Film Review - A Noble Lie Oklahoma City 1995

Director James Lane, Free Mind Films, December 2011, 2 hours

The title of the film comes from Plato’s Republic ¬ “A myth or untruth knowingly told by the elite to maintain social harmony, or the social position of the elite.”

There was a huge disparity between the national story of the Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, and what the local news and local people witnessed on the day it happened. The orchestrated cover-up failed to discourage all those who had lost friends and family or realized that something was seriously amiss with the official story. For years people have devoted countless hours, time and resources to interview witnesses, track down evidence, and discover the truth about this tragedy. AnOklahoma City Bombing Investigation Committee was formed that included Oklahoma State Representative Charles Key, who was a driving force behind empowering a citizen grand jury to investigate the bombing, to look into areas that the government had ignored. While the official narrative focused on Timothy McVeigh, it neglected the testimony of witnesses who saw McVeigh in the company of Middle Eastern men and Andy Strassmeier, a German citizen and “former” intelligence officer who lived in Elohim City.

Many adults as well as children were killed in the bombing, which made it the largest terrorist attack on American civilians up until 9/11/2001. Subsequent to the bombing there were two brutal murders carried out, one of a policeman who was a first responder to the crime scene and another of a man who bore a strong resemblance to one of the suspects in the bombing. The film reveals more mysteries than it solves. For example, it demonstrates that it would be impossible for a truck bomb alone to cause all the structural damage and the partial collapse of the building that caused most of the casualties. The suppressed evidence of foreknowledge by the authorities is also exposed. Precisely what role the various suspects, actors, and prosecutors played, however, is not clear. On the contrary, the bombing as a whole is shown to be complex, messy and tied into past events, such as Waco and Ruby Ridge, as well as into subsequent events such as the World Trade Center attacks that took place on September 11, 2001, just weeks after Charles Key published his book Final Report on the Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building.

The documentary includes Alex Jones, warning that if we don’t learn the truth about what happened at Oklahoma City, then history is likely to repeat itself until people realize who is responsible for these crimes and how the events are being used to construct an increasingly oppressive police/surveillance state.

I vaguely remember feeling uncomfortable and wary of the accounts I heard about Waco and Oklahoma City when they happened, and how I was concerned about the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995 that granted the federal government greater powers in jurisdiction over “acts of international terrorism.” However, I was too busy to spend much time investigating those events. In the wake of 9/11, however, I received some videos about Oklahoma City and recognized disturbing parallels between both attacks.

I spent years questioning the “War on Terrorism” and in particular the official narrative of 9/11, often without any interest by the media in the issue. When I finally got the attention of an editor at the San Francisco Bay Guardian who decided to do a cover story on the topic, I gave him the best research I could find, including numerous books, articles, and documentaries. As I was discussing with him the historic parallels to 9/11, however, I noticed his eyes clouding over in horror when I mentioned Oklahoma City as one of my examples. I suddenly realized that he had never heard a word challenging the official account of the Oklahoma City bombing, having only been exposed to the oft-repeated national myth. I had to drop the historical context aspect of my presentation to avoid overwhelming him with more information than he could process.

My heart goes out to the victims who were killed and maimed in Texas, Oklahoma City, New York, Washington DC, and those killed subsequently in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bali, Spain, and London… Many have died, including truth seekers, including some of my friends. These are perilous times, when we are called upon to stand up for what we believe. Many of us feel that if we can learn the truth, and expose the truth, we will be able to prevent future acts of terrorism, future wars, and redirect humanity from the path of endless war towards a more peaceful, life-honoring future. Clearly that is the intent of the documentary “A Noble Lie ¬ Oklahoma City 1995.” This excellent film is a gift to all of us to help us better understand how we have been deceived, and to prod us into continuing to educate ourselves and to join together to take action to prevent history from repeating itself, yet again.