Oklahoma City: Three bombs inside the building

[Jan Klimkowski]

Not so much a "test run" -- although I remind myself and others that either/or models don't work very well when analyzing intelligence operations.

My hypothesis: The February 26, 1993 WTC bombing, the April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and the July 17, 1996 TWA 800 shoot-down were casus belli tactics in the larger strategy to provoke the response that finally came in the wake of September 11, 2001.

Either Clinton wouldn't or couldn't bite -- at least not with a large, publicly observable bite radius -- or he played his part in a too-modest drama that worked only after new script doctors were called in (a process with which I am most familiar) to punch it up.

The unelected "President" George W. Bush, however, never had the authority to order retaliation. He was Howdy Doody.

As for the identity of Buffalo Bob ...

In the spirit of both/and, I note that all those crimes had script elements which could have been used to blame foreign "bogeymen" but which lay largely dormant.

Indeed, I spent some time with Craig Roberts (of KillZone fame) shortly after the OKC bombing. There is a whole "Iraqi" scriptline which, for some reason, was not exploited, and was only pursued by relatives and concerned low level police officers and PIs.

:phone: