No Conspiracy too Strange

by
Matt Giwer (c) 1995 

At a time when people are dismissing the conspiracy theories that the government set the bomb in Oklahoma City for some nefarious reason as ridiculous, absurd, and impossible we should remember this is not the first time there was such a conspiracy and a cover up.

One night some thirty years ago the US sat glued to the TV while the president of the United States announced that an act of war had been committed against the United States. Up until that time the US troops in Vietnam had been acting only as advisors and had not been engaged in the fighting. And yet only a few hours earlier a North Vietnamese torpedo boat had launched a torpedo and fired a machinegun at a US destroyer stationed off the coast of North Vietnam.

The country accepted the story and approved President Johnson’s plan to put US ground forces into a direct combat role and to greatly increase the number of our troops in Vietnam. The country believed. The captain of the destroyer talked about the attack. Secretary of Defense McNamara and other high ranking people held press conferences to discuss the attack. Evidence was displayed on TV.

There were fringe groups that said it was all faked but they were dismissed. Who could believe the government would fake such a thing? What could possibly be the purpose of faking it? How could any president want to send Americans into war without just cause?

No. The idea was much too absurd. And besides, can you imagine how many people would have to be involved in the conspiracy? Hundreds of people, the captain, the crew, those who reported it, the entire chain of command up to the president and dozens of people along the way manufacturing evidence, all would have to be involved. No one could hide a conspiracy that large within our government and get away with it.

We have a free press. People can speak the truth without fear. If only one person came forward the entire fraud would be exposed. No it was too risky. There could not possibly be such a conspiracy.

And then to compound the belief in a conspiracy, in 1968 one had to believe that Nixon and his entire administration were in on the conspiracy or else even the insiders to the conspiracy had managed to hide everything from the new administration. We have to believe that no one would talk. And even being political rivals that he covered up this conspiracy.

No. It is much too absurd to believe there was such a conspiracy. The Gulf of Tonkin incident had to be true. There was no way to believe it could have been a secret government conspiracy. The entire idea is to laughable to be considered seriously.

Except of course we now know it is true. There was a secret government conspiracy to manufacture a pretext to send Americans to war. All of the people needed for the people needed for this conspiracy remained silent. It was indeed orchestrated by the President of the United States. Indeed no one talked. The free press saved us from nothing. Most likely a succeeding president and his staff joined in the conspiracy of silence.

That was to absurd to imagine. It was also true.

Who thinks it is impossible that the Oklahoma City bombing was a secret government conspiracy? I would like everyone who thinks it is impossible to visit the Vietnam Wall in Washington, read a few hundred of the names and then tell me a secret government conspiracy headed by President is impossible.

A few months before the captain of the destroyer died he said nothing had happened other than being to told to confirm a particular story. He was silent for thirteen years. Johnson took this conspiracy to his grave. Thirty years later Robert S. McNamara publishes a book admitting the entire secret government conspiracy to start a war and to continue it.

It is not to say that everyone was silent about this conspiracy. When orders were issued to falsify body counts the entire organization did so. It was conduct unbecoming an officer and worthy of a courts martial to obey such an order but the enlisted folks talked about the orders to lie.

They were all involved in a conspiracy to lie to the American people about the conduct of the war. And the intelligence estimates that were grossly unfavorable to the US. The public announcements were falsified by order of the conspirators. General Westmoreland lost a libel case when the New York Times simply brought out his own statement that he was lying.

In retrospect it does not appear all that secret but at the time these things were not well known. Those that suggested these were lies were called disloyal, investigated by the FBI, CIA and who knows what else. Their names were put on lists. There were dossiers on them. And what was their crime? Believing there was a secret government conspiracy regarding the war in Vietnam. Their crime was believing the truth and speaking it.

Now folks, you tell me. If our government can conspire to create and continue a war that involved hundreds of people and two presidents and who knows how many congressmen, what makes the idea of a conspiracy regarding comparatively trivial little bombing in Oklahoma City impossible? What makes it absurd? Why is anyone who suggests it paranoid?

Judge this and every case upon the evidence. There is no conspiracy too absurd, too impossible, to large to imagine. Every reason to say the government could not be behind something or other is belied by the reality of the conspiracy to start and continue the Vietnam War.

At the moment there is no evidence saying the government was involved in the explosion but then again neither is there enough public evidence against either of the two people arrested at this time. To discount any possibility as being to absurd to consider flies in the face of the Vietnam War conspiracy.

And consider right now it could still be seriously questioned that the Vietnam war was a conspiracy were it not for the published confession of Robert McNamara. Such conspiracy can exist and did exist. There are still people involved in it alive who are keeping silent. Such large conspiracies can be kept silent. People will not speak out until they are near death which is the most likely condition of McNamara.

And like LBJ, McNamara will escape the hangman’s rope. The least that could be done in justice for this conspiracy is to exhume Johnson’s body to desecrate it. We certainly can insist McNamara is buried in unhallowed ground, such as thrown to the alligators in some swamp. And that should be the fate of anyone daring to think of another such conspiracy in this government.

This has happened before. It will happen again. It could be happening right now.