Conspiracy nuts feed on calamity
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Catastrophe usually breeds conspiracy theories.
Just look back at Pearl Harbor, when many politicians and public commentators whispered that President Franklin Roosevelt knew when and where the Japanese would launch an attack on the U.S. Pacific fleet, yet did nothing to stop it.
It was nonsense, of course. There was, and is, no evidence that Roosevelt had ever been warned about a specific attack.
"Signals [intercepted] announcing the Pearl Harbor attack were always accompanied by competing or contradictory signals, by all sorts of information useless for anticipating this particular disaster," wrote Roberta Wohlstetter, author of "Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision."
But small bands of conspiracy nuts have kept the lunacy alive for 60 years. They claim that Roosevelt allowed the Japanese to launch a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, killing more than 2,300 sailors and civilians in the process, because he wanted the United States to join the war against Japan and Germany, and he knew Americans would be willing to go to war to retaliate.
Besides, how else to explain that a much smaller nation could take the mighty United States by surprise?
Not surprisingly, similar conspiracy theories have emerged alleging that President Bush had prior knowledge of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. For months now, conspiracy nuts on the Internet (and -- in the case of local U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney -- in Congress) have claimed that Bush had specific knowledge of al-Qaida's plans. Judging Bush more harshly than even Roosevelt was judged, McKinney suggested that Bush may have allowed al-Qaida terrorists to strike, murdering more than 3,000 Americans, so that his friends in the defense industry could profit from the ensuing war.
There's no doubt that the Bush White House stupidly fanned the flames of the conspiracy by withholding news of an intelligence memo the president received in August, warning that Osama bin Laden planned to hijack American commercial airliners.
When the news of the memo broke last week, even Americans usually given to more rational thinking were momentarily taken aback: Had Bush, indeed, withheld warnings of a specific threat?
It took a couple of days, but rational America quickly saw the absurdity of the charge. A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, conducted over the weekend, found that 58 percent of Americans are satisfied with the measures the Bush administration took based on the information it had prior to Sept. 11.
Others, though, may never come to their senses. Several of McKinney's loony supporters, including her father, state Rep. Billy McKinney, have called or written to claim that the intelligence memo vindicates her suggestion. In other words, they believe, McKinney was correct in slandering the president as al-Qaida's co-conspirator.
So far, no information suggests the president was given anything other than vague warnings that Osama bin Laden wanted to hijack commercial aircraft and perhaps take hostages -- at some point. Or fly airplanes into buildings -- somewhere.
Much like the intelligence on Pearl Harbor, the memo was useless in preventing the terrorist atrocities of Sept. 11.
Since Sept. 11, the intelligence agencies have reorganized and regrouped; reportedly, they are much better prepared to analyze and coordinate intelligence, sift through reports and pinpoint specific targets. But they don't claim they can prevent another attack.
Indeed, over the last several days, the Bush White House has given us the sort of news we would not have believed before Sept. 11: Sooner or later, no matter how many plots are thwarted, some terrorist cell somewhere inside our borders will carry out a successful attack.
But we don't know how, and we don't know where or when. We know what the president knew on Sept. 10.
