I posted this on the permanent open thread, but that recycles so fast that I figure I'll stick it here. I may regret it, but here goes.
Hi. Since every conspiracy theory starts off with a wild assertion, conjecture, or question, please indulge me.
Does anyone else find the kidnappings and beheadings, etc., in Iraq to be a little strange? They say the kidnapped leader of CARE in Iraq has now been killed. If you are an "insurgent," and you are organized and aware enough to kidnap somebody, film your demands, and get them to al-Jazeera promptly, why would you kill someone so obviously innocent, someone so obviously not associated with the war against your country, so obviously there at risk to her own safety to aid your people as they suffer, someone whose murder is bound to turn world opinion against you? I say you would not do this, which begs a question...
When we in the news/propaganda-consuming audience see that this earthbound saint from CARE has been killed by insurgents, do we get angry at our leaders or do we get angry at the insurgents? Well, we're already angry at our president and, yes, this adds to it, because she wouldn't have died if we weren't there, but you
know you felt a moment of despair, doubt, anger, hate, and horror when you heard they had killed her. You know this was the culmination of the incomprehension you have felt since she was kidnapped. You wondered what monsters could possibly do this to someone who was trying desperately to help them. You know you faltered for a second and wondered whether you should buy the line that the people over there are as inhuman as has been advertised (you recovered).
You know they know who she was. Of all the people to kidnap, and once identified, to kill, why this one? How could anyone over there think this would do anything but hurt their position in the hearts and minds of the observing world? She's the most obvious case of this seeming illogic, but think about the other innocents. Truck drivers, military mechanics, aid workers, reporters, shit, cafeteria workers or whatever. Not soldiers or US officials or Halliburton managers. They have to know this makes people grudgingly support the US effort against them. They have to know it paints them as inhuman.
If that's so...<don tinfoil hat> could it be that these masked men are not in fact insurgents? Who benefits when they do what they do? How does public opinion sway when they do what they do? What does that say? Every country who has been at war since WWI will admit the value of propaganda and pyschological ops. We all know how ruthless our own leaders are. Is it possible we're behind this in some way, indirectly? To sway opinion in our own favor? Don't fucking yell at me - - when things don't make sense, somebody has to ask the question.
I'm sure people can come up with reasons why my questions are nuts and why it does makes sense to the insurgents to do this. And there's always the more likely reality that we just can't know the truth or the reasoning. I'm interested in dispassionate responses to my question by people who have an explainable reason to think pro or con.