Conspiracy 101: So what really happened?

Do you know the truth? Are you buying what 'they' tell you? They are all in it together. You can't trust anything they tell you. So listen to me...

Conspiracy theories are the latest addition to the national diet of Pakistan. Nowadays everything has a conspiracy and if you don’t believe it you are part of the cover-up.

I have often wondered where all the theories come from. There was a time when people claimed to have heard the original 'truth' from some mysterious source in the government or some rogue intelligence agent.

But they are called theories for a reason. A theory is based on assumptions which have not been tested. And these opinion leaders are making theirs up as they go along. Funnily, most theories are pure speculation and have no real credibility while the rest of them are supposedly leaks from the intelligence community. It’s no wonder that Zaid Hamid got his own show and brainwashed so many people.

Drinking the koolaid

Internationally, conspiracy theorists are normally considered to be crackpots who don’t get much attention except from their groupies. Unfortunately this is not the case in Pakistan where they are treated like demi-gods who are fighting against the establishment to spread the truth. People will believe anything they watch on TV or whatever they receive via text messages.

Pakistan is like mana from the heavens for all conspiracy theorists who know their target market is gullible. Maybe I am wrong here when I state they are gullible. Maybe they believe everything they hear because they want it to be true.

In fact these theories are so good that anyone might end up believing some are true. After all, theorists use social media, text messages and word of mouth to spread their ideas. Some, pure professionals, have been blessed with TV shows where they share their theories with people.

E-Theory dot com

Pakistani blogs are filled with conspiracy theories. Just because one happens to read about current affairs and has opinions theories that does not make one an expert with the right to comment on these issues and link them to some conspiracy.

There was this post during the initial days of the floods when the US was going to send some troops to help the victims. The author actually believed that this was a suspicious move and it should be monitored. Basically everything is a conspiracy for these people who manage to suck people in with their twisted views.

Logic never stopped us before

If you google conspiracy blogs in Pakistan you will find blogs about the destruction of Pakistan in 2012 which mysteriously materialized after the movie 2012 came out. The theories include a sub-continent war, plans for the New World Order, general self destruction in India and an invasion by Pakistan.

When I read the posts my head was spinning. I couldn’t believe how many talented people lived in Pakistan. These guys are excellent writers who don’t know they have great careers ahead of them. They could easily give Tom Clancy and Dan Brown a run for their money. Heck, they could write some great Hollywood screenwriters out of their jobs! But here they are wasting their time scaring the people of Pakistan with their half-baked theories.

They are all 'out to get us'

People assume that all conspiracy theories have some truth in them. Every incident that takes place in Pakistan or abroad (if it has any ties to Pakistan) has to have a conspiracy attached because we are angels and we would never soil our wings.

Everything from the Mumbai attacks, the failed Times Square bombing, Swat public flogging video, Sialkot lynch mob incident are all part of some huge conspiracy to ruin the image of Pakistan.

Apparently there is this cabal of secret agencies who sit together and laugh in a sinister manner whenever they carry out a plan. It is this ignorance which has not helped us in any manner since we simply find some way to blame a third party. Any terrorist attack or incident is linked to the CIA, Mossad, Raw or XE because there is no way a Pakistani could do something like that. It has to be some elaborate conspiracy to destabilize Pakistan

Where does the truth come from?

Is there some magical fountain of knowledge which bestows all this information on to its recipients? Maybe that is why some of these theorists have knowledge of supposed events before they occur. Could it be that these agencies who work so hard to destabilize Pakistan are idiots who don’t realize that their plots are public knowledge? They come up with huge elaborate plots and everyone is aware of them before they supposedly happen. Somehow their nefarious master plans are leaked out word for word so people know what they are up to.

US plans flood disaster

I thought I had heard theories about everything but I had never heard of any related to a natural disaster -until the floods hit Pakistan (the disaster is a conspiracy by the US to destabilize us) Apparently the US is in possession of a great weather machine which can manipulate weather and that is why it caused all the torrential downpours which ruined our crops, displaced our people and affected our economy. I found this theory to be hilarious because. It is so far fetched that Zaid Hamid could have come up with it.

( The only weather machine I have read about was in a Sidney Sheldon novel.)

I don’t think anyone could manipulate the weather like that even if they had the technology. If the US really has weather machine technology wouldn’t they have used it to battle terrorists? They could have easily flooded out all the terrorists hiding in the caves by flooding them with all that rain or used lightning and wind storms to kill militants instead of using drones. If the US had weather technology they could use that to fight their dirty war for them instead of spending billions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Who needs troops to fight when you can easily do it with a weather machine?

Oh, wait! There is no such thing as a working weather machine so I guess they have to stick to conventional warfare and keep using their drones.  It is silly to blame someone else for our problems when we all know that the disaster was due to global warming which has been responsible for melting polar ice caps and changing the weather patterns around the world. The glaciers melted at a faster rate and the torrential rains were higher than average this year, which resulted in massive floods. It is sad that we need to blame someone for this when we all know that it was an act of God.

RAW plots spot-fixing scandal

Another popular theory these days is that the Pakistani cricket team is being set up and they are all 'good boys.'  A number of people refuse to accept the reality of the situation.  They maintain that the poor players have been framed and are victims of our enemy’s elaborate plot to ruin their good name.  RAW is allegedly responsible for paying News of the World to run this sting operation.

Yeah. I can bet RAW masterminded the plan to ruin 'the good name' of Pakistan by giving their cricket team a bad name. They could come up with a more elaborate plan by targeting our politicians or funding some sort of attack on our cities but they chose to rub our faces in the mud by linking them to a betting scandal. Alas! They wasted so many resources to only expose three of our players. It’s so sad because they were the best players in our winning team and there aren’t any more players in the country.

News of the World is a tabloid which is well known for running sting operations to expose people. Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, was their most recent victim as she was filmed asking for money to introduce people to her ex-husband Prince Andrew'

News of the World can easily run a sting operation if someone gives them a good tip. It is their job to find great stories so that they can make profits. English tabloids are ruthless enough to run juicy stories because they know they will get good sales. They have plenty of money in their own coffers without them having to take any from RAW.  It’s funny because earlier we accuse the English press of making it all up and now suddenly the blame is shifted to RAW.

Airblue pilot misses nuke site

According to conspiracy theorists the ill-fated plane was supposed to crash into the nuclear facilities at Kahuta. Apparently the captain of the plane did not want to do that so he crashed it into Margalla Hills instead. This is one of the most absurd theories I have ever heard. It doesn’t make any sense for a plane to crash into a nuclear facility so that our weapons are destroyed. First, I am pretty sure that all our nuclear weapons are not in one place and are carefully dispersed in secret locations around the country. I believe the the word they are looking for is “silo.'

The Blackwater city

The most absurd theory I have ever heard is of thousands of Blackwater operatives living in some secret town in Pakistan. They are all fluent in Pashto, have long beards, wear local clothes  and can easily blend in amongst people. I laughed out loud when I heard this one because of the logistics involved in this operation. They actually believe that there are thousands of agents who are so well trained that they can blend in and no one would know anything about it. Wouldn’t it be cheaper for them to just fund local militants than to train foreign operatives to do the same job for them?

How the heck did thousands of agents get in the country and get lost so easily? Was the ISI was sleeping? They did get ranked were ranked the number one agency in the world and yet they turned a blind eye to thousands of foreigners who mysteriously disappeared in to their country.

I am still laughing as I write this because of the absurdity of this conspiracy. This means that there is no such thing as the Pakistani Taliban. They are all a figment of our imagination because  it’s all a ploy by western agencies.