Conspiracy Praxis: Guatemala, shortly after the Third Reich

BenSix writes:

“This won’t help a bit…”

The U.S. has “oh, gee, sorry!“-d for its 1940s program of infecting Guatamalans with syphilis and gonorrhea. The poor folks were tainted without their consent or even knowledge and, its claimed, were goaded into passing the diseases on. In a truly damning paper(pdf) Susan Reverby exposes the American physician’s gruesome practices…

On the women inmates…the inoculum was inserted after needles were used to abrade the women’s forearms, face or mouth. With the men, the inoculation was often much more direct…A doctor held the subject’s penis, pulled back the foreskin, abraded the penis slightly just short of drawing blood by scraping the skin with a hypodermic needle, introduced a cotton pledget (or small dressing) and dripped drops of the syphilitic emulsion onto the pad and through it to the roughed skin on the man’s penis for at least an hour, sometimes two.

In other studies of prophylaxis at an army barracks, the men were allowed to have sex with uninfected prostitutes, then had the syphilitic inoculum put into the meatus of their penis, told to urinate an hour later and apply differing kinds of chemical prophylaxis.42 In still other studies, the inoculum was placed on the cervix of prostitutes before they were allowed to have sex with the prisoners.

Without the vaguest desire to seem monomaniacal this affirms one o’ this weblog’s themes: the truth of conspiracies. [...]

Continues here.

Michael Parenti on the "Conspiracy Theory" Shibboleth

"There are few terms that are more effective in putting foreclosure on rational discourse."

QED. That's why it's the ruling class's rhetorical weapon of choice. But why are so many soi-disant leftists still crippled, both intellectually and politically, by their own refusal or inability to unpack the term? Parenti's short speech is not just brilliantly funny; it's an unanswerable response to a species of supercilious antithought that's still far too prevalent on the left - one recent example being Alex Doherty's disgraceful screed at the New Left Project.

"I tell you, kicking the ass of the ruling class can be fun at times."

Conspiracy Praxis: The CIA as Keystone Kops (Again)

CIA erred and had tapes in September 11 conspirator case

Tue Nov 13, 2007 6:05pm EST

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA erred [sic!] in twice telling a court in the case of September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui that it did not have any recordings of interrogations of "enemy combatants," when in fact it had three video or audio tapes, according to a letter released on Tuesday.

Two questions:

1. Which contortionist at Reuters came up with that unparodiable headline?

2. When is the Left finally going to get real about 9/11?

"WHAT 'human price'? Gimme a break!"

John Pilger's 93-minute documentary War on Democracy is available free online at Google Video.

In this three-minute extract, Duane R. 'Dewey' Clarridge, the CIA's chief in Latin America from 1981 to 1984, scoffs at the deaths in Chile under Pinochet and says it was worth it:

PILGER: It was a period which almost everyone in the present moment thinks was a dark time, in which the CIA played a major role.

CLARRIDGE: That's right, they played a major role in overthrowing, uh, wh-wh- whatsisname.

PILGER: 'Whatsisname' was Salvador Allende. He was democratically elected.

CLARRIDGE: Right. OK.

PILGER: Is that OK, to overthrow a democratically elected government?

CLARRIDGE: It depends on what your national security interests are.

Conspiracy Praxis: The US-UK Energy Dialogue, April 2002

Reminder:

Blair: Iraq oil claim is 'conspiracy theory'

Matthew Tempest, political correspondent
Guardian, Wednesday January 15, 2003.

Tony Blair today derided as "conspiracy theories" accusations that a war on Iraq would be in pursuit of oil, as he faced down growing discontent in parliament at a meeting of Labour backbenchers and at PMQs. ...

At The Oil Drum yesterday, David Strahan placed this desperate 'derision' in its (underpublicised) historical context:

Britain and America’s shared energy fears were secretly formalised during the planning for Iraq. It is widely accepted that Blair’s commitment to support the attack dates back to his summit with Bush at Crawford in April 2002. The Times headline was typical that weekend: Iraq Action Is Delayed But ‘Certain’. What is less well known is that at the same summit Blair proposed and Bush agreed to set up the US-UK Energy Dialogue, a permanent diplomatic liaison dedicated to “energy security and diversity”. No announcement was made, and the Dialogue’s existence was only later exposed through a US Freedom of Information enquiry by Rob Evans and David Hencke of the Guardian.

Both governments continue to refuse to release minutes of meetings between ministers and officials held under the Dialogue, but among some papers that have been released, one dated February 2003 notes that to meet projected world demand, oil production in the Middle East would have to double by 2030 to over 50 million barrels per day, and proposed “a targeted study to examine the capital and investment requirements of key Gulf countries”. So on the eve of the invasion British and American officials were secretly discussing how to raise oil production from the region and we are invited to believe this is mere coincidence. Iraq was evidently not just about corporate greed but strategic desperation.

Conspiracy Praxis (Cops as "anarchists")

At the North American summit in Montebello, Quebec, three masked "anarchists" - at least one of them holding a rock - are exposed by a protest organiser. The three then melt back into police lines, entirely unhindered, where they are gently "forced to the ground" and then led away in handcuffs - without having their masks removed. Later, there is no record of any of them ever having been arrested.

Five-minute YouTube video here.

The Toronto Star reports:

A video, posted on YouTube, shows three young men, their faces masked by bandannas, mingling Monday with protesters in front of a line of police in riot gear. At least one of the masked men is holding a rock in his hand.

The three are confronted by protest organizer Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. Coles makes it clear the masked men are not welcome among his group of protesters, whom he describes as mainly grandparents. He urges them to leave and find their own protest location.

Coles also demands that they put down their rocks. Other protesters begin to chime in that the three are really police agents. Several try to snatch the bandanas from their faces.

Rather than leave, the three actually start edging closer to the police line, where they appear to engage in discussions. They eventually push their way past an officer, whereupon other police shove them to the ground and handcuff them.

Late Tuesday, photographs taken by another protester surfaced, showing the trio lying prone on the ground. The photos show the soles of their boots adorned by yellow triangles. A police officer kneeling beside the men has an identical yellow triangle on the sole of his boot.

Kevin Skerrett, a protester with the group Nowar-Paix, said the photos and video together present powerful evidence that the men were actually undercover police officers. "I think the circumstantial evidence is very powerful," he said.

The three do not appear to have been arrested or charged with any offence.