Monday, April 19, 2010

Oklahoma City, April 19, 1995 - Lest We Forget

For those who assume that all terrorists are foreigners who look, dress, and worship differently than themselves. On April 19, 1995, a massive truck bomb was exploded in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, injuring 680 and killing 168, including 19 children under the age of 6. Were the perpetrators Arab or Pakistani Muslims? No, they were Americans who considered themselves "patriots" defending American liberty - Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. We need to remember that our own people are as inclined to despicable acts in the name of God, Country, or whatever as any foreigner.


Music: "In Paradisum" from Gabriel Fauré's Requiem


May the choir of angels receive you and with Lazarus, once poor, may you have eternal rest.

Photo © 1995 by Charles H. Porter IV

14 comments:

  1. Even now, I weep to remember.

    How blind violence is and how sad that the innocent so often pay the price.

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  2. Of course we remember it. How easily we forget our 'home grown' terrorists and focus on the Arab world. Amazing and tragic photograph there Roy. I hope that little one survived. As so many didn't.

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  3. Yes, but bombs explode over there ALMOST EVERY DAY.

    Not trivializing this tragedy. Just...well, just lamenting, in general...

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  4. All terrorism represents humanity at its worst, but I think to suggest "our own people are as inclined to despicable acts in the name of God, Country, or whatever as any foreigner..." overstates the issue. While there are some terrible people with dreadful intent in our country, we do not have domestic terrorist movements, there is not a subculture training people to kill themselves to kill others as what exists in radical Islam that has become a geniune subculture in much of the Islamic world. We've had right wing horrors like McVeigh. We've had eco-terrorists who've torched housing developments and car dealerships. We cannot forget the actions of the Weather Underground and left-wing extremists either. If we connect protests movements we don't condone with terrorists, we are obscuring the issue and creating another form of intolerance. One cannot blame the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti Vietnam Movement, or the Tea Party gangs with those who commit acts of terrorism who might have share some of their gripes but in an extreme and hateful manner.

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  5. Still haunts me, it does. It's just too bad he didn't take himself wi' th' truck!!

    The local news was re-airing this while I was at the diner...I had to walk out...

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  6. Right Minded Fellow - I didn't make any of those assumptions; you did. All I said was that we turn out terrorists, too, of whatever stripe. The fact that you had to personalize it tells me you protest too much.

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  7. The BFI says OKC was Bill Clinton's fault. I thought he had no shame, and now I know it.

    RMF, we don't have domestic terror movements? Depends on what part of our history you're talking about. Any African-American who lived in the south for the ninety years of Reconstruction and Jim Crow would disagree vehemently. Today, unless we're vigilant, it's a matter of time before some right-wing militia does something nuts. And what would you call Eric Rudolph and Scott Roeder?

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  8. Lest we forget, indeed.
    Praying for peace and for all the victims of hatred ...

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  9. this is so sad yet touching,
    what powerful post!

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  10. thanks roy. been to the memorial there in OKC...its pretty breath taking...

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  11. If you had or have a chance to watch Rachel Maddow's show "Confessions of a Terrorist", it is revealing in its use of actual interview tapes made with McVeigh. She makes your point and he makes your point and it's all so sad and pointless. The guy was, as one person put it, "a mass murderer".

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