Reply #13: exactly.

[unpossibles]

people used to think the Watergate break ins, Iran-Contra, and the lies to start this war were conspiracy theories.

While some of the wilder ones can hurt our cause, to ignore the past is to be doomed to repeat it. In order to move forward, we have to know where we stand, and have knowledge of from where we came.

For instance, Project Ajax: once considered a conspiracy theory, "we" overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran in 1953 by a CIA coup. It's considered fact now, although maybe not common knowledge, and is one of several reasons we're still having trouble in the Middle East. To ignore it, is to incorrectly be able to figure out how to solve the problems there.

Sadly, our foreign policy has been dominated by similar CIA-run machinations, so we honestly have quite a lot to fix, but we can't ignore those "solutions" which lead to today's problems.