John Kaminski
Ghosts of Oklahoma City
Mon Apr 14 16:12:19 2003
204.189.23.194

Ghosts of Oklahoma City

Eight years later, truth is the last casualty

By John Kaminski
skylax@comcast.net

The dead are buried, but the wounded can't be healed.

As in all the world's atrocities, both cry out for justice, yet no
one hears their pleas.

This April 19th is the eighth anniversary of that awful day when 168
unsuspecting people suddenly lost their lives in a massive explosion
that obliterated the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Literally minutes after the blast, an ATF agent was heard to say the
crime was revenge for the massacre of members of a religious cult in
Waco, Texas two years earlier. Thus, like the lone assassin theory used
in so many public crimes, the official story line was planted, and now
it is cast in stone.

The so-called perpetrator has been tried, convicted, and executed,
but those long-suffering survivors who walk around the glittering new
Oklahoma City Bombing Museum are haunted by the ghostly apparition of
guilt for never finding out what really happened on that innocent
Wednesday morning.

Mostly when you ask the question of those on the streets of
Oklahoma's state capital, there comes an uncomfortable silence amid
memories of suspicious suicides, changed stories and ignored evidence.
Though polite respect is the rule, no fact of the case remains certain
except the corpses, the blood, and the pain.

Sensational theories of foreign terrorists and government
conspiracies have come and gone, and now mostly gather dust on forgotten
pages in used bookstores. Witnesses ignored by the official
trial still recount their stories to the few who remain to listen.

But the world moved on to new traumas, suspiciously couched in
similarly suspect explanations.

In the public's mind, Oklahoma's great wound was overshadowed, six
years later, by an even ghastlier scenario that involved even more
catastrophic tragedy in New York and Washington in 2001. And what is
transpiring now, as the official hearings into the 9/11 tragedy get
underway amid charges of coverup and deception, seems to be an instant
replay of what happened in Oklahoma, where all those important questions
were asked but never answered.

Shortly after the Oklahoma City blast, Retired Air Force Gen. Benton
K. Partin wrote that he had conclusive proof that the Murrah Federal
Building was not destroyed by Timothy McVeigh's truck bomb, but by four
demolition charges placed at critical structural points on the third
floor.

A recognized expert in bomb damage analysis, Partin said the damage
pattern on the reinforced concrete superstructure could not possibly
have been caused by a single truck bomb.

In a letter to 72 members of Congress, Partin also urged lawmakers
"to defer action ... on so-called anti-terrorism legislation that has
serious civil liberties implications, and which would not be passed
except for the Oklahoma City bombing ... "

The retired general also noted "the effort required to bomb the
Murrah Federal Building pales in comparison to the effort to cover up
evidence in Oklahoma ... "

But Partin's evidence was shoved aside and he was not allowed to
testify before any judge.

Just as the demolished World Trade Center site was blocked from
independent forensic investigators, so was Gen. Partin's recommendation
ignored and the Murrah building demolished before explosives experts
could properly examine the building.

Except for a few of the less popular books that have inadvertently
slipped onto the new OKC memorial's library shelves, the museum's
message is essentially the same as the government's: white Patriot
maniac avenging government atrocity at Waco now executed; sad case
closed.

But still lingering, important questions asked and never answered,
the ghosts of Oklahoma City:

• The strange "suicide" of OKC police officer Terence Yeakey, who
had helped rescue victims moments after the blast, who compiled
extensive files on his observations which were never found, who was
discovered with his wrists and throat slashed and after that, 3,300 feet
from his car, with a
bullet through his head at an impossible angle ...

• The early TV reports about more bombs found in the wreckage of the
Murrah building, reports that suddenly ceased after a few days and were
forgotten ...

• The encyclopedic "Final Report" on the bombing compiled by The
Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee includes testimony from nine
recognized experts in the field of explosives dynamics who unanimously
conclude that no truck bomb of any strength could have sheared off the
concrete columns in the middle of the Murrah building ...

• Grand jury refusing to see witnesses who saw an unnamed second
person with McVeigh ... evidence of a sting operation gone bad much the
first World Trade Center bombing ... consistent official opposition to
an independent grand jury ...

• Rescue of victims halted so federal agents could remove boxes from
where the offices of the DEA and ATF had been located, including crates
marked "explosives" presumably stored in a building full of civilians
...

• FBI refuses to release satellite surveillance tapes, numerous
witnesses altered their stories from previous depositions, government
quashes testimony about existence of John Doe #2, a presumed accomplice
of McVeigh ...

• FBI fails to follow up on leads provided by paid government
informants to German provocateur Andres Strassmeier, KKK kingpin Dennis
Mahon, and possible John Doe suspect Michael Brescia, all of whom were
fingered as participants in discussions about targeting federal
buildings for terrorist acts ...

• Numerous other witnesses were threatened to "keep their mouths
shut" (Debbie Burdick, Nancy Kindle, John Jeffrey Davis, Randall A.
Yount, Jim Linehan, Morris Kuper) ...

• ATF agents told not to come to work that day, lab tests falsified,
FBI decides on type of bomb without evidence, judge makes ruling without
reading evidence ...

• All nine members of the bombing memorial museum's board of
trustees have been 'hand-picked' by our president, eliminating
impartiality of opinion here that might reveal the true facts of the
case.

The official report of the bombing committee runs 548 pages of
unanswered questions.

But the motive for the crime was established by fiat moments after
the blast, convenient criminal suspects were ID'd shortly afterwards,
and over the many months that followed, every other lead was pushed
aside because the powers that be had what they wanted, and that was
that.

Now that 9/11 probe is proceeding along the same lines of planted
stories, premature conclusions and stonewalled evasions.

The lives of those Oklahomans, not to mention Vicki Weaver, the Waco

faithful and 3,000 unsuspecting New Yorkers, remain unavenged and
unexplained, all the while with a government clucking contentedly that
wheels of justice are turning smoothly.

Despite a disinterested public, a small cadre of frustrated men and
women who know all these facts like the back of their hands bravely
continues to strive to keep these questions in the public mind. I asked
one what he thought was the real deal about Oklahoma City that the
government had worked so hard all these years to conceal.

"I think it was the Iraqi connection," he confided.

In a letter from the executive director of the new museum, this
source reportedly wrote back: "Thank you for providing us with the
additional information, but in fact, the veracity of these materials
still would not impact the story told in the memorial museum."

And the ghosts of Oklahoma City continue to float on the dusty air.

Source: Final Report on the Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah
Building, April 19, 1995, by the Oklahoma Bombing Investigation
Committee, available online at www.okcbombing.org

John Kaminski, who lives on the coast of Florida, is the author of
"America's Autopsy Report," soon to be published by Dandelion Books
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