| So even before there was evidence to show these theories false, there was a lack of evidence to support them. We can also look at what would be required for the accused parties to have done what they were accused of, if the ascribed motives actually make sense, and if this was the likely way for the accused parties to achieve their goals assuming the assumptions of their motives are accurate.
Environmentalist saboteurs
Let's start with what seems the post popular theory, that environmentalists did it. The evidence seems to be that some environmental groups have committed vandalism or sabotage. However, these were people putting nails in trees to deter loggers from taking them, or animal rights groups breaking in to laboratories or slaughterhouses to show what goes on, there's a pattern of the illegal act being intended to prevent what they want to prevent. This charge assumes they'd cause the disaster they were warning about. It's as if they'd cut down a forest to prove the effects of deforestation were wrong. It sounds like the story of Greenpeace skinning seal pups alive to get film of this awful practice, a story which damaged Greenpeace's reputation for years and probably still does.*
Now think about what these sabotaging environmentalists would need to pull this off. They would need a submarine capable of going a mile deep, of which there are very few, and it seems likely the owners would notice they were missing. Blowing up the well would seem extraordinarily dangerous. So supposedly, these "enviros" stole a sub without detection, got it to the drilling site however far away that was, blew it up without damaging the sub, and put the sub back without detection or noticeable damage.
Why would they do it? To create a disaster to prove offshore drilling could cause a disaster. However, we've already noticed the pattern of those who commit sabotage damaging what they think is causing the problem. They don't cause the problem. There have been plenty of other spills and blowouts to make the point about the danger. It is true none of these received enough attention to stop new drilling, but that's cause only for suspicion, not proof. Of course, one of the marks of the scare quotes type of "conspiracy theory" is that suspicion of a motive is taken as proof, and that's all conservatives have here.
Was sabotaging Deepwater Horizon the best way to make the point? Wouldn't any well do? Yes, though conservatives want to assign great meaning to this one well, like somehow national prestige and hopes for energy independence hung on this well they hadn't heard of before. A blowout at a producing well or a shallow well would have made the point equally well, and the shallow wells would presumably be a lot easier to attack.
So the environmentalist sabotage claim has no evidence, suspicion of motives that's unreasonable, is less than the best way to carry out such a plot if there was one, and a huge difficulty in the carrying out.
Foreign submarine attack
The foreign submarine claim fails for basically the same reasons. A believer would be correct in pointing out the public might not be told if the government knew a foreign submarine was in the area, but that's just an explanation for a lack of evidence, not evidence, and of course a common component of conspiracy theories is the evidence is being covered up, and you can't prove it isn't.
On the other hand, why would the government, and presumably BP, cover up this information when it would absolve them from blame? With the liability and horrific PR it faces, BP has a huge incentive to reveal the foreign sub attack. The government has looked very bad too; the MMS, Interior in general, congressmen who supported looser regulations, and the White House all have a huge incentive to reveal the "truth", which begs the question of why they wouldn't.
Not only would the submarine need to get close enough to attack without getting detected, it would have to escape detection after the attack. It would have to be capable of attacking a target a mile deep, and hitting a small target. I don't know what foreign submarines are capable of, but that sounds very difficult.
Moreover, whoever sent the submarine would face the prospect of war with the US if they were caught. Believers are assuming they would bear that risk for stopping one well when there are hundreds in the Gulf of Mexico already. So the motive doesn't make sense: taking a massive risk for little potential gain.
Would accused nations even be capable of doing this? I don't know, but I do know that's a question with an objectively true answer, and conservatives didn't address it, which is a bit telling. Besides, it could be projected by someone familiar with the damage torpedoes can cause or familiar with offshore drilling what the result of the attack would be, yet it seemed every expert immediately believed it was an accident.
The countries I've heard named as suspects are Russia, Venezuela, China, and especially North Korea. Presumably they know more about the global oil market than US conservatives, who can't figure out how little one well adds or even how little one oil field adds. Even allowing attacking this well would somehow bolster the price of oil by reducing supply, there are smaller oil producers who could be attacked and have less ability to retaliate. Moreover, while conservatives might still suspect Russia or Venezuela, China and North Korea are themselves importers, so it's in their interest to have the US add to the global supply. If these evil foreigners just wanted to stop us getting energy independence, this was an odd way to go about it, because whether this was an attack or accident, it's pushing us to alternative energies, the opposite of the intended effect, and that seems so obvious even a dittohead could figure it out.
So even before we have evidence of a cause other than a foreign submarine, we can tell it's highly unlikely because of the difficulty of attacking, the huge risk of retaliation relative to a dinky gain, and the main suspects wouldn't even gain by it.
Obama deliberately delayed
When Michael Brown was challenged repeatedly by Chris Mathews to state his evidence, Brown kept responding that Obama wanted to use the blowout to stop any more offshore drilling. That was a giveaway that he had no evidence, and maybe he stuck to that point because he was there to spin and he stuck to his talking point. We don't need to know his motive however, because we can see what he was doing. He was asserting a motive for an accused person doing what he is accused of, and using the motive as proof of the accusation. He may have believed it, because it's one of the marks of conspiracy theory thinking. How do you know Obama's birth certificate is fake? Because his parents wanted to pretend he was a citizen. How do you know the WTC was destroyed by planted explosives? Because the government for war.
What evidence would be needed seems clear. There would have to be a memo saying something like, "This will plug the hole, so don't do it." Or maybe, "This is what we need to stop offshore drilling." Or maybe there's no memo, but rescue boats or oil skimmers were ordered to stay away. If such evidence exists, it hasn't been presented.
Now take Obama's endorsement of increased drilling, repeated shortly before the blowout. The GOBP must think him ingeniously duplicitous to keep advocating for a position he really opposed right before it literally blows up. Did Obama take a huge risk there would be no accident and he would be stuck defending increased drilling, or did he make a mistake advocating drilling? If he really wanted less, why would he appear to fall for a Republican talking point?
So either Obama took the risk that there would never be an accident to prove his point, or he screwed up this one policy position, and any delays dealing with it have to be explained some other way.
Obama and BP conspired together
The Republican candidate who suggested this could have at least given investigators a starting point when calling for an investigation while admitting he had no evidence whatsoever. His evidence seems to be that he couldn't then and there prove himself wrong. So far, this one hasn't gotten much credence on the right. Maybe they're not completely insane.
To state what should have been but wasn't obvious, even if you buy into the idea Obama was secretly against more drilling, BP had nothing to gain and much to lose. I won't say they had every incentive to avoid an accident because some incentive was lacking, but that they had nothing to gain by an accident should be clear. They therefore wouldn't have worked with Obama to blow up their well. If they did, then all the potential whistleblowers are being silenced, and all the recordings and documents are destroyed or hidden. Or is the evidence undiscovered because it doesn't exist? You be the judge.
Nah, it's my post, I'll be the judge. It's much more likely it doesn't exist.
This has gotten plenty long, and getting into why conservatives are willing to indulge one conspiracy theory after another is a topic in itself. Instead, I'll just make a few relevant points.
I make no claim only conservatives can fall into this mode of thinking. It just happens to be more common on their side at the moment. Maybe liberals will fall into it next time our world view appears to have melted when brought into contact with reality.
I just want to reiterate that the point of all this wasn't to argue against these specific claims on the right regarding Deepwater Horizon, but to show a thought process that can be applied to any claim, even before evidence the claim is false.
Finally, here are a couple guidelines to jumpstart your next debunking. Remember Occam's razor: the simplest explanation that fits the facts is probably right. Also remember this quote by Carl Sagan, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".
Have fun watching the video of the meeting where BP and Obama planned the blowout! If it turns up.
*Supposedly a Canadian commission in the 1960's heard testimony from a seal hunter who was paid by a film crew to skin a seal alive. Greenpeace didn't exist until 1971. |
