So much of what we think is true is a myth.
Take for example the myth that the Nazi Party was a well oiled super-efficient extension of Hitler's will.
The reality of the situation was that there were many separate people or groups obsessed with being seen to be making Hitler's twisted dreams reality, both as a means of advancement and of self preservation. It was a mad competition to see who could do the most for the Reich, sometimes stumbling over each other in the rush.
Adolf would let out a brain fart for the morning "Corned beef is un-Aryan!" (just an example of the sort of thing he could say, I don't recall him saying anything like that personally) and someone would overhear it and quietly come up with a scheme to remove corned beef from German society, claiming the leader's approval and trying to get it done faster than the guy putting top hats on Magpies.
This is also true of these Islamist terror clubs.
There is no Al-Qaeda terror network (the brand name itself didn't exist until the USA gave it to the world out of the mouth of a thief who ran off with some of Bin Laden's money). He referred to a 'base' where Bin Laden and his small gaggle of nutcases were becoming a bit of a marginalised embarrassment to the majority of other Islamist nutcases encamped there who just wanted to blow up people in their own countries.
Bin Laden had noticed that blowing up Muslims wasn't winning any of them over to his cause and so his tiny group declared war on America (which basically meant anyone who was different from them).
He'd hand out money and independent fan clubs would come up with their own hideous schemes and do the work.
After 9-11 and after America had given publicity to the brand name lots of other groups tried the same thing. Some of them were self funding and had no link to Bin Laden himself but they wanted to get in on the act and some claimed to be part of this Al-Qaeda that they heard about in the media.
They didn't have to because almost all of them would be identified as Al-Qaeda anyway.
The same model can be placed over the various political cults and the secret services around the world.
Take a small group of political idealists.
They think people are being a bit too laid back, they aren't following predictable old fashioned models of behaviour. They believe that the forces that bind society together are out of balance.
People need to get behind the flag again, get back into church, stop obsessing over personal freedom, unite over something and make the world more like themselves and get that oil out the hands of those crazy Arabs.
Stuck with a reasonably content population and a non-interventionist and Kissingeresque President what they really needed was a catalyst, a special event, a new Pearl Harbor something to get the ball rolling.
That way they could use this new specter to get changes made, turn that Conservative president into a revolutionary and build a brave new world with America on the rise again.
If some poor guy sells you a story about a few people in a cave...sex up that story, turn that cave into a hidden fortress with computers and tanks and well if they have one they might has well have forty of them.
To hit these fortresses will take some serious fire power.
You can't do it remotely you need to send the troops in dig these guys out.
If you can't find them it must be because they have dug themselves in so deep that blowing up every mountain is the only way or maybe they have moved over the border to another country which also needs seeing to.
It's not just abroad either, those bombers came over here and despite being monitored pulled off these terror attacks.
There must be hundreds and thousands of them hiding, waiting to go off do their thing at any minute.
It's a new dark time and to stop these people requires fresh ideas. Forget the old rules, round up anyone who looks a bit different snatch them off the street wherever they are and torture the truth out of them. It's the only way to get the sort of information that fits the model that needs to be sold.
The media love stories and the internet is just another medium.
If channels A, B and C is selling you brand X, channels F,E and D will sell you brand Y.
When you play a game of chance you come up with rituals.
They give you the impression of control.
At the roulette wheel you may have a pattern of numbers or colours which you stick to and refine over the years which occasionally seems to deliver results but it's an illusion.
Some of the other players will be getting similar results with different models and others will have no model at all and might be losing less frequently.
It's chaos and only the bank wins.
Unless you work on the middle rung of the same bank the better half works at where the managers don't know how a spreadsheet works and gleefully refuse to learn or how to open or send an e-mail without a secretary to guide them through the process but somehow still earn more money than everyone else and this bank got bailed out with tax-payers money while public service providers are losing their jobs and getting their wages cut.
C3PX the reason why you haven't heard of an air marshal bringing a plane down is because thankfully there haven't been many cases of one discharging his weapon while the cabin was compressed.
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