This analysis, reprinted below, of the
destruction of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City is corroborated
by virtually every unbiased, uncompromised and intelligent rendition and
breakdown of the events we've ever seen; INCLUDING the accounts and witness
testimony which were reported DIRECTLY from the scene of the disaster on the
morning of the massive disaster, by the news and media crews present.
There is NO DOUBT WHATSOEVER that the Murrah
building was NOT destroyed by a Ryder truck filled with fertilizer-based
explosives and parked across the street. NOT, NOT, NOT.
This utter fabrication and distortion of
truth and reality which OUR federal government has continually foisted upon
the public is a COMPLETE, UTTER, HEINOUS, MALICIOUS AND EVIL LIE--propounded
to the far corners of the earth--for reasons which remain somewhat
uncertain.
Except for this: the destruction of this
building--and the subsequent gargantuan, megalithic Hitler-like "Big Lie"
OUR government spewed unilaterally and endlessly subsequent to the
horrendous event, to the effect that the building was "bombed" by radical,
right-wing "militia" fanatics Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols using the truck
bomb--figured BIG in hyping the public and Congress to support the passage
of the Anti-Terrorist Bill. The bill was a dead duck until the destruction
of the Murrah Building and the overwhelming propaganda campaign of
incredible lies that OUR government promulgated about the event.
And, the VAST majority of the sickeningly
spineless, gutless, BRAINLESS and staggeringly INEFFECTUAL and worthless
major news media organizations bought the government's lies and regurgitated
them verbatim; over and over and over again.
The feds WANTED that bill passed no matter
what: and with consummate evil they manipulated public perceptions of
the OKC bombing to make it appear the American "militia" movement,
infested with violent, demented, dangerous and homicidal lunatics, was
responsible; and that this terrorist militia movement and other terrorist
organizations must be fought with such methods and tactics as the
Anti-Terrorism Bill would provide.
We are now living with the effects of this
frightening and unconstitutional Anti-Terrorism Bill and our federal
government's continual, widespread and abusive implementation on a daily
basis of the tactics and procedures provided for by the bill.
NewsHawk® Inc.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Subject: IMPORTANT: THE TRUTH OF THE OKC
BOMBING
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2000 22:46:29 -1000
From: "Don Stacey" <dstacey@mediaone.net>
What REALLY happened to the Murrah Office
Building in Oklahoma City? The "lone nut" story of Timothy McVeigh never
seemed right even before the grossly inconsistent evidence began streaming
forth. At first, it was just haunting questions. Why was a major office of
the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms in the building totally empty
during normal business hours on that morning? Why did BATF personnel lie
about it? Why were no children of the BATF personnel at the day care center
that day? Why had a judge been warned not to come to work that day? Why had
the
fire department been alerted before the
explosion? Why had several people reported seeing a bomb squad truck at the
Murrah building before the explosion?
THE OKLAHOMA CITY INVESTIGATION: A SICK
$89 MILLION JOKE
When the US military destroyed a
$100,000,000 manufacturing plant in Sudan a few months ago, I found myself
thinking about the Anti-Terrorist Act, one of the legal theories that
"justified" the assault.
We've since learned that: 1) the factory
made medicine not chemical weapons, 2) enemy "du jour" Osama ben Laden
appears not to have had any financial connection to it, and 3) the CIA had
been warned long in advance of at least one of the embassy bombings that
made our "counterattack" necessary.
Now, just a few months later, the news media
has largely forgotten the story. As for the disastrous effect the loss of
this plant will have on Sudan and its neighbors, that obvious question
doesn't have seem to crossed the minds of anyone in the US news media.
The media, right, left and in between, has
taken a similarly supine attitude towards the Anti-Terrorist Act. Should we
really have a law which allows our government to do such things? And how in
the world did we end up with a law like this in the first place?
The last question is easy to answer: The
Anti-Terrorism Act was unpassable until 168 people were killed in Oklahoma
City on April 19, 1995. And we all know what happened in that city on that
day. Timothy McVeigh, a loner, a nut, a malcontent drove a Ryder truck
packed with explosives made of fertilizer to the front of the A. P. Murrah
Federal
Building and set it off.
There's just one small problem with the
story: it defies the laws of physics and common sense.
"You've got to see this!"
I was first clued in to the gaping holes in
the Oklahoma City story by a video sent to me by one of my readers. Among
other things, I document instances of election fraud, the crime that "never
happens" in the US. My readers come from all over the political spectrum,
from Marxists who see election fraud as yet another proof of the
untenability of capitalism to rabid Rush-ites who are sure it's all a part
of a liberal plot. Fortunately for my sanity, because I correspond with my
readers on a regular basis, most fall
somewhere in the middle.
One day a video arrived with a note saying
in essence: "You've got to see this!" So
I popped it in the VCR. What I saw shocked, but didn't
surprise me. The video was made up of footage
taken from live local TV news reports
right after the bombing in Oklahoma City. The same theme
was consistent throughout all the broadcasts:
"A bomb has gone off
inside the Murrah building and the bomb squad
is clearing out rescue workers because
additional bombs have been found."
Also included with this tape was a video of
a public access interview with one
Benton Partin, a retired Air Force Brigadier General. In it he
makes the case that the major damage to the
Murrah Building could only have been
done by a bomb or bombs inside the building. His presentation
was logical and his logic was unassailable.
More on this later.
I don't need to have a ton of bricks fall on
me to appreciate the obvious and I filed
all this away as yet another example of the
stupendous ineptitude of the US news media.
Can't they get anything right? Can't
they do anything other than rewrite government and
corporate press releases? What's happened to
independent reporting, seeking the
truth, and all the other stuff I still naively believe is
the reason we have a news media in the first
place?
The great "militia kook" conspiracy hoax
Months later, I casually mentioned to a
group of fellow journalists that we
still don't know what damaged the Murrah Building so severely and one
of them was all over me: "Don't you know that
all those doubts are from stories
planted by right wing militia kooks?"
No actually, I didn't know that. What I do
know is that for several hours after the
blast, the local media quite clearly and unequivocally
referred to a blast inside the building, as did
many of the eye witnesses and victims
who were interviewed live on the scene. The
anchors even read from a Justice Department
press release that said the same thing.
But then the story changed. And the live
feeds from the street stopped. Now it
was a truck bomb parked in front of the building that did all the
damage. Despite how you may disrespect local TV
reporters, and how much many of them
have earned that disrespect, they are pretty good at
sticking microphones in people's faces and
letting them talk. And when they don't
start out with a preprogrammed agenda, they sometimes let the
truth slip through.
Is it likely that right wing militia nuts
seeded the street with victims and local
officials to spread the "rumor" that there was a bomb inside
the building? Is the FBI, which has been caught
in so many lies they have filled several
books, a likely source of reliable information about
a tragedy they may have inadvertently had a
hand in? (The Bureau had
been warned the Murrah Building was a target
for attack, but did nothing to protect
the occupants.)
"But what about Partin? Surely he can't know
what he's talking about. Surely he's a
militia kook who dreams at night of overturning the
federal government."
What about Partin
No, actually Partin is a man whose attitudes
would be considered absolutely typical
and mainstream in many parts of the country . He's a
self-described Christian and proud of it, he
hates Communism, and he believes its
philosophy is the single biggest threat to American
freedom. These attitudes are hardly uncommon
among career military men. In fact, it
would have been hard to rise to the level of Brigadier
General during the Cold War without holding
them.
Furthermore, not only does he not hate the "guv'ment,"
he's been steadily involved in
mainstream political activities since his
retirement from active duty. How mainstream?
How about chairman of the Republican
Party in Fairfax County, Virginia for four years? His
solution to this country's problems? Getting
more people to become involved in the
political process.
Partin's complete resume is available to
anyone who'd like to read it. He's a
thesis short of being a PhD. engineer and was trained by the Air
Force in the fine art of using conventional
weapons to blow things up. The Air Force
thought highly enough of his expertise in this area to
make him Commander of the Air Force Armament
Laboratory, the Air Force's chief R&D
facility in Elgin, Florida.
What's complicated about this?
Like many people who thoroughly grasp a
subject, Partin is the soul of clarity
when explaining his science to novices. Take the Murrah Building
in Oklahoma City, for example. One look at the
pictures of the damage tells you at
least part of force which killed our fellow citizens came
from deep within the building. Why? The severe
damage to supporting
columns inside the building. This kind of
damage can only be done by charges
placed on or drilled into a column and absolutely cannot be done
by the air blast generated by a bomb denonating
in the street. (If you have an emotional
need to doubt this, as many seem to do on this
subject, contact a demolition company and ask
them.)
Consider this example that is within the
experience of many people. Take a small
firecracker and blow it up a few inches from your hand. What
happens? Nothing. Take that same small charge
and blow it up in your hand. What then?
Bye-bye fingers. Or imagine you want to blow up a
watermelon (a typical kid thing to do.) Where
do you put the charge? In the
watermelon, of course. Setting off the charge near the watermelon
won't do a thing.
Let's take another example. You want to
knock somebody out. Do you score any
points why swinging with all your might but not connecting? No. The
force needs to be laid on very directly,
otherwise all you produce is a strong
breeze.
What about a truck bomb parked in the street
in front of a building? Surely that is a
dangerous thing. It is. The shock wave generated by an
explosion can shatter windows and send razor
sharp shards of glass and other debris
flying through the air. It will blow over a frame building.
But it can't crumble a concrete support pillar
many feet away. The force of a blast
falls off dramatically the further you get away from the
explosion. Support columns are designed to
withstand huge loads, over 3,000 pounds
per square inch. They simply cannot be taken down by the
air blast of an explosion that, by the time it
reaches it, is only exerting 25 to 35
pounds per square inch.
On the other hand, a very modest charge,
when place on or in a concrete column
can take it down with ease. In fact, how many pounds of
explosives would you venture to guess it took
to take down the entire Murrah Building
when it was decided for reasons of "closure" (no valid
engineering or investigative reason) to
demolish the entire building?
Just 150 pounds of explosives - total -
placed in strategically in small charges
throughout the building right on the support columns was all
that was needed. In demolishing concrete
structures, proximity is not just an
important thing, it's everything.
Partin offers a much more thorough and
technical explanation of all this
(complete version) (short summary version), but you don't need to be an
engineer or an expert to grasp the basic point:
you can't demolish a concrete column
designed to withstand hundreds of pounds of pressure
with the air shock wave of an explosion.
Motives
In Benton Partin we have a man who is
profoundly experienced in what he is
talking about and who has no reason to cry "wolf." He's quite
comfortable in his Virginia retirement after a
distinguished 29 year military career
and has little to gain from embarking on a career as a
"conspiracy theorist" at this point in his
life.
You'd think that the law enforcement
agencies charged with investigating the
tragedy would make use of his observations. And that the news media,
which seems to so hungry for "experts" in
various fields to fill the dead air,
would jump on the chance to present his conclusions to the
public. From a pure ratings point of view, it's
got to be a winner, right?
Wrong. Yes, the FBI interviewed Partin, but
did nothing with his carefully prepared
and highly informed comments.
When Timothy McVeigh was tried in Denver,
the prosecution did call a munitions
expert to the stand, but it was necessary for them to go to
the UK to find one who could explain how a
truck bomb destroyed a concrete support
pillar deep within the interior of a modern office building.
Think about that for a moment. There are
thousands of individuals in this
country, in the construction, mining, and demolition industries,
not to mention the military, who could speak to
the nature of the "fingerprint" of the
explosion in the Oklahoma City bombing, but, for
some reason, the prosecution had to go to
England to find one who could explain
how, in this one singular instance, the laws of physics and
common sense were suspended.
Partin did make it onto one network TV
program, but only a few seconds of the
hours of his taped comments were broadcast. The host, who had
left the interviewing tasks to others and who
had not even bothered to meet Partin,
framed Partin's remarks in the finished segment with this
comment: "General Partin, a retired military
man, is not an engineer."
Perhaps Partin hid his light under a bushel
and wasn't aggressive enough in raising
his concerns? No. With weeks of the bombing, he'd sent copies
of his engineering analysis, complete with
color photos, to every member of
Congress and over 1,000 media outlets. He received a handful of form
letters for his trouble.
So what really happened?
So what really happened in Oklahoma City?
General Partin is the first to admit he
doesn't know, but he does know munitions and their effect on
structures. And he knows, beyond the shadow of
any doubt, that the McVeigh truck bomb
could not have been the sole source of the damage
done to the Murrah Building and its occupants.
He also knows that someone doesn't want the
story told. Partin's informed analysis
would have been very easy to prove or debunk. All that
would have been needed was a few hundred
dollars worth of chemical and
microscopic analysis.
Had the damaged columns been destroyed the
way Partin - and many others - say they
must have been, the residue of the explosive used would have
infused the rubble. Also, the damaged column's
cement would have been reduced to dust
in a characteristic way, unmistakable under a
microscopic analysis. But, for reasons as yet
unexplained, such basic forensics was
not thought necessary by the FBI investigators. Partin
sent letters to dozens of elected officials
imploring them to block the demolition
of the building until these tests were done. His pleas fell
on deaf ears. In spite of the fact the
building's architect said it was still
structurally sound, the Murrah Building was razed - and the rubble
was buried in a locked and guarded landfill.
All in the interest of promoting "closure"
and "healing" no doubt.
The real tragedy of Oklahoma
The final sick punch line of this episode
was delivered a few days ago. The US
government reports that the investigation and prosecution of the
Oklahoma City bombing case cost - are you ready
for this? - $98 million. The defense was
permitted to bill an additional $15 million for their
"exhaustive" investigation and trial work. Nice
work if you can get it.
The horror of the bombing of the Murrah
Building pales in comparison with the
dumbing - and numbing - down of the US news media. Problems and
crimes are solved when the facts are aired, not
spun into oblivion. Common sense, not
government assurances, should dictate the direction of
a reporter's work. That the US news media has
marginalized Benton Partin and many
others who've produced valid evidence that contradicts the
FBI's press releases on the Oklahoma City
bombing must rank as one of the most
disgraceful lapses in the recent history of American reporting.
Note: General Partin has also offered lucid,
pertinent analysis of the evidence in
the TWA Flight 800 case. The media and federal law
enforcement have shown similar disinterest in
that analysis as well.
Ken McCarthy is the sponsor of the George Seldes Internet Archive. A
early pioneer of the use of the Internet for
commercial purposes, he's spent recent
years sponsoring several in-depth case studies on the
accuracy of the press in their reporting of
widely covered events.
Ken was originally commissioned to write
this article by a "progressive" west
coast online publication. The publication not only didn't run the
piece, but also stiffed him on his fee and
research expenses. Instead it relied
entirely on reports generated by a "journalist" whose main claim
to fame was having been the AP Bureau Chief in
Memphis the day Martin Luther King was
assassinated. (Among other things, this AP "reporter"
never bothered to interview the associates who
were with King the moment he was shot
and instead relayed FBI and Memphis police reports
uncritically to the nation.) Name of publisher
and all correspondence related to this
available upon request.
ken@brasscheck.com
For more information on how major news
outlets "spontaneously and
independently" coordinate their stories, ignoring incontrovertible
physical evidence and rejecting qualified
individuals who bring it forward see the
writings of Richard E. Sprague, another computer expert
forced to take up the slack left by the corrupt
and inept US news industry.
Copyright, Ken McCarthy, 1998
Produced by: Brass Check