Boston Marathon ends in tears

By Dr Opiyo Oloya

“We still do not know who did this or why, and people should not jump to conclusions before we have all the facts, but make no mistake, we will get to the bottom of this, and we will find out who did this,” US president, Barack Obama said a few minutes ago at a news conference held at the White House in the wake of the deadly twin bombing of the Boston Marathon three hours ago.

As marathon runners wended their way to the finish line, the bombs went off, one after another sending runners and spectators feeling for dear life. Two people are reported dead and scores wounded by the terror attacks.  

A third bomb apparently exploded at the Kennedy Library, although some reports are saying this was false report.  Now, although nothing is yet known about the person or persons behind the terror, Obama has reasons to be optimistic that whomever did this will face the full weight of American law, which in the State of Massachusetts means life in jail without parole.  Massachusetts is one of 17 American states that do not have the death penalty for capital offenses (33 US states have the death penalty).

By now, FBI profilers are hard at work trying to unmask the criminal(s).  One of the first actions the investigation will need to figure out is whether this was the work of domestic or foreign terror.  

In all likelihood, the investigation will point to American home grown terror. There are good reasons for investigators to look inward.  First, since the terror of 9/11, America has used all sorts of surveillance to track and gather intelligence on potential terrorists that may plan to harm Americans.

 Secondly, America is virtually impossible to penetrate from outside.  The last time outside terror almost succeeded in America was when Nigerian-born Umar Farouk Abdulmutallalab almost blew up a Detroit-bound airline as it approached landing on December 25, 2009.
 
All this points to the explosions in Boston have been made in America, likely within Boston itself or carried across state line in a vehicle.  The materials used for making the bombs will have been easily available.  The bomber(s) will have gathered the material quietly without attracting too much attention, getting a few at a time.  With time, the bombs were assembled, likely in a remote place like an isolated farmhouse so as to avoid the attention of curious neighbours. There will have been possible small scale testing of the device to know that it actually work—whoever made the devices knew exactly what it could do.

Now, the motivation for planting such big bombs meant to hurt indiscriminately suggests that the individual(s) behind the bombs will have a beef with the American people.  
In almost all the cases where bombs were planted in public places in America, the bomber held hatred against Americans collectively.

Timothy McVeigh, the so-called Oklahoma Bomber, who bombed the federal building in that city on April 19, 1995, killing 168 and wounding over 800 people, was protesting what he saw as the intrusion of American government in the life of civilians.  

Eric Robert Rudolph, the Centennial Olympic Park Bomber at the Atlanta Olympics on July 27, 1996 was angry against abortion. Then there was Ted Kaczynski, the Harvard educated brilliant PhD professor, also known as the Unabomber, who saw himself as a victim of a consumer society that did not care much for the environment.  He wrote a long rambling manifesto in which he advocated “a revolution against the industrial system”.

Likewise, when the law eventually catches up with the Boston Bomber, and it will, the person(s) likely will have a long list of grievances against America.  High on that list of grievance will be the American government.  It is almost a given that Americans on the fringes hate their government for just about everything—too much law, not enough law, too caring, not caring enough etcetera.

The larger question is why the bomber(s) chose the Boston Marathon to make his case. If, as the investigation proceeds, this turns out to be a foreign coordinated terror, then more than one person will be found behind the bombing.  Foreign terrorists in America need to work in teams in order to plan, get the material and assemble the bombs.
 
However, as this column predicts, the investigation will likely uncover that this was the work of a single criminal, an American with bad anger against his own country—yes, the bomber is a man, likely a white man, who served in the army, and very familiar with explosives.

In other words, this could be the handiwork of a veteran of Iraq or Afghanistan war, bitter about some issues that the bomber feels has not been dealt with appropriately.
Furthermore, whoever made the deadly devices wanted to kill and maim many, and loaded them with shrapnel.  In the video of the first blast, the explosion hits one of the runners, and you see him crumble to the ground like a rag.  

What the criminal has not calculated is that Americans will never give up until the perpetrator(s) of the Boston Bomb is brought to justice.
So far, in all domestic terror including the Unabomber, which took years to crack, the perpetrators have been brought to justice.  In this case, as Obama carefully predicted, the persons responsible will be caught, prosecuted and sent to life in jail without parole.

Opiyo.oloya@sympatico.ca