Terrorists and passports
http://www.globalresearch.ca/manchester-berlin-paris-nice-london-new-york-passports-and-ids-mysteriously-discovered-in-the-wake-of-terror-attacks/5592063
Looking at this as just a piece of data, are there any alternative hypotheses to "the terrorists have an unwritten code of ethics that makes them take their ID to their attacks, so as to not give too much trouble to the authorities?". Let us call this the baseline hypothesis
Presumably, a terrorist attack is designed so as to be claimed by a terrorist organization, in order to make some statement. In other words, this baseline hypothesis is not 100% tongue-in-cheek. (Ok, it is some 90% tongue-in-cheek).
The obvious contender against the baseline hypothesis can be called the "general conspiracy theory": The documents are found in order to construct a narrative. (Which narrative is unimportant here -- the focus is on the method, which is why this is a "general" theory).
I suppose we will never know unless we have personal contact with the personnel in the field doing the job of cleaning up a terrorist attack. I don't know anyone in this capacity, and so I will remain in doubt, for the moment. But I do observe that the general conspiracy theory is more observant of Ockham. Terrorist organizations have many different ways of claiming authorship for an attack; they don't need to leave their ID's for that. On the other hand, finding an ID is by far the easiest and most visible way (the ID can be pointed, handled, shown in TV) to give support to a narrative.
Looking at this as just a piece of data, are there any alternative hypotheses to "the terrorists have an unwritten code of ethics that makes them take their ID to their attacks, so as to not give too much trouble to the authorities?". Let us call this the baseline hypothesis
Presumably, a terrorist attack is designed so as to be claimed by a terrorist organization, in order to make some statement. In other words, this baseline hypothesis is not 100% tongue-in-cheek. (Ok, it is some 90% tongue-in-cheek).
The obvious contender against the baseline hypothesis can be called the "general conspiracy theory": The documents are found in order to construct a narrative. (Which narrative is unimportant here -- the focus is on the method, which is why this is a "general" theory).
I suppose we will never know unless we have personal contact with the personnel in the field doing the job of cleaning up a terrorist attack. I don't know anyone in this capacity, and so I will remain in doubt, for the moment. But I do observe that the general conspiracy theory is more observant of Ockham. Terrorist organizations have many different ways of claiming authorship for an attack; they don't need to leave their ID's for that. On the other hand, finding an ID is by far the easiest and most visible way (the ID can be pointed, handled, shown in TV) to give support to a narrative.
Comments (27)
I would question this in the case of passports. Driver's licenses (especially when you are driving!), I agree. But passports?
Anyone has data on the % of people who carry their passports around? My guess would be less than 10%.
Yes, and it's more like 0.1%, I would say. Take a random sample of 1,000 people and I doubt you'll find much more than one with their passport on them*. Of course, that's the general population, not terrorists. Which leads back to why...
*Europeans more likely than Americans though since they tend to travel more.
EDIT: After some unscientific mental sampling I'm going to up that to 1%.
Or is carrying a passport on the day of a scheduled terrorism act a sort of "signature" (like serial murderers who always use the same kind of man's tie to strangle their victims with)?
Are you suggesting that the police are not actually "discovering" passports on site, but are merely planting evidence, so that they can report progress in the investigation?
They're planning on dying in the process, otherwise they don't receive the rewards of martyrdom.
The martyrs are probably over-estimating the reward. I suspect they get some coupons and maybe free samples.
The police are not necessarily the ones planting the documents. But the salient point is that, given the accumulation of cases, I think it is more reasonable to believe that someone is planting documents than to believe that terrorists are more fastidious than the average citizen.
The question of why are they planting documents is probably worthy of different answers depending on the case. One explanation, which I usually prefer, is bureaucratic ass-covering. But there are others, ranging all the way up (or down) to manipulation by governmental agencies.
It is at least quite strange (to mention one of the cases listed in the link) that the US authorities knew the Manchester guy before the UK authorities did.
I thought that that was a result of a 'leak' of information that was supposed to have been kept confidential and wasn't.
Yes, this is an interesting question.
This is an argument for they having the same rate of "passport carrying" as the average citizen, but it appears they have a far higher rate.
That isn't the general view. The general view is that the US authorities published the name first, but that they obtained the name from UK sources who didn't want it published.
A good example of the difference between a narrative and a fact. The fact is that the US authorities divulged the name of the suspect mere 3 hours after the explosion. What you call "the general view" is a story to explain this. It may be true. But the fact remains curious in its own right (so curious that it demands a narrative to explain it).
[sup]1[/sup] https://www.vox.com/2015/5/20/8631295/osama-bin-laden-bookshelf-conspiracy-theories
The other point is: maybe they take pleasure in knowing that their identities will be divulged after they've committed their atrocities. Serial killers do likewise. It gives them a sense of vindication.
Must be great to know so much about the world that strange phenomena do not inspire doubt. This kind of knowledge is really fun if it allows one to dismiss facts based on their provenance.
I don't think this is established as a fact. Do you have a mainstream news source that accepts the timing cited in your conspiracy theorists' blog? It doesn't look like it's been fact-checked, and the report it quotes isn't time-stamped online.
https://www.google.com.br/search?client=opera&q=manchester+terrorist+identification+us+authorities&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
There is also this weird ad on the site:
I have every intention of rewinding my hose.
No disagreement from me on that. But the facts listed there remain (and are verifiable, at least at a general news level). The narratives offered there are not nearly as interesting as the curious facts listed.
...hackles rising.......
Very suspicious about that 'Global Research' site and who is behind it. I don't know, and don't want to know, but whoever it is, has very deep pockets, judging by the professionalism and depth of material on it.
mind you there's an element of pot-calling-kettle-black, but still.....
There's still a sad little shrine at the foot of the steps up to the still-closed Arena, I passed there on Thursday night.
It is one way to look at it.
But another way is to consider that the immense suffering of those personally involved in it, and the recurrence of similar events in different times and places, leads people -- even people from so far away and still untouched by "standard terrorism"* -- to become interested in it and to notice anomalies, and to muse about them. In other words, what you call conspiracy theories is far from derogating, it is actually a way of honoring the suffering of the people involved. These events are so important that we want the truth, and will not accept inconsistent narratives -- the bar is raised for them. If you'll examine cases of conspiracy theories, you'll see these two common traits:
1. The event being explained is an emotionally-charged event
2. There is an official narrative, with some inconsistencies.
Now, inconsistencies do not falsify any narrative. The fact that some narrative has inconsistencies is to be expected when dealing with human events. There is a gradation of "tolerance", though. People will accept inconsistencies in a minor, page-24-buried story that has little emotional charge that they won't accept in stories of terrorist attacks.
I think that the search and analysis of inconsistencies in official narratives can only do good for the body politic, by the way. We, as societies, would certainly do better with a more scientific approach to situations like this.
* note, though, that the printed media in Rio de Janeiro has just declared our situation to be that of "war" and is instituting "war departments" in local coverage.