The significant, often determining role played by insane conspiracy theories in current affairs is being dangerously underestimated. Here are some that have been espoused recently by prominent people:
The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, thinks that the United States and Israel are behind the recent spate of kidnappings and beheadings of foreign nationals in Iraq.
Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, is 95% certain that the recent terrorist attacks against Westerners and oil installations in Saudi Arabia were perpetrated by “Zionists”. Other Saudi officials were quick to agree and expand on this thesis: Prince Nayef, the Saudi Interior Minister said, “Al-Qaida is backed by Israel and Zionism.”
A successful popular song in the United States contains the lyrics “Why did Bush knock down the Towers?” Jadakiss, the singer, commented: “A lot of my people felt that he [Bush] had something to do with [the destruction of the World Trade Center].”
Michael Moore's conspiracy-theory-laden movie Fahrenheit 9/11 won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and is enjoying huge success at the box office.
Yasser Arafat has said that the recent bus bombing in Tel Aviv was masterminded by Israel. (The attack was in fact carried out by his own Aksa Martyrs Brigades terrorists.)
Vanessa Redgrave, the celebrated actress and United Nations ‘Goodwill Ambassador’ has stated as fact that Israeli snipers habitually murder Palestinian schoolchildren in their classrooms.
No mother could possibly be accustomed to the fact that her little girl will go to school “and will sit with her classmates and an Israeli sniper will shoot at a classroom full of Palestinian children who are in their uniforms with their little scarves,” she said in Jerusalem.
“Any Palestinian mother or schoolchild knows that a schoolchild who is dressed in the uniform can be and is frequently shot in the head – not in the chest, not in the legs, in the head,” she said,
Leaders of countries, role models, and shapers of opinion are affected just as much as billions of people not in the public eye. Anyone who wants to understand world affairs today has to take on board that extreme irrationality of this type, often with a powerful antisemitic component, is a major determinant of opinions and actions worldwide. Restricting one's attention to the factors more usually considered, such as political or economic self-interest, ideology, nationalism, or even strategy or tactics, is like denying the role of viruses in causing influenza.
