An Oklahoma Mystery: New hints of links between McVeigh and ME terrorists (McCollum mentioned)

LA Weekly ^ | JULY 19 - 25, 2002 | Jim Crogan

[risk]

JULY 19 - 25, 2002

An Oklahoma Mystery
New hints of links between Timothy McVeigh and Middle Eastern terrorists
by Jim Crogan

EITHER CONVICTED OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBERS Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were part of a conspiracy, possibly involving Middle Eastern and Filipino connections, or they were not. Seven years later, the authorities have still not fully examined this question.

But taking on this issue would seem to fit the mission of the House and Senate Intelligence committees, which are jointly investigating intelligence failures by the FBI and CIA before 9/11. Chaired by two Floridians -- Republican Representative Porter Goss and Democratic Senator Bob Graham -- the Committees' began their closed-door work by focusing on two areas: U.S. investigations of terrorism since the CIA established a counterterrorism unit in 1986 and Osama bin Laden's role in sponsoring international terrorism since the mid-1990s.

Back in 1995, several Congressional Committees did search for international ties to the Oklahoma City attack, but came up empty, explained former Representative Bill McCollum in an interview. Still, the reports issued by the House Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, which McCollum chaired until 1995, were quite prescient.

"The task force was on the mark when it came to their warnings about the emerging threat of Middle Eastern terrorism," McCollum said. "I can tell you that we were very concerned about the possibility of a Middle East connection to Oklahoma City. But we never found any evidence there was one."

McCollum, however, said he never heard of the reporting done by TV journalist Jayna Davis, which connected McVeigh and Nichols with Middle Eastern figures in Oklahoma City and the Philippines. Nor did he know of Davis' ongoing communications with Yossef Bodansky, executive director of the Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. "Seffy [Bodansky] never told me anything about that," he said. "This is all news to me."

After the bombing, Bodansky marshaled his intelligence sources and began an investigation. He found some of the same Middle Eastern connections uncovered by reporter Davis. "The stories you are telling fit very closely with the stories I have," he told Davis, in a taped conversation on April 24, 1996.

In the tape, Davis asks if the names are tied to the bombing. And Bodansky responds, "I didn't get them because I am trying to run a private, one-man census of the Oklahoma City area."

The government also turned up experts who believed they found possible evidence of a Middle Eastern signature on the bombing. In 1997, Stephen Jones, lead attorney for McVeigh, filed a motion claiming the defense team had acquired a one-page summary of a government report by two unnamed Israeli experts who examined the Murrah Building. "Their conclusion was the Oklahoma City bombing bore the indisputable earmark of Middle Eastern terrorists," said Jones in an interview.

The men were eventually identified as Dorom Bergerbest-Eliom, chief of security for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., and Yakov (or Yaskov) Yerushalmi, a civil engineer and Israeli government consultant. Attorney Jones filed a court motion complaining to federal Judge Richard Matsch that the government had wrongly denied the document to McVeigh's defense team.

"We never did get the full report," Jones continued. "Judge Matsch reminded the prosecutors they had a legal obligation to turn over any exculpatory material to the defense. However, the judge left it to the Justice Department to decide what was exculpatory."

DAVIS, THE FORMER TV REPORTER FOR KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City, began investigating the bombing the day after the attack. In seven years, she's accumulated 26 affidavits and more than 100 hours of taped interviews. In particular, she zeroed in on a group of Iraqis who worked for Samir Khalil, a Palestinian-born businessman and owner of a property-management company in Oklahoma City. Davis also did pieces on John Doe No. 2, the mysterious figure identified in initial police bulletins as having been seen fleeing the federal building after the bombing. The FBI later announced that John Doe No. 2 never existed.

One of the Iraqis, Hussain Alhussaini, later came forward and identified himself as the person being fingered in Davis' television reports as John Doe No. 2. He sued the reporter for defamation. A federal judge dismissed the suit; Alhussaini has appealed. (See: Heartland Conspiracy, published in the L.A. Weekly, Sept. 28-Oct. 4, 2001.)

The TV reporter, who has since quit the station, also interviewed Lana Padilla, Nichols' first wife. She told Davis that McVeigh had given her ex-husband thousands of dollars and paid for his first trip to the Philippines. Nichols, who is now awaiting trial in Oklahoma City on state murder charges, traveled extensively to the islands and eventually married a Filipino woman. Padilla has now been subpoenaed as a prosecution witness in Nichols' state case.

Davis also turned up material that appeared to connect Nichols to Ramzi Yousef and Abdul Hakim Murad. Yousef, the convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is now serving a life sentence in federal prison. He also had hatched unrealized plans to blow up 12 airliners and to assassinate Pope John Paul II.

Murad, a confederate of Yousef, is also in federal custody. He told Philippine police about a plot to hijack an airliner and crash it into CIA headquarters. Murad also claimed in 1996 that a large number of Middle Eastern men were being trained at U.S. flight schools in connection with these plots. This information was passed on to the FBI. What the agency did with it is unknown.

Court documents, related to this alleged Filipino connection, were attached to a motion filed by McVeigh's defense team in 1996. One is an FBI memo detailing a conversation between Murad and a U.S. prison guard after the Oklahoma City bombing. Murad told his jailer that the Filipino Liberation Army was responsible for that attack. The memo also cites a note Murad gave his guard, reiterating this claim.

Another exhibit from the defense motion is an affidavit filed by Edwin Angeles, a founder of Abu Sayyaf, a Filipino terrorist group. Angeles, who was assassinated by former comrades, wrote in 1996 that he was at a 1991 meeting in Davao City, attended by Yousef, Murad and Nichols, at which, they discussed "bombing activities, providing firearms and ammo" to terrorists and "training in bomb making and handling" of explosives. Nichols, he claimed, was introduced to him as "the farmer."

In February 1995 -- months before the Oklahoma City blast -- the House Task Force on Terrorism issued a warning that Middle Eastern Islamists, under the leadership of Iran, were preparing a series of terrorist attacks against the U.S. An update, issued in March 1995 -- just a month before the bombing -- stated the target list had shifted from Washington, D.C., to government installations and buildings in America's heartland. The task force distributed these alerts to federal intelligence and law-enforcement agencies. In 1996, terrorism-task-force director Bodansky gave a copy of the original warning and update to Davis. Reportedly Bodansky, recently passed on Davis' affidavits and taped interviews to the U.S. House Government Reform Committee, about which he refuses to comment. "I work for the government, and I can't talk about Oklahoma City," he said.

---

IN THE NINE MONTHS SINCE THE Weekly first published details of Davis' story, new information has emerged that raises more questions about the FBI's investigation into the bombing:

• On April 19, 1995 -- immediately after the bombing -- the FBI sent an urgent request to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency requesting 10 Arabic linguists to help in its Oklahoma City bombing investigation. Linguists, serving on a 30-day loan, would not be permitted to monitor electronic surveillance.

• After McVeigh's arrest, the FBI was contacted by the Defense Department to see if they still needed the linguists. According to an April 22, 1995 memo from the Department of the Army, an FBI agent said the linguists were being used to "monitor wiretaps of radical fundamentalist Islamists to protect the President from possible attack" during his upcoming appearance at an Oklahoma City memorial service.

• On August 2, 1995, Federal Protective Services special agent Thomas Williams sent a memo to his branch chief, John Crowe, detailing his communication with terrorism task-force director Yossef Bodansky. In it, he states Bodansky told him that a lot of names that came up in NBC reports (by TV journalist Jayna Davis) overlapped with the names of suspects Bodansky had compiled.

• In a taped conversation between Bodansky and Davis on May 18, 1996, Bodansky tells the reporter that by mid-April, intelligence information suggested that government buildings had been specifically targeted. He said the intelligence had been accumulated over 18 months. He also said he had gotten another warning from Israeli intelligence, a week before the bombing, that an attack would be launched in America's heartland.

• Also on May 18, Bodansky faxed two notes to Davis in which he provides more details about the task force's intelligence analysis. Bodansky writes that after the bombing, it was determined that Oklahoma City had been "on the list of potential targets." The second note states that "The initial forensic investigation of the explosion in Oklahoma suggested strong similarities to bombing techniques used by Iran-sponsored Islamist terrorists, including the car bomb that destroyed [a] building in Buenos Aires on 18 July 1994."

• An undated intelligence report by Bodansky discusses alleged terrorist training inside the U.S. that included some "Lilly Whites," people whose background would not tie them to terrorism. Bodansky states the training was ordered by Iran and conducted by Hamas operatives. His intelligence sources told him that the training occurred at a camp near Chicago. The first camp was allegedly held in 1990 and included about 25 trainees, who used code names. One group, he states, was reportedly given instructions on building car bombs from available materials. The second training occurred in 1993. It was specifically for Lilly Whites. They also used code names and were given state-of-the-art car-bomb training. Bodansky's sources also report that at least two of the 1993 participants came from Oklahoma City.

• During a legal dispute with her former employer Bodansky wrote Davis a letter of support stating, "Having studied the material provided by Ms. Davis very closely, I consider it most sensitive, reliable and important evidence for the Task Force investigation." Bodansky also wrote, "Having carefully studied these tapes, as well as other work of Ms. Davis, I'm convinced that the witnesses she had interviewed provide credible testimony."

• During a civil suit for defamation against Davis and KFOR-TV, Hussain Alhussaini, a former Iraqi soldier, submitted psychiatric reports from 1997, in which he states that he worked for a while at Boston's Logan Airport (where two of the planes were hijacked on September 11). Alhussaini first told his psychiatrist that he quit his airport job because "If anything happens there, I will be a suspect." Then he later contradicts himself, saying that he wants to look for another job "because he feels unsafe in the environment he works in, in the airport, given the recent events involving his being previously suspected of involvement in the Oklahoma bombing." In a 1998 deposition, Alhussaini states he is still working at the airport and has fears of losing his job. Alhussaini's specific job was never identified. Alhussaini still appears to be living in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Port Authority, which oversees Logan's operations, declined comment on Alhussaini's current work status or his airport duties.

[risk]

Jim McCollum unconvinced of a connection, behind the curve, or unwilling to go public at the time of this investigation.

[Peach]

Bump

[WinOne4TheGipper]

An Oklahoma Mystery: New hints of links between McVeigh and ME terrorists (McCollum mentioned)
There are terrorists in Maine?

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

will read later

[VOA]

Among other factors, the idea of Nichols making multiple trips to The Phillipines and
not taking his Phillipina wife with him just sounded incredible.

Well, all I know is tha the guys I've know with "imported" Phillipina wives
would have gotten them a quick "John Bobbitt" for not taking the wife along
to see friends/family back home.

I'm not saying these ladies are violent...it's just that the social/familial
thang is paramount with them! And that ain't a bad thing.

[Capt. Tom]

McCollum, however, said he never heard of the reporting done by TV journalist Jayna Davis, which connected McVeigh and Nichols with Middle Eastern figures in Oklahoma City and the Philippines.

My respect for McCollum took a nosedive on that statement. -Tom

[Itzlzha]

Murad, a confederate of Yousef, is also in federal custody. He told Philippine police about a plot to hijack an airliner and crash it into CIA headquarters. Murad also claimed in 1996 that a large number of Middle Eastern men were being trained at U.S. flight schools in connection with these plots. This information was passed on to the FBI. What the agency did with it is unknown.

This would be "Bojinka". And the FBI officer who found that a bunch of Dirty-Nightshirt-wearing Islamazis WERE in flight schools learning how to fly (but NOT LAND) large commercial airliners...just what did the FBI and Sgt. Slaughter Reno DO with this info?

Reference 9/11/01 to see just what these SCUM did to our country!

I want a FULL, SWEEPING, EXTERNALLY CONTROLLED investigation into just how badly the 8 years of Klinton and Queen Cankle, as well as their lickspittles and toadies, betrayed the US!!!!!!

Do it NOW!

[gaijin]

Just read the "John Doe 2 Times". Screwy title, yes, but it's all spelled out right there.

The US vs. Terrorism war has been going on quite a bit longer than most think; it was just a one-sided war for some years, that's all...

Hey, how many out there still believe TWA Flight 800's center fuel tank just "spontaneously exploded"...?

Sheesh...

[Libertarianize the GOP]

bump

[RaceBannon]

Philippino women with a balisong knife...makes me shudder!!

[risk]

Duplicate post apology: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/719338/posts

[ChefKeith]

ME=middle eastern

[Mrs. Xtrmst]

None of this is actually new, and a few of the people quoted here are a bit, um, eccentric. Having said that, this was clearly a strange event...not as straight-forward at the FBI would have us believe.

Read Laurie Mylroie if you want some conspiracy theories.

[Guenevere]

#1..that's Bill...Bill McCollum of Florida.

[steplock]

"ME=middle eastern"

That's what he meant, but to Americans, ME is the accepted official abbreviation for the State of Maine.

[risk]

Thanks for the correction [Bill McCollum, not Jim]

[elli1]

"That's what he meant, but to Americans, ME is the accepted official abbreviation for the State of Maine."

I think it depends on where you live in the US and whether or not you have a personal connection to Maine. To most of us, Maine is a pretty obscure state & about the only time we ever hear anything about it is in connection w/ Bush summer house.

Sorta' like the abbreviation for Oklahoma--OK. I imagine that many times it's read as "okay".

[Nick Thimmesch]

m

[XBob]

5 - "Among other factors, the idea of Nichols making multiple trips to The Phillipines and not taking his Phillipina wife with him just sounded incredible. "

Very true.

The whole thing stinks to high heaven of coverup. The middle east connection was there from the first. The xlinton govt just covered it up. And are still covering. The middle east connection was all laid out, long ago, by Mcveigh:

PETITION FOR WRIT OF MANDAMUS OF PETITIONER-DEFENDANT, TIMOTHY JAMES McVEIGH AND BRIEF IN SUPPORT MARCH 25, 1997

search the document on 'Iraq'

[XBob]

how do youall in Maine abbreviate Middle East?

[HardStarboard]

Laurie Mylroie had this connection nailed back in 1995 - but the Clinton Administration didn't want to listen to her well documented case....and she worked in the Clinton Administration at the time.

If anyone interested, look for her articles in the FR archives and with Google. The lady was spot on!

[risk]

I've read some of Laurie Mylroie's and Jayna Davis' research and it's fascinating. What's interesting to me here is that McCollum had been predicting, warning, and urging America and the Clinton administration to be proactive about terrorism since the early 1990s. Why wouldn't people listen then?

My answer is less conspiratorial: I believe the Clintonistas and the ruling elect at that time wanted to believe in a post cold war utopia. This information pointed away from that possibility. The ruling elect chose to go the direction of appeasement hoping they could turn the tides, and the American people (center to left) allowed them to do it.

We're not going to tolerate it again. That generation of politicians made a gross mistake, and I will only forgive the ones who admit it and show they can help turn us around toward victory.

[BagCamAddict]

Bump because this story can never get enough air time until the truth is known.

[Veracious Poet]

I lived in Oklahoma for a bit in the 70s...still have friends there.

The license plates read: "Oklahoma is OK", pretty funny eh?

BTW, some VERY strange things happened surrounding the OKC bombing investigation/trials, and a lot of people there no all about it...like how the footage of the so-called Ryder truck taken by 5-7 cameras has been declared sealed for "Nat'l. Security" concerns (lol) and how security personnel that have seen it saw a ME man get out after McVeigh, and that he exactly fit the description of John Doe #2...which according the the Justice Dept. does not exist.

Too many questions unanswered, and the film footage is only the beginning.

[Smokin' Joe]

McCollum was part of the Waco hearings, and if I am not mistaken the original OK City bombing hearings, too.

IMHO, the Clinton administration was Hell-bent on supressing any foreign ties to the bombing for the purpose of demonizing the 'God-Guns-and Guts' crowd in flyover country. This bombing also took a lot of the steam out of the Waco hearings, as if somehow the alleged second wrong commited 'solely by Americans' justified attacking 'right wing extremists' regardless of the procedures used or results obtained.

Apologies to Arab-Americans, before the dust had settled, made the 'administration of no remorse' seem sincere in its atribution; bio material on McVeigh in the media made the 'dangerous wacko' scenario work, and that the ATF had offices in the building made the 'retribution for Waco' motive a viable play in the press. It also allowed anyone who continued to push for a full accounting of the Mt. Carmel Massacre to be painted as dangerous.

Obscure tomes were cited as the playbook, especially "The Turner Diaries" (I have never seen a copy, much less read the book, but would, just to see what it is about), while Tom Clancy's 'Red Storm Rising' has a credible scenario (having seen the Clinton regime).

Attempts to repeal the Assault Weapons Ban went dead in the water almost immediately as the broad brush was used to paint anyone in flyover country as some sort of rabid right-wing neonazi gun-toting conspiracy theorist wacko. The onus persists, and is one of the reasons the election map of Bush v.s. Gore looks the way it does.

[risk]

My simple thesis: Clinton knew the Murrah bombing was an act of war, but refused to respond out of moral vacuity. President Bush responded by taking us to war against Iraq after 9/11, but has the courage to not undermine the presidential office of the United States of America by baring the truth of the Clinton ruse.

I can't prove this of course. But my guess is that Laurie Mylroie would agree.

[Smokin' Joe]

Don't know about Maine, but from North Dakota it is IA, OH, KY, AR, MO, etc. :)

[ladyinred]

I am almost certain that Arab terrorists were involved. I am not sure why this is still covered up, but I think Clinton covered it up to blame the right wing and Rush Limbaugh at least in part. John Doe 2 is still in my memory bank, plus there were supposed to be 2 middle easterners with McVeigh.

[PGalt]

bump for wakeup read.

[piasa]

He probably meant he hadn't come across it during his time as chairman of the Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare - from 1989 to 1995.

[elli1]

oh yeah.

I lived in OK when the bombing happened. Authorities were definitley looking for ME individuals. I recall that they hauled in one guy--ME, forget which country--and ended up releasing him. Apparently this indiv. had no connection. After McVeigh was apprehended, it was as if John Doe #2 ceased to exist. (The composite sketch of JD2 suggested someone of ME extraction.) I always had the feeling that Washington powers that be put the kabosh on the search for John Doe 2. It was eerie. Local media had been all over the JD2 story, but when nat'l media moved in & started running the show, the Doe story just evaporated.

[Tymesup]

Anybody here ever have one of their license plates fall off their vehicle?

McVeigh was pulled over because his vehicle was missing a plate. Did it fall off? Did McVeigh take it off? Or did somebody else take it off so he would get stopped?

[elli1]

Really good points, Joe. I totally agree.

[Smokin' Joe]

That part always got me.

McVeigh also allegedly was in posession of a loaded 9 mm pistol. If I were fleeing the scene of a mass murder and got pulled over, well... what's one more after murdering women and children?

It never did add up.

[faithincowboys]

The sad thing is the Bushies agreed to have the 9-11 commish review their first 9 months and only I think the last three of Clintoon. Again, we get rolled. Look for the Dems to suggest that Bush got sufficient intel warnings prior to 9-11 (while he was on his ranch in aug) that would have been enough to stop 9-11. Meanwhile, Bush agreed to only examine the last couple of years of Clintoon. What is important is that we can review what actions were taken after Murad warned about flight schools and many similar dots that appeared in the yrs before the ones that the probe will cover.

It's important that people know that after Ramsi Youseff's plot to comandeer several planes and use them as missiles was discovered, the Clinton/Gore axis did a commision on airport security and decided against fortifying cockpit doors. Basically they got money from the airlines for re-election and quid pro quo allowed BIG AIR to maintain insecurity as usual....9-11.

Hopefully, Team Bush points this out.

[lelio]

If you want to connect McVeigh and Iraq, you only need to read McVeigh's manifesto written while in prison. The one he complained he had to write in pencil as the guards would not give him a pen.

Is that available on the web?

[ValerieUSA]

Several citizens of the Philippines were killed in the inferno at Mt Carmel.

Since when do white supremicists marry native women from the Philippines?

[Smokin' Joe]

The Branch Davidians were a diverse, religious sect with members from all over. They were not white supremacists, just a spinoff group of the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

This alone sounded alarm bells for a lot of folks who were paying attention. Why would the ATF attack a building full of women and children? A church group? Using military hardware in the assault (helicopters)?

McVeigh, on the other hand, was tied to Eloihim City, an enclave of alleged white supremacist/separatist activity (which was also populated in part by Carol Howe, an ATF informant who warned of the bombing, but was later disavowed by the ATF).

Militia groups and others concerned over rabid gun control proposals and growing abuse of Federal Power at Ruby Ridge (in Idaho) and then Waco, were connected by media asssociation (not direct meetings or agreement even in principle, but by being mentioned in the same soundbyte)with McVeigh as the 'Angry White Male' scenario evolved. Most militia groups, though roundly demonized by the mainstream press and websites like Mark Pittcavage's Militia Watchdog and Morris Dees' Southern Poverty Law Center, (whose statements were taken as gospel at the highest levels), were actually composed of concerned citizens who shared a common worry: that the Federal Government was out to sieze their porperty, guns, and rights.

In light of decisions made concerning property rights, gun control, and the Bill of Rights in general, these concerns were and remain somewhat justified.

Though these people call themselves militias, none I know of advocate violent action except perhaps in the most extreme need to defend life, home, and property (if attacked), none advocate the overthrow of the United States Government, but instead advocate a return to the Constitutional Republic through voter awareness, and the use of the ballot box. Most are simply hard-working, commonly church-going, gun owning folks who live far from the seat of Government and view it with suspicion as a device which takes, rather than the nurturing employer, problem solver, and general saviour folks in urban areas have come to regard. You might see a lap dog, they see a pack of wolves.

While white suppremacist and separatist groups exist, the consensus of the majority of 'militia types' is that any one who shares the same concerns is worth having, without the friction of supremacist/separatist/or even anti-semitic rhetoric.

The head of the Ohio Militia at the time was JJ Johnson, a black man, The wife of one of the heads of the Militia of Montana was a Native American.

The press deliberately blurred the lines to make the impression that virtually anyone who had read the Constitution or advocated firearm ownership was a white supremacist, an anti-American bent on sedition or violent overthrow of the Government, etc. Some of the criteria for being a potential 'domestic terrorist included 'undue concern about the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, particularly the Second Amendment, concern about gun control, concern about taxes, etc. The phrase 'Neonazi extremists' or later, 'Right-Wing Extremists' was slathered about (and continues to be) without regard for the truth.

With or without collusion in this media barrage, the Clinton Administration benefitted directly by quashing the voices of dissent in the media; anyone who disagreed was branded a right wing extremist, with all the onus which went with the media-created image.

By painting people who were concerned about these things as dangerous domestic terrorist types, using the 'lone bomber/angry white male' McVeigh fable, the right wing was effectively clipped, allowing the 'center' of debate to be shifter farther and farther left, to the point that former centrist liberals were in danger of being dubbed right wing extremists.

Note that the Left has never lost their 'extremist' faction, they are ardently used to frame the debate so the mainstream liberals appear more middle-of-the-road, shifting the entire arena of debate to the left, one notch closer to their agenda. We hear talk of banning private firearms, but the other end of the spectrum, lifting restrictions on private ownership, is almost never mentioned. One extreme, but not the other.

We no longer discuss whether gays should be out of the closet, but whether they should be married. We no longer discuss whether there should be any gun control at all, but how much, not whether a farmer should lose his land for the sake of a small fish (which was in no danger anyway), but how many..

At any rate, the demonization continues,with the National Rifle Association (which has sponsored more police firearms training, and nore firearms safety training than perhaps any other organization) branded as evil, with Chief Moose looking for angry white men in a white van, etc.

The scenario played in with the Clinton's agendae perfectly, and took the heat off of the Waco investigation, lest anyone in Congress be branded an extremist come election time.

It was Congressmsn Sonny Bono's aides which revealed that Medical Journals had spoken to the potentially lethal effects of the CS introduced in to the building at Mt. Carmel, especially for children and the elderly, and the MSDS on the Methylene Chloride (main ingredient in immersion-type carburettor cleaners) used as a carrier agent for the powder indicate that it is flammable, toxic, and carcinogenic. He later died in a skiing accident.

The rest stopped short of asking the tough questions, or C-Span stopped short of televising them.

[armymarinemom]

There are terrorists in Maine?
LOL, that got me too.

[steplock]

Actually - the OTHER abbreviations used quite a bit on here that drives me CRAZZZYYYYY are...

CA - Canada or California ??

PA - Pennsylvania or Palestinian Authority?

There are a couple others but the above are the MOST abused.

Maybe we should limit 2-letter for the USA and make the others 3-letter?

Can - canada
pal - palestinian terrorists

???

[XBob]

42 - We used to have real abbreviations until they invented the ZIP codes and computer scanning for mail addresses, and new 2 character positions only for state names on their computers.

eg: Penna. Used to be Pensylvania - PA now
Fla - Forida - now FL
Minn - Minnesota - Now ?
Tenn - Tennessee - Now ?
Miss - Mississippi - Now?
Tex - Texas - Now TX

Some I can never remember, and may get mixed up, particularly, Mississippi, Minnesota, Maine, Missouri, Montana.

[Veracious Poet]

Maybe I didn't specify, but Waco and OKC bombings were wake-up calls for me, which led me to a Christian Men's prayer group with ties to Patriot intel around the country...it's where Bill Brumbaugh and I became friends.

I learned a lot of things as a result, and have since realized most Americans would sell their God-given rights & sovereignty for a "chicken in every pot".

Did you watch the Senate's interview of the Militias on CSPAN? JJ Johnson's statements alone (not to mention the others) to those arrogant morons showed who the REAL patriots were.

I still have the interviews on VHS, and everytime I watch it I'm still amazed that most of the liars-for-hire who were in the Senate then are still major players.

Of course Chuckie "Cheese" Schumer now has Hitlery to back him up...

Johnson currently publishes an Internet publication called The Sierra Times.

http://www.sierratimes.com/archive/files/nov/09/jjjohnson.htm

[Fred Mertz]

Self-marking bump.

[aristeides]

The scenario played in with the Clinton's agendae perfectly, and took the heat off of the Waco investigation, lest anyone in Congress be branded an extremist come election time.

Funny how incompetent the Clinton folks were in going after bin Laden and his people. (See Miniter's book Losing bin Laden.) You might even think they were protecting them.

[ChefKeith]

I know that. I was reffering to the context at hand in this case.

Personally I find raghead to serve purpose

[Smokin' Joe]

Not so much as they were protecting the 'angry white male lone bomber' myth (Oklahoma City) they used to demonize anyone who was a conservative gunowner who tried to hold them responsible for the massacre at Waco.

The entire 'right-wing extremist' campaign shifted the arena of discussion to the left as the right wing was effectively muzzled at official levels to avoid being painted as neonazi white supremacist anti-American radicals.

[Dante3]

I have been bothered all along about McVeigh. Things just did not add up. And when there was he strange rush to execute him and forget due process, I became convinced something was wrong.

I hope the FBI checked out Nichol's wife carfully. An odd couple, to say the least.

[Nita Nupress]

If the reader will go to the following reply on the original posting of this article, he'll be able to see just HOW quickly bill clinton began his obfuscation of the Middle Eastern connection in this terrorist attack.

Never let it be said that clinton isn't a master at seizing a golden political opportunity when he sees it.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/719338/posts?page=41#41