In a November 29, 2007 blog entry I speculated about the "conspiracy theory" behind CBS television drama series Jericho. In this show more than a dozen mysterious nuclear explosions take out major American cities - including Washington D.C. where I live - but since the attack is well short of full blown nuclear war it is assumed of terrorist nature. (It's not explained why the U.S. doesn't strike back at nuclear powers like Russia and China, as it surely would just to show "who's still the man.").
After watching the episode where food aid pallets dropped from Chinese transport planes, including leaflets from "our Chinese friends," I speculated that it would be an anti-corporate conspiracy theory: American elites, totally in hock to China, decide to "sell America" to the Chinese for their own benefit. They do so by working with military elites with their own selfish agenda who explode a dozen or so bombs.
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Well, a few weeks back a character working under-cover for a U.S. spy agency revealed the truth to another character: the anarchists, right-wing militias and radical fundamentalist Christians got together and did it!
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Pardon me while I guffaw!
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Sure some Cheney or Wolfowitz or Richard Perle character might pull the strings and rope in a half dozen representatives of each of the three groups, but it's still pretty far fetched. Much as I enveigle against black bloc street violence, gun nuts itching to fight the federal government and radical fundamentalist Christians who want to start an apocalypse to "hurry up god," I wouldn't demonize them by making them the the villains in a drama where they allegedly work together. Of course, neither do I deny that the Fundamentalist Apocalyptic in the White House currently may be waiting for god to direct him to push the button and bring it on!
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What's less far-fetched is one major way the U.S. government has been catching "terrorists" the last few years - finding angry people, sending in personable and effective government provocateurs, and ENTRAPPING them into committing some minor crime, which is the pretext for a major prosecution for criminal conspiracy. And, of course, the government reaps the benefits. See articles about accusations of entrapment in the Toledo Terrorists, the Sears Tower and Liberty City incidents, and now the alleged planned Fort Dix terror attacks.
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In the Jericho story, the government was supposed to foil the attacks, but the conspirators moved up the deadline so only one nuke was saved. (Buried now in the informant's garage in the middle of Kansas.)
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Shades of the 1993 World Trade Center attack? When the government gets a real informant in a group self-motivated to commit a terrorist attack, it has been known to screw up. Most notoriously in 1993.
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According to an October 28, 1993 front page New York Times article the FBI knew well in advance of the plans due to the activities of undercover informant Emad Salem. "Law-enforcement officials were told that terrorists were building a bomb that was eventually used to blow up the World Trade Center, and they planned to thwart the plotters by secretly substituting harmless powder for the explosives, an informer said after the blast."
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Of course, what may be scariest of all, is that I could find no information on the Internet about what I'm quite sure happened next. (Though at my leisure I'll look at my saved articles to confirm it.) The FBI and Salem quarreled over money. He quit, but later went back to work. As I'm sure I remember it: Just in time to drive the truck into the World Trade Center, hurry out, get an eardrum broken by the blast, go to the hospital -- and bill the government later for his care.
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Did I dream this or did this bit of trivia about government irresponsibility go down the memory hole? If anyone reads this and bugs me about it, I'll pull out the articles. I couldn't find the trial transcripts of the convicted co-conspirators online. Hmm, wonder if they are now classified government security information??
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