by
David
Franke

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By now, most
people would answer “of course it was terrorism.” We now
know about the older brother’s trip to Chechnya and his seeming
conversion to jihad afterwards, and we have the younger brother’s
mute “confession,” although most of the important questions
remain unanswered. But the establishment media were quick to label
the bombings terrorism from the moment the two brothers’ photos
were posted on TV, without any of this background known. Why the
rush?

Glenn Greenwald
in The Guardian asks
an important question: When can an act of mass violence be deemed
“terrorism”? Our establishment media quickly defined the
Boston bombings, in the public’s eye, as terrorism, whereas Aurora,
Sandy Hook, Tucson, and Columbine were not so defined. Repulsive
acts of murder, of course, but not terrorism.

President Obama
at first refused to define the Boston bombings as “terrorism.”
Good for him. At that point he didn’t know why the violence took
place, although the establishment media obviously thought they knew,
and didn’t need any facts to back up their claim.

Then President
Obama changed course and referred to “acts of terrorism.”
What is going on here? Did he get some information in a briefing
from the intelligence community that caused him to now link the
bombings to a terrorist plot?

Here we are
standing firmly on the quicksand of conjecture, of course. But that
is all we can do – try to figure out what is going on – because
as American citizens we are not being told what is going on. And
probably never will be. One of the joys of being a citizen in a
world empire in its late decadent stages is that you cannot possibly
know what really is going on. The best you can do is conject:
try to connect the dots. The invisible government – the CIA and
other intelligence agencies, the information gathered by the FBI
and the rest of the Homeland Security snoops, the secret deliberations
of the President and the Executive Branch, the private discussions
and real motives of the Federal Reserve, the off-the-record deals
between Wall Street and Washington – all that is none of our business
as citizens, we are told. And that invisible government is what
really runs our government. It is obvious that our elected “representatives”
in Congress are not in charge – that’s laughable. That is just a
fig leaf to make the gullible believe that we are a “democracy”
and our participation as voters counts.

But I digress.
Back to Glenn Greenwald. He thinks a key factor is that two Muslims
were involved in the Boston bombings. No identified Muslims were
involved in the Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson, and Columbine murders.
We have been conditioned by government leaders and the establishment
media to think of the “war on terrorism” as a “war
on Muslim terrorism”

I think Greenwald
has a point. As much as I am opposed to the government/establishment
media line, the very first thought I had when I saw that side profile
of “Suspect No. 2” on TV was: “Look at that nose.
He’s from the Middle East.” And you know what that means. (Full
disclosure: I am a repeat offender stereotyper.)

But I think
Greenwald’s point is only part of the answer. It tells us why the
Boston bombings were so easy to sell to the public as terrorism.
It does not explain why the Tsarnaev brothers committed these atrocities
(what they hoped to gain from it); what happened during older
brother Tamerlan’s return to Russia last year, and whether that
is what changed his worldview; or why the FBI cleared him
with the Russian intelligence services for that trip.

Here it is
time to consider a
second article of reasonable conjecture. DEBKAfile is
a private intelligence newsletter, and the headline in its April
23 issue gives the plot away: “The Tsarnaev brothers were double
agents who decoyed US into terror trap.”

DEBKAfile
conjects that “the brothers were double agents, hired by US
and Saudi intelligence to penetrate the Wahhabi jihadist networks
which, helped by Saudi financial institutions, had spread across
the restive Russian Caucasian [sic]. Instead, the two former
Chechens betrayed their mission and went secretly over to the radical
Islamist networks.”

That certainly
would help to explain, in conjecture at least, some of the mysteries
of this story. For example: Why the FBI had been involved
with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but apparently was taken by surprise when
he engineered the bombings; why the Russians agreed to let
him return to his family home for six months (it was in their interest
to have more spies in the Chechen community); and the unplanned,
mysterious meeting in the White House between President Obama and
a Saudi representative. We can also note that there is evidence
that the brothers’ uncle in Montgomery Village, Maryland, he of
the front-lawn press conference, has been associated with CIA missions
in the past. Perhaps this was a family affair – several members
of the family had been recruited by the CIA – and the uncle was
horrified at the brothers’ double-cross (and afraid for his own
future, no doubt), thus explaining his nasty comments about them
at the press conference.

Now for a third
dose of reasonable conjecture: my own. Why is the quick labeling
of the Boston bombings as “terrorism” important to all
of us?

Answer: Because
it justifies, in government law enforcement circles, a sweeping
expansion of their powers over us lowly citizens. The word “terrorism”
heightens the fear factor that they use to manipulate the public.
It justifies (in their minds, at least) the lockdown of an entire
metropolitan area in the manhunt – this had never been done before.
It conditions us for future government lockdowns and use of martial
law. And, perhaps most importantly, it gives them carte blanche
to do whatever they want with anyone labeled a “terrorist”
with no evidence to back up that claim. U.S. citizens still have
some rights, at least in theory (Miranda rights, a lawyer, trial
by jury, etc.), but anyone labeled a “terrorist” (“enemy
combatant”) by the government does not. By the now-accepted
precedent of actions by Presidents Bush and Obama – not by the Constitution
– you forfeit all those rights when the government decides it wants
to do with you as it wishes.

Granted, federal
authorities have decided to try Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a U.S. citizen,
not as an “enemy combatant,” and the official charges
against him do not mention terrorism. No doubt they feel that the
evidence against him is so conclusive that they have no fear of
losing this court case. But the establishment media had already
successfully established the bombings in the public mind as acts
of terrorism, and in no way have the feds renounced their “right”
to use the labels “enemy combatant” and “terrorist”
in future cases. Public awareness of this case is so overwhelming,
it is only good public relations to play it straight. The public
knows virtually nothing about most people labeled “enemy combatants,”
however, and in those cases the government can – and will – use
whatever means it desires.

And that is
why it is vitally important to you how the Boston bombings were
labeled. You may be next.

April
25, 2013

David
Franke [send him mail]
was one of the founders of the conservative movement in the 1950s
and 1960s. He is the author of a dozen books, including Safe
Places, The
Torture Doctor, and America’s
Right Turn.

Copyright
© 2013 David Franke

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