I saw pictures of the pieced-together airplane during the reconstruction–in the area of interest, there were large, relatively flat, unmarked pieces of fuselage. Certainly not what you’d expect from a proximity-fuzed missile warhead (which all large AAMs are). Perhaps not totally disproven, but IMO vanishingly improbable.

I’d certainly agree on the Times’ lack of investigative interest. And for all the mea culpas over the war coverage (and whining from the left over Judith Miller’s focus on irrelevancies like aluminum tubes), when the Times posted a sampling of their coverage, it almost entirely minimizes the evidence, not the other way ’round.

It’s not terribly farfetched if the problem requires several simultaneous conditions: an empty fuel cell; boost pumps left on and overheating; a malfunction in the pump; and an electrical short causing a spark. The alternative theories are much harder to credit: a bomb would have left explosive residue (none was found); a missile would have left distinctive damage to the aircraft (pictures show none). Similarly, the Philippine Nichols/Al Qaeda claims I’ve seen are all dated and thinly sourced. The Iraq/Al Qaeda (and even 9/11) connections are an entirely different order of probablility.

Besides, the Iraq connection is relatively important (both as an indication of the threat and a casus belli); the others might make us more inclined to pursue Al Qaeda (which we’re already doing), but really aren’t in the same league.

The problem in casting the net too wide on this will be that weak evidence or surmise will be included,this the obvious suspects will pick up on and in their usual fashion use this to discredit the whole.Don’t forget this is the “I smoked it but didn’t inhale crowd”.

I’d be careful equating these to Iraq’s and 9/11. There are some clear indications of links between the IIS and Al Qaeda, many detailed in the 9/11 Commission Report. (And the liberal tendency to misreport “no evidence of a collaborative operational relationship” as “no links” is fairly easily disproven.) The same cannot be said for OK City, where the links are suggestive at best.

TWA 800 was almost certainly a mechanical, caused by an undetermined fault in a center tank fuel boost pump (turning off those pumps when the tanks are empty has been the subject of several technical directives since). Lumping those in with Iraq and 9/11 tends to discredit the argument on the latter.

My family still lives in Oklahoma [and even though my brother is that rarest of things, a moonbat in Oklahoma] I think most of the people down there really wonder about that bombing.

Out of nowhere comes an attack that kills all those people and then that is it. Before it and after it there are attacks on the World Trade Center.

odd.