We Can Still Smell Red Meat

The always fascinating Dan Drezner has a bunch of good posts up.. sorry, we are going to skip to the red meat:

On Page 127 [of his new "Against All Enemies"], Clarke notes that it's possible that al-Qaida operatives in the Philippines "taught Terry Nichols how to blow up the Oklahoma Federal Building." Intelligence places Nichols there on the same days as Ramzi Yousef, and "we do know that Nichols's bombs did not work before his Philippines stay and were deadly when he returned."

This ties in to the theory that Clinton quashed investigations into a foreign connection to Terry Nichols. The objective - blame Oklahoma City on right-wing wackos for political purposes. The subtle message - the people who voted for Newt and listen to Rush blew up this building. Hey, we report, you deride.

[Mini-update - Of course they were wackos, but were they typical right-wingers? Virginia Postrel has lots more.]

More links on this theory can be found at the InstaPundit. Try (a), (b), (c), (d). Political connection here.

Developing...

Meanwhile, Dan Drezner has some great posts up, filled with insight and links.

Clarke on the Couch (my suggested title)

More Clarke Links (his title... yawn) [Whoa, that's what I'm talking about!]

And, because Dan is our man, he sends us to Brad DeLong, who shows empathy and insight in channelling Condoleeza Rice. When (if?) I post my response to "Clarke on the Couch", I expect to come out swinging on Clarke's behalf, so it must be "All Change" day.

And bonus red meat excerpt from the Clarke book - the Bush we love(d):

Resolved to attack al-Qaida on the evening of Sept. 11. That night, Bush spoke to his staff: "I want you to understand that we are at war and we will stay at war until this is done. Nothing else matters." When Donald Rumsfeld pointed out the legal problems posed by some proposed attacks, Bush said, "I don't care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass."

Head 'em up and herd 'em out, cowboy! For Kerry supporters, that would be, "nous allons donner un coup de pied un certain âne".

Comments

[WillieStyle]

The objective - blame Oklahoma City on right-wing wackos for political purposes. The subtle message - the people who voted for Newt and listen to Rush blew up this building.

Subtle?!
Are you claiming that McVeigh and Nichols weren't right-wing nuts?

MinuteMan, I admire your enthusiasm for the cause and all, but you can't fight every battle.
As Confucious say:
"You gotta know when to fold 'em."

[Duane]

Willie, of course McVeigh & company were right-wing nuts. The world has plenty of them, just as there are at least as many (I would say more) left-wing nuts.

What the McVeigh-al Qaeda connection illustrates is, once more, that bad people ally with other bad people against common enemies. One more illustration of why the State Department and CIA crew that insists that al Qaeda would never ally with Saddam, and that the Sunni Wahabbis would never ally with the Iranian mullahs, are totally wrong.

That is precisely why draining the swamps, beginning with Iraq, is a critical element of a successful war against terrorists.

[ed]

Hmm.

You can't be a right-wing nutcase and still get trained by AQ? What about the IRA? They're a bunch of nutcases and they sent a group to train Columbian terrorists under FARC.

I think that there's a lot more interactions going on in the terrorism underworld than most of us suspect. It must be like some sort of world-wide country club without the clubhouse.

[HH]

These people were, indisputably, to the right of Gingrich and Rush... the better analogy is David Duke. But that wouldn't benefit Clinton politically.

[Sandy P.]

And didn't Atta show up at the same motel McVeigh did????

Did the FBI ever turn over the vid tape to Specter's committee?

[Skip Kent]

BUSH IS THE DEVIL!!!

Ahem. Sorry.

[lucklucky]

Well Hitler and Stalin once were allies...poor Polish people...

[TM]

Willie, I like your style. But I don't fold 'em; the son of a bitch knocks 'em down.

Anyway, my point is not that McVeigh/Nichols were not right wing wackos; my point (already made by the Hammer) is that it suited Clinton to depict them as just a little too typical of the Angry White Males that famously flipped the Congress to the Reps in Nov 1994.

[Paul Stinchfield]

One more example: ties between Basque and Islamist terrorists.

[RufusLeeKing]

>>>This ties in to the theory that Clinton quashed investigations into a foreign connection to Terry Nichols. The objective - blame Oklahoma City on right-wing wackos for political purposes. The subtle message - the people who voted for Newt and listen to Rush blew up this building. Hey, we report, you deride.<<<

And that one calls for the utmost deRision.

Yeah, the nerve of that satanic Clinton. Letting the press know about McVey's professed avenging of Waco just so he [Clinton] can score points against the upstanding antigovernment armed fringe.

I won't be visiting this particular branch of the fringe again.

[Rick Heller]

Don't you think that Clark would entertain this idea makes him more credible as an ultrahawk? Most people who've tried to tie OK City to Islamists were smeared as racists.

Let's assume for a moment that you're right on your speculation that Clinton wanted to tie OK City to domestics. That Clarke brings this up suggests that he's not really a Clintonian, doesn't it?

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

"he sends us to Brad DeLong, who shows empathy and insight in channelling Condoleeza Rice."

Yes, one might even call him the poor man's Patrick R. Sullivan, so astute is his analysis.

And only four or five days behind similar guestimates of the Rice-Clarke axis I'd made on his comments section. Of course, you may not be able to verify that since the good professor has of late been in the habit of...

(THIS IS A WORLD EXCLUSIVE for readers of JOM. I hope you have a flashing siren to afix here)

...selectively DELETING my comments from the appropriate sections of his blog. Yes, my 1st Amendment rights have been violated by a former Clinton Administration official. And I am suitably honored.

[TM]

"the poor man's Patrick R. Sullivan"

There's our entry for some bumper sticker contest.

[Sean O'Hara]

Wouldn't right-wing nut-jobs allied with foreign agents to over-throw the US government have been every bit as damaging -- if not more -- as right-wing nut-jobs working alone?

[R. Ford Mashburn]

Wouldn't Right wing nut jobs allied with foreign agends be just as damaging as right wing nut jobs acting alone? No. Adding foreign agents to the equation defeats the prime political objectives of Bill Clinton; he alluded to this when he described the OK City bombing as being inspired by "Rush Limbaugh and other right wing talk show hosts".

The White House smear machine went into overdrive to paint the opponents of the President as allies of Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols. If there were foreign agents involved, that eliminates the basis of the smear campaign. Evidence of foreign involvement was discouraged, in much the same way as investigations into Arabs on immigration visas attending flight schools was discouraged in the months before 9-11.

This kind of smear campaign is very effective. Hitler used this with the Reichstag fire, blaming the Communists for it, passing new laws banning the Communists from holding office. Stalin used this to deport millions of Chechens in 1943 because they were known enemies of the State, and because the Germans might have contacted them during the 1942 Caucasus campaign. Robespierre used this tactic to eliminate his political rivals (and former allies) in post-Revolution France, and began the Reign of Terror (of which the guillotine was so prominent).

Is it a likely explanation? Not likely, but it is a possibility.....

[TM]

here is a quote-drenched article by Virginia Postrel.

An excerpt:

A Los Angeles Times news report by Janet Hook is direct: "Gingrich has kept his distance from the violent extremes of the right....But Gingrich has continued to champion the same causes as these extremist groups: criticism of the Waco siege, opposition to gun control and general anti-government themes."

She also has a number of Clinton quotes (he gave a speech on this which I haven't looked for yet).

A sample:

This is what the president of the United States said in a widely praised speech at Michigan State's graduation: "I would like to say something to the paramilitary groups and to others who believe the greatest threat to America comes not from terrorists from within our country or beyond our borders, but from our own government....I am well aware that most of you have never violated the law of the land. I welcome the comments that some of you have made recently condemning the bombing in Oklahoma City....But I also know there have been lawbreakers among those who espouse your philosophy." (Emphasis added.)

"There have been lawbreakers among those who espouse your philosophy." Clinton may start with the "to be sures"--acknowledging that his nameless opponents are law-abiding and condemn the bombing--but he ends with guilt by association. Anyone who "believe[s] the greatest threat to America" comes from the government might as well be a terrorist. After all, they're on the same philosophical team.

Have a great weekend.

[WillieStyle]

A conservative [snark]I'm sorry, libertarian[/snark] decrying the "fellow travellers" charge. And they said I was too young to have seen everything.

Perhaps next Ms. Postrel would care to explain how those 'who "believe[s] the greatest threat to America" comes from the government' aren't complete #@$!s with their heads up their #@%!%.

Anarcho Capitalist: See, when we told you that government was the greatest threat to our nation, we didn't mean for you to actually do anything about it.
I mean geez. Who actualy employs violence against the greatest threat to their country. Why couldn't you just have waxed philosophical about objectivism and Hayek's day dreams and junk.