Oklahoma City Bombing and the Orlando Nightclub Attack

Terrorist Activity Since 9 11
Introduction
The Oklahoma City Bombing was a domestic terrorist attack perpetrated in 1995 by Timothy McVeigh—a Gulf War Veteran—and Terry Nichols, a former Army serviceman who had obtained a hardship discharge after only a year in service. The two targeted the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in retaliation for the Ruby Ridge and Waco stand-offs. More than 150 people were killed in the blast and nearly 700 more were injured (Collins, 1997). The Orlando Nightclub shooting occurred in 2016 and was committed by Omar Mateen at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Florida. Mateen was motivated to act by the killing of Abu Waheeb in Iraq and swore allegiance to the Islamic State before being shot and killed by Orlando Police after a brief standoff (Doornbos, 2016). Mateen killed 49 and wounded 53 more.
These two attacks serve as good comparison points because each contains actors who are motivated by hatred for the U.S. or had been triggered by actions taken by the U.S. government against others. In the case of the Oklahoma City Bombing, McVeigh and Nichols were outraged by the government’s treatment of the Branch Davidians at Waco, where the ATF basically laid siege to the compound, set the compound on fire and massacred the men, women and children living there (Collins, 1997). In the case of the Orlando nightclub shooting, Mateen was angered by the U.S. government’s role in destabilizing the Middle East and in particularly going after and demonizing the Islamic world. Mateen was taking revenge for the U.S. government’s slaughter of Muslim civilians in the Middle East (Greenwald & Hussein, 2018). The two attacks show, moreover, how terrorist attacks have evolved overtime: the Oklahoma City Bombing was a carefully plotted and constructed attack that took months to plan. The Orlando shooting was less carefully plotted, with Mateen not even selecting his target until just minutes before opening fire (Greenwald & Hussein, 2018). The evolution shows, therefore, that terrorist attacks today are much more impulsive, spur-of-the-moment reactions by terror cells that can be hiding in plain daylight (as was the case with Mateen, who was a security guard by day), whereas with McVeigh and Nichols, the two essentially lived off the grid and flew under the radar for months if not years before perpetrating their heinous attack on the U.S. government and innocent people who had nothing whatsoever to do with the ATF’s assault on Waco or the standoff at Ruby Ridge (Collins, 1997).
Pre-9/11 Terrorist Event
Nature of the Event
The nature of the Oklahoma City Bombing was essentially that of a revenge killing by McVeigh and Nichols. Largely in response to what they perceived to be an unjustified attack by the government on American citizens at Waco and Ruby Ridge, the two terrorists decided to strike back and to target government workers and their families at the government building in Oklahoma City. The event was coordinated between the two, though some suspect others were involved and a third co-conspirator Michael Fortier was charged for knowing about the plot and not doing anything to warn the government. The terrorists had strong anti-government sentiment. McVeigh wore a shirt that had quotes from Brutus and John Wilkes Boothe—two assassins—and a quote from Thomas Jefferson: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" (Michel & Herbeck, 2015).
Methods
The perpetrators of the Oklahoma City Bombing used a truck bomb to attack the Alfred P. Murrah building in downtown Oklahoma City. A rental truck was packed with 5000 lbs of explosives. McVeigh and Nichols packed the truck and separated while McVeigh drove the truck to the building in Oklahoma City, parked it outside and detonated it. McVeigh then headed onto the Interstate but was arrested for driving without a license play and carrying a concealed weapon.
Outcome
Authorities at first suspected the same group responsible for the first World Trade Center attack. However, as they examined footage of the truck bomber and began looking at data they realized this was a home-grown terrorist. Federal authorities linked McVeigh to the bombing through eye witness testimony and records, and tied McVeigh to the Fortiers and to Nichols. The Fortiers entered into a plea bargain and testified against McVeigh, who was sentenced to death. Nichols was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Michael Fortier was given 12 years for failing to notify authorities about his foreknowledge of the bombing plot.
Post-9/11 Terrorist Event
Nature of the Event
The nature of the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting was like that of the Oklahoma City Bombing—a revenge killing for what the terrorist believed to be unjustified attacks by the U.S. government on a population. In this case, the terrorist believed the U.S. government was targeting Muslims in the Middle East and was responsible for the deaths of innocent Muslim civilians (Doornbos, 2016). Mateen revealed as much in his 911 call after the shooting, saying that he was the shooter and offering his motive: "You have to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq. They are killing a lot of innocent people" (Doornbos, 2016).
Methods
The terrorist used a 9mm Glock, a semi-automatic rifle to shoot into the crowd at the nightclub. He did not select the nightclub because it was LGBTQ but rather because it was one that was within driving distance to where he was the night he decided to take vengeance and it offered the least resistance in terms of police presence and security in place (Greenwald & Hussein, 2018). There was no other real plotting to the terrorist attack beyond that. His wife testified that Mateen was driving back and forth between a handful of clubs that night attempting to determine which one to attack. Thus, the defense argued that there was no plan or plot made ahead of time, which was why they argued that his wife should not be prosecuted for having foreknowledge.
Outcome
Mateen called 911 immediately after unloading on the nightclub and confessed to being the shooter. He stayed at the club, however, for three hours and did not give himself up. The standoff between the terrorist and police resulted in a shootout that left the terrorist dead. His wife was later prosecuted for aiding and abetting in the terrorist attack (Greenwald & Hussein, 2018). The Islamic State recognized Mateen as one of their own following the attack. Some speculated that the terrorist attack was really an attack on the LGBTQ community by a closeted homosexual but the evidence for this claim has not been verified (Greenwald & Hussein, 2018).
Terrorist Events Comparison
Motivations for Attacks
In both attacks, the motivations were similar and both stemmed from anger that the terrorists felt towards the U.S. government for what they perceived to be unjust actions on the government’s part. The government had been using heavy-handed approaches to deal with marginal groups in Waco and a family at Ruby Ridge. These tactics by the government were seen as tyrannical by McVeigh and Nichols, neither of whom believed in a strong federal or central government. McVeigh himself echoed the sentiments of John Wilkes Booth who assassinated Lincoln and Brutus who helped to assassinate Caesar. They believed that violence was needed to strike back at the government even if it meant killing innocent people.
This same mentality was evident in the Orlando shooting. Mateen was upset that people of his same ethnicity and religious beliefs were being killed by the U.S. government. Just prior to the shooting, the U.S. had bombed a city in the Middle East in an attempt to root out the Islamic State terrorist group. So many innocent men, women and children died. It was the event that prompted Mateen to strike back at the U.S. His attack was thus a kind of domestic terrorist blowback just like the Oklahoma bombing was blowback for Waco and Ruby Ridge.
Methods of Attack
The methods of attack were different. The Oklahoma attack was more meticulously planned and the number of dead was thus triple that of the Orlando shooting. However, the Oklahoma attack took months to prepare and the impact was far more devastating on the American psyche because something of that scale had just never successfully been achieved before. The Orlando shooting, on the other hand, was more of an impulsive reaction that a young, outraged Muslim man had in response to the indiscriminate bombing campaigns of the U.S. in the Middle East. The Orlando method simply involved driving to a club with minimal security late at night and opening fire on the crowd there. The shooter already had the guns and ammunition so there was nothing to really plan or plot out.
Impact on Society
The Oklahoma City bombing was much more impactful because it was really one of the first of its kind and it left a deep impression on Americans, many of whom shared the outrage that McVeigh felt in response to Waco. Yet at the same time they were horrified by the actions McVeigh took. President Clinton flew to Oklahoma City and eulogized the dead, which is something President Obama did not do. Obama and Biden did fly to Orlando to lay wreathes but they did not give the sort of speech that Clinton gave in an effort to rally all Americans to fight back against hateful ideologies. Oklahoma City made America more fearful of terrorism. The Orlando shooting, on the other hand, was just one more shooting in a long litany of shootings that started with Columbine nearly two decades prior—it was barely a news event for long and its impacted was muted in terms of how it affected American society overall.
Lessons Learned That Can be Used to Develop Counterterrorist Strategies
The lessons learned that can be used to develop counterterrorist strategies are that today terrorist cells are connected via the Internet and so there is nothing preventing the Islamic State from having a small cell or group of followers in Orlando or California. Thus, the FBI needs to monitor social media more closely as this can reveal a great deal of clues about who is a potential risk or threat. To some degree the FBI already does this, but as Best (2002) points out, there needs to be more collaboration across the intelligence community to monitor HUMINT sources and maintain an upper-hand on all sources of information.
Additionally, the pre-9/11 attack shows that the government needs to be prepared for addressing the issue of and minimizing the risk of blowback whenever it engages in a tough response to marginal groups. Marginalized groups, like those who are anti-government will be one of the first groups to strike back when they feel that one of their own is being threatened. Thus, with Waco there was a response from this community of anti-government people and the response was violent. The government should consider, therefore, taking a more diplomatic route when dealing with groups like the Branch Davidians and figuring out ways to prevent the situation from escalating while also maintaining the safety of everyone involved. This would help to deprive potential terrorists of a motive to act in the first place and could thus be considered a preventive strategy.
How Terrorist Strategies Have Evolved
Terrorist strategies have evolved in the sense that now they are more connected via the Internet and the tools to wreak indiscriminate havoc are now a lot easier to come by. If a terrorist wants to get weapons he can easily find them and as the Las Vegas shooter or the Islamic State shooter in Orlando showed, a lot of killing can be done with just a few guns in a short span of time. Thus, terrorist strategies have simplified since 9/11, which was a major operation. Driving a truck into a crowd of people or firing a weapon into a crowd at a nightclub is a simple but effective way to achieve terror in a community. Terrorists who are linked with the Islamic State do not require extensive plans or funding: they fuel one another by sharing stories online and then when they are outraged to their limit, they take action and die willingly believing that they will go to Allah. The strategy that they use mainly today is to form strategic networks and virtual communities so that they can nurse one another’s enmity and hatred for the West.
Summary and Conclusion
The terrorism seen in the Oklahoma City Bombing was perpetrated by two Americans who had served in the military. They were not Islamic but they were anti-government. They were angry about the government’s role in the Waco massacre and the Ruby Ridge standoff. They wanted to strike back at the government in a big way and thus they plotted to blow up the government building in Oklahoma City. The planted explosives in a rental truck and detonated with the goal being to maximize the number of killed and wounded. The Orlando shooter’s aim was to take revenge for the government’s bombing of Muslims in the Middle East. The terrorist was a follower and member of the Islamic State. He killed the crowd at the club in Orlando for no other reason than because he wanted to take revenge for the government’s killing of Muslims. In both cases it was blowback from government actions.
he methods of killing, however, were much simpler in the second case because the terrorist simply needed guns and an impulse to act, which he had. The second case was far more impulsive and required no planning. This means that the evolution of terrorism has changed beyond the need for planning. The Oklahoma City bombing required months of preparation and being off the grid. The Orlando shooting was ready-made because the terrorist was part of the Islamic State and was always ready to act because of the support group nature of the terror network today. In 1995, the terrorists had to basically fly under the radar and they had very little support group, so they were much harder to notice in this sense. Today’s HUMINT agents should be focusing on social media more because the terror networks are all there encouraging one another, promoting their ideas, and getting ready to strike whenever the impulse should arise.
References
Best, R. A. (2002). Intelligence to Counter Terrorism: Issues for Congress. Congressional Research Service: CRS Report for Congress.
Collins, J. (1997). Oklahoma City: The weight of evidence. Retrieved from http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,986240,00.html
Doornbos, C. (2016). Transcripts of 911 calls reveal Pulse shooter's terrorist motives. Retrieved from https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/pulse-orlando-nightclub-shooting/os-911-calls-released-orlando-shooting-20170922-story.html
Greenwald, G. & Hussein, M. (2018). As the trial of Omar Mateen’s wife begins, new evidence undermines beliefs about the Pulse massacre, including motive. Retrieved from https://theintercept.com/2018/03/05/as-the-trial-of-omar-mateens-wife-begins-new-evidence-undermines-beliefs-about-the-pulse-massacre-including-motive/
Michel, L., & Herbeck, D. (2015). American terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma city bombing. BookBaby.