Substitute the word "planning" for "conspiracy" and you can take a lot of the emotion out of understanding situations.

People plan. Clearly some people planned the attacks on the World Trade Center. Other people planned the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Organizations always have plans. Normally we don't use the word "conspiracy" for ordinary planning. Conspiracy is criminal planning. It may be criminal under the criteria of the legal system, or it may be secret planning because the goals or methods, if made public, would have a negative effect on the planners. Since criminal and unethical acts go on all the time, everywhere in the world, there is a lot of conspiracy. You can conspire with others to rob a bank, defraud a widow, or kill a bunch of peasants to get their land cheap.

Usually we call something a "conspiracy theory" when it goes against conventional explanations and concerns what we believe are extraordinary crimes. Take the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Clearly a lot of planning was involved, both criminal and non-criminal. The president's route was planned; there is always a security plan when a President is out and about. The assassin, Lee Oswald, had a plan for that day, otherwise he would not have bought a rifle and been seen in a building in the vicinity of the assassination.

When people start having to explain what Oswald's motives were and how he happened to be at the scene of the crime, plus some other debatable issues (directions of gunfire, number of bullets, etc.) you move into conspiracy theories. A theory can try to piece together evidence in order to get a true picture of reality. It can also be driven by other agendas. Even a conspiracy theorist seeking a true picture of reality can become confused by the array of evidence.

Criminals usually try to hide their crimes. The smarter ones try to create false evidence that will lead an investigator down a false path. This makes it very difficult for people to assess the legitimacy of a conspiracy theory. We know that sometimes people confess to crimes they did not commit; otehrs lie and refuse to admit to crimes they did commit; they fabricate and destroy evidence. Witnesses may lie, or may remember some things incorrectly.

Some conspiracy theories are ludicrous because there is so much evidence that shows them to be false. Holocaust denial is a good example of that.

I think the long life of Kennedy conspiracy theories has to do with the complicated evidence (and lack

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