Rudolph’s War
Following is the full text of Eric Rudolph’s written statement -The statement marked the first time Eric offered a reason for the attacks.
Statement of Eric Robert Rudolph
Psalm 144:1 Blessed be the LORD my strength which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight:
After much thought and consideration, I entered into an agreement with the government. After potentially facing 4 trials in 4 separate jurisdictions on circumstantial evidence that would likely lead to a conviction in at least one of these jurisdictions, I have decided to deprive the government of its goal of sentencing me to death.
Washington had two major facts that were difficult for us to overcome in this case. First, was the fact that my truck was in Birmingham that morning, over a mile away from the scene. Even though the first, and chief witness’s explanation as to what led him to my truck was highly vulnerable to our attack, there was another witness to contend with who helped him confirm the identity of the truck. Second, and most importantly was the fact that after I was identified I fled into the woods for five years and engaged the FBI in one of the most intensive and well publicized manhunts in history.Absent any corroborative fact or witness to explain why I was in Birmingham that day, a city I have never visited before, and good reason for fleeing to the woods for five years, I was fighting an uphill battle. Add to these two paramount facts Washington’s junk science about explosive residues, a media obsessed with the specter of right wing extremist violence, we had an extremely difficult case to win. But Washington had a problem and this is why they entered into this deal.
The problem that they had was that a significant minority of the population, especially here in Northern Alabama, regarded what happened there at the abortion facility on that day of January 29, 1998, as morally justified. It is my opinion some of these people were likely to vote not guilty no matter what evidence was presented to them. The prosecution’s jury questionnaire centered on efforts to discover and exclude those potential jurors who held strong anti-abortion beliefs. This is why they approached us — they were afraid that in at least one jurisdiction they were going to run into this recalcitrant pro-life juror who would hang the jury and deliver a political defeat and embarrassment to Washington’s effort to make an example out of person who assaulted their specially protected policy of child murder. The evidence was sufficiently weak enough for us to talk to this juror, and they were afraid of this, so they offered the deal.The fact that I have entered an agreement with the government is purely a tactical choice on my part and in no way legitimizes the moral authority of Washington’s government to judge this matter or impute guilt.
Because I believe that abortion is murder, I also believe that force is justified in an attempt to stop it. Because this government is committed to maintaining the policy of abortion, and protecting it, the agents of this government are the agents of mass murder, whether knowingly or unknowingly. And whether these agents of the government are armed or otherwise they are legitimate targets in the war to end this holocaust, especially those agents who carry arms in defense of this regime and the enforcement of its laws. This is the reason and the only reason for the targeting of so-called law enforcement personnel.
Understandably the majority of Americans who have dehumanized these millions of children with the label of fetus are able to kill in good conscience and to recognize and support the government which sanctions this. But then there are those who call themselves “Pro-Life”, and who claim that abortion is murder; they also claim that those who would use force to prevent it are just as morally reprehensible as the abortionists. For these people I have nothing to say other than you are liars, hypocrites, and cowards. There is no more fundamental duty for a moral citizen than to protect the innocent from assault. This in inherent in the values of all higher civilizations. You have the right, the responsibility and the duty to come to the defense of the innocent when the innocent are under assault. Would you protect your own children from the clutches of a murderer? Would you protect your neighbor’s children if they were under assault? If you answered yes to both of these, then you must support the use of force as justified in attempting to prevent the murder that is abortion. The fact of the matter is that if you recognize the right to protect the innocent from assault; and if you also recognize that abortion is murder but do not recognize the right to use force to prevent this murder, then the only logical conclusion is that you do not consider that the unborn have a legitimate claim to life. However, if you do recognize that abortion is murder, and that unborn children should be protected, and you still insist that force is unjustified to stop abortion, then you can be none other than cowards standing idly by in the face of the worst massacre in human history.
The Republican party is the modern day equivalent to the Pharisaical sect in ancient Judea. “You are like whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and inequity.” Matthew 23:28. The coward Bush talks about the “culture of life,” but intends to effect no change with respect to Roe v. Wade. He made this perfectly clear when he stated during the stem cell debate that “American is not ready to abolish Roe v. Wade.” Three of the key justices who are instrumental in maintaining Roe v. Wade — O’Connor, Kennedy and Souter — were appointed by Republican presidents. No politician in Washington will ever seriously threaten abortion on demand. And the fools who listen to them, in their hearts, know this but do not care. You so-called “Pro-Life,” “good Christian people” who point your plastic fingers at me saying that I am a ‘murderer,” that “two wrongs don’t make a right,” that even though “abortion is murder, those who would use force to stop the murder are morally the same,” I say to you that your lies are transparent.
Tell me plastic people, are you not the ones waving the flag in support of the coward Bush’s operation in Iraq? Do you not say that Washington’s cause justifies the bombing and shooting of thousands of people? Answer me, is the causus belli of promoting democracy in the Middle East more weighty for waging war than the systematic murder of millions of your own citizens? After all, the unborn are citizens, are they not? Is not that the basis of your argument for a “right to life” guaranteed in the Declaration of lndependence and embodied in the Bill of Rights?
You will say that there is no reason to raise a hand against your own government, that such is forbidden by Romans 13. The fact is all governments everywhere, including our own, have their roots in usurpation.
Two hundred and twenty five years ago our ancestors overthrew their government because they were not being represented for purposes of taxation. Tell me you good patriots, is the causus belli “taxation without representation” more weighty than the deliberate murder of 50 million people? You lie, and your lies will find you out.
Along with abortion, another assault upon the integrity of American society is the concerted effort to legitimize the practice of homosexuality. Homosexuality is an aberrant sexual behavior, and as such I have complete sympathy and understanding for those who are suffering from this condition.
Practiced by consenting adults within the confines of their own private lives, homosexuality is not a threat to society. Those, consenting adults practicing this behavior in privacy should not be hassled by a society which respects the sanctity of private sexual life. But when the attempt is made to drag this practice out of the closet and into the public square in an “in your face” attempt to force society to accept and recognize this behavior as being just as legitimate and normal as the natural man/woman relationship, every effort should be made, including force if necessary, to halt this effort.
This effort is commonly known as the homosexual agenda. Whether it is gay marriage, homosexual adoption, hate crimes laws including gays, or the attempt to introduce a homosexual normalizing curriculum into our schools, all of these efforts should be ruthlessly opposed. The existence of our culture depends upon it. It is the duty of the state to promote the public welfare and this includes holding up values and model behaviors which tend to create a healthy society capable of reproducing itself by the natural means of the family unit. This model behavior which lies at the heart of a healthy society is the marriage between a man and a woman. To place the homosexual relationship along side of the model and pronounce it to be just as legitimate a lifestyle choice is a direct assault upon the long term health and integrity of civilization and a vital threat to the very foundation of society — and this foundation is the family hearth.
The attacks were to have commenced with the start of the Olympics, but due to a lack of planning this was postponed a week. I had sincerely hoped to achieve these objectives without harming innocent civilians. However, I knew that the weapons used (highly uncontrollable timed explosives) and the choice of tactics (placing them in areas frequented by large numbers of civilians) could potentially lead to a disaster wherein many civilians could be killed or wounded. There is no excuse for this, and I accept full responsibility for the consequences of using this dangerous tactic.
The first and largest device was placed in Centennial Park. There was a 55 minute delay on the device. After placing the device it took approximately 10 minutes to walk to the telephone booth where a call was placed immediately. The 911 operator answered the call, and after acknowledging that she could understand my voice (I was using a little plastic contraption to disguise my voice), I proceeded to deliver my message and much to my chagrin the operator terminated the call.
I had to assume that the call had been traced and that in less than a few minutes a responder would be headed to that particular booth. So I walked approximately one block and frantically sought out a booth to make another call. I was not paying attention to the time as the minutes ticked off. Thinking perhaps the operator was put off by the sound of my distorted voice coming through the plastic device, I ditched the contraption and sought out a booth by the Days Inn, where I then tried to deliver a clear message while holding my nose. The crowd was pushing in and after the first couple sentences, I was eyeballed closely by at least two individuals. This caused me to leave off the last sentence which indicated the exact location of the device. The result of all this was to produce a disaster — a disaster of my making and for which I do apologize to the victims and their families.
This second call that was made is the only one that has been made public. Unfortunately, Washington’s government has not released all of the recordings of the 911 calls made within the hours before the blast. If they had, the public would discover that a call was made from the immediate area approximately 40 to 45 minutes before the blast. The call began with the words, “Do you understand me?” After an acknowledgment by the operator the message: “We defy your …” and at this point the call was terminated.
After the blast and the consequent chaos, I decided to discontinue the operation. I hurried back to the vacant lot I had used as a staging area which was east of Atlanta on I-20. Off to the right side of the interstate is what appeared to be a huge vacant lot with woods and bulldozing excavations, perhaps the place where a mall would be erected. Amid the piles of illegal garbage dumpings, I primed and detonated the other four devices and left Atlanta with much remorse.
Two attacks were carried out in the winter of 1997. The first in January was an abortion mill (Northside Family Planning). The second was a homosexual establishment (The Otherside Lounge). The abortion mill was closed that day but occasionally there was staff on hand to clean their blood-stained equipment, and these minions and the facility itself were the targets of the first device. The second device placed at the scene was designed to target agents of the Washington government.
The next attack in February was at The Otherside Lounge. Like the assault at the abortion mill, two devices were used. The first device was designed not necessarily to target the patrons of this homosexual bar, but rather to set the stage for the next device, which was again targeted at Washington’s agents. The attack itself was meant to send a powerful message in protest of Washington’s continued tolerance and support for the homosexual political agenda.
Despite the inherent dangers involved in timed devices, all of these devices used in both of these assaults functioned within the parameters of the plan, and I make no apologies.
After laying low for a year, I succeeded in making operational a command-detonated focused device that would greatly reduce the risk for harming innocent civilians when carrying out these operations. Over a million human beings had died in the past year, and as the anniversary of Roe v. Wade approached, the idea was to send yet another message to the killers and those who protected them.
Birmingham and that particular abortion mill were chosen purely for tactical reasons. The city was a sufficient distance away from any location I was known to have frequented. Three abortion mills were looked at in Birmingham, none of which I truly liked for a target. New Woman All Women was tactically the least objectionable.
This facility routinely kills and mutilates an average of 50 human beings every week. Every employee is a knowing participant in this gruesome trade. The security guard is instrumental in protecting these murderers and their facility from those who would intervene to stop this bloody practice, and therefore he is on the front lines of this fight. The object was to target the doctor-killer, but because the device was prematurely discovered by the security guard, it had to be detonated with only the assistant-killers in the target area. A protester was across the street, and customers waiting to have their child killed were in the parking lot just yards away, but because of the focused nature of the device and being command-detonated, only the killers were caught in the blast zone.
I really do not understand the psychological process that goes into the making of an abortion mill worker. To participate up close in the daily murder and dismemberment of children takes an extremely calloused soul. The very dregs of modernity raised on a culture of selfishness and death find their ways to the abortion mills. Some are there just for money being indifferent to the moral questions involved or the politics surrounding the issue of abortion. Many of these are mediocre mercenary doctors wanting to receive as much money as possible for performing a relatively simple procedure. Then there are the ideologue abortionists. They are the lowest common denominator of extreme egalitarianism, the off scouring of liberalism. These people hate life, and they see maternity as a disability, placed upon women by nature and used by men to keep women in subjection. They see themselves as liberators breaking the chains of patriarchal slavery.
Nothing is more demonstrative of the degenerate nature of American society than the portrayal of the abortionist Lyons as an heroic victim. Abortion is the vomitorium of modernity, and the abortionist is the attendant who helps the bloated partiers disgorge themselves so they can return to the rotten feast of materialism and self-indulgence. And here the celebrants lionize, their wounded attendant.
But I have compassion for the environmental factors that go into the psychological makeup of these lost souls, and see them more as the products of a rotten society poisoned by bad ideals. Many Pro-Life people have understandably advocated the prosecution of these dregs once abortion is outlawed. I, on the other hand, would be willing to forgive and would be glad to see the day when they recognize the horrors which they have wrought and perhaps once again aquire some level of humanity.
Sanderson, like most Americans, probably was not acquainted with abortion up close and personal. And because society has hidden this monstrosity behind closed doors, and sanctified this process by its approval, people like Sanderson are largely indifferent to abortion. They see it as a live and let live issue, or rather in this case, a kill and let kill issue. Nevertheless, despite his purported ambivalence about abortion, and despite the fact that he may have been a good guy, he volunteered to work at a place that murders 50 people a week. He chose to wield a weapon in defense of these murderers as they went about their grisly work, and that makes him just as culpable as the murderers themselves. I have no regrets or remorse for my actions that day in January, and consider what happened morally justified.
Washington was lucky that day in Birmingham, they had a witness who happened into a fortuitous position, and my truck was identified. I knew something was amiss based upon the early reports coming out of Birmingham so I prepared to make a move as I debated within myself whether or not to run or fight them in court. I chose the woods.
The next year was a starving time. Hunted and haggard, I struggled to survive. But I am a quick study, and so I learned to adapt to my situation. I adapted so well, I decided to take the fight to my enemies.
I then planned to strike the FBI headquarters in Andrews in the summer of 1999. But after a summer devoting most of my time to gathering food, I was never able to put together the necessary equipment to accomplish my plan. It had to be put off. In the meantime the FBI presence shrunk from a large headquarters with helicopters and hundreds of agents, down to a tiny office in the national guard armory in Murphy.
The new plan called for an attack in the fall of 2000. I had stockpiled a large supply of food that would sustain me for many years in the mountains, and I was now ready to concentrate my energies exclusively on the plan. The equipment was located many miles away on the border of Tennessee. After some effort I had managed to cobble together an effective device and move it to the ridge overlooking the FBI headquarters in Murphy.
The initial plan was to steal a truck, transport the device to Asheville, and attack an abortion mill before the presidential election. This plan fell through when the truck used was not capable of driving two miles let alone 200. The election slipped away and I fell back upon my original target — the agents at the armory.
A circuitous getaway was then laid out. Two secondary booby traps were placed on the trail to discourage and delay any possible pursuers. The agents were pigeon-holed, their schedules noted to the minute. Finally, the device was moved into place and as the agents approached the door that morning, the final decision had to be made. The agents didn’t die that day. Perhaps after watching them for so many months their individual humanity shown through the hated uniform. It was not that I had lost my resolve to fight in the defense of the unborn, but rather an individual decision about these individual agents. I had worn the uniform of their legions, served in their ranks, I had no hatred for them as individuals. Even though they served a morally bankrupt government, underneath their FBI rags, they were essentially fellow countrymen.
The next three years were spent living a fairly comfortable routine, which involved mostly hunting and camp life. After so many years ducking and hiding and eating crappy foods you tend to let your guard down, and this is what led to my capture in Murphy in 2003. It has been a long journey up to this point, but I still have a ways to go.
The device was removed the next day and buried upon the ridge across the interstate where it has recently been unearthed by these same agents. The booby traps were highly sensitive, and a render safe line was built into the system when they were put into place. Not wanting to approach them again, I detonated them and removed the remaining debris.
When I was in the woods I used a small dugout underneath a rock to avoid helicopters and their heat sensitive equipment. One cold day in December of 1998 I huddled underneath the rock for half an hour as the chopper slowly hovered overhead scanning the ridge. The whir of his blades became less audible and finally he was over the ridge, and then there was silence. I climbed out of my hide brushing off the icy dirt and remembered thinking about the words of the Psalmist who wrote about seeing his enemies in “great power, spreading his branches and roots like a large tree,” but after a little while he looked and beheld his enemies were “nowhere to be found.” In defiance I looked toward the ridge over which the chopper had just gone and said, “I am still here.”
Following is a PostScript that Eric Rudolph added shortly after he released the statement above.
PostScript
As a postscript I would like to clear up some misconceptions about me which are based upon the false information, innuendoes and lies disseminated by some unscrupulous individuals. A recent book written by former GBI agent Charles Stone and CNN reporter Henry Schuster carries many of these lies and misconceptions. The purpose and intent of the book was quite clear, to use lies and distortion in order to prejudice the public against me and thereby pollute any potential jury that was to be chosen for the trial. This book was written by a former agent who was sworn to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. And a part of this Constitution guarantees a defendant the right to a fair trial. He makes a mockery of this Constitution he was sworn to protect and uphold. For example, in his book he says that my brother, after listening to the 911 call made the night of the Park blast, positively identified my voice. This is a lie and he knows this, for the discovery 302s (FBI documents) state the opposite. Stone, knowing that I couldn’t answer this lie before trial, hoped that this lie would convince any potential juror that I had to be guilty, because after all my own brother identified my voice on the 911 tape.
The unethical agent Stone and his hack coauthor Schuster base many of their conclusions about my beliefs and lifestyle on information given to them by Deborah Givens (she calls herself Deborah Rudolph). Based upon this unreliable source they falsely characterize me as an Identity believing Christian who made my living growing and selling marijuana, and became violent because of my paranoid beliefs and my massive ingestion of marijuana. They write that my father who contracted cancer sought out an unconventional treatment (laetrile), and they claim that because the US. government didn’t approve of this particular treatment for cancer, this was the “trigger” that set me off. Wisdom is exceptional, but ignorance is almost universal. Stone’s book is an excellent example of the latter.
I am not now nor have I ever been an Identity believing Christian. I was born a Catholic, and with forgiveness I hope to die one. It is true that for one six month period in 1984 I did live near and attend a church that holds to the Identity doctrine. The purpose for my prolonged stay at this church was because I met a wonderful young lady whose father attended the church. We became engaged for that short time, but when the relationship ended, I left the church and I do not believe I have talked to an Identity believer since that period in the early 1980’s.
While attending this church I never bought into the convoluted Identity argument of racial determinism. I believe that human beings are spirit and ideas and the important conflicts in this world, and probably the next, are about ideas, not flesh. For example I oppose the idea, philosophy and the spirit behind the horror of abortion and will accept as my comrade any man or woman of whatever race who joins me in this fight. Racial determinism is a day before yesterday idea, a product of 19th century Darwinism, and its obsession with biological determinism. We are not our bodies, but rather we are spirits on a temporary sojourn in the world of flesh.
Stone tries to tie me to Nord Davis, who ran a local militia style group in the Andrews area. Apparently he was an Identity believer. Most local residents in the Murphy Andrews area had heard of Nord Davis and knew him by sight. He was primarily a petty con man who always had a little Ponzi scheme and was constantly looking for investments in his latest fraud. Even though, like most people, I knew him by sight, in all the years I lived in the Andrews area I never spoke two words to Nord Davis, let alone joined his little group.
Stone claims that I am a major marijuana grower selling as much as 50 pounds a year. Yes, this is why I was living in a trailer paying $275 a month for rent. Big time drug dealer, that’s me. The truth is that when I left Washington’s army in 1989 I did cultivate marijuana in the early 1990’s, but was never a big time grower and it did not constitute the major source of my income as he suggests. I hated every aspect of the marijuana trade, except for the great deal of time I spent in the woods where I grew it. Happily I left that lifestyle behind me years ago (1992-1993).
An interesting footnote to Stone’s marijuana angle is the assertion that there was a large bag of pot found at my campsite. After I was captured in Murphy in 2003, my campsites were searched, and the items found there were inventoried. Among the items was a trash bag with a dry, green leafy substance in it. The agent, perhaps the redoubtable agent Stone, labeled the material “suspected marijuana.” When the FBI took this bag of “suspected marijuana” back to their lab, they analyzed it and did whatever they do with such things. And, lo and behold, they discovered it to be “vegetable matter”—collard greens. That’s right, collard greens. Thirty five years of police work and agent Stone can’t tell the difference between grass and greens.
The laetrile explanation is laughable, and not worth extended comment except to say that when my father was diagnosed with cancer, I was not even old enough to know what laetrile was let alone be aware of any controversy surrounding its use.
Stone and Schuster admit their chief source of family background information came from a woman calling herself Deborah Rudolph. (She still insists upon using this surname despite being divorced from my brother for many years now.) Debbie Givens which is her actual name was married to my brother in the early 1980’s, much to the consternation of our family. Debbie has a penchant for bars, infidelity, and cocaine. She developed a deep animosity for me because I was one of the only family members to visit my brother, and was on the front lines to get my brother to leave her. She knew this was my design; she hated me. And, hence the reason for her appearance on television to spread lies and distortion about me. Finally, even his long suffering nature was not enough to block out her repeated, multiple infidelities, and he divorced her over twelve years ago. This was the last time I laid eyes on Debbie Givens.