Days of sadness:
It is not common for me to be truly touched, but the article Lexington A Nation Apart ECONOMIST vol. 40 no. 8832 April 20, 2013 page 36 did it to me. Among other kind words was the statement that Americans almost always choose freedom over safety, the odious “Patriot Act” being an exception. Americans’ mood has been grief over our loss and sympathy for those individuals whose loss has been greater than our own. There is no feeling that “something must be done” at all. I am in total agreement on that.
Perhaps I lack the greatness of heart of America in this case, but I do have another feeling. I am furious. (Is this a case of read rage?) Partly I am angry on behalf of the widow. Our society does not prepare our young people for dealing with those whose culture is profoundly different. The attitude is that diversity is just fine; accept anything. In this case the thing that was accepted was a very controlling man, evidently far more so than America regularly produces.
I usually balk at speaking ill of the dead, and I do not have total command of the facts, just what I have read, so if the facts are wrong and the truth exculpatory then I hope the ghost of the murdering monster I shall call “Suspect One” comes and haunts me tonight and tells me what has actually happened. A timorous retraction will follow.
But on the face of it, Suspect One was simply evil. He hated Americans to a murderous degree in spite of the generosity he had received. He had no loyalty for his kin because he unnecessarily involved his brother. (Of course the whole nightmare was unnecessary, but even given it was going to happen he could have done without killing a family member … not dead yet, but under threat of death and expected to die at the time.) He involved three otherwise innocent friends who have been arrested and whose lives are now trashed. He abandoned wife and young child.
In America we produce our share of insane monsters. But typically elsewhere terrorists are part of some sort of gang. The American monster strikes alone. He didn’t even do that.
I like the attitude of “Lexington” in the article better than I like my own. But I agree with the conclusion. There is nothing to do about it beyond seeking justice.
That said, let me poke a little fun at some innocent if misguided people. Perhaps the whole topic will not bear humor, but given my work on this site if I didn’t have fun in the face of unspeakable horror I wouldn’t have any fun at all. So if you might be offended read no more. This is not mission-critical.
The people who get to me are the ones suggesting a government plot. The idea has been mooted that one of the backpacks was not torn up in the explosion. The picture I saw showed a backpack that was indeed torn up. So let’s see what we can do to improve on the idea.
I think it was last summer when President Obama was sitting on a sound stage near the then president of Russia. Our fearless leader leaned over and whispered words to the effect of, “I can’t do it now. I have an election coming. But after the election I shall be more free to act.” The Russian looked totally dismayed. Hidden microphones have, within living memory, been a large part of the Russian experience. He said stiffly, “I’ll tell mister Putin.” So right there you can dismiss any doubt that politicians are making deals behind our backs they are quite aware we would not like. There was, indeed, an open mike and we were treated to the sight and sound of the skullduggery. The thing that was obvious was the body language. The Russian was sitting stiffly even before he knew he might have been compromised. He was on his dignity. Obama was leaning forward looking up at him.
If you have ever seen a dog that thinks it is about to be punished you remember how it looked. It lowered itself. So here was the American president lowering himself before a foreign politician. That was bad enough. But the sense of the language was that Obama was going to do something for Putin. You don’t abase yourself before someone you are doing a favor for unless it is a return of a favor and you are putting it off. The favor is unknown, but the timing of the Boston tragedy was about right and it certainly plays into Putin’s hands. The Russians have had a lot of trouble with Chechens and it doesn’t help them for the American press to treat them as freedom fighters. So that fits. But Putin needed Obama’s tacit permission. You don’t cross a super power if you can avoid it.
As for what the initial favor was, Obama had gone from obscurity to the most powerful man on earth in a very short time. That can’t happen to you unless somebody does you a favor. So that fits.
Immediately after the event Putin announced that all of Russia’s resources would be at America’s disposal to get to the bottom of this. Odd. It was a crime against Americans on American soil. He knew something. And indeed he did. He had already sent a warning to watch Suspect One. It would seem that although the guilt is all on the murderer Putin might have had a little bit of influence on the timing.
Well I am an equal opportunity paranoid. There’s the same idea that the World Trade Center tragedy was a government plot. I was recently chatting with a man I think the world of and I mentioned the “illuminati.” That is to say some men of great power and wealth who try to manipulate governments to their own ends contrary to the interest of the people. My companion said there was no such thing. No illuminati. Not one. If there was one then I was one of them. Hmm. None? So I proposed we drop the matter. (In his defense this was before Jon Stuart had pointed out that congressmen can use their inside information, say the chairman of the senate banking committee can buy and sell bank stocks. For the rest of us that would be illegal insider trading. I shall have to torment him with that one.)
He then blurted out that some time before George W. Bush was elected a letter had been sent to Clinton saying Sadam Hussein was acting as if he had weapons of mass destruction and we ought to get rid of him. A number of people signed that letter. Later another letter was sent saying Hussein HAD the weapons and we ought to get rid of him. Same signatures. In due course Bush was elected. All of those men were appointed to high office. This was before the World Trade Center event. So the war against Hussein on suspicion of weapons of mass destruction was a foregone conclusion before that event. Anybody who questioned the plan was simply going to be marginalized … I think that means fired and having your career ruined.
You can talk about the fire extinguisher system that didn’t work. Maybe they hadn’t properly replaced an old Halon system. A candid tape was recovered showing Bin Laden (was he lynched so he couldn’t talk?) telling friends that as an architect he did not expect the towers to fall. A fireman I met at a party told me no other skyscraper before or since had fallen “into its own footprint” like the World Trade Center. The collapse was supposed to be due to jet fuel running down the steel columns that supported the building and weakening them. I saw the tapes. There was plenty of smoke and fire above where the planes hit – none below. And there is the question of who inspected the building. Not New York, the trade center belonged to Port Authority in New Jersey. Not New Jersey, the towers were in New York. I guess they inspected themselves and kept the records in the World Trade Center. Does anybody remember the fire extinguisher system being replaced? It would have taken weeks I’d think. It would be a nice story, “The Sprinklers that Failed,” if it actually ever happened.
Both presidents in cahoots? Of course. The policies of Obama and Bush are essentially identical. The difference is “style.” Bush “wanted” American troops abroad. Obama “wants” them all a home. What they have actually done is pretty much identical.
Supreme court chief justice Clarence Thomas has in fact said that the only reason Obama got elected because he was a Black man that the “elite” and the media liked. I won’t tell you what Malcolm X would have called him. Both presidents seem to have been dancing to the same piper.
So come on, you conspiracy theorists. I don’t even believe any of it and I can come up with that much. Surely you can do better.
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