False Flag Operation and subsequent Order from Chaos = Veidt/Pyramid false flag operation.
(Albeit Alien false flag in the comic or Dr M as per film)

Dr M = All powerful, bringer of light, understands why it had to be done, Lucifer?

Night Owl = Owl is worshipped by the NWO. Endorses the plan.

This, then, leads to questions about why he reacts the way he does to certain moments. His shock and frustration during the interview, his surprise at the Comedian’s violence in the bar, his bafflement at the big reveal. He has the line where he says something like, “Even my reactions are preordained. I’m just a puppet that sees the strings.” So why, exactly, does he still allow himself to react emotionally? Why ARE those reactions preordained, if he can see what will happen as if it already has?

“And if you want to get technical about it, the good Doctor is complicit in the attack from the beginning, in that his non-linear experience of time would have allowed him to stop it if he felt the need.)”

Actually, Dr. Manhattan’s foresight into Veidt’s plans was clouded by Tachyons (theoretical particles that move faster than the speed of light and exist in the Watchmen universe) that prevented him from clearly seeing the future. In both the graphic novel and the movie, Tachyons are mentioned to have prevented Dr. M from uncovering the nature of Veidt’s plans, although Dr. M did predict a major catastrophe. In the graphic novel, there’s a great scene where Dr. M starts acting like a broken record and repeating himself, addressing the wrong people and acting like he’s a malfunctioning machine due to the Tachyons that I think is worth revisiting if you need a reference. He starts talking about them right after doomsday strikes in the street with Laurie in ch. 12 I believe.

Also, I’m all for more analysis of Watchmen, but I would have liked to see more in the article explain what “no room for moral absolutes” means for our contemporary society. I guess I don’t understand the correlation between Obama and moral absolutes when I immediately think of the Bush doctrine and Bush’s “You’re either with us or with the terrorists” absolutist lines. I’d like more interpretation of the consequences Watchmen’s message for today’s world from Stokes.

Tangent: Asserting something is one president’s victory OR defeat is not always accurate. The Great Depression was NOT just Hoover’s fault, and F.D.R. didn’t single-handedly end it. The current economic crisis is/was NOT just G.W. Bush’s fault, nor are our occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Etc. There are Congress and the Supreme Court to keep in mind, as well as the long-term effects of said factors and yes, the policies of past White Houses. We like scapegoats and figureheads, though, so it happens a lot.

Funny how history played differently: Ronald Reagan (aided by Maggie Thatcher, Lech Walesa and John Paul II) defeated Soviet Socialism with nary a ripple in the space-time continuum. Guess that makes them real life Watchmen, sans the moral tarnish. Of course, Watchmen author Alan Moore no doubt believes that the leaders of the Western World were and are covered in moral tarnish, a view never more in vogue than during the Reagan years when Moore wrote Watchmen. To amplify that notion he places the proto-fascist Richard Nixon as the ongoing US President. However, the fact that the Cold War ended with a whimper and not a nuclear holocaust is an inconvenient truth that damages the story’s thesis.

One of the major themes I took away from this story was spelled out in the scrawlings on the walls: “Who’s Watching the Watchmen”. The trouble with govornments and such organizations is that the people on top, who are trying to solve the problems generally associated with the human race are, in fact, members of the human race. They are part of the problem. Rorschach punishes injustice without compromise, and yet he lights a cop on fire to escape arrest; hurting one who keeps the law for his own ends. He makes a compromise. Dr. Manhattan slaves away night and day to save a race he has lost interest in, it has become a concept, a puzzle for him, and finally he realizes the absurdity of saving a race he has learned to despise, and leaves…for a while. Ozymandias loses his humanity to save the human race, effectively detaching himself from the prize of his labor, and to follow his pragmatic ideologies to the bitter will only lead to the utter removal of mankind from the face of the earth (as complexity removes comfort and man is, by his very nature, complex). The Comedian…well, the Comedian speaks for himself, “It’s all a big fucking joke”. He sees the fundamental absurdity in the actions of the other watchmen, but chooses to stand with them because, frankly, it’s more interesting than investment banking. He’s more of a hedonist than I nihilist. He knows that none of this will last, so he lives as hard as he can and shoots any pregnant Vietnamese women who get in his way. As for Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, I agree with moralcode. When they find they cannot possibly win against Ozy and Dr. Manhattan, they turn to each other and make the best out of life, while ignoring the plight of the outside world (while at the same time becomeing part of it).

As unpopular as this may sound in the budding ‘yes we can’ era, Watchmen was, in my eyes, a testament to the failures of secular humanism. Eventually it all fades to an amoral slush, as compromises cloud the bright vision of the self-made man and perfection is only achived by the lowering of standards. The Watchmen no longer look upward for their moral code, but outward, to the swarming masses, trying to find a solution in the chaos. In the end, the only major players choose one of two paths, that of the destroyer (as in the case of Ozy), or the deserter (As with Dr. Manhattan). All else will face only frustration at the sheer magnitude of their task (as Rorschach has to kill every bad guy on the planet one by one) or the uselessness of their mercy in the face of monstrosity (as Nite Owl desperately tells a crowd of protesters there is not need for violence while The Comedian hammers them with a riot shotgun).

The story is about a clash between values and ideals and which solution should be universally accepted as the means to achieving peace at any cost.

The book seems to suggest that the struggles of mankind, which have reached an unprecedented potential for destruction, are premised on a fundamental need to divide the world between Us and Them. This is, of course, a very well documented notion in political philosophy, especially in Carl Schmitt’s writings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Concept_of_the_Political). Essentially, it seems that people can only identify themselves as part of an “Us” (whether that is a state, country, race, gender, class, etc.) in reference to another “Them,” which is by its very nature a class of people who are not-”Us”. Thus the US is held together in the cold war by its opposition to the enemy, that is, the Soviet Union. True reconciliation of this conflict and all other conflicts are impossible, because truly forming an all-inclusive common humanity is impossible insofar as it contradicts the possibility of a “Them” group that could relate to it.

Adrien Veidt, the smartest man in the world, sees this clearly, and he realizes he needs a Gordian Knot, a solution that cuts through this seemingly impossibly tangled problem. He does this, of course, with the giant squid-alien that he teleports into the middle of the city. Suddenly, mankind is not the only being in the universe; we have evidence of alien life apart from our own. Moreover, this alien is responsible for millions of death, making it an easy and obvious enemy for all of humanity. We can find a uniting commonality in the newest “Us”/”Them” dichotomoy: humanity versus the aliens. Thus, humanity is saved.

Or at least, that’s my take on it.