Conspiracy

...Obviously, individuals like idential elections, came in second...

...It is from the new democracies, Pipes suggests, that the next batch of conspiratorially-minded mass murderers will most likely emerge...

...Granted L den Hand, Middle East scholar that nations like Iraq and Iran are situatDaniel Pipes argued that analyz- ed at the very epicenter of global political ing Arab or Iranian affairs without taking nuttiness, how, Pipes asks, is everyone else into account the widespread belief in con- doing...

...Nor has the Clinton Administration been able to resist the allure of conspiracism...

...In the 1980's this view gained new credibility thanks to one Masami Uno, whose books blaming Jews for Japan's economic woes, and predicting a global dictatorship run from the Third Temple in Jerusalem, sold over a million copies...

...Pipes dangerous is that, every now and then, quotes an Orthodox priest who typifies people who subscribe to a conspiratorial this mindset: "You know, Tito was a view of reality manage to gain control of an Mason and so was the Pope and all the entire country, thereby acquiring the Catholic bishops...

...According to Pipes, Arabs and Conspiracy: The Power of the Iranians tend to attribute all their misforParanoid Style in History tunes to plots orchestrated by malevolent Daniel Pipes outsiders...

...soldiers stationed in San Diego,14,000 in Anchorage, and a battalion of Gurkhas in Montana...

...get certain people they didn't like...

...Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, believes that the government already performed this operation on him during his army service...

...Still, although Conspiracy might have been a better book had he given more thought to the wider implications of his findings, one conclusion emerges clearly enough from Pipes's scholarly survey: Human beings are basically crazy...

...And Maxine Waters, South-Central Los Angeles' congressional representative, believes that the CIA is behind drug-dealing in Los Angeles...

...the core is solid...

...According to Pipes, "Uno's success made anti-Semitic conspiracism socially acceptable, and a flood of even more ed States is less than ideal, it is preferable extravagant works followed...

...Not so, howev- March 1995 it launched a poison gas attack er, in the former Soviet Union...

...Pat Robertson thinks he has unraveled a plot by the Freemasons, the Illuminati, and the Council on Foreign Relations (but not, as has frequently been charged, the Jews) to achieve "a one-world government, a one-world army, a one-world economy under an Anglo-Saxon financial oligarchy, and a one-world dictator served by a council of twelve faithful men...

...spiracy theories "is comparable to study- In the United States, Pipes notes, much ing the American economy without Wall of the black community seems besotted by Street or Soviet politics without Marxism- conspiracy theories...

...In the part of the world Pipes knows best—the conspiracy-mad Middle East—would the introduction of democracy lead to a gradual lessening of regional tensions, or would it end up empowering an even wackier lot of demagogues than those currently in charge...

...Pipes rightly points out that "conspiracism" plays a minor role in nations where "democracy is fully established—meaning not just where voting for politicians is routine but where the other facets of civil society are in place, such as the rule of law, freedom of speech, and minority rights...

...In their torial thinking has made its most startling eyes, their campaigns of mass terror and postwar comeback...

...Or as Immanuel Kant (who himself subscribed to anti-British conspiracy theories) put it zoo years ago, "Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made, nothing entirely straight can be built...

...Fortunately, the media refused to buy into this Clinton ploy, so the administration quietly shelved its report...

...Ross Perot has met several times with the head of the Christic Institute, an organization that claims the U.S...

...Judaism to Western Europe's, where, according to caused all the evils of Western civilizaPipes, fascist parties embracing hoary anti- tion, including colonialism and Nazism...

...But ilarly awash in conspiracy theories, only what makes conspiracy theories uniquely there the focus is on Freemasonry...

...To avert a "new Dark Ages," LaRouche counsels all-out war against Great Britain...

...It is as though, having demonstrated the universality of conspiracy theories and speculated about their origins, he suddenly grew disgusted with the whole sordid subject and decided to drop it...

...This raises some obvious questions: If newly-fledged democracies are so susceptible to the conspiracist virus, why is the United States eagerly promoting democracy throughout the world...

...government shipped a billion units of AIDS-infected blood to Africa to annihilate its population...

...76 November 1997 The American Spectator Jews, and whites who have "betrayed their race," it's a safe bet that, given the opportunity, that's exactly what they would do...

...Semitic conspiracy theories are making a Jews, not the U.S...

...economic advice...

...Aren't we in danger of emulating the Sorcerer's Apprentice—helping to unleash fears and passions we can barely comprehend...

...Joseph Shattan In his latest book, Conspiracy, Pipes extends his field of inquiry from the Midast year, in a book called The Hid- dle East to the world at large...

...Fascist politicians such as Japan in World War II...

...A1996 poll on Tokyo's subway, injuring thousands...

...Before World War II, "belief in a global Jewish conspiracy bent on destroying Japan" was commonplace...

...But if the mental climate in the Unitwrites Pipes, "where fascination with yudayaka, or the Jewish peril, has existed since the 1920's...

...Blaming all of Japan's States, the appeal of conspiracy theories is postwar ills on Jewish domination, in limited...

...Jewish conspiracies would be farcical, were Nonetheless, Pipes maintains that in it not for the activities of a cult group called both Western Europe and the United Aum Shinri Kyo...

...But, of course, they will not get the opportunity—at least, not in the United States...

...These wild allegations have made an impact: According to a 1990 poll, 29 percent of black New Yorkers believe that AIDS was "deliberately created in a laboratory in order to infect black people," and 6o percent believe that the U.S...

...His answer: "Not so good...

...Similarly, when Amer-"True anti-Semitism outside the Western ican crazies fantasize, in cult-novels like and Muslim worlds exists only in Japan," The Turner Diaries, about killing blacks, How alarmed should we be by the global growth of conspiracy theories...

...Jews, the capitalists, the peasants, the intelIt is in Japan, however, that conspira- lectuals, etc., were out to get them...

...Others believe that this invasion has already begun, with 4o,000 U.N...

...After Mahatma Gand- resources to destroy their largely-imagihi was killed, Tito became the head of nary enemies...

...I do not pretend to have the answers to these questions...

...Meanwhile, on the far right of the political spectrum, numerous groups anxiously scan the skies as they await an imminent invasion by paratroops under the command of the United Nations, sometimes called the Multi-Jurisdictional Task Force...

...Surprisingly, Japan- genocide were amply justified as prudent ese conspiracy theories all focus on Jews...

...Comedian Bill Cosby, for example, not long ago charged JOSEPH SHATTAN is consulting editor of that AIDS was "started by human beings to The American Spectator...

...government is "deliberately" making drugs available to poor blacks...

...We know Tito was recent- and Poi Pot genuinely believed that the ly buried in the Vatican...

...Nation of Islam leader Lewis Farrakhan claims that the U.S...

...in fact, some of them only occurred to me while reading Pipes's book...

...The Communist candidate Gennady Zyuganov, who tried to ow alarmed should we be by the exploit popular fears of American and Jew- global growth of conspiracy theish conspiracies in the 1996 Russian pres- ofies...

...In January 1997, the Office of the White House Counsel issued a 331-page document curiously entitled "Communications Stream of Conspiracy Commerce," alleging that charges of wrongdoing against the Clintons are nothing more than a conspiracy run by a handful of "right wing activists" who feed their fabrications to such "partisan" publications as "the American Spectator, the Washington Times and the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal," which then pass them on to the "mainstream" press...

...cils the leadership obsesses over Jews rather Japanese preoccupation with fiendish than Pakistanis, Turks and Algerians...

...04...

...Pat Buchanan, for example, argues that "real power in America belongs to the Manhattan Money Power...

...Their] public message stresses attained popularity and sales, book stores problems associated with the immigration set up 'Jewish corners' to handle a profuof Muslims, but in the privacy of its coun- sion of books on the subject...

...Movie 74 November 1997 • The American Spectator director Spike Lee asserted that "AIDS is a government-engineered disease...

...Soon, they fear, this army will conquer the country and proceed to Phase Two of its diabolical plan: The insertion of tiny microchips into Americans' buttocks to keep track of everyone's whereabouts...

...in 1996, he joined forces with the New Alliance, a The American Spectator • November 1997 75 conspiratorial neo-Marxist group...

...is run by a "Secret Team" that engages in drug trafficking and gun-running...

...A powerful Jewish Jean-Marie Le Pen in France and Jorg 'shadow government' runs the United Haider in Austria win a sixth of the nation- States and conjured up the Kuwait crisis al vote and take office in some munici- in 1990-1991....As anti-Semitic theories palities...

...Recent American presidential candidates, reports Pipes, are also prone to conspiracy theories...

...Go figure...

...Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao the Masons...

...acts of self-defense...

...And Lyndon LaRouche, the biggest fruit in this particular cake, believes that England's Queen Elizabeth II is the world's leading war criminal...

...However, conspiracism does pose a major threat to countries "in transition to democracy (the young United States, the Weimar Republic, post-Soviet Russia...

...until they overcome their conThe Free Press l 236 pages /$25 spiratorial mindset, chances of establishing decent, law-abiding regimes in the REVIEWED BY Middle East are next to nil...

...found that over 6o percent of the Russians Tokyo was targeted, Pipes explains, because believe that "the West is pursuing a goal of the group saw the capital city as the "Jew-deliberately weakening Russia through ish" heart of the country...

...All the more puzzling, then, is Pipes's failure even to raise them...

...government, defeated comeback...

...Timothy McVeigh and groups like Aum Impoverished, war-torn Serbia is sim- Shinri Kyo can cause terrible harm...