Monday, April 22, 2013

Boston Bombings

By now, the Boston Marathon bombings have been analyzed every which way, yet leaving many questions unanswered until the younger brother recovers enough to tell his story to the authorities, unless a book publisher gets to him first. I was surprised that the authorities let him live, usually in a situation where a police officer has been shot and killed, the suspect is over-killed by a SWAT team in retaliation. Now, thanks to the GOP, they want to treat him like an enemy combatant and try him at a military court, probably send him to Guantanamo for several years, to be held without charges or representation... Thankfully, the White House earlier today announced that he would not be held as an enemy combatant, no matter what John McCain or Lindsay Graham says... Yahoo news reports: "Terror suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was charged on Monday with two counts of using a weapon of mass destruction to kill, injure and cause widespread damage at the Boston Marathon a week ago.

 If convicted, the 19-year-old could face the death penalty. Three people were killed and more than 200 others wounded when two powerful homemade bombs exploded near the race’s finish line.

 Tsarnaev made his initial appearance before a magistrate judge in his hospital bed at the heavily guarded Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he remains in serious condition. According to a federal official, Tsarnaev is sedated and unable to speak..."

Reading about the two brothers and their lives, it becomes clear that any identification with militant Islam had little basis in reality, that it became a romanticized fantasy. My own view of the world is based mostly on what I read in the NY Times and Washington Post, which also is mostly fantasies... The weird part is that Chechnya has a quarrel with Russia, which has killed over 200,000 Chechens over the last 20 years. The few Chechens living in the US see it as a safe harbor, where they can live peacefully, away from the violence of their homeland. Investigations taking place in Russia all depend on how paranoid and vindictive Vladimir Putin has become, or if he's off performing weird shirtless photo opps for his mistresses...

 I don't want to take anything away from the horror and tragedy of the bombings, but on the same Monday afternoon the NY Times reported that 20 home-made bombs went off in Bagdad, Iraq, killing several people and injuring over 300. They didn't have the resources to investigate them all, nor did the story make the evening news in any country outside of the Middle East. It's such a sad commentary how quickly improvised devices and suicide bombs have become commonplace, when a few years ago they were much more rare. Now that jihadists ignore the passages in the Koran against taking the life of another Muslim, it's predicted that this kind of terrorism will happen a lot more in Europe and the US. So far, South America has avoided this kind of violence, content to let their police and military kidnap and torture their citizens, until they piss off Iran or Saudi Arabia sometime soon...