Minimalist MIHOP, Or, How To Construct A Non-Stupid Conspiracy Theory

[Dr Adequate]

Let us postulate the existence of an individual to be refered to henceforward as Head of Black Ops, or HoBO for short, who, as his title suggest, is empowered to order covert actions.

He gets one of his technical boys to design and build gadgets to remote control planes. I think that's pretty much a sine qua non of any CT except the OCT, since neoconservatives don't get extra virgins for suicide bombings. Then he gets a "wet operative" to "whack" the guy who designed the equipment. Obviously he doesn't have to explain why: he can say that the guy's spying for China or something.

(I suppose that at a pich HoBO could do the killing himself, but what's the point of having henchmen if you don't use them?)

Now he needs some hijackers. He tells each team of hijackers (separately --- each is unaware of the others' existence) that they are to stage a false-flag hijack (without suicide-bombing anything) to reveal flaws in aircraft security and to heighten awareness of the terrorist threat. If he's feeling particularly brazen, he shows them his plans for 9/11, claims that they were captured from Al-Qaeda, and tells them that this is the kind of thing their actions will avert.

As none of them is a qualified commercial pilot, they are not surprised when he issues them with a remote control gadget for steering the planes once they've been taken over. What he doesn't mention is two other features of these devices.

(1) They contain a fast-dispersing nerve gas which will be released the moment the phoney hijackers have the RC system working.

(2) They contain small bombs which will detonate if the cabin door is forced, destroying the cockpit, killing anyone who breaks in, and causing the plane to crash.

I'm assuming that HoBO can't fly all the planes himself using his remote control system, so he'll need some guys to do it for him. This is easy: since they'll be getting their input from telemetry, he can easily convince them that what they are seeing is a simulation, and that they are the "bad guys" in a computer-simulated attack on America to test its air defenses. Obviously he has to shoot these guys immediately after the "simulation" is over and throw their bodies in the shark tank.

The Twin Towers fall down 'cos of the big holes in them, fire weakening the steel, and gravity.

The following were not involved in any way:

* Explosives
* Thermite
* Thermate
* Missiles
* Pods
* Squibs
* Directed Energy Weapons
* Silent nukes
* Firefighters
* The passengers on the planes
* Voice morphing
* NIST
* The FBI
* Fake video
* All the eyewitnesses
* The media
* Larry Silverstein
* Keebler Elves

In fact, only one person ever needs to know that the 9/11 attacks (per se) are a false flag operation, and that's HoBO himself. This is almost certainly the theoretical minimum.

[brodski]

The problem with your CT, Dr A, is what evidence would it leave behind which is so hard for normal people and the media to see, but is blindingly obvious to teenage internet warriors and deranged theologians?

because without that, its just not a proper CT, and the prospect of selling overpriced DVDs and T-shirts is minimal at best. :D

[Reality Believer]

I think the most minimalist MIHOP is that a couple of CIA operatives went to the Middle East, recruited and trained 20 guys, and the rest is as it seems.

Why the CT's can't just get on this horse and ride it I'll never know.

[Alt+F4]

I think the most minimalist MIHOP is that a couple of CIA operatives went to the Middle East, recruited and trained 20 guys, and the rest is as it seems.

Why the CT's can't just get on this horse and ride it I'll never know.

Because this, like most of real life, is boring.

[nicepants]

I think the most minimalist MIHOP is that a couple of CIA operatives went to the Middle East, recruited and trained 20 guys, and the rest is as it seems.

Why the CT's can't just get on this horse and ride it I'll never know.

Because there isn't re-cuttable footage of these events available on the internet, which makes it a lot harder to make a movie.

[jberryhill]

I think the most minimalist MIHOP is that a couple of CIA operatives went to the Middle East, recruited and trained 20 guys, and the rest is as it seems.

Why the CT's can't just get on this horse and ride it I'll never know.

Good question. Considering that we cultivated radical elements in the ME for a long time in order to keep the Soviet's hands full, there are undoubtedly all sorts of historical connections that could be made.

I believe there is a CT to the effect that the "out there" CT's are a disinfo operation to keep attention away from precisely this sort of CT. Of course, this being the internet, one need only imagine something and, sure enough, you'll find someone who believes it and has likely already run with it for a considerable distance.

[tsg]

Of course, this being the internet, one need only imagine something and, sure enough, you'll find someone who believes it and has likely already run with it for a considerable distance.

The same phenomenon described by some internet law (I can't remember the name of it): There is no fetish so perverse that there isn't already a porn site dedicated to it.

[Sabrina]

That would be rule 34.

What? I didn't make the rule, I just report it! <.< >.> <.<

[MarkyX]

Rule 34 on Alex Jones!

[Rahne Everson]

Rule 34 on Alex Jones!

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x138/rahneeverson/truther-convention-tales-6.png

:D

[Sabrina]

:eye-poppi

*gouges out her eyeballs*

[Kage]

There are a few problems with the minimalism described in the OP:

The remote control system needs to be designed by people with sufficient skill and it would need to have been tested to insure success.

The remote control system needs to be covertly installed in the planes.

The remote control devices need to avoid being found at the crash site. This is also true for the nerve gas, as well as the positioning of the bodies in the wreckage.

The hijacker's names, identities and backgrounds need to fit into the cover story.

AQ needs to admit that they did something that they did not do. It would do more damage to the US to show government complicity than to say that they did it when they did not.

The signals sent to the planes need to avoid interfering with other signals.

The head of black ops needs to have a motive for the 9/11 attacks. I have yet to hear one that is cogent.

Some of these issues remain with the Single-Operative-Theory:

The 20 hijackers need to have their biographical info made to fit into the official story. This is easier than in the previous minimalism, but requires work as well as huge amounts of opsec.

The AQ organizaation needs to be willing to admit to something that they did not do, same as above. Also easier than above but still has the same problem that AQ can do more damage by revealing government complicity than by going along with the CT.

There still needs to be a reason to stage 9/11 the way it occured that makes any sense. At all.

In a nutshell, even though these theories are "minimalist" the number of people involved spirals out of control pretty quickly. I personally think that minimalist LIHOP makes more sense.

Kage

[Kevin_Lowe]

I say we assume that AQ "took the fall" because it suited their propaganda and recruitment goals much better to pretend to be awesome terrorists responsible for the best terrorist attack ever than to be honest and admit they didn't do it. That solves one problem.

Then we assume that HOBO has the dirt on everyone important in Washington, so he blackmailed the 9/11 commissioners into falsifying the identities and backgrounds of the alleged hijackers. You can't have a good conspiracy theory without people being pressured to cover up the truth.

I have no clue how to justify the development and testing of secret remote control equipment that vapourises on impact, or for that matter why the heck HOBO wanted to stage the 9/11 attacks as they happened.

[PhantomWolf]

My minimalist MIHOP goes like this. OBL is a CIA plant who runs Al Qaeda. Everyone else in Al Qaeda thinks that they are really a Muslim extremist group. OBL gets instrustions, handpicks and sends his 19 loons on the mission, 15 of them thinking they are going to hijack some planes and make headlines before singing prasies to Allah as they get shipped off to prison as political prisoners, 4 knowing they are going to soon be in Allah's garden with their 40 virgins.

No way to trace it, the OCS (offical cover story) is close enough to the truth to avoid any suispions except for the loons that just make stuff up anyway, and hey presto, you'll all done.

[Kage]

I say we assume that AQ "took the fall" because it suited their propaganda and recruitment goals much better to pretend to be awesome terrorists responsible for the best terrorist attack ever than to be honest and admit they didn't do it. That solves one problem.

I don't know if that is accurate. It would better suit their goals to show that the government participated in a false flag and was attacking them. This is one of my weaker objections and you might be right. I just think that the HOBO has to be pretty certian before he starts this mission that AQ is going to go along with it. Too certain...

Then we assume that HOBO has the dirt on everyone important in Washington, so he blackmailed the 9/11 commissioners into falsifying the identities and backgrounds of the alleged hijackers. You can't have a good conspiracy theory without people being pressured to cover up the truth.

Well, this assumes that HOBO has a large enough organization to put such coordinated pressure on so many figures, that no member of his (or hers, in fact I'm going to refer to HOBO as a she from now on---cause it is more sinister and apt) her organization has come forward and that no person who has been blackmailed has come forward. All it takes is one person to spill the beans and the whole taco salad goes out the window. All I'm trying to show is that minimalist MIHOP still falls prey to pomeroo's math about large secret organizations.

I have no clue how to justify the development and testing of secret remote control equipment that vapourises on impact, or for that matter why the heck HOBO wanted to stage the 9/11 attacks as they happened.

The truth movement doesn't have an idea either.

[Stellafane]

I personally favor minimalist IHOP -- also known as the pancake theory.

[Sword_Of_Truth]

I think the most minimalist MIHOP is that a couple of CIA operatives went to the Middle East, recruited and trained 20 guys, and the rest is as it seems.

Why the CT's can't just get on this horse and ride it I'll never know.

Because it doesn't meet the needs of the CTers not-quite-hidden agenda.

Your scenario requires little more than a handful of rogue CIA agents. if we find them, try, convict and sentence them, the problem is solved without any major upheaval. The "system" as it is, remains relatively unscathed.

The existing MIHOP CTs, with their cast of tens of thousands, are impossibly large, and on some level the CTers are fully aware of this. Most of the MIHOP theories are so vast that only a system that is irreparably shot through with corruption could have carried them out.

Exposing such an enormous conspiracy would give the CTers a blank check to reformat nearly all of society. Wich would include fulfilling their own pre-existing agendas, wether that be destroying the US federal government, destroying the banking system or even destroying Israel and the jews.

[Kage]

Because it doesn't meet the needs of the CTers not-quite-hidden agenda.

Your scenario requires little more than a handful of rogue CIA agents. if we find them, try, convict and sentence them, the problem is solved without any major upheaval. The "system" as it is, remains relatively unscathed.

The existing MIHOP CTs, with their cast of tens of thousands, are impossibly large, and on some level the CTers are fully aware of this. Most of the MIHOP theories are so vast that only a system that is irreparably shot through with corruption could have carried them out.

Exposing such an enormous conspiracy would give the CTers a blank check to reformat nearly all of society. Wich would include fulfilling their own pre-existing agendas, wether that be destroying the US federal government, destroying the banking system or even destroying Israel and the jews.

Agreed. I also think that they get more out of it the more complex and impossible their theories are. The whole pentagon thing is evidense of this, as well as their stupidity regarding flight 93. Why fly remote control planes into the WTC and then use a cruise missle on the pentagon and then fly a plane over the pentagon to make it look like a plane and then shoot down flight 93 with aircraft and then say that the passengers caused a crash? Cause it is totally insane and that makes them mess their pants.

I do think that looking for even slightly plausible theories is a worthwhile endevor, if not as a purely intelectual excercise then as a sharpening and honing of the debunking skills.

[fezzic]

They have to make the claim and not concede the point (that their claims make no reasonable sense) because they are limited to, for the most part, recordings (video and other) made on 9/11. There is no other really viable source of evidence available to them. If 9/11, as recorded, happened pretty much as observed then they have nowhere else to turn.

So they scrutinize the recordings, emphasizing any apparent anamoly that they detect, ignoring explanations that don't lend support to their conclusions, because they must. They go over it again, and again, because they [have to] believe that what they seek is there, just that they have to find it.

[Dr Adequate]

There are a few problems with the minimalism described in the OP:

The remote control system needs to be designed by people with sufficient skill and it would need to have been tested to insure success. And? Head of Black Ops, remember?

The remote control system needs to be covertly installed in the planes. No, you haven't looked at my CT carefully enough. The phoney "hijackers" install the RC.

The remote control devices need to avoid being found at the crash site. This is also true for the nerve gas, as well as the positioning of the bodies in the wreckage. No, not really. Any putative terrorists could have had RC devices to fly the planes for them, or nerve gas, or bombs, or whatever. As for the "positioning of the bodies in the wreckage" ... after a plane crash?

The hijacker's names, identities and backgrounds need to fit into the cover story. Head of Black Ops, remember?

AQ needs to admit that they did something that they did not do. It would do more damage to the US to show government complicity than to say that they did it when they did not. But suppose they could not show government complicity?

Al Qaeda get their funding from nuts who want to do down the US. They have a hefty profit motive to pretend it was them.

The signals sent to the planes need to avoid interfering with other signals. Hence the technological research, which I allowed for in my hypothesis.

The head of black ops needs to have a motive for the 9/11 attacks. I have yet to hear one that is cogent. But I have shrunk the conspiracy to just one man.

If you believed in the 9/11 Truth CT, you'd have to believe in thousands of people who found the cause peruasive or found the bribes acceptable.

With the Minimalist Conspiracy Theory, only one man (at a minimum) has to believe that it's a good idea.

I admit that he'd have to be totally off his head, but this is still more plausible then the standard 9/11 CT; and, indeed, by my standards, the suicide bombers in the OCT, a dozen or more, were completely off their heads.

I think we might have to agree that whoever was behind 9/11 was insane: my version calls for only one insane person, who does not at any point risk his own life.

[sts60]

Wouldn't the global minimum be that the al-Qaeda conspiracy was real, and that someone in the gov't uncovered the exact plot details but deliberately let it happen, for whatever reason? All that is required is inaction by a few people.

[Dave Rogers]

I think we might have to agree that whoever was behind 9/11 was insane: my version calls for only one insane person, who does not at any point risk his own life.

Invoking insanity may, of course, provide for a reduction of the theoretical minimum below unity - would a HoBO with multiple personality disorder count as a fraction?

Sorry, you said non-stupid. Missed that bit.

Dave

[Sabrina]

Wouldn't the global minimum be that the al-Qaeda conspiracy was real, and that someone in the gov't uncovered the exact plot details but deliberately let it happen, for whatever reason? All that is required is inaction by a few people.

But that's the definition of LIHOP (LET It Happen On Purpose), not MIHOP.

[tsg]

Wouldn't the global minimum be that the al-Qaeda conspiracy was real, and that someone in the gov't uncovered the exact plot details but deliberately let it happen, for whatever reason? All that is required is inaction by a few people.

That would be LIHOP (Let It Happen On Purpose), not MIHOP (Made It Happen On Purpose).

[Sabrina]

Beat you to it, tsg. *G*

[tsg]

Bastage!

[MRC_Hans]

And? Head of Black Ops, remember?

See below.


No, you haven't looked at my CT carefully enough. The phoney "hijackers" install the RC.

No, not really. Any putative terrorists could have had RC devices to fly the planes for them, or nerve gas, or bombs, or whatever.


How would they get all that stuff onboard the planes? Now, we all know that security was much more lax pre-911, but not that lax. I mean, a long-distance RC system for an airliner is not something you carry in your hand-bag, disguised as a walkman.

Not to mention gas bottles and explosives.

As for the "positioning of the bodies in the wreckage" ... after a plane crash?

Yeah, I don't see that problems with that. The unwilling suicide pilots might have run screaming aft just before impact, but, as you say, who'll notice after the crash?

Head of Black Ops, remember?

See below.


But suppose they could not show government complicity?

Al Qaeda get their funding from nuts who want to do down the US. They have a hefty profit motive to pretend it was them.


Mmmm, possible. Won't be the first time a terrorist organization had taken credit for something somebody else did. Still, you would think that others in AQ would say "WE did this? WTF??"

Hence the technological research, which I allowed for in my hypothesis.

Well, yes, the technology wouldn't be too big a problem. I think I could design such a system, given some time and plenty of dough. There IS a testing problem, however.


But I have shrunk the conspiracy to just one man.


See below.

If you believed in the 9/11 Truth CT, you'd have to believe in thousands of people who found the cause peruasive or found the bribes acceptable.

Oh, your theory is certainly more parsimonious than any of the prevailing CTs.


With the Minimalist Conspiracy Theory, only one man (at a minimum) has to believe that it's a good idea.

I admit that he'd have to be totally off his head, but this is still more plausible then the standard 9/11 CT; and, indeed, by my standards, the suicide bombers in the OCT, a dozen or more, were completely off their heads.

I think we might have to agree that whoever was behind 9/11 was insane: my version calls for only one insane person, who does not at any point risk his own life.

Here is "below":

You still need your Black Ops guy to make some sense. Since he is in charge of Black Ops, he must have been given a very considerable authority by someone high in the administration. Someone who trusts him. He cannot just be your average lunatic. Even if insane, he must have a motive. I know people exist who are so bonkers they do things for no reason at all, but this one has to be highly structured, a very cool planner.

I think that if you were to chart that personality profile in any detail, you would find it very hard to make ends meet.


I think you are left with having to install the RC devices prior to hijacking.

- And, as somebody else pointed out, all the traces left by the terrorists. Their flying lessons, their farewell letters, their unpaid bills, etc. etc. You could claim that the phony hijackers did all this as part of the alleged exercise, but that would be very risky business. What if one of them left a CMA (cover my ass) letter somewhere?

Hans

[Dave Rogers]

Mmmm, possible. Won't be the first time a terrorist organization had taken credit for something somebody else did. Still, you would think that others in AQ would say "WE did this? WTF??"

This one doesn't cut much ice, really. In a cell-based, highly distributed organisation, everyone would just assume that they'd never had any contact with the cell that did it.

Dave

[Dr Adequate]

How would they get all that stuff onboard the planes? Now, we all know that security was much more lax pre-911, but not that lax. I mean, a long-distance RC system for an airliner is not something you carry in your hand-bag, disguised as a walkman.

Not to mention gas bottles and explosives. Well they can do such wonderful things with microchips nowadays. Why is it not something you can carry disguised as a Walkman. Or several Walkmans, which you wire together.

You wouldn't need an entire bottle of nerve gas.

I admit this is problematic, but the PCTs have the same problem: they either need suicidal neocons willing to die for Bush, or some sort of RC.

Mmmm, possible. Won't be the first time a terrorist organization had taken credit for something somebody else did. Still, you would think that others in AQ would say "WE did this? WTF??" Terorist organisations tend to have cell structures.

You still need your Black Ops guy to make some sense. Since he is in charge of Black Ops, he must have been given a very considerable authority by someone high in the administration. Someone who trusts him. He cannot just be your average lunatic. Even if insane, he must have a motive. I know people exist who are so bonkers they do things for no reason at all, but this one has to be highly structured, a very cool planner. Well, okay, here's a rational motive --- he was selling short. Big time.

- And, as somebody else pointed out, all the traces left by the terrorists. Their flying lessons, their farewell letters, their unpaid bills, etc. etc. You could claim that the phony hijackers did all this as part of the alleged exercise, but that would be very risky business. What if one of them left a CMA (cover my ass) letter somewhere? Well then he'd have been screwed, okay, let's go back to him being off his head. He was trying to preserve "the purity and essence of our natural fluids".

Still, it worked, didn't it, so how crazy could he have been?

[kevsta]

My minimalist MIHOP goes like this. OBL is a CIA plant who runs Al Qaeda. Everyone else in Al Qaeda thinks that they are really a Muslim extremist group. OBL gets instrustions, handpicks and sends his 19 loons on the mission, 15 of them thinking they are going to hijack some planes and make headlines before singing prasies to Allah as they get shipped off to prison as political prisoners, 4 knowing they are going to soon be in Allah's garden with their 40 virgins.

No way to trace it, the OCS (offical cover story) is close enough to the truth to avoid any suispions except for the loons that just make stuff up anyway, and hey presto, you'll all done.

If Ladbrokes took bets on this and gave high enough odds I might even have a flutter.

[OldTigerCub]

I personally favor minimalist IHOP -- also known as the pancake theory.

And a very tasty theory indeed!:p

[OldTigerCub]

My minimalist MIHOP goes like this. OBL is a CIA plant who runs Al Qaeda. Everyone else in Al Qaeda thinks that they are really a Muslim extremist group. OBL gets instrustions, handpicks and sends his 19 loons on the mission, 15 of them thinking they are going to hijack some planes and make headlines before singing prasies to Allah as they get shipped off to prison as political prisoners, 4 knowing they are going to soon be in Allah's garden with their 40 virgins.

No way to trace it, the OCS (offical cover story) is close enough to the truth to avoid any suispions except for the loons that just make stuff up anyway, and hey presto, you'll all done.

Only 40 virgins? :jaw-dropp
I wonder if they got the memo Allah was downsizing?:rolleyes:

[Corsair 115]

Only 40 virgins? :jaw-dropp
I wonder if they got the memo Allah was downsizing?:rolleyes:Well, considering that if each glorious addition to heaven is supposed to get 72 virgins, that means an awful lot of virgins. Obviously they can't be recycled. So where are all those fresh virgins coming from?

[OldTigerCub]

Since Heaven has only 40 virgins per martyr, I'm guessing we won't be seeing scenes like this quite as often (especially if they start driving VW's):

znoCcy7-M4M

ETA: Thanks to Oliver! The video link works now. :)

[Oliver]

Since Heaven has only 40 virgins per martyr, I'm guessing we won't be seeing scenes like this quite as often (especially if they start driving VW's):




Here you go (you have to put the Video-ID into the YT tags
without "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=") :)

znoCcy7-M4M

[boloboffin]

Oh, my, there's a flag on the play:

Unfalsifiability in the OP. 32 virgin penalty. Second down.

Who lets hobos play American football?

[OldTigerCub]

Thanks, Oliver!
I kept editing the dern thing over and over. I thought it not working had something to do with an html option, but I see I was chasing my tail trying to find the problem.:blush:

[PhantomWolf]

For some reason, this image sprung to mind.

http://static.stripgenerator.com/generated/anonymous/strip/2007/09/24/the-twoof-about-paradise.png

[TellyKNeasuss]

Wouldn't the coroners also have to be in on it? They might find traces of the nerve gas in the bodies.