Posted on 10/12/2005 4:45:14 AM PDT by texianyankee
Imagine a man with a bomb strapped to his body making his way into a packed football stadium, reaching his seat and blowing himself up. There would be a heavy death toll in what would be the first successful terrorist act on U.S. soil since 9-11.
Jolting us back to memories of the Oklahoma City bombing, this would obviously be a massive headline in our ongoing war on terror. One would think attention would be heightened even further if such a story were to occur again in Oklahoma.
Well, there's reason to believe it nearly happened, and it was indeed in Oklahoma, making the paltry coverage of the story unfathomable.
On Oct. 1, as the Oklahoma Sooners hosted Kansas State in front of 84,000 fans, University of Oklahoma student Joel Hinrichs III blew himself up outside the stadium.
There is evidence that he sought to enter the game and was turned away by security after refusing to allow his backpack to be searched. Some minutes later, that backpack, containing the chosen explosive of shoe bomber Richard Reid and the London subway bombers, exploded, killing Mr. Hinrichs as he sat on a bench.
There have been some dutiful print and broadcast accounts of this event, all leaning heavily on the favored establishment take – that this was a troubled young man who sought only to kill himself, simply doing so in an offbeat way.
Oh, really?
Well, what if the young man had a Pakistani roommate? What if he had been spending time at the Islamic Center of Norman, Okla., once frequented by "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui? What if the warrant used in the search of the bomber's apartment had been sealed by federal authorities?
What if explosives had been found in that apartment? What if the young man had tried to purchase ammonium nitrate, the chosen explosive of Tim McVeigh, at a Norman feed store days earlier?
That's a lot of what ifs, and they range from the confirmed to the unconfirmed. But the parts we do know – the Pakistani roommate, the attempted fertilizer purchase, the veil of secrecy around the investigation – should be enough to cast doubt on the simplistic "troubled young man" theory favored by, among others, OU's nervous president, David Boren.
Mr. Hinrichs' father told me his son was not the type to join radical causes and would not want to hurt anyone. But his son's chosen method – blowing himself up in a public place – would seem to cast doubt on his concern for his fellow man.
As for the terrorist angle, Mr. Hinrichs is now the subject of understandably intense scrutiny, virtually none of it from the mainstream media. You might think the story fizzled because there was, in fact, no death beyond the bomber. True enough, but I'd suggest that if a raid revealed some radical plan to bomb an abortion clinic anywhere in America, the suspects would be household names by nightfall without a single fuse lit.
Something about the nature of this event has swallowed almost whole the normal curiosity one would expect from the usual sources.
Is it political, because acknowledging a terror threat on our soil might bolster President Bush's war logic? Is it economic, out of fear of scaring people away from football games? Is it geographic snobbery because it didn't happen on either coast? Or is it a PC fear of seeming to lunge toward a jihadist angle?
Whatever the reason, hunting for details of this shocking story puts you in some offbeat company.
Jayna Davis is a writer who has spent years documenting what she asserts is an Islamic connection to the Oklahoma City bombing. She has a fan in Douglas Hagmann, director of an outfit called the Northeastern Intelligence Network, whose Web site (homelandsecurityus.com) has a conspiracy geek vibe that might spark scoffing.
But the fact of the matter is that these people are breaking fresh news on this story that only later winds up in more conventional news outlets.
I'm not calling for a leap to the conclusion that Mr. Hinrichs was another in a series of Caucasians pressed into service by terror cells for their undercover value. But it seems equally unwise to shrug dismissively at the possibility.
The guy was the spittin' image of John Doe II. I don't think it was coincidental that he surfaced at Logan Airport on 9/11/01.
The explosives he wore were different. He was shopping for AN because he didn't plan on being a suicide bomber, in my opinion. He planned on dropping that bomb off, then making a bigger one with AN to use later. Or maybe they hoped to park a truck at one of the high traffic area, and have several bombs go off at once. But shopping for AN tells me this wasn't "just" a suicide.
The reason I wondered about surveillance was, they claimed they didn't know who the dead guy was for quite awhile. That seems reasonable enough--there's not much to "recognize" left after blowing up like that, I'd think, and unless he told someone ahead of time what he was going to do (which by all accounts, he did not), how would they know so quickly (within minutes of the bombing, according to the article) who he was, that he had a roommate, and who his roommate was? Unless he was already under surveillance....
There is some evidence that they were onto what was going to happen with the OKC bombing, too, but they let it happen, either because they didn't step in soon enough, or for some other (unknown) reason.
http://www.kotv.com/main/home/stories.asp?whichpage=1&id=91747
FBI: OU Student Who Died In Explosion Had No Known Terrorist Ties
(KOTV, OK - 48 minutes ago)
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) -- The continuing FBI investigation into an explosion outside a packed football stadium at the University of Oklahoma has not found any indication that the student killed in the blast had any connection with terrorists, a congressman says.
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said Tuesday he spoke to Salvador Hernandez, FBI special agent in charge of the bureau's Oklahoma office, about Joel H. Hinrichs III, an engineering student who died Oct. 1 when his bomb went off about 100 yards from the football stadium during the second quarter of OU's night game against Kansas State. The student was sitting on a campus bench.
University and FBI officials have said previously there was no known link between Hinrichs and terrorists, but Cole, whose district includes Norman, sought the meeting with Hernandez as rumors about the case have persisted.
"He said, 'We're continuing our investigation, but as every day goes by it just seems less and less likely. ... This looked like an individual act,"' Cole said.
Officials later removed more explosive materials from Hinrichs' apartment, which is near a mosque. The FBI questioned his Pakistani roommate.
Hinrichs, 21, was from Colorado Springs, Colo. He had a
(continued)
reputation as a loner and had struggled at times with his grades.
Cole said he also asked the agent specifically whether the FBI found the student intended to get inside the stadium.
"He said, 'We may never know. We have no evidence of a plan to do that, but we also couldn't tell you definitively he didn't try to do it and was rebuffed. We just simply don't know,"' Cole said.
Cole said the agent also told him the FBI found nothing indicating Hinrichs attended the mosque.
Cole said he asked the agent specifically whether jihadist material was found in the apartment, which was widely reported on Internet sites. "He told me there was absolutely none -- nothing that would suggest links to terrorist groups."
Cole also said the agent told him, "The roommate thing seems to be purely coincidental. ... No connection there whatsoever."
Cole said the agent "really went out of his way to establish that, I think, because he knows there's a legitimate concern and he doesn't want people who are innocent of any wrongdoing to be suspected of any wrongdoing."
He said the agent praised how the Islamic community cooperated with the FBI probe.
Hinrichs had a longtime fascination with
(continued)
bombs and ammunition, his family and friends have said. Cole said the FBI agent also remarked Tuesday how surprising it is that someone will have a history of playing around with "these things ... and people know it and we never get notified until something happens."
Cooperate in what way, other than denying any knowledge of Hinrichs?
Bookmarking
People have the right to know about things that may kill them- while I understand the multiple needs for not panicing people, not compromising an investigation, and the love bureaucrats have for maintaining control, I believe that as a representative, self-governing people, we have a right to be informed about potential threats like this.
I've never cared for crowds, but after this and the other bombs on campuses, I'm inclined to go hole up in a cave somewhere.
That is one thing I disagree with Jayna Davis on. The pictures I saw of that guy who was working at Logan airport did not look anything like John Doe II.
Did you ever see the pictures here on FreeRepublic where they morphed John Doe II and Jose Podia together? IMO and a lot of other Freepers opinion, that was a perfect match.
Not too slow to be sure to be somewhere else when the Murrah Bldg. went down.
"(the president of the Muslim Student Association assures me this was in no way a "party")"
Telling, huh? Gathering. Not a party. As in "oh, no no no... do not use this word, it's indicative of a celebration, and that would lead to inconvenient questions as to just what we were celebrating."
"wasn't the bomb made of something else?"
The TATP could have been used to ignite a much larger ANFO bomb, using ammonium nitrate fertilizer, combined with fuel oil. Hinrichs didn't get the fertilizer he sought from Ellison Feed & Seed. There were reports that a large amount of ammonium nitrate was found in his and Cheema's apartment, but this is unconfirmed, to my knowledge.
It could be that the failed fertilizer purchase reduced the scope of their plan, possibly.
"Did you ever see the pictures here on FreeRepublic where they morphed John Doe II and Jose Podia together? IMO and a lot of other Freepers opinion, that was a perfect match."
Yes, it was a near-perfect match. And, I hope this doesn't offend you or anyone else, but I'm going to correct the spelling of that last name, because it's important. You spelled it in a way that is pretty close to right phoenetically, but it is an Hispanic surname. Padilla. Puh-DEE-uh. Which we would spell something like your "Podia."
Time to investigate the Oklahoma FBI??
"Time to investigate the Oklahoma FBI??"
A house of smoke and mirrors. Who watches the watchers?
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