Cui bono
 Cui bono    | |
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Cui bono?, literally "to whom is it a benefit?", is a Latin phrase about identifying crime suspects. It expresses the view that crimes are oftentimes committed to benefit their perpetrators, especially financially. Which party benefits may not be obvious, and there may be a scapegoat.
However, the argument based on the cui bono principle alone can also lead to the fallacy cum hoc ergo propter hoc ("with this, therefore because of this") , since the simultaneous presence of an interest and an event that serves this interest cannot be used to infer the causality of the event, which may also have occurred by interested third parties or by mere coincidence.
In the modern age, the principle of asking cui bono has become an indispensable part of criminology, political analysis and history. When an investigation doesn't follow up on cui bono, it may be an indication that something is fishy.
Related Quotations
| Page | Quote | Author | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Terrorism" | “Terrorism is not really an '-ism'. There's no connection between the Sandinistas who fought the Contras and Al Qaida or Colombia's FARC and fisherman turned pirates in Africa and Asia, yet they are all called "terrorists". That's just a convenient way for your government to convince the world that there is another enemy '-ism' out there, like communism used to be. It diverts attention from the very real problems.
Our narrow-minded attitudes and the resultant policies foment violence, rebellion and wars. In the long run, almost noone benefits from attacking the people we label as "terrorists", with one, glaring exception:- the corporatocracy. Those who own and run the companies that build the ships, missiles and armoured vehicles, make guns, uniforms and bulletproof vests, distribute food, soft drinks and ammunition, provide insurance, medicines and toilet paper, constructions ports, airstrips and housing and reconstruct devastated villages, schools, factories and hospitals. They, and only they, are the big winners. The rest of us are hoodwinked by that one, loaded word "terrorist". The current economic collapse has awakened us to the importance of regulating and reining in the people who control the businesses that benefit from the misuse of words like "terrorism" and who perpetrate other scams. We recognize today that white collar executives are not a special, incorruptible breed.” | Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann | |
| Ben Nimmo | “Nimmo’s track record is simply appalling. In this report for the Atlantic Council website, he falsely identified British pensioner @Ian56789 as a “Russian troll farm”, which led to Ian being named as such by the British government, and to perhaps the most surreal Sky News interview of all time. Perhaps still more remarkably, Nimmo searches for use of the phrase “cui bono?” in reference to the Skripal and fake Douma chemical weapons attacks. Nimmo characterises use of the phrase cui bono as evidence of pro-Assad and pro-Kremlin bots and trolls – he really does. Most people would think to consider cui bono indicates a smattering more commonsense than Nimmo himself displays.” | Craig Murray Ben Nimmo | 28 August 2018 |
