Yeah, so I have an unhealthy obsession with the OKC bombing. I collect conspiracy theories like Hummels. It's odd, in a way, because I don't remember feeling particularly strongly about the attack when I heard about it. In do remember where I was: sitting in a college cafeteria, watching the TV, seeing the repeating reels of footage and the flummoxed anchors. I was surprised, but not really. Having followed the lunatic aftermath of Waco and Ruby Ridge, I figured it was only a matter of time before Whitey got revenge on the gubmint. (And flash forward another year, when Eric Rudolph had his fun little reign of terror and then disappeared completely: talk about Whitey On the Moon.)
I also remember what I'd been doing the night before: Hanging out with a neighbor; we were supposed to be doing color theory projects. Instead, we were playing with a Ouija board. It told us "Beware of death by crater." Spooky, eh?
Not making light of the deaths of those 168 (or was it 169?) people, but, you know, it seemed so far away from us at the time. Plus, there was the reassurance that it was just a bunch of white power crazies. It just didn't seem that they could get their act together on such a large scale again.
This week marks the ninth anniversary of the attack, and what more do we know? Well, first of all, there's this:
"Security videotapes from the area show the truck detonation three minutes and six seconds after the suspects exited the truck,'' the Secret Service reported six days after the attack on a log of agents' activities and evidence in the Oklahoma investigation.The government has insisted McVeigh drove the truck himself and that it never had any video of the bombing or the scene of the Alfred P. Murrah building in the minutes before the April 19, 1995, explosion.Several investigators and prosecutors who worked the case told the Associated Press they had never seen video footage like that described in the Secret Service log.The document, if accurate, is either significant evidence kept secret for nine years or a misconstrued recounting of investigative leads that were often passed by word of mouth during the hectic early days of the case, they said.Of course, Timothy McVeigh claimed he acted alone. Other people, including Terry Nichols, claim he didn't:
Nichols says his lawyers were denied critical evidence that a gang the FBI called the Midwest Bank Bandits or Aryan Republican Army assisted McVeigh. The defense contends that Nichols was "framed" by his former friend to shield McVeigh's co-conspirators operating out of Elohim City and elsewhere.But then again, what connections is Nichols lying about? And what have the investigators been ignoring?:
After the bombing, the owner learned the Ryder truck had been seen at a gas station next to the motel. The attendant told him a Middle Eastern man had bought a lot of diesel. He gave Davis a signed affidavit stating that the driver “paid $120 cash for 100 gallons of diesel fuel.”Well, now that McVeigh is dead, and Nichols is desperate to do anything to commute his sentence, I doubt very much that we'll ever know what happened. I'm not implying there was an Operation Northwoods scenario going on here, although the government was quick to postulate that this was the act of Islamic terrorists. (Remember the Maine, people.) No, the truth is something between the frequencies of the Freepers and the FBI. Posted by Dana at April 21, 2004 01:01 AM
plus if you read through the new dick clarke book, he mentions that McVeigh and uh, mister al-qaeda-so-and-so happened to coincide visits to the phillipines, in the same tiny city, in the same three days, oddly enough.
WOOowowowoWOowooWoOWowowoooo
maybe the right-wingers who took to the airwaves immediately after the attack (because I remember hearing them yelling about THE ARAB THREAT on the radio on the car ride home) weren't as far off as was thought.
still, i like to blame things on hicks.
Actually, it was Nichols and Ramsi Yusef, but you get the picture. This chapter of the controversial (and later pulped) book which I linked to above talks about that too.
Posted by: dana at April 21, 2004 09:08 AMI remember hearing about it before driving to work. There was a guy who had been working with me at the bookstore named Miles who was from Oklahoma City, and had recently quit and gone back home. I thought of him, but he wasn't in the building.
Oddly, despite all the evil-Nazi's in the hill's propoganda thrown around, McVeigh by all reports wasn't a white supremacist, merely an anti-goverment fanatic. He still got what he desrved, though.
Posted by: jonmc at April 21, 2004 09:31 AMMcVeigh by all reports wasn't a white supremacist
By all what reports? By the FBI reports, that I've cited above, that link him with the Aryan Republican Army and Elohim City?
Posted by: dana at April 21, 2004 10:08 AM10th Grade biology, at the very beginning of class Mrs. Bell announced what happened. Being in Tulsa (about an hour and a half from OKC), there were a lot of people that had family in downtown. They didn't know (or didn't say) which building it was, so a few kids went to the counselors office.
FWIW, in an odd way, the bombing really "saved" OKC. For a long time before then, it had been falling into urban decay. The city has recovered extremely well, built a powerful memorial, and completely rejuvenated its downtown, both commercially and entertainment-wise.
My dad has run the OKC memorial marathon for the past 3 years, but due to a back injury is doing a "relay-marathon" with his running buddy where each does half of it. He says that the support the town shows for the runners is pretty massive and has actually grown each year.
Thanks for the post, d.
Posted by: ufez at April 21, 2004 10:13 AMMcVeigh was a veteran from the first gulf war, wasnt he?
I remember a picture of him with then president bush 1 shaking hands.
any link with Gore Vidal interview? thanks
and by the way...
Today in History:
Ashes of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry journeyed into space, 1997.
Politics, even at it's weirdest, makes for strange bedfellows. Unlike the white supremacists I've seen who've been busted for major crimes, he didn't declare his crime to be part of a racial holy war or a strike against ZOG. He seemed to be upset about Waco and Ruby Ridge. Hell, so was I. The white-power folks were the only people who gave a shit about those incidents for a while so he'd wind up around them. He was racist based on some comments I've heard attributed to him, but no more than the average redneck.
Posted by: jonmc at April 21, 2004 10:20 AMWhat's the definition of the Average Redneck, though? Does he own a copy of the Turner Diaries?
Oh, and here's that Gore Vidal article, which also claims that McVeigh had no allegiance to White Power organizations. Yet he traveled all over the country and made friends in a number of "patriot" organizations. And while these groups may not be explicitly White Power, they're certainly moreso than your Average Redneck.
Posted by: dana at April 21, 2004 10:33 AMHell, I've read some of the Turner Diaries out of curiosity, so did a black buddy of mine, only he did it publicly just to see the double takes. Although the bookstore (famously liberal and "pro-free-speech") we worked in forbade us to display the book in any fashion post-bombing, even though there was a lot of interest in it and we had boocoo copies in stock.
By that I meant that he was casually racist, in that he prolly wasn't too fond of dusky-skinned folk but it didn't seem to be his raison d'etre as they say. The far right has other concerns (some of them legitamite: tax protestors, the power of the federal government, the second amendment) which get intertwined with the wacky racial theories which aren't legitamite.
I think McVeigh latched onto the things I mentioned. That and he was a homicidal sociopath.
Posted by: jonmc at April 21, 2004 10:48 AMHell, I've read some of the Turner Diaries out of curiosity
Me too. So what? The plural of "anecdote" ain't "data." Besides, neither of us has built a bomb (uh, yet) to the specs of the Turner Diaries.
And McVeigh, in addition to owning a copy and apparently building a bomb, consorted with a number of known White Power groups, some of whom he may have even ROBBED BANKS WITH in order to fund the attacks and then framed Nichols in order to cover up said groups' involvement. Occam's Razor would say he wasn't just an opportunist, he was a supporter of their beliefs.
Posted by: dana at April 21, 2004 11:13 AMconsorted with a number of known White Power groups, some of whom he may have even ROBBED BANKS WITH
"may have," "consorted with," that's nothing you can take into court. I've consorted with bikers, and read Hunter Thompson, that dosen't make me a Hell's Angel. All we know for sure is that he built a bomb. As for the rest, there's only one guy who knows for sure and he ain't talking.
Posted by: jonmc at April 21, 2004 11:33 AMThere's a study that was done on the effect of the footage being shown over and over on local television after the bombing, particularly on children. Apparently, the common phenomena was that the children thought the entire town had been demolished.
Posted by: Bondgirl at April 21, 2004 11:47 AMThank you dana for the link ...
did you like the CD?