> If the wars in the middle east, (I would say Iraq moreso than Afghanistan, as at least Afghanistan actually harbored Al Qaeda/Taliban), don't count as a textb

> If the wars in the middle east, (I would say Iraq moreso than Afghanistan, as at least Afghanistan actually harbored Al Qaeda/Taliban), don't count as a textbook definition of conspiracy, I'm afraid nothing does. Indeed, I would even disagree with the statement about the DoS (a subsection of the government), their entire job is supposed to be diplomacy, not war, thats what DoD is for. This is why I strongly disagree with the now common knowledge among those in the realm, that intelligence agencies embed and use DoS as cover so frequently, as it undermines diplomatic initiatives heavily. As for dismissing something as "something Britta said on community", it isn't even worth addressing. The Britta joke is entirely my point. I believe there's corrupt actors in the state department who hawk war for profit. You believe the same thing, but have added some specifics that you probably can't support any better than the general statement about corrupt actors. Maybe that's not true and you DO have more evidence for the specifics than the average conspiracy theory, I don't care much. But either way, you've assigned great importance to something that most people would agree with at a high level but doubt at the very low level. The fault with conspiracy theories is they vastly overindex on specifics they can't defend, which makes generic problems sound much more urgent than most people would interpret them