ABERRATION IN THE HEARTLAND OF THE REAL: THE SECRET LIVES OF TIMOTHY McVEIGH - WENDY S. PAINTING

One of the issues I’m trying to get used to w/r/t my switch to using a Kindle rather than physical books is that it is not clear how long a book is when you start. I’ve since learned how to look this up, but I was a couple hundred pages into this thing before I noticed that it’s 800+ pages, which I think would have intimidated me into starting it. I’m glad I didn’t know and stuck this thing out, in a more just world Painting would have won a dozen awards for non-fiction writing/journalism for this thing. It’s the definition of sweeping and epic. it does focus on the OKC bombing in ‘95 but it sprawls out into a dozen or so different directions. It includes long sections about the army and their attempt to regroup and restructure after Vietnam, war-crimes committed during the first Gulf War (McVeigh was part of a bulldozer assault that buried surrendering Iraqis alive as well as the infamous highway of death), gulf-war syndrome and related medical matters. It includes excellent sections on the pre-9/11 right-wing conspiracy world, from violent YT separatists, to UFO folks and the ways in which the government tried to monitor and frustrate them (lots of good stuff about goverment-seeded misinfo in the UFO world). It includes the best rundown I’ve ever read  of MK-ULTRA dark wizard Jolly West, a person that needs his own book ASAP. Ruby Ridge and Waco make appearances, as expected, as well as long, fascinating parts about the ways in which defense contractors and government entities interact and the ways the different government agencies, from the Military to the FBI to the CIA, all work both with and against one another to “neutralize” perceived threats. Part of me wishes that Painter had released a shorter version of this book that merely demolished the government’s case that McVeigh was essential a lone wolf (or one that received minimal, coerced help from 2 of his army buddies) who bombed the Murrah building as revenge for Waco. It’s sort of a forgotten terrorist attack at this point, 9/11 happened a few years later and only a few months after McVeigh was executed and pretty much buried this particular narrative of right-wing terrorists (tho, it does seem that such a narrative might be coming back). Maybe I’ll try to write a short summary later for anyone interested but I’d recommend going whole hog and reading this book but, briefly, McVeigh spends a few years before the attack deeply immersed in a very dark, right-wing world of gun shows and militias. He constantly interacts with people who are involved in gun-running and bank robbing and terrorism. Many of these people are FBI and or CIA informants (like Roger Moore or Andreas Strassmeir) to name two people that you can look more into if you’d like. McVeigh himself told both his original defense team as well as neighbors on death row that he himself was working undercover to infiltrate the militia movement. Everyone who actually saw McVeigh in the days and weeks before the bombing as well as the morning of the bombing see him in the presence of others, none of whom are ever found and who are absent from the official narrative. The FBI won’t even release the footage of the truck driving around OK City before the bombing (or the footage from the building itself) presumably because it shows other folks in the car with him. Painting suggests a handful of narratives: Lone Wolf, Pack of Wolves, Watched Wolves, Experimental then runs through how likely each one is. I feel like I’ll be writing forever if I try to run-down every interesting tidbit and rabbit-hole she uncovers. It’s amazing but unsurprising that I’ve never seen this stuff in the mainstream, it would be nice to have a real press in this country. Until then, we can count on people like Painter, the only reporter to actual go through all the documents, including the defense team notes, to fill in what’s missing and point in the right direction for future research. Read this book, get McVeigh-pilled. 95 PATCON agents