary is that there would be outrage if people knew about these actions by our government.

One average citizen interviewed in the documentary concludes that he now assumes that this type of criminality is going on all the time and the only difference about Iran-Contra is that they actually got caught. This may not be an unreasonable conclusion but I believe the really scary conclusion is that the types of outrageous crimes that used to be done in secret that Moyer's documents are now simply done out in the open. So what is the reaction of the American people? It seems to be a collective yawn.

The evidence of the crimes that are carried out in our names, the modern equivelents of Iran-Contra or the overthrow of Mossedeq in Iran or the overthrow of in Guatemala, are right in front of our noses such as:

1) The United States has admitted to torturing people, over 100 in total, to their death (see also Glenn Greenwald's post on the topic):

More than 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody in Guantánamo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The U.S. military itself called 34 of these confirmed or suspected homicides. This is one of them: a 47 year-old Iraqi man whose autopsy report concludes “The severe blunt force injuries, the hanging position, the obstruction of the oral cavity with a gag contributed to this individual's death. The manner of death is homicide.”

2) Rendition of people to other countries to be tortured:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

3) The elimination of habeas corpus, the basis of English Common Law:


Luckily the Supreme Court stopped this particular egregious power grab in the case Boumediene v. Bush:



4) The killing of civilians by unmaned drones controlled by the military and CIA:

Some of you might be inclined to dismiss this as an abberation of the American goverment which only occured because of weak leadership by George W. Bush that allowed rogue advisers such as Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Wolfowitz, etc to run roughshod over the Constitution. Unfortunately it appears President Obama is continuing many of these crimes in the name of the American people:

Glenn Greenwald captures the disappointment with Obama's continuation of Bush anti civil liberties record despite campaign promises to the contrary:

Here's how the NYT describes the article on its front page:

The opening paragraph of this Washington Post article today says much the same thing:

As a candidate for president, Barack Obama offered himself as a clear alternative to Bush-era anti-terrorism policies. Governing has proven muddier.

Both articles quote the hardest-core Bush supporters as heaping praise on Obama for what he has done in the area of "national security," terrorism and civil liberties ("Pete Wehner, a member of Karl Rove’s staff in the Bush White House [and a current National Review writer] applauded several of Mr. Obama’s decisions this week"). Indeed, all week long, and even before that, the greatest enthusiasm for Obama's decisions on so-called "terrorism policies" and civil liberties (with some important exceptions) has been found in the pages of The Weekly Standard and National Review.