A decade later, the bombing of the Oklahoma CIty Federal Building seems a trial-run for the terrorist attacks that were to strike New York and Washington a few years later. At the time, those who sought to connect Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols's actions to Middle Eastern terrorists were dismissed as fantasists--although one of these individuals was one of McVeigh's lawyers. (Here's the preface from Stephen Jones' book, OTHERS UNKNOWN: TIMOTHY MCVEIGH AND THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING CONSPIRACY.)
Over time, eyewitnesses to "John Doe Number 2" were discredited, links between Elohim City and Arab terrorism were ignored, and President Clinton went so far, at the time, to blame talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh for a "climate of hate" that motivated McVeigh and Terry Nichols--even though McVeigh declared the proximate cause of his attack was Clinton's own seige of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, as well as his sympathy for Iraqi victims of American bombing during the Gulf War.
One thing is perfectly clear, as President Richard M. Nixon used to say: Timothy McVeigh did not become a terrorist because of a lack of democracy in the United States. Those who argue that Bush's democracy revolution will stop terrorism might ask themselves--why didn't American democracy stop McVeigh and Nichols?
They could have written letters to their congressmen. Instead, they blew up innocent men, women, and children. That's why the events of April 19, 1995 might be seen as a dress rehearsal for the dreadful terror attacks of September 11, 2001...
