HN just wouldn't be the same without a conspiracy theory on the front page.
all believed to be just "crazy conspiracy theories" and now proven to be the case.
In the case of LIBOR, anywhere from a few hundred to a couple thousand people kept the secret of the manipulation for about 10 years - it only came to light due to a slightly-related investigation of one of the banks involved.
Maybe this crash was an assassination. But if you want to not be called a conspiracy nut, you need evidence to back it up. So far there is none.
Without evidence, there's no way to distinguish between something like LIBOR and the idea that Apollo 11 was filmed on a Hollywood sound stage.
So far, every single article on this guy's crash has been of the fake moon landing genre, not the LIBOR genre.
Maybe it happened. But as long as people keep posting conspiracy theories about it, I'm going to keep calling them exactly that.
I don't see how speculation about the circumstances of Hastings death need involve much of a conspiracy theory. It's not like we're talking about JFK here.
His life was directly threatened over and over again due to his previous writings; and it was threatened by someone close to McChrystal.
I'm going to need something more than "the USG could have assassinated him". Because even in the current climate, even with the threats, an accident is still the best explanation until shown otherwise. And none of the articles have come anywhere close to showing otherwise.
What I have said however, is that Hastings was threatened with death repeatedly for his writings. I wouldn't find it the least bit surprising if someone did make an attempt on his life.
Indeed, I don't think the USG would bother with an official assassination of someone like Hastings. There are plenty of dark characters available for that type of simplistic grunt work. For example, the guy associated with McChrystal that directly threatened to murder Hastings.
You may not find it surprising if someone attempted to kill him. I may not find it surprising either, I don't know. But what I do know is that nothing revealed about this particular case so far points toward an assassination, and all of the articles about it posted on HN have approached the crash with a conspiracy mindset, where they twist fairly mundane facts to try to support the idea that it was, in fact, an assassination.
the US Government "claims" to have the authority to assassinate US citizens.
My view of the Constitution says the US Gov't does NOT have the authority to execute someone without a trial.
"Such considerations allow for the use of lethal force in a foreign country against a U.S. citizen who is a senior operational leader of al'Qaida or its associated forces, and who is actively engaged in planning to kill Americans, in the following circumstances: (1) the U.S. government has determined, after a thorough and careful review, that the individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States; (2) capture is not feasible; and (3) the operation would be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles."
With regard to the other three citizens that have been killed in a drone strike, their claim is that these individuals were not specifically targeted and were collateral damage.
The document (http://www.justice.gov/slideshow/AG-letter-5-22-13.pdf) does place emphasis on foreign country. So while not making any value judgement on the policy, I think its useful to see it in full, as currently understood.
One interesting corollary to look at is the Civil War, where U.S. citizens took up arms against their government and were killed by the government, where no declaration of war took place.
This is gotten tangential, but all I'm saying is current claims the U.S. has made do not seem to extend to extra-judicial killing of targets not engaged in active warfare on U.S. soil.
Edited: to add quotation marks.
People seem to think that a conspiracy theory is about what is being theorized. The moon landing was faked. 9/11 was an inside job. The NSA is recording every American phone call.
But that's not it at all. It's not about what you theorize, it's about how. A sane and considered theory that leads to a crazy-seeming conclusion is not a conspiracy. Similarly, an insane theory that leads to a correct conclusion is still a conspiracy theory.
Some examples. Saying that the moon landing was faked because the flag was "fluttering" and there are no stars in the photographs is a conspiracy theory. Saying that the moon landing may have been faked because, say, you managed to get ahold of a secret memo from JFK discussing the possibility of faking it, would not be a conspiracy theory.
Similarly, saying that the NSA is spying on everybody because of the testimony and documentation provided by a whistleblower is not a conspiracy theory. However, saying that the NSA is spying on everybody because all the numbers in your e-mail header add up to 666 is a conspiracy theory.
What it comes down to is how you interpret the evidence. If you interpret it sanely, then it's not a conspiracy theory. If you twist mundane things to build narratives that are not justified by the evidence, then it's a conspiracy theory.
That is what's happening with this story. Is it possible that this person was assassinated by the US government? Sure. Is that theory supported by the evidence discussed by this article and other similar articles posted to HN over the past few weeks? Not even a little bit. And that, not the supposed outlandishness of the conclusion, is what makes this a "conspiracy theory" that is not worth paying attention to and frankly not worth making it to the front page of HN.
If an article on this matter shows up that sanely analyzes the evidence and comes up with the conclusion that it was probably an assassination, I'd love to see it on the front page. So far, this has not appeared.