Have you heard about those crazy conspiracy theories believed by people in Pakistan, and pushed forward by their media?

Americans may think that the failed Times Square bomb was planted by a man named Faisal Shahzad. But the view in the Supreme Court Bar Association here in Pakistan’s capital is that the culprit was an American “think tank.”
No one seems to know its name, but everyone has an opinion about it. It is powerful and shadowy, and seems to control just about everything in the American government, including President Obama.
“They have planted this character Faisal Shahzad to implement their script,” said Hashmat Ali Habib, a lawyer and a member of the bar association. […]

One of those pundits is Zaid Hamid, a fast-talking, right-wing television personality who rose to fame on one of Pakistan’s 90 new private television channels.
He uses Google searches to support his theory that India, Israel and the United States — through their intelligence agencies and the company formerly known as Blackwater — are conspiring to destroy Pakistan.
For Mr. Hamid, the case of Mr. Shahzad is one piece of a larger puzzle being assembled to pressure Pakistan. Why, otherwise, the strange inconsistencies, like the bomb’s not exploding? “If you connect the dots, you have a pretty exciting story,” he said.

Really strange what those Pakistanis would believe about a clandestine American government and its clandestine activities.

Unnamed former officers told the Washington Post it was one of a number of outlandish plans thought up to discredit the Iraqi dictator before the 2003 American-led invasion.
“It would look like it was taken by a hidden camera,” said one. “Very grainy, like it was a secret videotaping of a sex session.”
Hm.
Reportedly this was dropped because …
A third former officer said: “Saddam playing with boys would have no resonance in the Middle East – nobody cares.
Sigh.  Also note the cultural problem within the CIA:  A second former CIA officer said the plots were obviously ludicrous and “came from people whose careers were spent in Latin America or East Asia”.  Such is the problem with the retreads from the Reagan Administration, I suppose.
The one line that has gotten the conspiracy theorists of the “9/11 is an inside job” school excited in this country (and any other country, I guess) is:
According to the officer, the CIA did make a video apparently showing Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda lieutenants sitting beside a campfire quaffing bottles of alcoholic drinks and discussing their sexual trysts with boys.

The “CIA played Osama Bin Laden” part, mind ye.  It is round about there that in the “Is Birtherism or Trutherism” — both tedious objects worthy of scorn — the least demented conspiracy theory — the answer is Trutherism — sorry Jonah Goldberg.  Birtherism ends up parked at sniping at one individual.  Trutherism fades into the shadowy network of clandestine operations.  Then again, the National Review is staffed by people who took Oliver North as a reasonable Senate candidate, so our biases slide forward to the forefront.

Skipping right ahead to the situation in Korea.  What the North Korean media is reporting:
The Korean people have been indignant at the anti-DPRK confrontation escalated by the south Korean puppets since the sinking of their warship “Cheonan”.
Ri Un Chon, 45, a department director of the Ministry of Metal Industry, told KCNA that the Lee Myung Bak regime made public false “results of investigation” into the incident to mislead public opinion inside and outside and isolate and stifle the DPRK.
Accusing the regime of trying to inflict a nuclear war holocaust upon the Korean nation, he said the Korean workers, who have gained in strength under the Songun politics, show no mercy to the enemy.
They are resolved to annihilate the aggressors to defend leader Kim Jong Il and the socialist system if the enemy dare to invade the DPRK, he said, adding:
The south Korean regime’s foolish attempt to impede the advance of the DPRK will only make the Korean workers harden their resolve.
Also:
The United States is taking the lead in disturbing the world […]

I think this is the People’s Democratic Republic’s version of a “Water Skiing Squirrel” story:

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 29th, 2010 at 12:08 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.