Shameful story?

Or shameless?

WorldNetDaily (who else?) reports that Joel Henry Hinrichs III (the Oklahoma University student who blew himself up), was -- get this:

a "suicide bomber" in possession of "Islamic jihad" materials. . .

....Doug Hagmann, a seasoned investigator, told WND he was informed by multiple reliable law-enforcement sources familiar with the investigation into the incident that authorities recovered a "significant amount" of "jihad" materials, as well as Hinrichs’ computer.

Hagmann also said those same sources indicated police and federal agents "had pulled additional explosives from [Hinrichs’] house," including triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, "homemade explosive [that is] very potent but relatively easily manufactured."

TATP was also used in the July mass transit bombings in London, CNN reported, and was used by attempted bomber Richard Reid, who packed his shoes with the compound in an unsuccessful attempt to destroy a U.S.-bound American Airlines flight in December 2001.

Here's Doug Hagmann's website, for those who are interested.

I see that Rusty Shackleford has linked to this story while expressing skepticism (which I share) -- both about WorldNetDaily and about Hagmann:

Larry Hagmann is the director of the Northeast Intelligence Network, so both stories are based on the same uncorraborated reports. NEIN has been called 'the world's most alarmist website' by a number of people in the past, so we'll let that stand as a disclaimer. It will be very interesting to follow this story and see what really motivated Hinrichs to kill himslelf in this fashion.

However, if the WND/NEIN reports are true about jihadi material, but Hinrichs was not motivated by jihad, then think about what this is saying. If you want to blow yourself up, then who better to consult than the local chapter of the Islamic Society of North America? That's a pretty sad statement.

Here's what I think. WorldNetDaily has a history of running stories which don't stop at mere hysteria (for example, speculation about dates for al Qaida's forthcoming nuclear strikes). Some of them -- like the idea that Hurricane Katrina was God's revenge on America for Israel's actions -- border (IMHO) on the truly insane.

If this "story" pans out, well, shame on the Philadelphia Inquirer (and especially Knight Ridder). I'd be willing to concede some respect (if grudging in light of their social views) for this news outfit. But if not, I'm afraid I'll be in the category of people who think being fooled twice means shame on me.

I've been tired of shame for a long time, and I'm just not into more.

MORE: I'm still puzzled by what seems like an awful hurry to declare that this was not terrorism. How could they know so fast? American Thinker's Steve Warshawsky hopes it's part of the plan:

According to University of Oklahoma president David Boren, although Hinrich had "emotional difficulties in the past," there is "certainly no evidence at this point which points to any other kind of motivation other than his personal problems." I hope this is simply a ruse, however transparent, to help the FBI conduct its investigation into this apparently botched act of domestic terrorism without alerting Hinrich's possible accomplices. For surely, in the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary, anyone who blows himself up in public near large crowds of people should be presumed to be a terrorist, not a bizarrely suicidal college student.
Boren has been accused of coverups before.... (He's a conspiracy theorist's dream.)

And this remark by Hinrichs' father's has to be the understatement of the day:

His son also had an interest in explosives, he said. "Every little boy does that," he said. "He went a little further than most."
Just a little.

MORE: Kevin Aylward has another odd quote from the father.

And Bill Quick said "Uh Oh."

AND MORE: Mark Tapscott isn't buying into the official story, and he asks some sensible questions (you know, the type which used to be asked by sensible reporters):

....why was Boren sufficiently familiar with Hinrichs to so quickly issue an opinion about his motive in the bombing? When he resigned in November 1994 as an Oklahoma senator, Boren was chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He left the Senate just after the Democrats lost their majority in the GOP sweep of 1994.

Add to his Senate years the presence of an active and long-established Muslim student presence on the OU campus stemming in great part from the school's excellent Petroleum Engineering program, and it stands to reason that Boren has been privy to intelligence briefings as head of the school. He almost certainly has maintained excellent contacts within the U.S. intelligence community made during his tenure as chairman of the Senate committee. Is that how he knew so quickly of Hinrichs?

Fourth, in one of the photos appearing in the media, Hinrichs appears to have a fresh beard, which is characteristic of new Muslim male converts. His father told The Oklahoman his son was a quiet, intellectual type, but he had no idea what might have incited him to take his own life. We can only assume the father also didn't know of the bomb-making material in his son's apartment. Perhaps we are dealing with a recent or a secret convert?

Finally, if Hinrichs was just a disturbed guy who decided to kill himself with a bomb 100 yards from a crowd of 84,000 people instead of simply putting a bullet through his temple, slashing his wrists or some other traditional way of doing away with himself, why is the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force now the lead agency in the investigation?

I'm sure they'll be officially ignored in the order they weren't received.

Thank God for the blogosphere! In backwater provinces like the city I live in, not only don't reporters ask such questions, the stories aren't even reported.

(Little wonder conspiracy theories like these take hold and thrive.)

MORE: Take with grain of salt, says Goldstein.

Absolutely. But grain of salt or not the story itself should have been reported.

UPDATE (10/05/05): In a report which details Joel Hinrichs' failed attempt to buy ammonium nitrate, Oklahoma University President David Boren (in what is described as a "shift") has specifically refused to describe the explosion as a suicide:

The FBI has not announced details about the bomb, but Channel 5 News reported Tuesday night that Hinrichs' bomb contained acetone peroxide, or TATP. The highly unstable chemical can be made from household items, but it is very sensitive to heat and shock.

Law enforcement found more bomb-making materials Sunday at Hinrichs' residence at the Parkview Apartments, and they were detonated that evening. Earlier last week, Hinrichs tried to buy ammonium nitrate fertilizer from Ellison Feed and Seed in east Norman.

Dustin Ellison said the student visited his store on Wednesday and asked to buy the fertilizing ingredient often used in bombs. Ellison said Hinrichs didn't know how much he needed, and the store operator asked why the fertilizer was needed. After further discussion, Ellison said "something didn't feel right" and decided not to sell any materials to him.

Hinrichs, 21, was a National Merit scholar from Colorado Springs, Colo. Boren said Hinrichs did not participate in a pregame recognition of freshmen National Merit scholars because he was not a freshman.

"Was he in the stadium, did he attempt to enter the stadium?" Boren asked rhetorically. "To our knowledge, at this point, the answer to that question is no."

While saying it appears no one else is connected to the bombing, Boren made a shift in describing Hinrich's death by saying, "I do not say suicide, I say it's an individual death that we're dealing with. That's all we really know."

Still nothing in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Now that I think about it, if you're going to commit suicide, ammonium nitrate would be overkill. . .

UPDATE (10/05/05): My thoughts on the nature of this reporting, plus updated links here.

UPDATE (10/06/05): More recent post here.

posted by Eric on 10.04.05 at 06:18 PM





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Comments

Excellent collection of quotes and posts. I must say I haven't been all that surprised when you consider all the other stories that have gone unreported. The death of the two weather scientists who died mysteriously when a logging truck released its load of logs onto the scientists car when they were on their way to retrieve seismology equipment placed all around Puget Sound monitoring the "freakish" 100's of earthquakes that have besieged the Pacific Northwest during the past two months, the secret drug war taking place in South Texas that has claimed over 600 lives so far this year, the truck in Utah that was carrying over 35,000 lbs. of explosives and mysteriously exploded, leaving a huge 30 foot crater in the highway. Coincidentally, President Bush had welcomed Saudi F-16 jet fighters two days earlier. My opinion is the truckbomb was shot by a F 16 missle. What am I leaving out? Oh yes, the lastest? Yesterday, a rogue group of ex Stasi foreign agents stole a Jet and broke into two labs in Georgia, stealing samples of the 1918 Spanish Flu. Then of course there's the death of over 100 scientists in the span of two years, the 3 mice that disappeared from the Newark, NJ lab that were carrying the Black Plague(bubonic). Get the drift?

iggy   ·  October 14, 2005 08:38 AM

By the way, here's the links to the suppressed Stasi rogue agent story. They first surfaced in the Dominican Republic. Then they stole the jet and headed to Georgia unmolested to pull off not one, but two bio agent robberies...

"Intelligence Analysts are describing it as one of the most sophisticated intelligence operations ever conducted in the United States, an ‘unknown’, though suspected, terrorist organization, operating under the ‘cover’ of an as yet unidentified foreign government, has succeeded in goals of acquiring the United States' most protected secrets relating to the Bird Flu Pandemic.

These reports further state that these terrorists have not only succeeded in obtaining their intended target, and which were the computer hard drives containing massive amounts of data, but were also able to obtain complete genetic samples of one of the world’s most feared diseases, the 1918 Spanish Flu Virus.

According to these reports, German Intelligence officers had first learned of this sophisticated intelligence plot less than two weeks ago and were unable to apprehend the subjects in Europe, whereupon they issued International Arrest Warrants for the 14 suspected terrorists and notified both Russias FSB and the American CIA. The members of this terrorist group, according to these reports, are all former members of the former East Germany’s Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Stasi).

Escaping from Europe this terrorist group was next suspected to be in the Dominican Republic, as reported by the Dominican Today News Service in their article titled "Germany is Looking for 14 Fugitives in the DR"
http://www.dominicantoday.com/app/article.aspx?id=5386
and which says,
"Dominican security agencies are looking 14 Germans, wanted by that country’s authorities, for drug trafficking, fraud and tax evasion, among other crimes. The country’s investigative and airport security agencies were alerted of the German racketeers entering Dominican territory, and that the German government asked the authorities’ collaboration to locate about fourteen nationals from that country who are now fugitives after committing diverse felonies."

(Note: when tracking Intelligence reports through Western Media sources, one frequently encounters terms to describe terrorists, or intelligence operatives, as being ‘drug dealers’, ‘international fugitives’ or ‘wanted for sex crimes’.)

The next ‘surfacing’ of this terrorist group was when they entered into the US by boat from the Dominican Republic and then appropriated a jet aircraft, as reported by News 11 Alive News Service in their article titled "Mystery Behind Plane Unfolding".
http://www.11alive.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=70388

"Aviation experts say planes are easy to steal if you know how to fly them. But to fly a jet without a flight plan to Gwinnett County from Florida, you'd have to have a lot of experience. Sometime over the weekend, a ten passenger Cessna Citation landed at Briscoe Field [Atlanta, Georgia] without anyone noticing. The mystery of the stolen jet that landed at Briscoe Field is beginning to unfold according to Gwinnett County Police."

On Monday morning, October 10th, this group carried out simultaneous attacks on both the US Center for Disease Control
http://www.cdc.gov/
and the genetic laboratories located at the Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences, http://www.cos.gatech.edu/info.htm
both located in Atlanta, Georgia.

Of the attack at the Georgia Institute of Technology we can read an Associated Press report in their heavily censored article titled "Two Georgia Tech Dorms Evacuated After Suspicious Devices Found"
http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/hall/newfullstory.asp?ID=97120

"About 100 students were evacuated from Cloudman and Glenn residence halls after the janitor found the suspicious bottle at 8:45 a.m., said spokeswoman Amelia Gambino. At least two other bottles were found and detonated by Atlanta police, she said."

Again, it must be pointed out that under the current Military-Industrial Regime in the United States heavily censor all news of this kind and are not allowed to be known by the American people themselves, and as exampled by the events that had occurred in Oklahoma, as reported by Nebraska's State Paper News Service in their article titled "In Bombing At OU Stadium There Are More Questions Than Answers"
http://nebraska.statepaper.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/10/10/434a8f7944e01

To the terrorist events in Atlanta, these reports further state, that not only were they able to obtain the secret data that had been their intended target, but were also able to obtain from the Georgia Institute Technical Collage a complete sample of the worlds most dangerous virus, the 1918 Spanish Flu, and which this college was in the process of genetically coding for the United States Military, and who had just announced their success at resurrecting this horrific monster.

iggy   ·  October 14, 2005 09:02 AM


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