Opinion of Timothy McVeigh

[Derek]

Wtf do HP and FF mean? I don't think he was a bad person at all. He was misguided and should've taken political or legal action rather than attack our country.

You don't think killing dozens of people makes you a bad person?

So what you're saying is that the Clinton administration was bad for murdering ppl at Waco?

[Joe Republic]

My point is McVeigh's friends were murdered by our government for NO reason at all and that can trigger some troubling emotions for someone.

Leaving aside your disturbing "NO reason at all" comment for a moment, could you please describe the relationship between the Waco residents and McVeigh, exactly?  You described them as "friends".

[useful idiot]

He was a product of American militarism. You give a guy a weapon and tell him to kill innocent people or people that wouldn't be endangering his or any other American's lives if he wasn't there, then the logical conclusion to draw is that it's ok to kill people for political ends, and those kids who might get in the way are just collateral damage. From every source we've gotten it's obvious that he came back from the Gulf a different person. He found out what it was like to kill needlessly, and he got rewarded for it. If it's morally ok for the state to engage in such behavior, why is it not acceptable for an individual to take such actions?

Waco only sparked what was already there and confirmed what he had been taught. If someone doesn't align with your political beliefs, then it's acceptable to kill them.

McVeigh should be pitied. He and the people he killed were both victims of the same rotten society that turned him into what he was. Not to say that he shouldn't have been locked away for the rest of his life....

[justW353]

The U.S. government killed more than that in Waco to my knowledge. How do you judge a person in black and white terms like that? Either way who killed more ppl... My point is McVeigh's friends were murdered by our government for NO reason at all and that can trigger some troubling emotions for someone.

You know...nothing...

McVeigh did not know people at Waco.  McVeigh was not a Dividian.  

76 cultists died at Waco.  168 innocent people died at the Murrah Building.  

Seriously, you could at least wikipedia this crap.  You truly have no idea what you are talking about.

[Derek]

My point is McVeigh's friends were murdered by our government for NO reason at all and that can trigger some troubling emotions for someone.

Leaving aside your disturbing "NO reason at all" comment for a moment, could you please describe the relationship between the Waco residents and McVeigh, exactly?  You described them as "friends".

Of course. McVeigh was one of the 9 ppl who escaped from Waco the day that their home was burnt down.

[Derek]

The U.S. government killed more than that in Waco to my knowledge. How do you judge a person in black and white terms like that? Either way who killed more ppl... My point is McVeigh's friends were murdered by our government for NO reason at all and that can trigger some troubling emotions for someone.

You know...nothing...

McVeigh did not know people at Waco.  McVeigh was not a Dividian.  

76 cultists died at Waco.  168 innocent people died at the Murrah Building.  

Seriously, you could at least wikipedia this crap.  You truly have no idea what you are talking about.

I will concede on the numbers. It's not like those number differences are significant. What is significant is that ppl died. The first time it was the government screwing up intelligence reports. The second time it was the government ignoring threats for at least a week.

[justW353]

My point is McVeigh's friends were murdered by our government for NO reason at all and that can trigger some troubling emotions for someone.

Leaving aside your disturbing "NO reason at all" comment for a moment, could you please describe the relationship between the Waco residents and McVeigh, exactly?  You described them as "friends".

Of course. McVeigh was one of the 9 ppl who escaped from Waco the day that their home was burnt down.

You're a goddamn fool.  McVeigh was watching that sh**t on the news; he knew NO ONE in Waco.

No pun intended, but...

DIAF

[Joe Republic]

My point is McVeigh's friends were murdered by our government for NO reason at all and that can trigger some troubling emotions for someone.

Leaving aside your disturbing "NO reason at all" comment for a moment, could you please describe the relationship between the Waco residents and McVeigh, exactly?  You described them as "friends".

Of course. McVeigh was one of the 9 ppl who escaped from Waco the day that their home was burnt down.

Ah, so when facts appear to working against you, make up new ones!

[??????????]

My point is McVeigh's friends were murdered by our government for NO reason at all and that can trigger some troubling emotions for someone.

Leaving aside your disturbing "NO reason at all" comment for a moment, could you please describe the relationship between the Waco residents and McVeigh, exactly?  You described them as "friends".

Of course. McVeigh was one of the 9 ppl who escaped from Waco the day that their home was burnt down.

Ah, so when facts appear to working against you, make up new ones!

I heard Barack Obamas birth certificate was created in Waco.

[Joe Republic]

I heard Barack Obamas birth certificate was created in Waco.

True, and don't forget that 9/11 was perpetrated by Jews who sought revenge against the U.S. for the Holocaust.

[Derek]

He met with Muhammad Atta and Hussein Al Husseini in between Waco and Oklahoma City. The day of the Oklahoma City bombing McVeigh had a pocket full of phone numbers from Iraq. That has been covered up by the liberal media.

[Sewer]

liberal media

what is that?

[justW353]

He met with Muhammad Atta and Hussein Al Husseini in between Waco and Oklahoma City. The day of the Oklahoma City bombing McVeigh had a pocket full of phone numbers from Iraq. That has been covered up by the liberal media.

roflcopter

[Derek]

You didn't read the reports. I'll try to post links tomorrow. They're very enlightening. Our government was too worried about rights and not concerned enough with stopping terrorism.

[useful idiot]

You didn't read the reports. I'll try to post links tomorrow. They're very enlightening. Our government was too worried about rights and not concerned enough with stopping terrorism.

Just stop....

[dead0man]

He was a product of American militarism. You give a guy a weapon and tell him to kill innocent people

cite?

[useful idiot]

He was a product of American militarism. You give a guy a weapon and tell him to kill innocent people

cite?

Cite what exactly? McVeigh stated that seeing the destruction caused to people by the American military in the Gulf made him realize that these people were no different from Americans. He killed two people in the distance with the gun on his Bradley vehicle and said that they meant him no harm, but he was awarded a Bronze Star for it.

I don't know what you're debating about that. You can read what he said in American Terrorist, and you can watch the Maddow doc.

[dead0man]

Nobody told him to kill innocents (and if some individual did, he was wrong and it certainly isn't standard protocol).  You insinuated that the military gives a guy a gun and tells him to go kill innocents, that simply isn't true.

[k-onmmunist]

I don't like terrorists.

[useful idiot]

Nobody told him to kill innocents (and if some individual did, he was wrong and it certainly isn't standard protocol).  You insinuated that the military gives a guy a gun and tells him to go kill innocents, that simply isn't true.

What exactly is your definition of innocent? The military tells its personnel to kill plenty of people who don't directly threaten the United States in any way, shape, or form. Killing bystanders, or those who are unlucky enough to have a bomb fall on their house, is considered collateral damage and acceptable, and this is how McVeigh described the children in the daycare center.

[dead0man]

Bystanders are, by definition, not the target.  Nobody says, "I sure hope we get a lot of bystanders killed when that bomb drops".  Western militaries do a LOT to make sure as few bystanders get hurt/die as is reasonably possible.  Are we always perfect about it?  Of course not.  Are mistakes made?  Of course.  Sadly we occasionally blow up our own guys so of course the people living next door to Al Quida number 2 of the week are going to have problems.  Are there bad apples doing bad things in our militaries?  Of course.  Are the governments that run our militaries doing what they can to root those people out?  We hope.

The US (and other western militaries) don't hand crazy people guns and say go have fun.  They don't instruct new recruits to shoot innocenet people.  You can't blame the military, or "American militarism" for making McVeigh crazy.

[useful idiot]

Bystanders are, by definition, not the target.  Nobody says, "I sure hope we get a lot of bystanders killed when that bomb drops".  Western militaries do a LOT to make sure as few bystanders get hurt/die as is reasonably possible.  Are we always perfect about it?  Of course not.  Are mistakes made?  Of course.  Sadly we occasionally blow up our own guys so of course the people living next door to Al Quida number 2 of the week are going to have problems.  Are there bad apples doing bad things in our militaries?  Of course.  Are the governments that run our militaries doing what they can to root those people out?  We hope.

The US (and other western militaries) don't hand crazy people guns and say go have fun.  They don't instruct new recruits to shoot innocenet people.  You can't blame the military, or "American militarism" for making McVeigh crazy.

Saying you can't blame the government for making McVeigh crazy is like saying you can't blame a child molester for his victim's future predilections towards abusing children. Everybody has to take account for their own actions, but sometimes there's a major overarching factor that helps explain things.

When you invade countries and attack people who don't threaten you, then you take on the role of the aggressor, rather than the defender. When you shoot people who aren't attacking you and are awarded a Bronze Star for it, you learn to accept that it's ok to kill for reasons other than defense(aka, murder). McVeigh learned that killing civilians was acceptable in the pursuit of killing to obtain a political objective.

Americans tend to self-justify their murder of foreigners because of this stupid notion of nationalism that they wrap themselves in. Somehow American lives are more important than those of brown people. McVeigh states that he looked into the eyes of those people whose homes he had helped destroy, whose countrymen he had killed, and he realized that they were no different from any other American; they were people. With this pretense of superiority that had been drilled into his head gone, and the values of aggression at the cost of lives learned, his actions in OK City are a lot more explainable.

If the government decided it was going to use the military to bomb an Iraqi government building in 2003, would that have been news? Would it have been news if they hit the daycare center next to it? No, of course not. But McVeigh decided to kill fellow Americans, people special enough to have been born on one side of an arbitrary line on a map. Because it wasn't the almighty state doing the killing, something must have been wrong with it.

Killing, when not in self-defense, is murder. McVeigh learned to murder, but because he killed white people instead of brown ones, he's the monster of the century.

[dead0man]

If it makes you feel better to blame the big bad military for turning McVeigh into a monster instead of, you know, blaming McVeigh, I guess go with it.

[useful idiot]

If it makes you feel better to blame the big bad military for turning McVeigh into a monster instead of, you know, blaming McVeigh, I guess go with it.

Some people don't like to live in the dreamworld where everything is so black and white and you can just execute criminals without taking a look at the conditions or the society that bred them. Whether you like it or not, people are a product of their environment and influences. If you want to deny that militarism and nationalism play a significant part in how violent our society is, well I guess everyone has the right to be foolish....

[Franzl]

If it makes you feel better to blame the big bad military for turning McVeigh into a monster instead of, you know, blaming McVeigh, I guess go with it.

Some people don't like to live in the dreamworld where everything is so black and white and you can just execute criminals without taking a look at the conditions or the society that bred them. Whether you like it or not, people are a product of their environment and influences. If you want to deny that militarism and nationalism play a significant part in how violent our society is, well I guess everyone has the right to be foolish....

So what about people that never served in the military? Are they also affected by whatever supposedly motivated McVeigh?

And what about people involved in school shootings in Germany or Sweden or wherever else? Is it a product of German militarism?

I don't buy the notion that a person is released from responsibility for his actions because of whatever society did to "motivate" his actions.

Nobody forced him to kill so many people, and even if one accepts the notion that he "learned to kill" in the military and recognized that killing people was wrong (as you suggested based on his assertions in that book), isn't that actually something that should prevent him from doing it again, by that logic?