Were we conditioned beforehand for 9/11 & the Iraq war?

[Gringo]

There were so many disaster movies in the late 90s, especially ones that destroyed New York. Watching "Armageddon" the other day, I noticed a cabbie yelling "Saddam Hussein is bombing us!"

What was with that line? Saddam never bombed us in any way. Throughout the 90s he was constantly being mentioned in various venues as a major bogeyman. I guess it could all be coincidental, but I just wonder sometimes if some of the same elements of the government who pushed for the Iraq war might have dropped hints to entertainment producers to include references like this to keep them in the public mind, and in the "correct" context. Could any of this stuff have been part of a psyop?

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. that you may be right

and why most people do not think
This implies a huge conspiracy to be honest

[xray s]

2. This whole country has been subjected to one big mindf*ck for years

Marilyn Manson hit the nail on the head in "Bowling For Columbine". Everything is fear and consumption. 24/7.

No wonder we are so screwed up.

[KoKo]

3. Well, I haven't seen Armageddon, but I know that PNAC Folks were very

upset that Poppy didn't "go on to Baghdad." And, it seems that Poppy had better sense because in his autobiography he said it would have been a mistake. (I don't have the quote, but it's been posted here on DU many times). Anyway, since I was around for Poppy, I can verify that there was a big outcry about Gen. Swartzcroft not having the "will" to "march to Baghdad" and that Peter Arnet (great correspondent for CNN) was trashed for what I viewed as "honest" reporting about Poppy's war, and his partner died at a early age of a heart attack (the correspondent with Arnet who reported on the WAR).

Unfortunately the PNAC forces were at work througout Clinton and were determined to "Go to Baghdad" and "Get Saddam."

So, if you think there was propaganda, there was. Whether it was in "Armageddon" or other movies, or stuff you "picked up," it was probably PNAC at work.

[Cocoa]

4. interesting thought

Like with the Oklahoma City bombing, I was a little confused by the accusation of Saddam Hussein. It didn't make sense, I perceived him as being mostly concerned with his own country, or possibly region. I thought maybe I hadn't been paying attention.

Same with the anthrax, it was suggested that was from Iraq as well, didn't make sense.

But you're right, when you hear these things repeatedly, and you see TV people take them seriously, maybe in the back of your head you think they know something you don't.

But you know what? I think it's not working near enough as well as they would like it to have worked. I'm sure they would have preferred if the public was fooled to such an extent that the dem candidates wouldn't dare bring up the trick. But in fact they are. Clark is calling it a bait and switch.

[Cocoa]

5. other "political product placements"

I wanted to add that I've seen this in other ways too. Where ideas are expressed in movies or TV that seem both unnatural and at the same time advance a political agenda. The subconscious reaction is "that's not the way people think", but then it's repeated and you start wondering if you're the one that's not thinking straight.

Can't think of an example off the top of my head, unfortunately, but I remember thinking this a number of times.

[Gringo]

11. Other political agenda in same film...

Wingnut Bruce Willis demands that he and his crew "Never have to pay taxes again. Ever." as their condition for blowing up the asteroid. Not the first thing to go through my mind when the world is ending, but okay...

[Looiewu]

6. Don't take this personally....

....but this sounds like some of the tinfoil hat/black helicopter stuff that 'ol Ross Perot used to come up with....

Conspiracies of this magnitude are almost impossible to pull off....

[Cocoa]

8. Perot thought Poppy Bush was out to get him

I forgot what the actual accusations were, something about his family, but I believe he might have been right.

I wonder if Nancy Reagan had any suspicions about Poppy being behind Ron's assassination attempt. I have heard that she didn't care for the Bush gang.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

12. Bollocks...

I get sick of people saying outright bullshit such as this:

Conspiracies of this magnitude are almost impossible to pull off

Are they? Why? Because someone would leak it? And what would you say if someone came out and said:

"I am a Hollywood script writer, and I was bribed to embed anti-Saddam Hussein propaganda in my scripts to condition the public to more readily accept an illegal invasion of a nation that in no way threatened the US."

You'd say "You're nuts, there is no way such a huge conspiracy could be pulled off!"

The whole point is that it is claims such as yours that ENSURE that such conspiracies can be EASILY accomplished.

To see such statements come from a very new poster just makes me go hmmmmm...

No matter what the "theory" is about, someone (in fact usually multiple people) will say "There is no way such a conspiracy could happen without someone leaking it".

Of course it never occurs to these supposed "sceptics" that maybe the reason we are talking about the "theory" is because someone leaked it!

[Cocoa]

15. I agree about that kind of dismissal

the "impossible to pull off" thing is just dumb.

To give an example, so far 60 people have been convicted in George Ryan's conspiracy in IL. Only an improbable combination of very unlucky events for Ryan led to him being caught. It was FAR more probable that he never would have been caught.

[Gringo]

13. Not taking personally - this is pure speculation

But I also don't think it would be such a "huge thing to pull off" for some guys from CIA or pentagon to suggest to Michael Bay to include such a line. Or it could be that Michael Bay is just another wingnut like the star, Willis, and put it in there thinking it was credible. I was just wondering aloud. Certainly not calling for an investigation ;-)

[info being]

14. I disagree 100%

Anybody with any power conspires daily under what's referred to as "Think Tanks" (government) and "Boardrooms" (business).

[izzie]

7. With Bush as president we knew something bad was going to happen.

This is not a shock as he is his father's son. It made it more likely to happen being the son of the first Bush to make so much trouble in the Middle East. He had to turn on every terrorist over there.Then his running around saying every one was evil did not help.

[DennisReveni]

9. Clinton Fearmongering had a hand

People tend to forget that Clinton fearmongered the whole Iraq situation as well. They had Hussien Kamals testimony that the WMD's had been destroyed.
yet they bombed Iraq daily. Could it be that their donors in the Arms industry wanted a payback?
http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/arms/
"Early on, Clinton required our diplomats to shill for arms merchants to their host countries. The results were immediate: During Clinton's first year in office, U.S. arms sales more than doubled. From 1993 to 1997, the U.S. government sold, approved, or gave away $190 billion in weapons to virtually every nation on earth.
The arms industry, meanwhile, has greased the wheels. It filled the Democratic Party coffers to the tune of nearly $2 million in the 1998 election cycle."

One of the great overlooked aspects of the war and Bushco policies is that the Clintons layed the groundwork.
If Clinton had NOT fearmongered on Iraq, the Dems could have had an argument against the war. But many of the statements from the Clinton years were used against Democrats.
They were vulnerable the same way they were with Enron.
If Clinton had not moved so far to the right, Bush would not even be a viable candidate. His policies would have been considered oudated and Pat Buchanonesque. If Clinton had taken the party in a more liberal direction, advancing better social safety nets for the poor and middle class, it would have been damn near impossible for a Bush to run.

[Lars39]

16. Bush still lied to go to war. The buck stops with him.

[Code_Name_D]

10. Yes, at least to some.

I find it difcult to put stock in this conspricy thiory. However, a woman has shared information with me that makes a compeling case for this exact thing. And acording to her infomation, your connection goes a lot deaper than you might think.

TV and movies is seems have a insulating effect against criminal activity. For example, if the name of a powerfule CEO was used in a movie as the arkatech to defrawd millions from Grandmas, it sudnly becases established as fiction, influincing any potechnal investigators or jurry pool even before the crime is exposed. Any one who then exposes this crime, is then more likly to be blown off as some kind of nut with out a life that can not tell the difrence between fact and fiction.

When you know what to look for, you will find numerus refrences to 9-11 well before 9-11 ever took place. And even our own conspiricy driven shows dosn't seem to be imune. For example, I remember the premear of "The Loan Gunmen" (A spin off from the X-Files) where they come across a plot to highack a plane. But mestaking the clues, they board the plain hoping to foil the highack. Instead, they discover that the plane was being taken over by remote control, and was then being flown into, you gessed it, the World Trade Towers. A plot conseaved of and lanched by the US Government (or at least that clandestion part of it.)

Is it thus a conisdence that 9-11 tin haters make the claim that all four highacked planes may have been piloted by romote control?

I should state that there is no evdince to support this senario. Absolutly none. However, acording to the thiory, there wouldn't BE any evdince to find. And consider the follong observations.

1) The alleged highakers was learnign to fly a plan, without learning to land one. It has been noted that they were learning to fly from scrach. Why? Surly Akidea has recoses enugh to attract pilots. Even traning them on Piper Cubs would be more feable than starting them out from scrach.

2) The manuvers that both planes made to hid the towers were not manuvers one can manage as a novice. Beleive me, I have tried my own exprament using Flight Sim, and trying to get such a large plane to hit any kind of structure is extremly difcult. About as hard as landing in fact. If the hijakers avoided learning how to land, they would not have had the skills needed to make contact. And most asuridly not on the fist try.

3) One of the planes striking the towers made an extreem manuver that one would only expect to see from a fighter pilot. Demonstrated remarkable skill in piloting the plane, and not a novice.

4) The auto-piloting systems were state of the art on thoes planes. One could hypotheticly program that autopilot to highjack the plane once the pilot surenderd control to it. The highacker could be nothing more than software, and thus after the crash, would have disapired as a result of the distroied cercity. (There is however an inconsistency that this system dosn't have the ability to be remotly controld. This would have required a hardware componet that would not have been part of the standerd system. But it is noted that none of the dabery from all four recks have been shared with the public.)

Now is this just TV induce conspiricy? Or are they on to something here?

[ConsAreLiars]

17. "agents of influence"

is the traditional means for furthering ideological agendas. There is no need for "conspiracies" where everyone involved meets is secret and agrees on some sinister plot. At the center ae folks like the PNAC signatories and a number of less public figures. Surrounding them are networks of operatives, like the Scaife-funded publications and think-tanks, who in turn set agendas and define talking-points and a more tactical level. Those who follow their lead snd take guidance about what to think and say from these centers without necessarily have much idea about the structure of the whole, still further out are those who are influenced by these operations without ever realizing the source. For example, some producer working on some action film makes neo-nazis the bad guys, someone higher up says he thinks it would sell better with Saddam the villain. (Maybe his country club pals have been on a rant about what a menace S.H. is to the world or the Middle East.) The actual producer making the change probably has no real interest in such things, beyond making brownie points with those further up the hierarchy.

[TacticalPeek]

18. I understand the aversion many have to 'big, bad conspiracies'.

Still, I believe it is undisputed that for many years the DEA has provided 'script advice' (shall we call it) to TV and movie writers and producers. To me, that is straight out of "1984" and many other dystopian novels.

And the weirdness of the notion should not be a limiting factor on the possible.

After all, Nixon authorized the fire-bombing of the Brookings Institute. And Iran/Contra would sound laughable as an idea, had it not been uncovered (Raygun selling arms to Islamic terrorists? Riiiight.).

And, of course, there are worse, cf. 'Operation Northwoods'.


:evilgrin: