Evolution

     Because of the plentiful supply of evidence consisting of embryology, cellular biology and paleontology, evolution is the best explanation of biodiversity. “To an evolutionary biologist, evolution is a change in the proportion of genes present in an existing population” (Andrew). The evolution-creationism debate can be traced back as far as ancient Greece but has more recently been between Bible followers and followers of the scientist, Charles Darwin. In the simplest terms, Darwin realized that individuals in a species have varying characteristics, and that those that are best adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and breed, causing the maladapted individuals to be eliminated over time.
    
     “In embryology, the developing fetus is studied, and similarities with other organisms are observed” (Cobb). For example, at their earliest stages, different mammal species look almost identical in the embryo and are almost impossible to distinguish. Since many species develop similarly and start off in similar shapes, embryology is a strong independent line of evidence that we originated from a common ancestor and that evolution did in fact occur. It is important to note that we didn’t come from other mammals such as chimpanzees; we just branched off from them at some point.
    
     “The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that all things in the universe are undergoing a continual process of decay. That process causes a decrease in the complexity of all things. Yet evolution requires the opposite to occur – namely, that all things evolve from a simple state to a state of greater complexity” (Thomson). This statement is based on a complete misconception as to the mechanisms of the second law. The second law states that the total entropy – or amount of energy unavailable for work during a thermodynamic process – cannot decrease. The Second Law also states that parts of a system can decrease in entropy as long as other parts endure an offsetting increase. For example, if the sun pours heat and light onto it, our planet can become more complex. The increase in entropy associated with the sun’s nuclear fusion more than balances the scale. It is for this reason that when simple organisms consume other forms of life and nonliving materials, they can fuel their rise toward complexity (Rennie).
    
     “Even in cell biology, at the level of the individuals cell, there is evidence of evolution in that there are many similarities that can be observed when comparing various cells from different organisms” (Cobb). Through cellular biology, we can see how similar the cells of different organisms are despite differences in size, shape, capabilities, and intelligence. This is because the DNA for supporting essential components of life is very similar and consistent across the wide and diverse spectrum of species that inhabit Earth. For example, we share 50 percent of our DNA with bananas, 60 percent with fruit flies, 98 percent with chimpanzees, and 99 percent with every other human. The same relationships that can be observed when analyzing the structures of organisms can be seen in DNA sequences further supporting that Darwin’s theory of evolution is the best explanation of biodiversity.
    
     “The ethical argument of the creationists is that the reductionistic materialism of Darwinian science is ethically degrading. If Darwinians persuade people that they are nothing but animals and therefore are not elevated above other animals by having been created in God's image, people will not respect God's moral law or see the unique moral dignity of human beings. Instead they will become selfish hedonists in the pursuit of their animal desires” (Arnhart). Darwinians reason that as the rational and naturally social animals human beings are, we have social instincts allowing us to care for others. We are also capable of creating moral rules making it possible for us to satisfy our social needs. For example, if children weren’t cared for by their parents or people assuming parental roles, the human species would not survive. We can therefore see how natural selection has given humans the natural desire to parent offspring and created the moral bond between parents and children.
    
     Our abundant and extensive fossil record is perhaps the best evidence of evolution. “By placing fossils together based on their ages, a gradual change in form can be identified, which can be carefully compared to species that currently exist” (Cobb). Analyzing the placement of fossils within the ground and using techniques like carbon dating to determine their age allows paleontologists to place fossils in chronological order. This makes it possible for them to note similarities with currently existing species. Using our fossil record, we can very clearly see that countless species have gone extinct. Although our fossil record is incomplete, careful analysis of habitat, environmental factors at various points of time, characteristics of extinct species, and characteristics of currently existing species can compensate for missing parts of the fossil record making paleontology an excellent source of evidence for evolution and natural selection (Cobb).
    
     There is an overwhelming amount of evidence supporting evolution including embryology, cellular biology, and paleontology. But what makes evolution so scientifically strong isn’t just the many strong lines of evidence that support the same thing, but the fact that each is completely independent from the others. Embryology is a strong piece of evidence because it shows how certain species develop similarly and start off in similar shapes allowing us to infer that these species have a common ancestor. Cellular biology allows us to see how similar various genetic codes and cells from different organisms are. It also allows us to see the same relationships between the structures of organisms in DNA sequences. Last of all, our extensive and abundant fossil record shows that countless species have gone extinct. When fossils are placed in chronological order, a gradual change in form can be identified which can carefully be compared to species that currently exist. Most of the opposing views on evolution are derived from a complete misconception as to the mechanisms of evolution. It is for these reasons that evolution is the best explanation of biodiversity.

Works Cited

Andrew, Susan. "Evolution." The Gale Encyclopedia of Science. Ed. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. 3rd ed. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 2004. 1538-1542. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 18 May 2010.

Arnhart, Larry. "Evolution–Creationism Debate." Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics. Ed. Carl Mitcham. Vol. 2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 720-723. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 18 May 2010.

Cobb, Bryan. "Evolution, Evidence of." The Gale Encyclopedia of Science. Ed. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. 3rd ed. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 2004. 1544-1546. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 18 May 2010.

John Rennie, "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense", Scientific American Magazine, July 2002.

Thomson, Ker C. "Physical Laws Support Creationism." At Issue: Creationism vs. Evolution. Ed. Bruno J. Leone. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2002. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale.  27 May. 2010

Titanic

    Did the Titanic really hit an iceberg or did it only hit low-lying pack ice?  Was an excessive amount of coal added to the furnace causing the ship to travel at unsafe speeds indirectly leading to the iceberg collision?  Was Titanic's sister-ship, the RMS Olympic, disguised as the Titanic for an elaborate insurance scam?  Was the Titanic's angle at the time of the break up far less than had commonly been assumed?  We'll examine these conspiracies next.
      The RMS Titanic was built in Belfast, Ireland and was an Olympic-class passenger liner owned by the White Star Line.  At the time of its construction, it was the largest passenger steamboat in the world.  On April 14, 1912, four days into the voyage, the Titanic struck an iceberg sinking early the next morning according to accepted reports.  The ship sunk only two hours and forty minutes after striking the iceberg.  The sinking became one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history resulting in the deaths of 1,517 of the 2,223 people on board.
     Although the ship was complying with regulations of the time, the capacity of the lifeboats was 1,178 although the ships maximum capacity was 3,547.  A disproportionate number of men died due to the women and children first protocol that was followed.  As a result 74 percent of the women, 52 percent of the children, and only 20 percent of the men on board were saved.  The Titanic incorporated the most advanced technologies of the time and was designed by some of the most experienced engineers.  Many believed that the ship was unsinkable resulting in a great shock to many that despite its extensive safety features, it sank.  The accepted theory is that buckling of the hull allowed water to enter the ships first five watertight compartments (one more than it was designed to survive) causing it to sink soon after.
     Now that we know what the accepted theory is, let's examine some of the conspiracies.  One conspiracy is that the Titanic didn't hit an iceberg, but low lying pack ice.  A former member of the Ice Pilotage Service, Captain L.M. Collins, published The Sinking of the Titanic: The Mystery Solved in 2003.  This was based on his own experiences of ice navigation and witness statements given at two post-disaster inquiries.  One piece of evidence supporting this theory is that 10 minutes before the ship was struck, two lookouts spotted what appeared to be haze on the horizon.  Collins believes that what they saw wasn't haze, but a strip of pack ice three to four miles ahead of the ship.  There was much discrepancy as to the height of the ice.  The lookouts reported it as being 60 feet tall, 100 feet by Quartermaster Rowe, and very low in the water by Fourth Officer Boxhall, who was on the starboard side.  An optical phenomenon that is well know to ice navigators where the flat sea and extreme cold distort the appearance of objects near the waterline making them appear to be the height of the ships lights, about 60 feet above the surface near the bow and 100 feet along the super structure, is believed to have occurred by Collins.  He also believes that had the Titanic struck an iceberg, the ship would most likely have flooded, capsized, and sunk within minutes.
      Another theory is that a coal fire indirectly led to the iceberg collision.  Robert Essenhigh, an Ohio State engineer, released a theory in 2004 claiming that a pile of stored coal started to smolder causing more coal to be put in to the furnaces.  He believes this attempt to get control of the situation led to dangerously high speeds in the iceberg-laden waters.  Records prove that fire control teams at the ports of Cherbourg and Southampton were on standby because of a stockpile fire.  Fires of this sort are known to reignite after they've supposedly been extinguished.  Essenhigh believes the Titanic left Southampton with one of its bunkers on fire or that a spontaneous combustion of coal occurred after the ship left port.  These types of fires were common occurrences aboard coal-fired ships and were one of many reasons why marine transportation switched to oil in the early 1900s.
     Perhaps the most controversial and complex theory is by the author of the book, Titanic: The Ship That Never Sank?, Robin Gardiner.  In her book, she cites several events leading up to the sinking of the Titanic and concludes that the ship that sank was in fact Titanic's sister ship, the RMS Olympic, disguised as the Titanic for an elaborate insurance scam.  The Olympic was Titanic's older sister although it was built alongside the Titanic and entered service in October 1910.  The two ships were nearly identical except for the fact that the Titanic contained smaller glazed windows to protect passengers from spray.  The Olympic was involved in a collision with the HMS Hawke near Southampton on September 20, 1911 causing serious damage to both ships.  The Hawke was not found responsible for the collision.  According to Gardiner, White Star Line wasn't insured for the cost of fixing the damaged Olympic.  Realizing that it would be more economical to make the Titanic appear to be the Olympic rather than remove parts from the Titanic to the Olympic, the company converted the almost complete Titanic into the Olympic removing any parts that had its name so at least one vessel could be earning money.  Gardiner believes that the Titanic spent 25 years imitating the Olympic until the Titanic's (or Olympic's according to official reports) retirement in 1934.
      Gardiner believes that White Star Line's plan was to dispose the Olympic so insurance money could be collected.  Gardiner also believes that the seacocks (a boat's valve permitting the entry of water into the boat) were supposed to be opened up at sea and that the nearby ships would be able to rescue the passengers.  They thought the shortage of lifeboats wouldn't be a problem because the ship would sink slowly allowing the lifeboats to be able to make several trips to and from the Olympic to its rescuers.  She thinks Officer Murdoch was keeping a watch out for rescue ships on April 14 even though he wasn't on duty yet because he was one of the few high ranking officers who knew of the plan.  Gardiner's most controversial statement is that what the Titanic struck was really not an iceberg, but a rescue ship with its lights out.  She hypothesizes this because of the short distance the lookouts saw the iceberg and of her belief that an impact with an iceberg couldn't cause such serious damage to a steel double-hulled ship like the Titanic.
      As to the mechanics of Titanic's breakup, Walter Lord, the author of A Night To Remember, assumed the ship was at an absolutely perpendicular angle before its final plunge.  This theory remained unchallenged for the most part even after the ship's discovery in 1985 confirmed it had broken in two pieces at or near the surface.  Most researchers acknowledge that the Titanic's expansion joint played no role in the ships breakup although it was designed be able to flex at sea.  In 2005, a history channel expedition analyzed two large section of Titanic's keel which consisted of the portion of the ship's bottom from immediately below the site of the break.  With the help of naval architect, Roger Long, they publicized a new theory in the 2006 documentary, Titanic's Final Moments: Missing Pieces.  They believed that Titanic's angle at the time of the breakup was far less than originally believed and no greater than eleven degrees.  Long also suspects that the quicker-than-expected sinking resulting in a greater loss of life was due to a premature failure of the ship's expansion joint.  It was discovered that Titanic's sister ship, the Britannic, had expansion joints that were superior to that of the Titanic's.  In the 2007 documentary, Titanic's Achilles Heel, Long's theory was proven wrong when computer simulations showed Titanic's expansion joints were strong enough to handle all stresses the ship could reasonably be expected to encounter in service and that during its sinking, it actually outperformed its design specifications.
     It is certainly possible that what the Titanic struck was not an iceberg but pack ice instead.  It was common for piles of stored coal to smolder making it possible that more coal was added to the ship's furnace to get control of the situation.  This may have caused the ship to travel at dangerously high speeds, resulting in a loss of maneuverability, preventing the ship's operators from being able to navigate around dangerous objects at sea.  The sinking of the Titanic could have been purposefully caused but it seems highly unlikely such plan would work.  I could not grasp how a company would risk the lives of so many innocent people with the intention of committing an insurance scam for their personal gain.  If the Titanic had in fact collided with another darkened ship, why are there no records of such incident and why have the remains of the other ship involved in the collision not been found?  It seems highly possible that the angle of the Titanic at the time of the breakup was no greater than eleven degrees and that despite the end result, the ship outperformed its design specifications.  Regardless of whether the ship was intentionally sunk or not, the lives of 1,517 innocent people were lost in what was one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.

Pan Am Flight 103

     Did the CIA set up a protected drug route from Europe to the United States so Syrian drug dealers could ship heroin to the US using Pan Am flights in exchange for intelligence?  Did the Iranian government bomb the plane in retaliation for of the shooting down of a Iran Air Airbus by the USS Vincennes?  Was Ahmed Jibril sponsored by Iran to commit the bombing and paid $11 million for the success of the operation?  We'll examine these conspiracies next.
       Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan American World Airways' third daily scheduled flight from London's Heathrow Airport to the JFK airport in New York.  On Wednesday December 21, 1988, the plane flying this route was destroyed by a bomb killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members.  In Lockerbie, a town in southern Scotland, 11 people were killed as large sections of the plane fell in and around the town bringing the death toll to 270.  It was therefore named the Lockerbie bombing.
     On January 31, 2001, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, a Libyan, was convicted of involvement in the bombing and sentenced to life imprisonment in Scotland.  The Scottish Government released him on August 21, 2009 on compassionate grounds to return to Libya because he had terminal prostate cancer and had a life expectancy of less than 3 months.  His release and return to Libya has stirred controversy because six months after his release, he was alive and living as a freeman.
      Initially, the prime suspects for the bombing were the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC), a Damascus-based rejectionist group led by former leader of the Syrian army, Captain Ahmed Jibril.  It was speculated that he was sponsored by the Iranian government to commit the bombings.  During a press conference in February 1986, Jibril warned that "There will be no safety for any traveler on an Israeli or U.S. airliner."  Author David Yallop claimed to have recorded secret intercepts between the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Baalbeck, Lebanon and the PFLP-GC immediately after the downing of the plane.  Israeli intelligence allegedly intercepted a phone call made two days after the downing of the plane by Mohtashemi-Pur, Interior Minister in Tehran, to the chargé d'affaires at the Iranian embassy in Beirut.  The embassy allegedly paid Jibril $11 million for the successful mission and congratulated the PFLP-GC.  This payment has never been confirmed.
     While the PFLP-GC constructed their bombs and planned the bombing, Germany's internal security service, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) kept the group's members under strict surveillance.  Unknown to them, the PFLP-GC's bomb maker, Marwan Khreesat, was a Jordanian intelligence service (GID) agent who reported the cell's activities to the GID, who shared the information with the BfV and Western intelligence.  The Jordanian government encouraged Khreesat to proceed with the construction of the bombs but instructed him to ensure they were ineffective and would not explode.  Despite this, a German police technician was killed, in April 1989, when attempting to disarm one of his bombs.  Through Khreesat and the GID, the Germans learned that that the PFLP-GC was surveying a number of targets.  They then set the attack date for October 30, 1988.
             Knowing this, the German secret police attempted to arrest the PFLP-GC by raiding 14 apartments and arresting 17 men on October 26, 1998.  They feared that they would lose control of the situation if they kept the group on surveillance any longer.  Two members of the group managed to escape despite the German police's efforts.  The author of the 1994 documentary film, David Yallop, speculated that Libyan or Iranian-paid agents worked together on the bombing, or one group handed the job to the other upon the arrest of most of the PFLP-GC participants.  Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA head of terrorism who worked on the PA 103 investigation, believes the PFLP-GC planned the attack after being requested to by the Iranian government, then sub-contracted it to Libyan intelligence after the arrests in Germany meant they were unable to complete the mission.  Other supporters of this conspiracy believe that who ever sponsored the bombing arranged two separate operations to ensure one with succeed, or used the operation in Germany as a red herring to divert the attention of intelligence services, while the bombers proceeded quietly elsewhere.
     Many journalists believe that the Iranian motive for committing the bombing was retaliation for the shooting down of an Iran Air Airbus by the USS Vincennes.  This had been denied by investigators from the start.  Abolghasem Mesbahi, the former head of Iranian intelligence in Europe, eventually admitted to German investigators that Iran had asked Libya and Abu Nidal, a Palestinian guerrilla leader, to conduct the attack on Pan Am 103.
      Another conspiracy involves CIA drug smuggling.  In this theory, CIA agents set up a protected drug route from Europe to the United States, allegedly called Operation Corea, allowing Syrian drug dealers led by Monzer al-Kassar, to ship heroin to the US using Pan Am Flights.  In exchange for this, they were to supply intelligence on Palestinian groups in Syria holding hostages.  As part of this plan, the CIA would protect the suitcases containing the drugs and make sure they were not searched.  According to this theory, on the day of the bombing, the terrorists exchanged suitcases: one for drugs and one for the bomb.
     According to a theory by Juval Aviv, the CIA knew the bag with the drugs would be exchanged with the bag with the bomb but let it happen anyway because two American Intelligence Officers - Matthew Gannon and Major Charles McKee had found out about the drug route and were heading to Washington on Pan Am 103 to tell their superiors.  Pan Am hired Aviv as their lead investigator for the bombing.  His scenario provided a credible defense against claims for compensation by relatives of the victims because Pan Am could hardly be held liable if the US Government helped the bomb bypass Pan Am's security.  Pan Am's report alleged that Khalid Jafaar, a Lebanese-American passenger, brought the bomb on board thinking he was carrying drugs for the drug dealers he supposedly worked for.  A civil case by US relatives presented in a New York court rejected the report's allegations due to lack of evidence.
     It is certainly possible that the Iranian government funded the mission in retaliation for the Iran Air Airbus that was shot down.  Despite the 290 lives that were innocently taken in the Iran Air incident, which appears to be an accident by the USS  Vincennes, a retaliation of violence is unacceptable if that is what caused Pan Am Flight 103 to be downed.  If the Iranian government caused the downing of the flight, keep in mind that a country's government is not necessarily a representation of the beliefs of the individuals that reside in that country.  It seems highly possible that the PFLP-GC was initially assigned the mission but it was transferred to Libyan intelligence when it became clear the group could not complete the mission.  It is a lot harder to believe that two separate operations were arranged by whoever sponsored the bombing or that it was used as a red herring to divert attention from the real bombers.  Knowing how corrupt Iran's government has been since the revolution, it is quite possible they funded the mission.  There is a chance that the CIA allowed Syrian drug dealers to transport heroin through Pan Am flights in exchange for intelligence on Palestinian groups holding hostages in Syria, but it seems highly unlikely that they would knowingly let a bomb on board Pan Am Flight 103.  I could not grasp them doing such a thing.  Regardless of who is to blame, the Lockerbie bombing was truly a tragedy that took the lives of 270 people.
   

Waco Siege

      Who fired the first shots at the Waco siege?  Was CS gas injected into into the building by armored vehicles in an unsafe manner?  Did the compound residents really have enough time to escape the fire if they desired?  Did the Davidian's commit suicide or whey they caught in the midst of combat with the FBI?  We'll examine these controversies next.
     Beginning on February 28, 1993, the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) attempted to execute a search warrant at the Branch Davidian ranch at Mount Carmel, located nine miles northeast of Waco, Texas.  After an exchange of gunfire, four agents and six followers of David Koresh were killed.  The FBI then conducted a 51 day siege which ended when fire destroyed the compound on April 19.  Seventy-six Davidian followers died in the fire including including more than 20 children, two pregnant women, and Koresh himself.
     Branch Davidian Seventh Day Adventists are a Protestant sect originating in 1955, and are a reform movement that had begun within the Seventh Day Adventist Church around 1930.  With increasing membership, the group moved the church to a hilltop they named Carmel Mountain which was several miles west of Waco.  Mount Carmel was named after a mountain in Israel mentioned in the Bible.  The group moved to a larger site east of the city a few years later.  The group had sold most of the land that belonged to them by 1992 except for 77 acres.  Most of the buildings had been removed or used as construction materials to convert much of the main chapel and water tank into apartments for the resident members of the group.  Most of the group's members had been associated with the Davidians for a few generations and had large families.  After construction was complete, the new Mount Carmel Center consisted of a main church building, administrative and storage buildings, and homes for the leaders and important visitors.
     One of the biggest controversies is who fired first.  Helicopters had been obtained by the Texas National Guard on the ground that there was a drug laboratory at Mount Carmel.  The official explanation of the events stated that helicopters were mainly used as a distraction, and that the Davidians were not targeted because the helicopters didn't have mounted guns.  One negotiator admitted that the helicopter's occupants were armed and could possibly have opened fire but that it wasn't the sole purpose of the helicopters.  The lead attorney for the Davidians' wrongful death lawsuit explains that the condition of the left-hand door tells you that the right-hand door wasn't consumed by fire, but purposely misplaced by someone.  This evidence is in support of the government firing the first shot.
     Another controversy is that during the final raid, CS gas was injected into the building by armored vehicles in an unsafe manner that could have started a fire.  Two of the three fires started well inside the building, away from where the CS gas was pumped in.  Despite this, survivor David Thibodeau claimed that damage to the building allowed the gas to spread.  He says the ATF broke the walls, broke the windows down, and spread the CS gas.  Attorney General Reno and spokespersons for the FBI claimed that no pyrotechnics were used during the assault between 1993 and 1999 (even under oath).  However, pyrotechnic Flite-Rite CS grenades were found in the rubble immediately after the fire.  Finally, in 1999, an FBI spokesperson admitted that these devices, which dispense CS gas through an internal burning process, had been used early that morning to penetrate a covered, water-filled construction pit 40 yards away, and were not fired at the building itself.  The FBI claimed that the fires had started about three hours after the grenades were fired.  When the FBI turned over documents to Congress, the use of pyrotechnics was missing.  The six year failure to disclose the use of pyrotechnics led Attorney General Reno to demand a second investigation.  A senior official of the FBI told Newsweek that up to 100 agents knew about the use of pyrotechnics, but no one spoke up until 1999.
     The government claims that surveillance devices planted in the walls of the building captured a number of conversations which are evidence the Davidians started the fire.  Contradicting this, reporter Diana Fuentes said that when the tapes were played in court on April 19, few people heard what the FBI audio expert claimed to hear.  She said the tapes were filled with noise and the voices could only occasionally be perceptible.  Since the words were faint, some people in the courtroom could understand what was being said, while others could not.
     The Branch Davidians had given ominous warnings involving fire on several occasions leading Congress to conclude that they had started the fire.  Due to the fact that the FBI had not released the use of pyrotechnics at the time of the investigation, a second investigation by the Office of Special Counsel was conducted.  Even with this new evidence, they reached the same conclusion and no further congressional investigations followed.  In Professor Kenneth Newport's book The Branch Davidians of Waco, he attempted to prove that that the Davidians started the fire themselves and that it was preplanned.  His evidence included conversations the FBI recorded during the siege, testimonials of survivors Clive Doyle and Graeme Craddock, and the purchase of diesel fuel the month before the siege started.  Texas state authorities bulldozed the site less than a month after the siege ended, on May 12, making it impossible to gather additional forensic evidence. 
     A large concentration of bodies, weapons, and ammunition were found below the building.  The arson report suggests the possibility that many of the occupants did not make an attempt to escape the burning building.  It also mentions another possibility which is that structural debris from the fire on the west side of the building could have blocked a possible escape route through the underground tunnel system.  An independent investigation concluded that if the compound residents wanted to escape the fire, they had enough time to do so.
     Since Davidian leaders repeatedly denied plans to commit mass suicide to negotiators during the siege, the FBI believed that there was no possibility such event would occur.  People leaving the compound said that they had not seen preparations for such a thing.  The FBI concluded that there was a possibility that some of David Koresh's followers would follow him if he committed suicide.  According to Alan A. Stone's report, the FBI used an incorrect psychiatric perspective to evaluate the Davidian's responses causing them to over-rely on Koresh's statements that they wouldn't commit suicide.  This error could have caused them to be over-confident about their will not to commit suicide altering the questions the negotiators asked the Davidians.
    According to autopsies of the dead, some women and children who had fallen beneath a fallen concrete wall of a storage room had died of skull injuries.  Photographs after the fire show that the M728 CEV tank that crashed into the building to inject CS gas did not come close enough to cause the collapse, which was most likely the result of the fire.  Photographs show signs that fragments of concrete were ejected from the body due to impact or stress.  This suggests the damage was caused by intense heat.  Autopsy photographs of other children showed that their muscles suddenly tightened before death which is consistent with cyanide poisoning, one of the results produced by burning CS gas.  The DOJ report indicated that only one body had traces of benzene, one of the components of solvent-dispersed CS gas.  The gas insertions ended nearly an hour before the fire did meaning that there was enough time for solvents to dissipate from the bodies of the Davidians that had inhaled the tear gas.
     According to autopsy records, a minimum of 20 Davidians were shot, including 6 children under the age of 14, and one three-year-old was stabbed in the chest.  The medical examiner who conducted the autopsies believed these shootings were mercy killings by Davidians trapped in the fire with no escape.  According to survivor Clyde Doyle, who was a burn victim himself, the gunshots were mercy killings.  In a 1995 press conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, Doyle said that he could understand why someone would end the suffering of another, especially a child, who had been gassed and was burning to death.  To him, killing each other in such a time of peril made more sense than a "suicide pact" as some claimed.  He believes that the people who made such claims had never been on fire.
     I don't think Mount Carmel was legally run since a Texas agency responsible for child protective services claimed to have a substantial amount of evidence that children were being abused at the site.  In addition to that, authorities had reason to believe that Koresh and his followers were stockpiling illegal weapons.  Despite this, I don't think the siege was appropriately conducted.  I don't think such violent means were necessary to siege Mount Carmel.  One of Timothy McVeigh's motives for the Oklahoma City Bombing might have been to get retaliation for the Waco Siege.  This might also have been a motive for the Columbine High School massacre that took the lives of 15 people.  It will probably never be known for sure who fired the first shot.  I don't know why the FBI would lie about the use of pyrotechnic devices until 1999.  I think the Davidians didn't escape the burning wreckage because the escape route out of the tunnel was blocked with structural debris.  Setting the building on fire and injecting CS gas causing some of the occupants, including children, to be gassed and burned to death was an extremely cruel thing to do.  It is highly unfair to say the Davidians committed suicide when all they were trying to do was end the suffering of each other, especially the children.  Regardless of who is to blame, the Waco Siege was truly a tragedy that took the lives of 82 Davidians and 4 agents.

Jonestown

      Was Jonestown created to support a CIA study on the effects of truth serums and other drugs on mind control?  Did the CIA conduct mind control research that it said it abandoned at Jamestown?  Did the occupants of Jonestown really 'voluntarily' kill themselves or were they massively murdered?  Were 20 to 120 followers not accounted for in the death toll?  Were the members of the settlement murdered by CIA agents to prevent further political emigration from the USA as well as abolish opposition to the US regime?  We'll examine these conspiracies next.
     Jonestown is the informal name for the "People's Temple Agricultural Project" located in northwestern Guyana.  It became internationally known on November 18, 1978, after 909 people were killed in Jonestown.  The occupants apparently died of cyanide poisoning in what Jones (Jonestown's leader) said was "revolutionary suicide" on an audio tape prior to the incident.  Among the victims was Congressman Leo Ryan who was the first Congressman to die in the line of duty in the history of the United States.  The incident has been viewed as a mass suicide and is the largest such event in modern history.  It resulted in the greatest loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the September 11, 2001 attacks.
     Now that we know what happened, let's examine some of the conspiracies.  The most accepted conspiracy is that Jim Jones created Jonestown to support a CIA study on the effects of truth serums and other drugs on mind control.  Some claim that the CIA was conducting mind control research branching off from its previous program, MKULTRA, despite the fact that they claimed to have abandoned all mind control research.  Some claim that the CIA's ultimate goal was to overthrow Guyana's government.  It was believed that a nation run by Jones under CIA influence would provide an example of a communist nation the United States could engage with politically.  For this reason, the CIA kept Jonestown supplied with drugs, weapons, and money with the hope that they would eventually be able to convert the locals.
     Some theorize that the CIA used the Peoples Temple and its unlicensed nursing home to defraud US government assistance programs by secretly transferring money through the church, then depositing it to the congregation's private bank accounts which had all been signed over to the church.  It is claimed that this money was used to fund political advertisements, busing voters to the polls, and secretly paying homeless people and others who wouldn't normally vote to support their candidates.
     Originally, the Guyanese army reported that 408 people had committed suicide while more than 500 managed to flee into the surrounding jungle.  Some dispute the fact that more than 500 fled into the surrounding jungle because the deaths were supposedly voluntary.  If committing suicide was optional, why would you have to 'flee'?  When the American military arrived several days later, the death count first rose to 700, then 780, and finally a final count of 909 seven days after the Guyanese report was released.  It was reported that only 167 Jonestown inhabitants survived.  To explain the discrepancy in body counts, one US official said the Guyanese couldn't count while another said that 400 corpses had initially been found in such a way that they hid 500 more.  The compound was littered with piles of dead, decomposing bodies atop one another near the pavilion.
     Although the total number of settlers living at Jamestown at the time of the massacre has never been verified, it is estimated that 20-120 followers were not accounted for.  According to the New York Times, all 100 of the bodies that were initially examined had been injected with cyanide in places they could not have reached without assistance and that many had also been shot.  Charles Huff, one of the first American soldiers on the scene reported that many of the gunshot victims as well as other victims had been attempting to flee.  The first doctor on the scene who initially examined 100 bodies, Dr. Leslie C. Mootoo, felt that the children were incapable of consenting to suicide and speculated that a majority of those who died at Jonestown may have been murdered.
      The Jonestown Massacre was truly a tragedy that took the lives of 909 people.  Whether they committed suicide or not will never be known for sure.  The fact that the Guyanese army reported that over 500 people managed to 'flee' is suspicious if the suicide was voluntary.  It is also quite hard to believe that the 400 bodies that were initially found could be stacked on top of each other in such a way that they could hide 500 more.  How can we conspire that 20-120 weren't accounted for in the death toll if we don't know how many inhabitants Jonestown had at the time of the incident?  If suicide was taking place so massively, why were the participating people injecting cyanide in places they couldn't reach without assistance?  It is quite possible that the CIA's ultimate goal was to overthrow Guyana's government, but I don't think they smuggled money through the church to private accounts by defrauding US government assistance programs.  The fact that one of the most powerful members of the church, Timothy Stoen, never said anything about the CIA or its mind control experiments is a point against a conspiracy.  Since he published everything he could find to discredit the organization and Jim Jones in an attempt to win back his son strongly suggests that the CIA was not involved.  Regardless of who is to blame, the largest mass suicide in modern history took the lives of 909 people.  Whether or not they committed suicide, may an event of such magnitude never take place again.

Death of Princess Diana

    Was Princess Diana pregnant before being tragically killed in a car accident?  Was her body so quickly embalmed to ensure her pregnancy test would produce a false result?  Did a bright white flash blind her driver just before the car entered the tunnel?  Was Henri Paul, Diana's driver, an M16 agent?  We'll examine these claims next.
     Diana, the Princess of Wales, was killed on August 1, 1997 resulting from injuries sustained in a car accident in the Pont de I'Alma road tunnel in Paris, France.  Dodi Fayed, her companion, and Henri Paul, her driver, were also pronounced dead at the scene of the accident.  Amazingly, Fayed's bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, was the only person to survive the tragic crash.  In 1999, an eighteen-month French judicial investigation concluded that that the crash was caused by Paul's loss of control of the car at high speeds while intoxicated and under the influence of antidepressants.  On April 7, 2008, the Royal Courts of Justice in London, England concluded that Diana had been unlawfully killed by the grossly negligent driving of her chauffeur and paparazzi photographers.
     Now that we know what happened, lets see what some of the conspiracies are.  Allegations about the driver, Henri Paul, claim that he was paid by a national security service.  Evidence supporting this is the large amount of money in his possession at the time of his death and his personal wealth.  These allegations were covered in chapter four of the Operation Paget criminal investigation report.  A well know allegation questions the reliability of blood tests carried out indicating that he had been drinking before taking control of the car.  The French investigators concluded that Paul was drunk based on blood samples that had been taken indicating that his blood alcohol content was three times over the French legal limit.  In response to a British pathologist's challenge, French authorities tested the blood sample a third time confirming Paul's blood alcohol content and the fact that he had been taking antidepressants at the time of the crash.
     On November 2006, various news sources reported that the identity of the person to whom the blood samples belonged had been found.  They claimed that the blood samples belonged to a suicide victim.  On December 10, 2006, it was reported that DNA evidence concluded that the samples belonged to Henri Paul.  In November 2006, Lord Stevens apparently told Henri Paul's parents that he wasn't drunk.  The CCTV footage at the hotel supported this.  Another issue raised by Lord Justice Scott Baker was the high level of carbon monoxide found in one sample.  If true, the sample would have shown Mr. Paul to have been noticeably unwell.
     Richard Tomlinson, a former M16 agent who was dismissed from the intelligence services, alleged that the M16 had been monitoring Diana before her death, and that her driver was an M16 agent.  He also alleged that her death mirrored plans for the assassination of then President of Serbia, Slobodan Miloševicoth.  The M15 and M16 gave the Operation Paget inquiry unprecedented access to their offices to investigate Tomlinson's claims.  They found out that he was referring to a proposal to assassinate another Serbian power.  The plan did not contain any details of a car crashing in a tunnel and Tomlinson confirmed that it was the one he was referring to in his claims.  The inquiry found no evidence that Paul was an agent for any security service and found limited evidence of surveillance on Diana.  There is strong evidence that British Authorities had no way of knowing she was in Paris at the time of the accident.  The inquiry concluded their investigation by dismissing Tomlinsons's claims.
     Another allegation is that Diana was pregnant with Dodi Fayed's child and that the couple was about to get engaged.  Mohamed Fayed theorized that the couple was planning to announce their engagement on the Monday after the accident on September 1, 1997.  Operating Paget commented that such announcement would attract media attention worldwide and would require much preparation.  No evidence of such preparation was found making the scenario unlikely.  Dodi did however purchase an engagement ring on the day of their deaths.  It is not certain whether Dodi intended to present the engagement ring to Diana.  Statements from Diana's eldest sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, her spiritual adviser, Rita Rogers, as well as other friends who spoke to her in the week before her death, unanimously stated that she was firm about not wanting to get engaged or married to anyone at that point in her life.  Her former private secretary, Patrick Jephson, said that her facial expression at the Paris Ritz on her final evening with Dodi Fayed was one she would wear when she was displeased with a situation.  Dodi and Diana met each other seven weeks (or 47 days) before the accident.  They spent a maximum of 35 days together but it is likely they only spent about 23 days together before the accident.
     Regarding her pregnancy, Doctor John Burton said in January 2004, that he personally examined her womb and found her not to be pregnant.  The Operation Paget also had scientific tests carried out on pre-transfusion blood found in the seat of the wrecked Mercedes the Princess occupied at the time of the accident.  The blood did not contain any trace of the hCG hormone associated with pregnancy.  Her friends reported that she was in her normal menstrual cycle further indicating she was not pregnant.  Diana's holistic healer, Myriah Daniels, who traveled aboard Mohammed Fayed's yacht said that she was one hundred percent certain that Diana wasn't pregnant because she told her she wasn't, allowed her to perform a deep message on her stomach, and the fact that she found no indications that she was pregnant through the course of her work.
     Mohamed Al Fayed believed her body was quickly embalmed after her death to ensure her pregnancy tests would produce a false result.  According to the Operation Paget, August 31, 1997 was a very hot day.  Diana's body was stored near the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital where she had been treated.  Although dry ice and air conditioning units were placed in the room to keep it cool, such attempts appeared to have little success.  Diana's two brothers, Prince Charles, and President Jacques Chirac wished to view the body and pay their respects later that afternoon.  This means that there was little time to prepare the body to an acceptable state for viewing.  Due to such pressure, the hospital staff embalmed the body with only the verbal authority of Madame Martine Monteil, the local superintendent of police, who assured them "that everything would be in order".  French law requires paperwork to be to be completed before a body that is likely to endure a autopsy is embalmed.  Such paperwork was only completed after the body was embalmed causing allegations to rise from such suspicious circumstances.  It turns out that there was no way the hospital staff could have known whether Diana was pregnant or not.
     Richard Tomlinson claimed that a bright white flash blinded the driver before the car entered the tunnel and alleged that it was consistent with eyewitness testimonies.  Operation Paget investigated Tomlinson's claims that part of M16 agents' training was to blind helicopter pilots with a powerful strobe light.  The police found that such tactic was never at anytime taught to agents.  The police found that only one witness, François Levistre, made a clear, specific reference to seeing a bright flash.  He claimed to have seen this out of his rear-view mirror.  His testimony differed from his then-wife's, who sat in the passenger seat next to him.  Various television documentaries raised the issue of Levistre's criminal record for offenses involving dishonesty.  In a detailed reconstruction of the event, the chain of events that led to the car crashing into a pillar started well before it entered the mouth of the tunnel.  If a strobe light was used, it would probably have been so powerful that it would not only blind Henri Paul, but the perusing paparazzi and witnesses standing at the roadside.  The Operation Paget report concluded that the alleged flash did not occur.
     I do not believe that Henri Paul was paid by a national security service but believe he was incompetent to drive due to his mental and physical state at the time of the crash.  I also don't think that Richard Tomlinson was qualified to make the allegations he did due to the fact that he clearly didn't know what he was talking about.  Based on the accumulation of data, it seems highly unlikely that the princess was pregnant.  I think that her body was so quickly embalmed due to the fact that Diana's brothers and Prince Charles wanted to view her body with such short notice.  It seems almost impossible that a bright strobe light was used to blind the driver.  The tragic crash that took the lives of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed was truly a tragedy.  Diana was a great Princess of Wales who did high-profile charity work.  She also had a strong interest in landmines focusing on the injuries they create, often to children, long after conflict is over.  In the end, the life of a great person was tragically cut short, the life of the People's Princess.

    
   

TWA Flight 800

      Was TWA Flight 800 shot down by friendly fire?  Was the shot down plane the result of a terrorist attack that the FBI and NTSB conspired to cover-up due to political pressure?  Was the plane brought down by electromagnetic interference emitted from a U.S. military aircraft?  Did a break up sequence occur when a high-pressure event "unzipped" the fuselage?   Was TWA 800 blown up a bomb to disrupt the trial of Ramzi Yousef, the planner of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing?  Did the break up of the Boeing 747 result from a malfunctioning cargo door that opened in-flight resulting in the destruction of the aircraft?  We'll examine these conspiracies next.
     On July 17, 1996, Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight 800, a Boeing 747-131, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York.  It was a scheduled international passenger flight from JFK International Airport in New York to Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport in Rome, Italy.  The flight departed the JFK International Airport at 20:19 with two pilots, two flight engineers, 14 flight attendants, and 212 passengers.  The plane crash resulted in all 230 people on board being killed and the airplane being destroyed.
     Although there was much initial speculation that the crash had been caused by a terrorist attack, the FBI announced that no evidence of a criminal act had been found.  The NTSB concluded that there was an explosion in the center wing fuel tank (CWT), causing the ignition of the flammable fuel/ air mixture in the tank.  They also concluded that the source of ignition energy for the explosion could not be determined with certainty, but that the most likely was a short circuit outside of the CWT allowing excessive voltage to enter through the electrical wiring associated with the fuel quantity indication system.
     Now that we know what happened, lets see what some of the conspiracies are.  On November 7, 1996, Pierre Salinger claimed that he had proof that TWA Flight 800 had been shot down by friendly fire, and that the events that took place had been covered up by the government.  He based his assumptions on a document he received 6 months earlier by someone in French Intelligence with close contacts to U.S. officials.  He refused to name his source and CNN quickly found the document to be a widely accessible e-mail letter that Richard Russell, a retired airline pilot, wrote six weeks earlier.  Salinger was previously a White House Press Secretary and a long time correspondent for ABC News making his statements initially credible.  The NTSB vice chairman, Bob Francis, said Pierre Salinger was an idiot and didn't know what he was talking about.
     James Sanders, a retired police officer and his wife, Elizabeth Sanders, claimed that the "reddish" residue not present on other seats was missile fuel.  The FBI declared the residue to be adhesive used in the seats.  In response, the NTSB retested the samples and once again declared it as adhesive which the Sander's again disputed.  They believed that testing by independent laboratories showed the samples to be inconsistent with the composition of the expected adhesive.  In their first book on the incident, the Sanders published the book The Downing of TWA Flight 800 in which they proposed that the plane had been shot down by friendly fire and a government cover up had taken place.  Later with the help of Jack Cashill, they published First Strike: TWA Flight 800 and the Attack on America which further expanded their theory stating that the plane had been brought down by a Navy missile, whose intended target was a terrorist plane on a collision course with the passenger aircraft.
     Another conspiracy is by William S. Donaldson, a retired naval officer, who authored the Donaldson Report which was released on July 17, 1998.  He claimed that TWA Flight 800 had been struck by two missiles which had been fired from the water.  He said it was most likely a terrorist attack and that the FBI and NTSB had conspired to cover-up this due to political pressure.  Donaldson disputed the CWT Fuel/Air vapor explosion scenario because there had never been an in-flight explosion in a Boeing Airliner of a Jet-A Kerosene fuel vapor/air mixture in any tank caused by a mechanical failure.  His proof of the missile-attack scenario consisted of eyewitness accounts, the debris field, and victim injury evidence.  Donaldson supported Sander's theory of the accidental shoot down and did not rule out U.S. Navy involvement.  Most of Donaldson's report dealt with his belief that the FBI and NTSB covered up what really happened.  He believed that the Clinton Administration wanted to cover up the events that occurred for political reasons especially the upcoming presidential elections.  In his conclusion, he requested that Congress would hold Congressional hearings into the crash and that the Justice Department would appoint an independent counsel to investigate.  Neither of his requests were granted.
     Elaine Scarry published "The Fall of TWA 800: The Possibility of Electromagnetic Interference", on April 9, 1998.  She was a professor of English and American Literature and Language at Harvard and proposed that electromagnetic interference could have caused the crash, specifically energy emitted by a U.S. Military Aircraft.  In response to the NTSB's Final Report, Elaine Scarry published "TWA 800 and Electromagnetic Interference: Work Already Completed and Work that Still Needs to be Done" in which she praised NTSB's initial research.  She also stated that more research was needed to form an accurate conclusion and expressed her belief that the investigation was biased.   She felt the events that occurred within the aircraft were excessively detailed while not enough research was done on the electromagnetic environment outside the plane.  Scarry believed that a U.S. Navy P-3 Orion flying close to the aircraft was the source of electromagnetic interference that caused the CWT explosion bringing down the plane.
     The International Association of Mechanists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) submitted a report proposing a breakup sequence that started on the lower left side of the airplane when a high-pressure event "unzipped" the fuselage.  They concluded that a major event may have occurred on the left side of the plane leading to the destruction of TWA Flight 800.  They also concluded that the explosion of the CWT was a result of the breakup, not the initial event.  The IAMAW criticized the "Tag Database" documenting the recovered wreckage and the accuracy of witness accounts.  They also criticized how FBI agents removed pieces of the wreckage without documenting it.  They however praised the FBI's cooperation during the investigation and their resistance to the media preventing it from being a force on the investigation.  In the end, they concluded that the causes and circumstances of the crash are unknown.
     Peter Lance wrote in his book Cover Up: What the Government Is Still Hiding About the War on Terror, that TWA 800 was blown up by a bomb to disrupt the trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bomber, Ramzi Yousef.  Lance believes that Yousef planned that attack from prison to get a mistrial for master-minding the Bojinka Plot.  He claimed that the FBI had prior knowledge of the attack but did not properly act on it.  Supporting this theory is the fact that the FBI found residues of RDX, the same explosive that Yousef intended to use to blow up 12 airliners.  It was later assumed that the residue was from a K-9 sniffing incident about one month before when an explosive substance was placed in the aircraft for dogs to sniff out.
     The TWA Flight 800 crash was truly a tragedy that claimed the lives of 230 people.  I think it is certainly possible that the plane was accidentally shot down by friendly fire.  I think the "reddish" residue was just explosives used for a K-9 training exercise, not missile fuel.  It is certainly plausible that the FBI and NTSB covered up the events that really took place on that tragic day due to political pressure.  It seems highly unlikely that the breakup of the CWT fuel/air vapor explosion scenario took place due to the fact that such incident had never occurred before in aviation history in a Boeing Airliner using Jet-A Kerosene fuel.  It is suspicious how FBI agents removed pieces of the wreckage without documenting it.  A possible motive for the incident could have been to disrupt the trial of terrorist Ramzi Yousef and it is certainly possible that the plane was blown up by a bomb.  I don't think the FBI had prior knowledge of the incident.  Regardless of who is at fault, the lives of many innocent civilians were taken.  This just emphasizes how bloody war, terrorism, and violence really are.  Imagine what a wonderful world we could live in if we all lived in peace and harmony with each other and accepted and respected each others differences and beliefs.

Oklahoma City Bombing

     Did Bill Clinton know about the Oklahoma City Bombing in advance or approve it?  Was there a second person affiliated with the bombing?  Were the investigators some how associated with the bombers?  Were the two resulting tremors recorded nearby an indication that two bombs had been used?  We'll investigate these claims next.
     On April 19, 1995 at 9:02 CST, a Ryder truck carrying over 6,200 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, nitromethane, and diesel fuel mixture detonated in front of the north side of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.  The attack killed 168 people and injured over 800.  Soon after the explosion, Oklahoma State Trooper Charlie Hangar arrested 26-year-old Timothy McVeigh for driving without a license plate and unlawfully carrying a weapon.  Terry Nichols, McVeigh's old army friend, was arrested within a few days and they were both charged with committing the bombing.  It was determined by investigators that they were sympathizers of a militia movement whose motive was to get revenge from the government's handling of the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents.  The bombing occurred on the anniversary of the Waco incident.  On June 11, 2001, McVeigh was executed by lethal injection and Nichols was sentenced to life in prison.
     The plaintiffs at the trial expressed their belief that McVeigh and Nichols had conducted the bombing with others unknown to the jury.  McVeigh himself eventually claimed that he and Nichols were solely responsible for the bombing.  He said that the two had obtained fertilizer and other explosive materials over the course of months and assembled the bomb the day before it was detonated.  On the day of the bombing, McVeigh drove the truck alone to Oklahoma City, lit the fuse, and fled in a getaway car he had parked days before.  Many people have been skeptical of this explanation for a long time.
      Now that we know what happened, let's see what some of the conspiracies are.  One popular theory suggests that there were additional explosives involved in the bombing.  This theory claims that additional explosives were implanted in the Murrah Building  which is supported by the fact that local news channels reported the presence of a second and third bomb within the first few hours after the incident.  Conspiracy theorists don't believe that the bomb McVeigh used could cause such catastrophic damage.  They also believe that the two tremors recorded by nearby seismographs indicate two bombs were used.  Experts deny this stating that the first tremor was the result of the bomb detonating and the second tremor was the result of the collapse of the building.  A blast effects study published in 1997 analyzing the test results from the Eglin Air Force Base concluded that it was impossible for a single truck carrying 4,800 pounds of ANFO to cause the damage that occurred.  Based on that statement, critics of the official explanation say that the damage Murrah Building endured was not caused by the bomb itself, but due to other factors including locally placed charges inside of the building.  Some experts think the unusually large blast was from a thermobaric weapon using highly flammable particles such as aluminum mixed with a highly liquid explosive such as nitromethane.  If the weapon is ignited in a two-stage process, the device creates a super-high heat and pressure blast capable of flattening buildings.
     Another theory is that President Bill Clinton either knew about the bombing in advance or approved it.  Some people also believe that the bombing was done by the government to frame the militia movement or enact anti-terrorism legislation.  Other theories include linking McVeigh with Islamic terrorists, the Japanese government, German neo-Nazis, as well as the CIA.  There is some speculation that an unidentified leg may have belonged to one of the bombers.  It was claimed that that the bomber was either in the building when the bombing occurred or had been previously murdered and McVeigh had left his body in the back of the truck to hide in the explosion.
     Several witnesses reported seeing a second person around the time of the bombing which investigators would later call "John Doe 2".  Several theories suggest that the second person was involved in the bombing and may even have been a foreign connection to McVeigh and Nichols.  This was believed because Nichols had traveled through the Philippines while terrorist mastermind Ramzi Yousef of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was planning his Project Bojinka plot in Manila.  Yousef placed the bomb used in the 1993 World Trade Center inside of a rented Ryder van, the same rental company used by McVeigh, indicating a possible foreign link with Al-Qaeda.  The FBI arrested Michael Brescia who was a member of the Aryan Republican Army in 1997 because he resembled an artists rendering of Jon Doe 2 based on eyewitness accounts, but soon released him after their investigation concluded that he wasn't involved in the bombing.
     Congressman Dana Rohrabacher said in 2006 that that the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the U.S. House Committee on International Relations, which he chaired, would conduct an investigation on whether foreign sources had provided assistance to the bombers.  When asked about fueling conspiracy theories resulting from his questions and criticism on December 28, 2006, he said "there's nothing wrong with adding to a conspiracy theory when there might be a conspiracy, in fact."  Danny Coulson, who was the deputy assistant director of the FBI at the time of the attack, called for a reopening of the investigation after voicing his concerns.  A Salt Lake City attorney named Jesse Trentadue released security tapes that he had obtained from the FBI through the Freedom of Information Act on September 28, 2009.  It showed surveillance of the Murrah Building before and after the blast from four security cameras.  Oddly, the tapes were blank at 9:02, the time of detonation.  The government's explanation was that the tapes were being replaced at the time of the explosion.  That's right, four cameras in different locations went blank at the same exact time.   Trentadue became interested in the case when his brother died in federal custody during what he believes was an interrogation because Kenneth (his brother) was mistaken for a possible conspirator in the bombing.
     The Oklahoma City bombing was truly a tragedy.  I think it is certainly plausible that the president or intelligence agencies might have had clues that they didn't properly act on but don't think they caused the bombing just to enact anti-terrorism legislation.  It is hard to believe that just one truckload of explosives could cause such catastrophic damage to such a strong building leading me to believe that there is certainly a high possibility that explosives were implanted in the building.  Two tremors also makes it plausible that two bombs were used.  I don't think the unidentified leg belonged to one of the bombers.  If McVeigh rushed to get away, he wouldn't have time to carry a leg out of the truck and place it somewhere before the bomb detonated.  He could not have placed it after the bombing because he would be noticed and the fact that he was arrested shortly after the bombing.  Just because the same truck and rental company were used in the Oklahoma City Bombing and the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing doesn't suggest in any way that McVeigh was associated with Al-Qaeda.  If Al-Qaeda was in fact involved, they would probably have taken full or partial credit for the bombing.  It seems that the government might have tampered with the surveillance tapes.  The chances of having the tapes of all four cameras replaced at the exact same time the bombing occurred are very slim.  I'm not going to say I support the way the government handled Waco and Ruby Ridge, but this is not how revenge should have been taken.  When you are involved in situations like that and law enforcement officials are in life threatening situations, it is hard to make right decisions.  Revenge should be obtained peacefully and we should forgive and care for one another.  After all, we all share a single planet.  Regardless of who is to blame, 19 of the victims were babies and children who were in the building's day care center.  This bombing was thoroughly tragic and my heart goes to all the families and friends of the victims.
        

John F. Kennedy Assassination

 

      Was there really only one gunman involved in the assassination of president John F. Kennedy?  Why were no records kept of most of the people taken into custody in the minutes following the assassination?  Did the secret service fail to properly analyze processed information and were they inadequately prepared to protect the president from a sniper?  We'll investigate some of these claims next.
     On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while traveling in an open top car in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas.  Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested two hours later for the murder of officer J.D. Tippit.  At 1:35 AM, he was charged with murdering the president.  On November 24, 1963, Oswald was shot and killed while being transferred from the Dallas Police Department to the county jail.  In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that they believed Oswald acted alone in killing the president.  In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) agreed with the Warren Commission that Oswald assassinated Kennedy.  Polls since 1966 have consistently shown that the public believes that the assassination of John F. Kennedy was the result of a plot, not the act of a lone killer.  A majority of people also believe a second shooter was involved.  Lets examine some of the conspiracies now.
     Many researchers believe the single bullet theory is implausible.  After Oswald's rifle was tested by the FBI, they determined that it could only be fired three times within five to eight seconds.  Based on eyewitnesses, the Warren Commission determined that only three bullets were fired.  One missed the vehicle entirely, one hit Kennedy and passed through Governor John Connally, and the the third bullet was fatal to Kennedy.  The weight of the bullet fragments taken from Connally and those remaining on his body supposedly totaled more than could be missing from the bullet found on Connally's stretcher.  The trajectory of the bullet that hit Kennedy above the right shoulder blade and passed through his neck (according to the autopsy) most likely would have to change course to pass through Connally's rib cage and wrist. 
     Another conspiracy involves the witnesses.  Thirty-five witnesses who were present at the shooting thought the shots were fired from in front of the president from the Grassy Knoll Area or Triple Underpass while 56 eyewitnesses believed that the shots were fired behind the president, or at least in that direction.  5 witnesses thought the shots came from two directions.  Governor John Conally's wife Nellie Conally who was sitting in the presidential car thought her husband was hit by a bullet that was separate from the two that hit Kennedy.  Clint Hill, the Secret Service Agent who shielded the president with his body on the way to the hospital said "The right rear portion of his head was missing. It was lying in the rear seat of the car."
     Numerous individuals believed that there were suspects in Dealey Park other than Oswald.  Many witnesses reported hearing gunfire from the Dal-Tex Building which is located across the street from the Texas School Book Depository and aligned with Elm Street in Dealey Plaza.  The House Select Committee on Assassinations found scientific acoustic evidence pinpointing the Dal-Tex building as a possible source of gunfire.
     U.S. Marine sniper Craig Roberts and Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock said that the assassination couldn't be done as described by the FBI.  They said that after reconstructing the "whole thing: the angle, the range, the moving target, the time limit, the obstacles, everything. I don’t know how many times we tried it, but we couldn’t duplicate what the Warren Commission said Oswald did. Now if I can’t do it, how in the world could a guy who was a non-equal on the rifle range and later only qualified 'marksman' do it?”  According to the autopsy, the hole in the back of Kennedy's shirt and jacket supported a wound too low to be consistent with the Single Bullet Theory.  
     Another popular theory is the Federal Reserve Conspiracy.  Some people believe Kennedy's assassination might have been motivated by the issuance of Executive Order 11110.  This gave the Secretary of Treasury the president's authority to issue silver certificates, bypassing the Federal Reserve System.  The Reagen Administration repealed this explaining it was an attempt to drain the silver reserves and it did not endanger the careers of anyone working at the Federal Reserve.  Craig Roberts, a U.S. marine sniper and veteran police officer theorized it was the beginning of Kennedy's plan to get rid of the U.S. Federal Reserve.  He thinks that Kennedy was killed by a group of international bankers determined to make his plan fail.  Actor Richard Belzer believes the president was killed in response to his attempts to transfer power from the Federal Reserve to the Treasury Department.
     Nearly twelve people were taken into custody in the minutes after the assassination.  For the most part, no records of the identities of those arrested were kept.  The most famous among those arrested are known as the three tramps.  They were three well-dressed and clean shaven men who seemed unlikely to be riding the rails in a boxcar.  It is also suspicious how they were quickly released by the Dallas Police before being investigated on whether they saw anything significant related to the assassination.  The Dallas Police Department claimed to have lost the records of their arrest as well as their finger prints.  In 1989, Dallas Police released files containing the arrest records of the three men.  The brief record explained they were known rail-riders riding through Dallas.  It indicated that they had slept in a homeless shelter the night before the assassination where they showered and shaved giving them a clean appearance.  Apparently, the three weren't involved in the assassination in any way.  
     U.S. Army Intelligence officer and National Security Agency executive assistant John M. Newman published evidence suggesting the FBI and CIA intentionally tampered with their files on Oswald before and after the assassination in 1995.  He claimed to have found information that could have alerted authorities in Dallas that Oswald was a potential threat to the President.  
     Regarding the Secret Service, the HSCA inferred that the president had not adequately been protected in Dallas.  They also noted that they had processed information that was not properly analyzed, investigated, or used in connection with the President's trip to Dallas.  The HSCA also concluded that Secret Service agents in the motorcade were not prepared to protect the president from a sniper.  This lack of protection can be blamed in part because of Kennedy's request that the Secret Service make itself discreet during the Dallas visit.
     Barr McClellan published the book, Blood, Money & Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K in 2003.  He claimed that Lydon B. Johnson masterminded Kennedy's assassination with the help of his friend attorney Edward Clark after being motivated by the fear of being dropped from the Kennedy ticket in 1964 and the need to cover up various scandals.  The book claims that Kennedy's assassination was paid for by influential people in the oil industry.  Madeleine D. Brown who claimed to be a mistress of Johnson believed he was involved in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy.  She claimed that the assassination involved dozens of people including the leadership of the FBI and the Mafia as well as well-known politicians and journalists.   
     John F. Kennedy's assassination was truly a tragedy.  The way in which it occurred has made it subject to a lot of conspiracies.  It is very hard to grasp that one bullet could penetrate the skin of one man, go through a car seat, and hit another man sitting directly in front.  It is also hard to believe how a sniper with little training could successfully shoot bullets with such accuracy while marine snipers with their extensive training couldn't do that in their replicated model of the assassination.  There were a lot of potential motives for the assassination.  The most powerful leader in the world shouldn't have been riding in a cover less car.  I think going to Dallas under such circumstances was a very dangerous decision the president made which was further worsened by his request that the Secret Service be discreet.  This was an event that will truly scar the nation and is a call to action on why increased measures are needed to protect the United State's most powerful governmental official.  Hopefully, the government will learn from its mistakes and prevent such a tragedy from occurring again because history tends to repeat itself if mistakes are not thoroughly analyzed and learned from.