It would be easier to rebut stupid conspiracy theories if the government stopped doing conspiratorial shit

You know, this Ibragim Todashev story is fucking crazy, and it's amazing that more people aren't pointing out that it's fucking crazy. And it's exactly the reason why it's impossible to stop stupid conspiracy theories like 9/11 Was An Inside Job or The Moon Landing Was Faked or chemtrails or black helicopters or whatever: because we've had a history of government conspiracies like the Bay of Pigs, the Gulf of Tonkin, and the CIA facilitating the inner-city crack trade, and because even when conspiracy theorists are wrong, the government acts in such a monumentally shady way that it creates space for crazy ideas. I don't doubt that the CIA tracked Osama bin Laden to Pakistan, in part through the use of a bogus vaccination campaign, sent a Seal Team to his compound, which then made a nighttime raid in which he and several people in his household were killed. But, you know, when you then throw his corpse into the sea, people are going to talk.

I don't want to reopen the Benghazi can of worms, but you have a classic case of government officials  filibustering, obfuscating, dissembling, switching stories.... As I've said, I think that the Republicans are being partisan and dishonest in how they're pursuing that story, and that the real scandal of Benghazi is about the CIA and our diplomatic service, not the Obama administration. But look, when you've made your entire consular and diplomatic apparatus a tool of your intelligence services, as we have, guess what? People have license to believe all kinds of crazy things. The parts of our government that should be most transparent and accountable, the parts that bring violent force to bear, are in fact the least accountable, to the point of being out of control.

This won't endear me to some of my progressive friends. I've just personally never seen any contradiction in believing that government is necessary, that it can do positive good if we force it to, and that it is absolutely never to be trusted. I find those, in fact, naturally corollaries of each other.