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Quite a few people on television, especially on certain cable news channels, are spreading increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories. How do conspiracy theories begin? I am talking about conspiracy theories that are unfounded; we all know that real conspiracies occur all the time, and that it is important to shine light on them.
In this post, I instead want to talk about the methods that persuaders use to invent and spread conspiracy theories. The Benghazi conspiracy theory is an example. I do not especially want to defend Hillary Clinton – she will have to defend herself, and her political career is obviously over – but I want to uncover the methods that dodgy people can use to take a real tragedy, and a real set of mistakes, and turn them into a full-blown conspiracy theory. The Benghazi conspiracy theory, which says that Hillary Clinton or officials under her control blocked rescue efforts, uses a full set of propaganda methods.
Philosophy professor Brian Keeley talks about “unjustified conspiracy theories.” These are unlike conspiracy theories that are justified or proven, such as the famous Watergate conspiracy, or the less famous but very scary Operation Northwoods, in which high-ranking Pentagon officials wanted to fake a terrorist attack against the United States. We also have obviously unjustified conspiracy theories, such as the belief in Chemtrails, that is, the idea that the government is spraying mind control chemicals out of airplanes, or the even sillier belief that Siri had announced the apocalypse. Don't laugh; many people believe such things. They aren't kidding.
So, I’m not talking about real investigations where people uncover real conspiracies. I’m talking about con artists who invent and spread unjustified conspiracy theories. A moment's critical thinking would destroy any of these conspiracy theories, so how do persuaders convince us?
Let's back up a few years to the Benghazi conspiracy theory, which has convinced a great many people. The persuaders who spread the Benghazi conspiracy theory know, I suspect, that their conspiracy theory is wrong, yet have convinced millions of people. Here's how:
The Benghazi conspiracy theory holds that, when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, on September 11, 2012, the United States diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya was attacked by terrorists and burned, due to Clinton's negligence and betrayal. During the attack, United States Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed. The Obama administration wrongly thought that the attack was a response to an anti-Islam video (a video that had led to demonstrations in several countries), and only later corrected themselves.
Now, the attack was a terrible tragedy, and it is obvious, at least in hindsight, that the Department of State did something very wrong to let it happen. The conspiracy theory goes farther to hold that Clinton repeatedly refused to send help during the attack and that, in fact, she, or people under her influence, called a stand-down order to prevent rescuers from reaching the mission. How did conspiracy theorists get from the real tragedy to their conspiracy theory?
Step One: Start with strong elements of truth
The Benghazi conspiracy theory, for the most part, says things that are true. Therein lies its power. A reconstructed timeline shows that the attack began at about 9:40 PM, and the bad guys breached the mission wall about 20 minutes later. A small CIA rescue team, together with a team of Libyan authorities, reached the mission at about 10:30 PM, engaged the terrorists, and ended the attack. By that time, Ambassador Stevens and other Americans were already dead. A CIA rescue team from Tripoli arrived at about 1:15 AM. Terrorists attacked a different compound at about 4 AM. The CIA rescue team’s supervisor had held them about 10 minutes while they obtained additional weaponry. Some time later, a Special Forces team in another city started getting organized, but their dispatch was delayed, partly because of the need to guard outposts in other Libyan cities. So, there was an attack; there were brief delays in sending rescuers, and supervisors didn’t always know exactly what was going on. All true. And Americans died, also true.
Step Two: Omit key information
There never was any evidence that Secretary Clinton or any other high-ranking official in Washington asked the CIA team to wait. Furthermore, neither the CIA or the Special Forces is under the Department of State’s authority, so it is difficult to imagine how it would even have been possible for Secretary Clinton to order them to stand down. Conspiracy theorists always leave this out - or lie about it. Thus, conservative web site RedState.com: “Now we know a rescue offer was made to Hillary Clinton. We have to assume the rescue forces had a chance of arriving in time to save lives, otherwise the offer would not have been made, yet it never launched. If the White House didn’t give the stand down order we can only assume that Hillary Clinton told the Pentagon, thanks but no thanks.”
“We have to assume,” the conspiracy theorist writes, because there is no evidence.
Step Three: Wiggle with the timeline
Take a look at the timeline above. A joint CIA-Libyan operation secured the mission less than an hour after the attack began. It was obviously not possible for a team from Tripoli or, better, Italy, where the United States has major military bases, to reach the mission any faster than that. The entire incident, including attacks elsewhere than at the mission, was over before daybreak. So, the various stand-down orders, which were really delay to-get-organized orders, could not have harmed Ambassador Stevens. That's why Benghazi conspiracy theorists never, ever, not even once, discuss the timeline.
Step Four: Play word games
To military and paramilitary personnel, a stand-down order means to cancel the operation entirely. The order that caused so much initial controversy, which was given by an official at the scene, not by Secretary Clinton, was, as we saw above, just an order to delay the operation for a short time so that adequate weaponry could be obtained. That was an order to delay and prepare, not to stand down. But conspiracy theorists call it a stand-down order because a stand-down order sounds cowardly, if not treasonous. In contrast, an order to delay for a few minutes to obtain weaponry does not sound bad. By calling this operational decision a stand-down, which is not the right term, and by implying that it was political, Benghazi conspiracy theorists made the entire thing sound not only mistaken, but evil.
A detailed congressional investigation, led by Republicans, found no proof to support the Benghazi conspiracy theorists. This didn’t slow them at all. To this day, they continue to spread their accusations on social media.
Step Five: Ask questions
Questions are not proof, and minor inconsistencies do not necessarily discredit an entire narrative. What we often call “the fog of war” means that an incident like Benghazi will always lead to questions, and some information will always be inconsistent. That’s human nature. When people lack proof, they ask questions. But asking a string of questions is a well-known propaganda technique.
For example, the once-great National Review, in the wake of a months-long, Republican-led investigation, published an article entitled, “No, the Benghazi Questions Aren’t All Answered.” The article talked about what the author admitted to be “unspecified evidence.” The article asked a whole string of unanswered questions:
“At any point during the evening did the commanding officers reevaluate the decision to keep those four special operators in Tripoli instead of letting them attempt a rescue in Benghazi? How did the U.S. mission in Libya reach the point where one of the most consequential choices of the night was the decision to keep four men guarding the embassy in Tripoli instead of attempting a rescue in Benghazi? Whose idea was it to have a special-operations unit assigned to the European Command, known as a Commander’s In-Extremis Force, on a training mission on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks? How did the U.S. reach the point where neither the U.S. military nor a single NATO ally had any planes that were combat-ready and capable of assisting in a battle on the other side of the Mediterranean?”
Some of these questions are worth asking, but they do not support the implied accusation that the administration committed misconduct on the night of the Benghazi attack. One can ask limitless questions after an event like this, but questions prove nothing. When one question is answered, you can always ask five more. When one lacks proof, one asks questions.
Questions are good, but they are not proof.
Step Six: Get angry
Rage and rational thought don’t work together. If we sit down to have a nice discussion, like what might happen in a high school or college debate, the Benghazi conspiracy theory would collapse in minutes. But we don’t think clearly when we are angry, and anger is contagious. After the House Select Committee on Benghazi released its report, which discredited the wilder accusations against Clinton, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh responded with this:
“I thought I had adjusted to it, but I haven’t. It just makes me sick. It depresses me. It makes me sick all over again. This Benghazi thing, it’s so emblematic of what has happened to us as a country. It is so enlightening as to what has happened to institutions that we need to be able to trust. It exposes this administration as, gosh, I don’t know, incompetent, uncaring, self-focused. It’s just, I don’t know, folks.”
No content, just blind anger.
Note that the real incident provided plenty of ammunition against Secretary Clinton. It could reasonably be argued that the Benghazi mission should never been established at all. It could be argued that Clinton should have used her authority to insist that diplomatic missions needed to have full security, and if full security was not available, they should be closed. She didn’t do that, and it is entirely reasonable to fault her for that.
However, claims like that can't produce hysteria, nor can such claims, which allege everyday errors, compare with accusing Secretary Clinton of committing evil deeds for evil reasons.
So, conspiracy theorists use propaganda methods to convince people that wrongful events are the results of wrongful motives - even if they have no proof.
Earlier posts about conspiracy theories:
Conspiracy speeches:
http://harpine.blogspot.com/2016/10/speeches-about-conspiracies-how-can-we.html
Blake Farenthold and the Seth Rich conspiracy theory:
http://harpine.blogspot.com/2017/05/conspiracy-theories-rise-again-case-of.html
Donald Trump's conspiracy theories:
http://harpine.blogspot.com/2016/11/trump-and-conspiracy-theories.html
Mainstream media pundits ignore how powerful conspiracy theories are:
http://harpine.blogspot.com/2016/11/incredulity-effects-why-dont-mainstream.html
Image: House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, via Wikimedia. US government photo.
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