One thing about the Oklahoma City bombing I never could figure out: Why did Mcveigh let himself get taken so easily?
He just killed nearly 200 people, a capitol offense, he was armed, yet he let himself get caught by a lone law man. He didn’t fight him or try to shoot or anything. He plans this huge terrorist assault, then let’s himself get captured rather easily. And now he insists on an execution date. Something doesn’t seem right about that. I’m not saying he should have killed that policeman, but it’s almost like getting caught was part of the plan.
Before the bombing happened the Clinton administration was pushing for more gun control & anti-terrorism laws…then BOOM! How convenient.
I for one rarely buy into conspiracy theories. But there’s something about this case that just doesn’t seem quite right to me. I say something is fishy about the whole thing.
Who cares to debate that?
Well, for one thing, I doubt he knew how strong the case was against him. IF you think you did a good job conspiring and being covert, you are hardly going to trump the system by outright shooting a police officer.
For another, I bet there is a huge difference (psychologically) between killing a bunch of theoretical targets who one can not and will never see, and shooting somebody at point blank range.
Third, he certainly made his point this way, and he continues to make it. Hard to be a martyr and control your spin.
However, seeing as how he’s been relatively quiet, another possibility is that he didn’t do it.
jb
I think the reason he did not shoot the policeman is that bombers are basically cowards. If he wanted to make a statement about Waco he could have done what most nuts do and try to shoot a high ranking official or something. However that would have put him in physical danger, so he uses a bomb and he never has to look at the people he kills or risk his own safety.
I think the reason he has given up appeals is he either is consumed with guilt for bombing a day care center or does not feel that a couple of more years on death row is preferable to death.
Yeah, he’s a coward all right. Only a pansy kills large numbers of people at once when he could take his time and get them one by one like a true predator.
As far as ol’ Tim goes, we can start making a list of just about every government with an arbitrary amount of bombing power. That makes the Nazis cowards (only a coward would try and counquer all of Europe with firepower to kill large numbers of people all at once), the US cowards, any country that owns bombing planes cowards, terrorists who bomb planes cowards, the IRA are all cowards.
Huh. And here I am being brave by fearing death and punishment and having a general respect for life.
I believe jb is on the right track -
McVeigh would have had no reason to believe that they’d be able to track him that quickly, if at all. So, by playing it cool, he could look forward to being put on bail for whatever little charge they’d tagged him on in the first place and then melt away into the sunset.
I suspect he sees himself as a soldier, a heroic one at that (remember all of the rhetoric about Jefferson’s quotes about bloodshed et al), so his stoic posture at this point seems to fit that, as well as his acquiesence to the DP.
I don’t however, think he’d have had any difficulty shooting the police officer had he believed that he was really caught.
Sorry, I’m too lazy to rewrite my argument over here, so I’ll give you a link to another site where I just explained my views on this very same matter at great length a few days ago.
