April 19th, 2005, marks the 10th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. I was living in the OKC area at the time and it's a day I'll never forget. An acquaintance of mine was killed in the blast and my mother-in-law had an appointment at the Murrah building that morning which she missed! I remember the shock of what happened, esp. in a quiet city like Oklahoma City. Then I remeber the shock of finding out it was homeland terrorism.

Has anyone here visited the memorial? How was everyone affected by this event?

i still remember the day it happened. i was in my sophomore year of high school and heard about it at achool. such a sad day

Since 9/11, the OKC bombing is the terrorism stepchild of the US.

Sad.

Well, that was perped by a couple of right-wing white guys. And we can't very well go rounding all of them up like we do the A-rabs, now can we?

I can't believe it's been 10 years. Doesn't seem that long to me.

I watched a doc about it on the History Channel and have read some articles as well. I'm not so sure about the perps.

If anyone else believes that Timothy McVeigh did not act alone, a great film to watch for this, is ARlington Road. I suggest checking it out.

If you guys want conspiracy theories, then look no further. Apparently, Fox News (surprise, surprise) believes that Iraq (surprise, surprise) was behind it. And it was Bush (surprise, surprise) who heroically saved us from all those Iraqi attacks (Osama who?) on the US by going to war with Saddam.

And why hasn't the US govt, which obviously knows all about this, covering all of this up? To protect the federal death penalty of course! Duh!

You can't make shit like this up.

The whole thing stinks of Iraq. Ramzi Yousef (search), an Iraqi agent that was involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and his associates were allegedly talking to Terry Nichols (search) in 1994 about how to build a fertilizer bomb.

[note here how he states matter of factly that Yousef was an "Iraqi agent." He wasn't, and no conclusive evidence linking him to Iraq has ever been found]

So now the question: So if there is all this evidence, why has the U.S. government ignored it?

Well, for one thing, I submit George W. Bush didn't ignore it after September 11, 2001. He realized then that Iraq was behind a lot of the attacks on the U.S. and it was time for it to stop.

[remember how neocon wingnuts used to get all bent out shape when libs accused them of constantly linking 9-11 and Iraq despite any evidence that Iraq was involved? remember that?]

But before September 11th, he did ignore it and so did the Clinton administration. The lawyer who is suing told Rita he didn't think the previous administration was willing to go to war over the Murrah Building bombing.

[can't have a wingnut discussion without blaming something on the Clinton administration]

OK. But why keep it secret now?

The answer is Tim McVeigh (search) and the U.S. government were each doing their part to hide the real players. Government prosecutors said there was no "John Doe No. 2" even though dozens of people saw him. McVeigh insisted all the way to the grave that he acted alone, when everybody including his lawyer knew he was lying.

If McVeigh were just the grunt — mixing the chemicals, driving the truck, setting the timer, and running off — guilty though he might be, if the bombing was a plot by a foreign government, his lawyer would have had a chance at the sentencing hearing to argue that others were more responsible and McVeigh should not be executed.

The fear that the McVeigh execution might have been an error — and a mistaken execution — could put the federal death penalty itself in jeopardy. The fear of losing the federal death penalty could explain why the U.S. government does not appear to be anxious to act on evidence it has that Iraq may have been involved in the Oklahoma City bombing.

All of this to protect the federal death penalty. And all this time we libs thought the war in Iraq and all those dead soldiers wasn't justified. Shame on us.