Hard to believe? You probably thought that this kind of wacky conspiracy theory was restricted to the more insane loud-speakers of Right Wing WorldTM Stephanie Miller Show like Glen Beck, NewsMax or World Net Daily. Well if you thought that, you’d be wrong, because a Republican Congressman, Dana Rohrabacher has announced plans to hold hearings into “foreign connections” to the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City:

OKLAHOMA CITY — A California congressman said Thursday a House subcommittee he chairs would investigate whether there was a foreign connection to the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.

“We need to answer some very serious questions in order to have confidence that the truth of this monstrous crime is fully known,” Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said in a statement.

So who is this alleged foreign connection Rep. Rohrabacher is so concerned about? I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count:

(cont.)

“The bombing of the OKC federal building was the greatest slaughter of innocent Americans until 9/11,” Rohrabacher writes. “It is possible there was an al-Qaida connection.”

Of course, Al Qaida is not the only object of Rohrabacher’s scrutiny. He also appears to believe that a German national, Andreas Carl Strassmeier with connections to white supremacists, may have been involved with McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Rohrabacher’s views on this alleged foreign connection to the OK City bombing are the result of his close ties with Jayna Davis, a former TV News reporter and author of The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing. Davis has in the past stated that she believed Saddam Hussein’s regime may have been involved with McVeigh, in addition to Al Qaida, as demonstrated in this interview she gave to David Horowitz’s FrontPageMag.com:

The Third Terrorist is the culmination of nearly a decade of exhaustive research. Throughout the course of my investigation, I interviewed eighty potential witnesses, twenty-two of whom I deemed credible because their testimonies could be independently corroborated, and more importantly, their stories did not conflict with the government’s case against McVeigh and Nichols.

In detailed affidavits, these witnesses confidently identified eight specific Middle Eastern men, the majority of whom were former Iraqi soldiers, colluding with the Oklahoma City bombers, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, during various stages of the bombing plot.

All of these suspects immigrated to the United States following the Persian Gulf War, ostensibly seeking political asylum from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. However, my investigation revealed they were, in fact, false defectors – not outspoken dissidents as they had claimed.[…]

The case for Middle Eastern complicity that I have outlined, thus far, centers primarily upon Timothy McVeigh’s collaboration with men whom witnesses described as Iraqi intelligence agents. However, I have also uncovered strong indicators of an Al-Qaeda component to the Oklahoma bombing. I outline in my book, The Third Terrorist, compelling evidence that McVeigh’s defense team developed which suggested Terry Nichols might have received bomb making expertise from Al-Qaeda operatives based in the Philippines.

So, just in time for the mid-term elections, Republicans have given the go-ahead to Rep. Rohrabacher to pursue these allegations of Iraq and Al Qaida connections with the Oklahoma City bombing. How very convenient. Not that I doubt Rohrabacher’s sincerity. From all indications he’s been very adamant about investigating these allegations of a Middle Eastern terrorist ties to McVeigh since at least 2002. No, what’s surprising is Henry Hyde’s sudden authorization, as Chairman of the full committee, of Rohrabacher’s request for an investigation, granting him permission to pursue these rather nebulous charges.

In what some on Capitol Hill are calling a surprising decision, Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., has given the nod for hearings into the long-debated question of whether those responsible for the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building had help from any foreign source. […]

Interviewed Wednesday, Rohrabacher confirmed that his nearly two-year-long personal investigation into the Oklahoma City tragedy had finally received the necessary support for an official congressional investigation.

Rohrabacher may be a true believer, but color me skeptical, and I find it difficult to believe that after 2 years of pushing this particular conspiracy theory he suddenly convinced his fellow Republicans (none of whom have gone public with their support of his position) that an investigation into these “Middle Eastern terrorist ties to McVeigh” is now justified. No, I suspect this is another of those little stir up the wingnut base election year maneuvers for which Karl Rove is so justly infamous.

Apparently no legitimate news organization has ever touched this particular conspiracy theory with a ten foot pole. Yet, its been floating around in Right Wing WorldTM Stephanie Miller Show for years. I have only one question for the conservatives who have fallen for this one: if true, why didn’t the Bush administration publicize it during the run-up to the Iraq war? They made up enough stuff out of whole cloth (Saddam’s nuclear program, Iraqi/Al Qaida ties, mobile biochemical labs, etc.) to scare people into supporting an invasion of Iraq. It would seem that this was a conspiracy theory right up their alley, with the added justification that we could now claim Saddam attacked us first.

I guess there are some things even the Bush White House won’t stoop to to sell a war.

But I’m willing to bet that they’re more than happy to let Rep. Rohrabacher push this load of crap on the American people, since then they don’t have to get their own hands dirty with it. And lord knows Republicans needs to excite their moonbat base come this Fall.