I've been pondering the Grenfell Tower fire in London as possible arson, or a deliberate "let 'em burn" incident. Once I saw that many/most of the residents and victims were of the Muslim persuasion, I couldn't shake the idea that somehow the fire was revenge for the Manchester incident and the London Bridge incident.
I've seen Teresa May on the teevee stumbling and bumbling through her talking points, points which she repeats by rote no matter what the question is. That says to me she knows something she dare not state. She's too frightened to state it.
Or something.
The Grenfell Tower fire was awful but very evocative too. It reminded me of the World Trade Center fires after the planes hit in 2001; it reminded me, too, of the Odessa Trades Union House massacre in 2014. Both were deliberate -- and opportunistic.
They were meant to inspire fear and terror, which they did. But they took advantage of weaknesses and unknowns to full effect as well. Did the masterminds of the 9/11 attacks know that the World Trade Center buildings would collapse causing far more damage, death and destruction than if only parts of the buildings had burned but the rest had remained standing? I doubt it. But they knew how to take full advantage of the situation.
The cause of the fire at the Union House in Odessa is pretty well understood; the mob outside was using Molotov cocktails which started a number of small fires inside and outside the building. It is said that those holed up inside also had access to and used Molotov cocktails against the mob outside.
Somehow, it's not exactly clear how, one or more cans or barrels of gasoline or other petroleum in the lobby of the building exploded sending fire up the stairwell, incinerating dozens of people.
The effect of the fire was to shut down the Odessa resistance to the Nazi coup in Kiev. Worked like a charm by taking advantage of fortuitous circumstances. I doubt the mob outside the Trades Union House in Odessa had any idea they would be able to spark such a level of death and destruction inside. But once they did, they made the most of it.
And so it goes.
Which is why I wonder about the Grenfell Tower fire in London. There had been a number of attacks, after all, against soft targets in London and Manchester, leading to several dozen deaths and injuries. These attacks were said to be the work of "ISIS" or whatever the most current iteration of Islamic Terror is. While the death toll and destruction was quite low comparatively speaking, and in each case the perpetrators were dispatched (either self-dispatched or shot by police) the incidents inspired an enormous level of shuddering terror in the British public -- which I assume they were intended to do.
It has become the custom to take revenge after a terrorist attack against targets in the West. But in the case of the recent British attacks, there was no one to take revenge against.
The pent up rage could easily lead to something like the Grenfell Tower fire or to what appears to have been an attack by van on Muslims worshiping in North London last night.
Tit for tat, don't you know?
Of course I don't know that's what's going on, but that's what it feels like.
There have been any number of relatively small scale attacks on Muslims in this country. Some of it is just silly, like the recent March Against Sharia. But some of it is deadly, too -- such as the apparent murder of a Muslim girl in Virginia.
Trump and his minions opened the Pandora's Box of violence against the Designated Others (including Muslims) during the campaign last year, and we are witness to or victims of the consequences. Random acts of violence which had been routine are becoming focused on certain targets.
Nothing quite like that had been common in Britain, though the Brexit campaign had opened a Pandora's Box of violence against the Other there as well. Thus, something like the attacks we've seen -- tit for tat in a way -- was almost inevitable, and so was something like the Grenfell Tower fire (even if it wasn't deliberate.)
This sequence of violence is far from over. I see no desire among Our Rulers to end it in any case. What they want, of course, is protection for themselves. The rest of us, as far as they're concerned, can disappear tomorrow and they wouldn't care.
Is it getting real yet?
More to come, no doubt.
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
Monday, June 19, 2017
Saturday, December 5, 2015
Why Do Police Feel It Is Their Job To Kill -- The San Francisco Thing and The San Bernardino Thing and the Paris Thing In Perspective
When I first saw news about the San Bernardino mass killing, the word was that it was at a hospital. Then the word was it was at a clinic. Then it was at a developmental center -- which didn't make any sense, as I didn't know what that was. Much later, the word was that the shootings happened at a conference facility at the Inland Regional Center where the San Bernardino Department of Health was holding a banquet and awards presentation (or a holiday party, it's not entirely clear).
From the first, though, the reports reminded me a lot of what happened in Paris. In other words, a mass shooting where people were gathered for no political purpose at all, intended -- apparently -- to inspire as much fear and dread in as many people as possible.
The authorities have been having a hard time calling it "terrorism" -- and I don't really think that argument matters in the least. The issue is that the actions of the (apparent) shooters did cause panic, fear and dread in a whole city, leading to furious reaction by police, media falling all over itself to get the story (mostly wrong) and commands from on high to OBEY.
Obedience. That's the key element.
Oh yeah, and the alleged shooters were killed by police after a high-speed chase from their home in Redlands and through the streets of San Bernardino, until they were cornered and a shoot-out ensued. Or something. Or so they say. We really don't know what happened, although whatever it was was apparently witnessed by the scrum of helicopter cameras overhead -- though not shown, and possibly not recorded by those self-same cameras. The NBC helicopter, for example, was focused on a vehicle (apparently shot up, not sure) some distance away from the "black SUV" that the (apparent) shooters were driving and in which one died, the other shot down in the street. Much of the coverage I saw that day was deliberate misdirection, "so as not to reveal" something, whether bloody corpses or police storming around town frightening the bejebus out of everyone. But eventually there would be the denouement so everyone could get back to normal.
Ah yes, the killers were killed by police.
Most Americans would say it was justified. No other choice.
In San Francisco, a video was posted on social media of a man being shot and killed by a swarm of police who formed a firing squad on a city street and shot the man in the presence of many witnesses.
The man appears agitated but not in any way threatening to the officers, all of whom appear to have their sidearms drawn and aimed at the man. As the man attempts to sidle away from them, one officer puts himself in the man's path. The man continues to attempt to inch away from the other officers. As he does, the officer in his path appears to open fire. Other officers join in. The man falls mortally wounded on the sidewalk while witnesses shout their outrage.
Police claim the man was armed with a kitchen knife 6"-8" long (not visible in any video of the incident so far released) and had "committed a felony" by stabbing someone previously. He was confronted by police but refused commands to drop the knife, and he appeared to be able to withstand several bean-bag rounds without being subdued sufficiently for apprehension.
Police claim that the witness videos show what happened after he was struck by bean-bag rounds and managed to get up again. Police claim he still had the knife and refused commands to drop it. Police claim he was moving toward an officer when they opened fire -- "fearing for their lives and the safety of others...." Bang, bang.
The "21-foot Rule" and all of that. In other words, whether or not the man was actually threatening officers, he was a threat to them simply because he was armed and so close to them. Never mind that all of the officers on scene were aiming their guns at him, and objectively represented a mortal threat to him. Beside the point, right? The fact that he was trying to inch away, slowly, without in any way threatening the officers, but he was moving toward an officer who had put himself in the man's path, was sufficient to justify opening fire on him -- according to the police.
Oh, and he was black.
Sigh.
Yes, well. This is the US of America, 2015, and in the US of America in 2015, a black man with a weapon, even if only an imaginary weapon, or armed only with his blackness, is considered an existential threat to be neutralized. Terminated if need be.
This is the almost automatic response of police throughout the land when they are informed of an armed black male on the loose. "Training" kicks in, and... they kill.
In this case, the young black man, Mario Woods, was alleged to have stabbed another man who sought treatment a nearby hospital and reported the attack to the police. Police scoured the area and determined that the young man they eventually shot and killed, Mario Woods, had stabbed the man being treated at the hospital (for a non-lethal wound to his shoulder -- apparently).
Mario Woods, apparently, refused to obey police commands to "drop the weapon" and submit to arrest. So far, there are three videos showing portions of the confrontation between Mario Woods and what look to be close to a dozen SFPD officers, guns drawn. There is no "weapon" visible in Mario Woods' hand in any of the videos. In one, it appears that Mario Woods is attempting to show the officers his hands -- to demonstrate he does not have a knife. But as is the way with these videos, the images are too grainy to say for sure.
At any rate, he is not threatening the officers in any way. He appears to be confused and frustrated, agitated but not threatening.
And when he takes a step or two away, toward an officer moving into his path (an officer he might not even have seen) he is subjected to a fusillade of gunfire, more than a dozen shots fired by five officers at close range. Mario Woods did not survive. Intentionally so.
While there were protests at the time he was shot -- distinctly heard on the videos -- and there has been a growing sense of outrage in the Bayview community and San Francisco where this police action took place, media has been intent on demonstrating that Mario Woods "needed killing" because of his criminal past and because of his alleged assault on the man who was treated at the hospital, and most of all for his
FAILURE TO OBEY.
Obedience being (almost) the sole criterion of whether one lives or dies in any confrontation with police. "Just comply" say the defenders of these actions, "and you won't be shot and killed." Of course that's not true, especially not true for black and brown males -- who may comply and be shot or brutalized anyway. It's simply a roll of the dice whether the police will kill a black or brown male in a confrontation, no matter what the subject is doing or not doing. Police will almost always get away with it, too, because all that matters at law is the officer's perception at the time of the killing. So long as the office can say the Magic Words, "fearing for my life and the safety of others" he or she will almost always be free of criminal liability for any execution they might commit. This is due to some very strange Supreme Court rulings protecting police action in the course of their duties (mostly having to do with the Drug War) and to cultures and policies of police departments that encourage fatal encounters.
In the case of the San Bernardino Thing (Paris, too) the suspects were... brown. In San Bernardino, it was a matter of a brown married couple of the Muslim persuasion, he an American citizen, she, apparently, a Pakistani. He was an employee of the county health department that was holding the event at the conference facility. The story is that the man had an argument with someone else there and left the facility only to return shortly thereafter with his wife, both of whom were armed with assault rifles and both of whom opened fire into the assembly, killing fourteen and wounding another 20 or so before escaping in that "black SUV."
Motive unknown, but "workplace dispute" seems to be part of it. Stories of the couple's radicalization and devotion to ISIS (whatever it may be at any given time) are circulating, There is both a Pakistani and a Saudi connection of some sort. And of course the internet as a means of communication and radicalization are part of the story too (as is the case with the Paris Thing as well).
The response of the politicians is to forbid Syrian refugee resettlement in this country or in Europe, as the Syrian refugees, who had nothing to do with San Bernardino or Paris, are potential threats to guard against.
The San Bernardino couple (Sayeed Farouk and Tashfeen Malik) had acquired quite an arsenal of weapons and ammunition, all legally, only a tiny portion of which was (apparently) used in their killing rampage and later shoot out with police. The rest was discovered at their townhouse.
The Paris attacks were committed by heavily armed individuals, all or almost all of whom died in shootouts with police.
Few would question the need for killing individuals who are actively engaged in shootouts with police. Though it is reported to have been the case in both San Bernardino and Paris, these shootouts did not necessarily take place at all. Police have been known to declare themselves involved in "shootouts" when only they are firing. This was apparently the case in Watertown during the apprehension of one of the Tsarnayev brothers. Only the police were firing at their quarry who was hiding in a boat under a tarp, but the police claimed falsely that they were engaged in a shootout. This has happened many times.
Whether the couple in San Bernardino were shooting it out with police will probably never be known for certain. Same with the many suspects in the Paris Thing (I've read that there have been thousands of police raids in France and Belgium since the incidents in Paris. Some have involved killing, but how many? Who knows, and can we believe what we're told?)
Meanwhile, France and other parts of Europe are enduring a state of emergency which prohibits public demonstrations among many other normal activities and which requires obedience to authority.
There is a consistent theme through all these instances: one obeys or one suffers the potentially lethal consequences.
Command and obey.
The lesson? Terrorize a city, and the residents of the city shall be made to obey.
Be a black or brown man suspected of having committed a crime or of being armed in any way, and be shot down by police.
And then of course there are the white male mass murderers captured alive and treated with courtesy and respect, granted all the rights and privileges guaranteed to them by the Constitution.
America. 2015.
From the first, though, the reports reminded me a lot of what happened in Paris. In other words, a mass shooting where people were gathered for no political purpose at all, intended -- apparently -- to inspire as much fear and dread in as many people as possible.
The authorities have been having a hard time calling it "terrorism" -- and I don't really think that argument matters in the least. The issue is that the actions of the (apparent) shooters did cause panic, fear and dread in a whole city, leading to furious reaction by police, media falling all over itself to get the story (mostly wrong) and commands from on high to OBEY.
Obedience. That's the key element.
Oh yeah, and the alleged shooters were killed by police after a high-speed chase from their home in Redlands and through the streets of San Bernardino, until they were cornered and a shoot-out ensued. Or something. Or so they say. We really don't know what happened, although whatever it was was apparently witnessed by the scrum of helicopter cameras overhead -- though not shown, and possibly not recorded by those self-same cameras. The NBC helicopter, for example, was focused on a vehicle (apparently shot up, not sure) some distance away from the "black SUV" that the (apparent) shooters were driving and in which one died, the other shot down in the street. Much of the coverage I saw that day was deliberate misdirection, "so as not to reveal" something, whether bloody corpses or police storming around town frightening the bejebus out of everyone. But eventually there would be the denouement so everyone could get back to normal.
Ah yes, the killers were killed by police.
Most Americans would say it was justified. No other choice.
In San Francisco, a video was posted on social media of a man being shot and killed by a swarm of police who formed a firing squad on a city street and shot the man in the presence of many witnesses.
The man appears agitated but not in any way threatening to the officers, all of whom appear to have their sidearms drawn and aimed at the man. As the man attempts to sidle away from them, one officer puts himself in the man's path. The man continues to attempt to inch away from the other officers. As he does, the officer in his path appears to open fire. Other officers join in. The man falls mortally wounded on the sidewalk while witnesses shout their outrage.
Police claim the man was armed with a kitchen knife 6"-8" long (not visible in any video of the incident so far released) and had "committed a felony" by stabbing someone previously. He was confronted by police but refused commands to drop the knife, and he appeared to be able to withstand several bean-bag rounds without being subdued sufficiently for apprehension.
Police claim that the witness videos show what happened after he was struck by bean-bag rounds and managed to get up again. Police claim he still had the knife and refused commands to drop it. Police claim he was moving toward an officer when they opened fire -- "fearing for their lives and the safety of others...." Bang, bang.
The "21-foot Rule" and all of that. In other words, whether or not the man was actually threatening officers, he was a threat to them simply because he was armed and so close to them. Never mind that all of the officers on scene were aiming their guns at him, and objectively represented a mortal threat to him. Beside the point, right? The fact that he was trying to inch away, slowly, without in any way threatening the officers, but he was moving toward an officer who had put himself in the man's path, was sufficient to justify opening fire on him -- according to the police.
Oh, and he was black.
Sigh.
Yes, well. This is the US of America, 2015, and in the US of America in 2015, a black man with a weapon, even if only an imaginary weapon, or armed only with his blackness, is considered an existential threat to be neutralized. Terminated if need be.
This is the almost automatic response of police throughout the land when they are informed of an armed black male on the loose. "Training" kicks in, and... they kill.
In this case, the young black man, Mario Woods, was alleged to have stabbed another man who sought treatment a nearby hospital and reported the attack to the police. Police scoured the area and determined that the young man they eventually shot and killed, Mario Woods, had stabbed the man being treated at the hospital (for a non-lethal wound to his shoulder -- apparently).
Mario Woods, apparently, refused to obey police commands to "drop the weapon" and submit to arrest. So far, there are three videos showing portions of the confrontation between Mario Woods and what look to be close to a dozen SFPD officers, guns drawn. There is no "weapon" visible in Mario Woods' hand in any of the videos. In one, it appears that Mario Woods is attempting to show the officers his hands -- to demonstrate he does not have a knife. But as is the way with these videos, the images are too grainy to say for sure.
At any rate, he is not threatening the officers in any way. He appears to be confused and frustrated, agitated but not threatening.
And when he takes a step or two away, toward an officer moving into his path (an officer he might not even have seen) he is subjected to a fusillade of gunfire, more than a dozen shots fired by five officers at close range. Mario Woods did not survive. Intentionally so.
While there were protests at the time he was shot -- distinctly heard on the videos -- and there has been a growing sense of outrage in the Bayview community and San Francisco where this police action took place, media has been intent on demonstrating that Mario Woods "needed killing" because of his criminal past and because of his alleged assault on the man who was treated at the hospital, and most of all for his
FAILURE TO OBEY.
Obedience being (almost) the sole criterion of whether one lives or dies in any confrontation with police. "Just comply" say the defenders of these actions, "and you won't be shot and killed." Of course that's not true, especially not true for black and brown males -- who may comply and be shot or brutalized anyway. It's simply a roll of the dice whether the police will kill a black or brown male in a confrontation, no matter what the subject is doing or not doing. Police will almost always get away with it, too, because all that matters at law is the officer's perception at the time of the killing. So long as the office can say the Magic Words, "fearing for my life and the safety of others" he or she will almost always be free of criminal liability for any execution they might commit. This is due to some very strange Supreme Court rulings protecting police action in the course of their duties (mostly having to do with the Drug War) and to cultures and policies of police departments that encourage fatal encounters.
In the case of the San Bernardino Thing (Paris, too) the suspects were... brown. In San Bernardino, it was a matter of a brown married couple of the Muslim persuasion, he an American citizen, she, apparently, a Pakistani. He was an employee of the county health department that was holding the event at the conference facility. The story is that the man had an argument with someone else there and left the facility only to return shortly thereafter with his wife, both of whom were armed with assault rifles and both of whom opened fire into the assembly, killing fourteen and wounding another 20 or so before escaping in that "black SUV."
Motive unknown, but "workplace dispute" seems to be part of it. Stories of the couple's radicalization and devotion to ISIS (whatever it may be at any given time) are circulating, There is both a Pakistani and a Saudi connection of some sort. And of course the internet as a means of communication and radicalization are part of the story too (as is the case with the Paris Thing as well).
The response of the politicians is to forbid Syrian refugee resettlement in this country or in Europe, as the Syrian refugees, who had nothing to do with San Bernardino or Paris, are potential threats to guard against.
The San Bernardino couple (Sayeed Farouk and Tashfeen Malik) had acquired quite an arsenal of weapons and ammunition, all legally, only a tiny portion of which was (apparently) used in their killing rampage and later shoot out with police. The rest was discovered at their townhouse.
The Paris attacks were committed by heavily armed individuals, all or almost all of whom died in shootouts with police.
Few would question the need for killing individuals who are actively engaged in shootouts with police. Though it is reported to have been the case in both San Bernardino and Paris, these shootouts did not necessarily take place at all. Police have been known to declare themselves involved in "shootouts" when only they are firing. This was apparently the case in Watertown during the apprehension of one of the Tsarnayev brothers. Only the police were firing at their quarry who was hiding in a boat under a tarp, but the police claimed falsely that they were engaged in a shootout. This has happened many times.
Whether the couple in San Bernardino were shooting it out with police will probably never be known for certain. Same with the many suspects in the Paris Thing (I've read that there have been thousands of police raids in France and Belgium since the incidents in Paris. Some have involved killing, but how many? Who knows, and can we believe what we're told?)
Meanwhile, France and other parts of Europe are enduring a state of emergency which prohibits public demonstrations among many other normal activities and which requires obedience to authority.
There is a consistent theme through all these instances: one obeys or one suffers the potentially lethal consequences.
Command and obey.
The lesson? Terrorize a city, and the residents of the city shall be made to obey.
Be a black or brown man suspected of having committed a crime or of being armed in any way, and be shot down by police.
And then of course there are the white male mass murderers captured alive and treated with courtesy and respect, granted all the rights and privileges guaranteed to them by the Constitution.
America. 2015.
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Pondering the Paris Thing
The attacks in Paris happened while Ms Ché and I were at a literary event which was part of the Fall Open House at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe where she is a student in the Creative Writing program. She was reading her poetry along with a number of other BFA and MFA student writers, and afterwards, we went out to dinner and yakked and had a great time and had no idea that anything untoward had happened in Paris until we got home some hours later and I saw something on the Intertubes about more than 100 dead due to terrorist attacks. I pulled up France24 English service, but the news reports weren't really helpful to understand what had happened, and the visuals showed literally nothing more than dozens of emergency personnel standing or milling around. Over and over again, the same shots of emergency personnel standing around.
Yet over 100 were dead due to explosions and gunfire at six locations throughout Paris. At first, I thought they meant there were attacks in 6 cities in France, but I realized they were all in Paris. One of the explosions happened at a McDonalds across the street from the Stade Francais where Franscois Hollande was attending a soccer game. Oh my. That seemed to be the feature story on the news, and truthfully, I was perplexed by the whole thing.
Most of the dead and injured were at a concert venue. The rest were scattered around in various neighborhoods. France was now "at war." What would France do to retaliate? All or almost all of the perpetrators of the attacks were said to have been killed, either at their own hand (suicide bombs?) or by police gunfire (cf: Charlie Hebdo summary executions), so who exactly was France "at war" with?
Ah, and then there was the matter of the borders and all those Syrian (and Iraqi and Afghani) refugees pouring into France and the rest of Europe as the Middle East descends into yet another level of Hell.
Yes, the answer would be, as it must be, "Keep them out!"
Yes, of course, that's what this was really about, wasn't it? Keeping the refugees (migrants as they are known) out of France, ultimately out of Europe. And of course out of the USofA. This is a clash of civilizations, isn't it? The Crusades redux. Or delayed revenge for the Crusades and centuries of colonial exploitation and oppression.
Or something.
So "we are at war." Again. Or Forever?
In revenge for the attacks in Paris, France launched aerial bombing sorties into Syria. Sounds like a plan, no? Tubthumpers throughout the Western World (once known as The Free World, right?) went through their tried and true xenophobic and vengeance routines, and the masses were induced to yet another level of fear of the Other, yet more outpourings of grief, yet more candles lit in honor of the dead, more lights in tricolor bathing buildings everywhere. "We are all Parisians!" "Vive la France!" "Paris Strong!"
It's become a ritual. Whenever terror strikes candles are lit, masses of people gather to mourn, buildings are bathed in colored lights, vengeance attacks are launched on targets far away, politicians posture, and yet more of what passes for "liberty" is taken away from the masses.
Security becomes the watchword and the most important thing. But security how and for whom? To do what?
The Western government response to terror attacks seems highly ritualized since the aftermath of 9/11, and it seems to be always the same -- domestic political posturing, limitations on or eliminations of liberties and freedoms for ordinary people, police crackdowns at home and vengeance attacks ("war") abroad. The result is always more terror attacks which kick start the cycle once more.
This ritual cycle seems to be universal. Almost like there's a manual of instructions issued to every Western government that says, "this is what must be done" when there is a terror attack by those swarthy foreigners of Muslim extraction.
But wait. There have been terror attacks in Western countries for as long as I've been alive, and until 9/11, they were not responded to this way. Far from it. Military response was almost unheard of. What a waste of resource, right? Governments did not make "war" against terrorists, the idea would be considered insane. Large scale rebellions -- such as that in Northern Ireland -- might have a quasi-military response. But even then, the idea of "total war" against Irish rebels (for example) would have been seen as madness.
Because it was madness.
And yet, since 9/11, such madness has ruled judgement in Western capitals. A terror attack (by Muslims) must be responded to in a certain ritual fashion and no other. Subsequent terror attacks are guaranteed. In fact, nothing is really done to prevent them. The response seems to always lead to the creation of more instability in Moslem countries, more civil war, and the creation of more terrorists.
The cycle continues in perpetuity.
It's madness.
Yet over 100 were dead due to explosions and gunfire at six locations throughout Paris. At first, I thought they meant there were attacks in 6 cities in France, but I realized they were all in Paris. One of the explosions happened at a McDonalds across the street from the Stade Francais where Franscois Hollande was attending a soccer game. Oh my. That seemed to be the feature story on the news, and truthfully, I was perplexed by the whole thing.
Most of the dead and injured were at a concert venue. The rest were scattered around in various neighborhoods. France was now "at war." What would France do to retaliate? All or almost all of the perpetrators of the attacks were said to have been killed, either at their own hand (suicide bombs?) or by police gunfire (cf: Charlie Hebdo summary executions), so who exactly was France "at war" with?
Ah, and then there was the matter of the borders and all those Syrian (and Iraqi and Afghani) refugees pouring into France and the rest of Europe as the Middle East descends into yet another level of Hell.
Yes, the answer would be, as it must be, "Keep them out!"
Yes, of course, that's what this was really about, wasn't it? Keeping the refugees (migrants as they are known) out of France, ultimately out of Europe. And of course out of the USofA. This is a clash of civilizations, isn't it? The Crusades redux. Or delayed revenge for the Crusades and centuries of colonial exploitation and oppression.
Or something.
So "we are at war." Again. Or Forever?
In revenge for the attacks in Paris, France launched aerial bombing sorties into Syria. Sounds like a plan, no? Tubthumpers throughout the Western World (once known as The Free World, right?) went through their tried and true xenophobic and vengeance routines, and the masses were induced to yet another level of fear of the Other, yet more outpourings of grief, yet more candles lit in honor of the dead, more lights in tricolor bathing buildings everywhere. "We are all Parisians!" "Vive la France!" "Paris Strong!"
It's become a ritual. Whenever terror strikes candles are lit, masses of people gather to mourn, buildings are bathed in colored lights, vengeance attacks are launched on targets far away, politicians posture, and yet more of what passes for "liberty" is taken away from the masses.
Security becomes the watchword and the most important thing. But security how and for whom? To do what?
The Western government response to terror attacks seems highly ritualized since the aftermath of 9/11, and it seems to be always the same -- domestic political posturing, limitations on or eliminations of liberties and freedoms for ordinary people, police crackdowns at home and vengeance attacks ("war") abroad. The result is always more terror attacks which kick start the cycle once more.
This ritual cycle seems to be universal. Almost like there's a manual of instructions issued to every Western government that says, "this is what must be done" when there is a terror attack by those swarthy foreigners of Muslim extraction.
But wait. There have been terror attacks in Western countries for as long as I've been alive, and until 9/11, they were not responded to this way. Far from it. Military response was almost unheard of. What a waste of resource, right? Governments did not make "war" against terrorists, the idea would be considered insane. Large scale rebellions -- such as that in Northern Ireland -- might have a quasi-military response. But even then, the idea of "total war" against Irish rebels (for example) would have been seen as madness.
Because it was madness.
And yet, since 9/11, such madness has ruled judgement in Western capitals. A terror attack (by Muslims) must be responded to in a certain ritual fashion and no other. Subsequent terror attacks are guaranteed. In fact, nothing is really done to prevent them. The response seems to always lead to the creation of more instability in Moslem countries, more civil war, and the creation of more terrorists.
The cycle continues in perpetuity.
It's madness.
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Think About It
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| That's America! Via |
This stunning New Yorker cover illustration has gotten a lot of notice as well:
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| Sept 1, 2014 New Yorker Magazine cover art by Eric Drooker |
He's witnessed too much, too many times, too many places, seen too much death and destruction....
And now, maybe, Americans in general are waking up to what's going on.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Mercs in Ukraine?
Sure. Why not?
There have been reports of merc sightings in the shadows of the upheavals in Ukraine from the beginning, and almost certain descriptions of the snipers in Kiev as mercenaries hired by Svoboda and the Right Sektor. Many observers have claimed they've been hearing unaccented English spoken among some of these shadowy forces, just before some Antimaidan dissenter is shot or otherwise incapacitated, and it is reported that the FBI and CIA -- among other US agencies -- are coordinating the crackdown on dissent and separatism in the East and throughout the country.
Given what has been noted so far in the efforts of the Kiev coup-regime to hold onto the East (Donbass) in spite of the people's defiance and refusal, there are no doubt death squads on the pattern of so many we've seen in the past) operating throughout Ukraine. They may be concentrated for now in the Donbass, but there's no reason to think their assignments and territory won't be expanded as resistance to the Kiev coup-regime's program of suffering and exploitation -- under the direction of the IMF, EU, USA, and NATO -- increases.
Mercs are an essential part of the program, especially when -- as in the case of Ukraine -- poorly paid and trained native "troops" refuse to fight their brothers and sisters.
Of course, media announcements of "The 400" or however many Academi (or are they Blackwater?) mercs there are in Ukraine look to be quite obvious propaganda to inspire terror among the refusniks and rebels. It's obvious they have no fear of the so-called "army" forces arrayed against them, as so many of the videos uploaded from the region testify. Perhaps they will fear the mercenaries, then, eh? The ones who have no qualms about liquidating the untermenschen wherever they encounter them.
If Ukraine isn't already swarming with international mercs -- they don't have to be Americans, do they, hmm? -- ready to shed plenty of native blood for the cause of the bankers and exploiters and financiers and oppressor-class, it soon will be, no?
Monstrous.
There have been reports of merc sightings in the shadows of the upheavals in Ukraine from the beginning, and almost certain descriptions of the snipers in Kiev as mercenaries hired by Svoboda and the Right Sektor. Many observers have claimed they've been hearing unaccented English spoken among some of these shadowy forces, just before some Antimaidan dissenter is shot or otherwise incapacitated, and it is reported that the FBI and CIA -- among other US agencies -- are coordinating the crackdown on dissent and separatism in the East and throughout the country.
Given what has been noted so far in the efforts of the Kiev coup-regime to hold onto the East (Donbass) in spite of the people's defiance and refusal, there are no doubt death squads on the pattern of so many we've seen in the past) operating throughout Ukraine. They may be concentrated for now in the Donbass, but there's no reason to think their assignments and territory won't be expanded as resistance to the Kiev coup-regime's program of suffering and exploitation -- under the direction of the IMF, EU, USA, and NATO -- increases.
Mercs are an essential part of the program, especially when -- as in the case of Ukraine -- poorly paid and trained native "troops" refuse to fight their brothers and sisters.
Of course, media announcements of "The 400" or however many Academi (or are they Blackwater?) mercs there are in Ukraine look to be quite obvious propaganda to inspire terror among the refusniks and rebels. It's obvious they have no fear of the so-called "army" forces arrayed against them, as so many of the videos uploaded from the region testify. Perhaps they will fear the mercenaries, then, eh? The ones who have no qualms about liquidating the untermenschen wherever they encounter them.
If Ukraine isn't already swarming with international mercs -- they don't have to be Americans, do they, hmm? -- ready to shed plenty of native blood for the cause of the bankers and exploiters and financiers and oppressor-class, it soon will be, no?
Monstrous.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Apocalypse Diverted?
 |
| A Wounded Elaine Dang is led out of Nairobi mall (Reuters) |
The Nairobi Thing seemed to come out of nowhere, and suddenly it was all over the "news" and being flogged mercilessly (in a manner of speaking) to "mean" something or another (at first, it was flogged as a "mass shooting" then as a "terrorist attack" then as "an act of war," and we'd better get ready, because just this sort of thing could happen here, right here In the Homeland, at any minute.)
Yes, it could. We're sitting ducks, every one of us, and it is a wonder it hasn't happened already. Er... maybe it already happened, it was just routine...
Why the holy hell didn't the Panopticon pick up on it -- or any of the recent mass shootings -- is one of the many wonders of the modern age.
Of course that's not what the Panopticon is for. It's never going to pick up on potential mass shootings or domestic or foreign terrorist actions against the common people for the simple reason that the Panopticon exists to surveille and assess the common herd for threats to the High and the Mighty. The rest of us are not being surveilled and categorized and classified for the purpose of preventing mass shootings and terrorist attacks against us. Our Rulers long since accepted those as useful tactics -- along with many other cruel and unusual tactics typically involving the arbitrary imposition of authority -- to keep the Rabble in line.
The Nairobi Thing is useful in much the same way. The stark horror of the attack, in a shopping mall for cripes sake, is a universal. The fact that the shopping mall was in Nairobi rather than Neosho makes it even worse. It is obvious that the Westgate Shopping Mall is essentially identical to every other consumer paradise, and it was apparently full to bursting with Kenya's Best and Brightest out for an afternoon of relaxation and shopping joy. This is what life is all about, isn't it?
I've heard tell that a famous Ghanaian poet, a British architect and his girlfriend, and the nephew of the Kenyan President and his pregnant girlfriend were among those killed in the massacre, along with many others. A teacher who was well-known and said to be beloved in New Mexico's Navajoland was wounded. Elaine Dang is also connected to UC Berkeley and , San Diego, CA. There are so many connections, some of them surprising, with so many places and people around the world, even such out of the way locations as Crownpoint. Apparently, a list of six(?) Americans involved in the attack was read off by the gunmen during the operation. Americans! Think of it! Apparently, they were Somalis from Minneapolis, the very definition of the American Heartland -- which the Somali connection makes. A British woman was also listed among the attackers. British? OMG!
What's going on?
According to official reports the attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi was in revenge for Kenya's crackdown on Somali militants who are active in both Kenya and Somalia, a crackdown which apparently is quite bloody and indiscriminate. I don't know much about it, except that Somalia-Kenya tensions have been running high for quite some time. Kenya is apparently becoming highly neo-liberalized (thus the Westgate Mall, fergawdsake) while neighboring Somalia is Warlord Country. The Alshabaab outfit has apparently been trying to create an Islamist Emirate amid the rubble, whereas "the world" -- as in the neo-liberals -- has been doing whatever is necessary to prevent it. Thus Kenya has taken a leading role to suppress and in some cases exterminate the Alshabaab insurrectionists wherever they are found. Thus, it's War, don't you see.
And yet it was initially reported as another "mass shooting," this time in Nairobi, but involving people from all over the western world.
All by itself, that seemed odd in the extreme. Only somewhat later did the Alshabaab connection come to the fore. And now it seems that Alshabaab has suddenly become a global terrorist threat. How these stories evolve is one of the fascinating aspects of modern propaganda media. But that's another issue for another day.
The question for the moment is how this attack will be used to impose and enforce ever more restrictive policies on the everyone, for the benefit of Our Rulers -- who never let an opportunity like this go to waste.
The Four Horsemen never rest, do they?
Monday, April 22, 2013
The Lies That Continue to Suffuse the Terror War
Who is fighting whom, and over what, are among the chief lies we've come to accept as part of the New Normal. So many of us are convinced that we are at war with some Arab "Other" which wants to slaughter us all in our beds, and that's why Boston happened.
Except Arabs had nothing to do with it. Or maybe they did...
We were at a literary event over the weekend. One of the local authors in attendance is a former CIA analyst, and he was asked about the Boston Thing and its relationship to the general problem and issue of terror(ism) and terror wars. He brought up the fact that "these people" (meaning Chechens) had been on the radar for quite some time, and at least when he was at the Agency, there would have been tabs kept if reports had come that a pro-Chechen immigrant had gone back to Russia within the last year and stayed for a good part of the year doing... what? They would have found out, they would have known. But once he returned to the USA, he became the FBI's responsibility. And the FBI, as far as he knew, was keeping track of the older of the brothers at least. Something must have gone wrong. He doesn't know what.
Coleen Rowley of Moussaoui Case fame has put up a long and rather confusing piece over at Consortium News that unravels some of the threads of the Chechen Connection. It's not quite as cut and dried as I would have thought in the past -- that Chechen separatists use terror tactics against Russians, not Americans. I would think they have no beef with America.
Well, maybe they do, though. According to Rowley, this all goes back to the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan, just as the Osama Thing goes back to that time and place, when the United States was recruiting and utilizing various Muslim and Jihadist resistance outfits to fight the Soviets as our proxies. This recruitment included Chechen separatists and jihadists.
According to her, the Chechen resistance was being led by one Ibn al Khattab -- which she somewhat surprisingly doesn't mention was a Saudi national who seemed to have been involved in all kinds of Muslim resistance movements in Europe and the Caucasus as well as Afghanistan back in the day. He was apparently everywhere, much as the late Osama sometimes seemed to be.
The Saudi connection has long been obscured in all the hoo-hah over terror(ism) and contemporary terror war. In some sense, the terror(ism) we are supposedly fighting all seems to flow out of the Arabian Peninsula, and it's getting tiresome to keep rationalizing what's going on as some sort of aberration.
As everyone knows, the House of Saud is and long has been a client of the United States Government. The House of Saud is so intimately attached to the United States Government, there is no daylight between the one and the other; the House of Saud seems to be a far more dedicated client of the United States Government than even our bosom companion Tel Aviv and Jerusalem clients.
And the House of Saud rules the Arabian Peninsula with a rod of iron and a sword of steel.
It is my impression that nothing happens on or from the Arabian Peninsula that the House of Saud is not aware of and has not signed off on. Perfidy writ large. And yet the House of Saud continues to be the close client and ally of the United States. It's always struck me as odd.
It's all about the oil, of course, but there is -- there must be -- more.
The Boston Thing started off bizarre and remains bizarre to this day because it had all the marks of a domestic terrorist act in every respect, including the subsequent shootouts and eventual suspect capture. A suspect who, conveniently, is so badly wounded in his throat that he can't talk. The other suspect, of course, is very conveniently dead.
It took an amazing degree of propagandizing to convince America that despite all the domestic-terror signs and signals, the Boston Bombings were actually the result of al Qaeda inspiration or training, as the bombs were apparently produced using the information found on the al Qaeda magazine website -- easily accessible by anyone, of course, but frequented mostly by jihadist/terrorists. For some reason, I've always thought that website (which I've never visited) was a honeypot, but what do I know? Wheels within wheels.
So then it turns out the suspects were immigrants (whew!) from some foreign land, not directly from Chechnya, no, but from the part of Russia bordering Chechnya, and they are ethnically Chechen, and by religion Muslim. Oh, well, that's all that's necessary to understand what's happened. Case closed.
Foreign Muslims on the rampage against the United States yet again. Only it's not that simple by any means.
In a lot of ways, it's still a domestic terror(ist) act, in part because though the suspects are ethnically Chechen, one is an American citizen and the other was on the path to citizenship. The family seems quite certain that there was no foreign interest or terrorist connection at all, despite the fact that the young mens' father moved back to Russia at some point, and lives there now, and the older brother apparently lived with him for six months last year.
Then he came back to set bombs at the Boston Marathon? But why? Just to do it? To show how easy it is?
Or was there something else? There was no statement, no manifesto, no claim of responsibility, nothing. Just bombs, and in this way, it was absolutely characteristic of domestic terrorist acts, which usually have neither claim of responsibility nor manifesto. They just "are." So it was in Boston.
It takes a while for authorities to sort out whether such acts are domestic or something else, but in this case, despite all the signs of its being domestic, there was nearly immediate and universal suspicion that it was a "foreign fighter" act, al Qaeda no less, because it had to be. This is propaganda in action.
Someone interviewed on the teevee over the weekend said straight out, "The battlefield now includes the United States," therefore any act by the government to suppress this sort of terror(ist) act is justified.
We are at war, and the war is right here in front of us, at least according to this view. Of course, it is compromised by the fact that the United States is officially at peace, but whether we are living under war or peace time conditions depends on the advantage to the government and its sponsors from one or the other designation, such that we are often simultaneously under wartime and peacetime conditions and authorities.
It's disorienting to say the least, but that's a problem for the People, not for the Government. I'd say it's deliberate intent.
There is as yet very little truth in the narrative of and the reaction to the Boston Marathon Bombing and the subsequent manhunts and shootouts. The lies will congeal into a version of "truth" that will be defended to the end.
Except Arabs had nothing to do with it. Or maybe they did...
We were at a literary event over the weekend. One of the local authors in attendance is a former CIA analyst, and he was asked about the Boston Thing and its relationship to the general problem and issue of terror(ism) and terror wars. He brought up the fact that "these people" (meaning Chechens) had been on the radar for quite some time, and at least when he was at the Agency, there would have been tabs kept if reports had come that a pro-Chechen immigrant had gone back to Russia within the last year and stayed for a good part of the year doing... what? They would have found out, they would have known. But once he returned to the USA, he became the FBI's responsibility. And the FBI, as far as he knew, was keeping track of the older of the brothers at least. Something must have gone wrong. He doesn't know what.
Coleen Rowley of Moussaoui Case fame has put up a long and rather confusing piece over at Consortium News that unravels some of the threads of the Chechen Connection. It's not quite as cut and dried as I would have thought in the past -- that Chechen separatists use terror tactics against Russians, not Americans. I would think they have no beef with America.
Well, maybe they do, though. According to Rowley, this all goes back to the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan, just as the Osama Thing goes back to that time and place, when the United States was recruiting and utilizing various Muslim and Jihadist resistance outfits to fight the Soviets as our proxies. This recruitment included Chechen separatists and jihadists.
According to her, the Chechen resistance was being led by one Ibn al Khattab -- which she somewhat surprisingly doesn't mention was a Saudi national who seemed to have been involved in all kinds of Muslim resistance movements in Europe and the Caucasus as well as Afghanistan back in the day. He was apparently everywhere, much as the late Osama sometimes seemed to be.
The Saudi connection has long been obscured in all the hoo-hah over terror(ism) and contemporary terror war. In some sense, the terror(ism) we are supposedly fighting all seems to flow out of the Arabian Peninsula, and it's getting tiresome to keep rationalizing what's going on as some sort of aberration.
As everyone knows, the House of Saud is and long has been a client of the United States Government. The House of Saud is so intimately attached to the United States Government, there is no daylight between the one and the other; the House of Saud seems to be a far more dedicated client of the United States Government than even our bosom companion Tel Aviv and Jerusalem clients.
And the House of Saud rules the Arabian Peninsula with a rod of iron and a sword of steel.
It is my impression that nothing happens on or from the Arabian Peninsula that the House of Saud is not aware of and has not signed off on. Perfidy writ large. And yet the House of Saud continues to be the close client and ally of the United States. It's always struck me as odd.
It's all about the oil, of course, but there is -- there must be -- more.
The Boston Thing started off bizarre and remains bizarre to this day because it had all the marks of a domestic terrorist act in every respect, including the subsequent shootouts and eventual suspect capture. A suspect who, conveniently, is so badly wounded in his throat that he can't talk. The other suspect, of course, is very conveniently dead.
It took an amazing degree of propagandizing to convince America that despite all the domestic-terror signs and signals, the Boston Bombings were actually the result of al Qaeda inspiration or training, as the bombs were apparently produced using the information found on the al Qaeda magazine website -- easily accessible by anyone, of course, but frequented mostly by jihadist/terrorists. For some reason, I've always thought that website (which I've never visited) was a honeypot, but what do I know? Wheels within wheels.
So then it turns out the suspects were immigrants (whew!) from some foreign land, not directly from Chechnya, no, but from the part of Russia bordering Chechnya, and they are ethnically Chechen, and by religion Muslim. Oh, well, that's all that's necessary to understand what's happened. Case closed.
Foreign Muslims on the rampage against the United States yet again. Only it's not that simple by any means.
In a lot of ways, it's still a domestic terror(ist) act, in part because though the suspects are ethnically Chechen, one is an American citizen and the other was on the path to citizenship. The family seems quite certain that there was no foreign interest or terrorist connection at all, despite the fact that the young mens' father moved back to Russia at some point, and lives there now, and the older brother apparently lived with him for six months last year.
Then he came back to set bombs at the Boston Marathon? But why? Just to do it? To show how easy it is?
Or was there something else? There was no statement, no manifesto, no claim of responsibility, nothing. Just bombs, and in this way, it was absolutely characteristic of domestic terrorist acts, which usually have neither claim of responsibility nor manifesto. They just "are." So it was in Boston.
It takes a while for authorities to sort out whether such acts are domestic or something else, but in this case, despite all the signs of its being domestic, there was nearly immediate and universal suspicion that it was a "foreign fighter" act, al Qaeda no less, because it had to be. This is propaganda in action.
Someone interviewed on the teevee over the weekend said straight out, "The battlefield now includes the United States," therefore any act by the government to suppress this sort of terror(ist) act is justified.
We are at war, and the war is right here in front of us, at least according to this view. Of course, it is compromised by the fact that the United States is officially at peace, but whether we are living under war or peace time conditions depends on the advantage to the government and its sponsors from one or the other designation, such that we are often simultaneously under wartime and peacetime conditions and authorities.
It's disorienting to say the least, but that's a problem for the People, not for the Government. I'd say it's deliberate intent.
There is as yet very little truth in the narrative of and the reaction to the Boston Marathon Bombing and the subsequent manhunts and shootouts. The lies will congeal into a version of "truth" that will be defended to the end.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
After Thoughts on the Boston Marathon Thing
One of my visceral and more or less immediate reactions to the Boston Marathon Bombing Thing was, "Damn, this must be something like what folks in Baghdad (and elsewhere) have been going through for years now." Random acts of brutal violence like this suffuse the regions of the Middle East and Africa where Our Valiant Warriors and their Native clients have been active in suppressing the Popular Will while simultaneously Unseating Dictators Who Don't Toe The Line.
Terror bombings per se are quite rare in the United States, comparatively speaking, though they have been remarkably frequent overseas (and not just in Baghdad) wherever and whenever resistance movements are engaged with a weak state -- or one that's not necessarily weak but is perceived to be vulnerable to violent terror tactics. Certainly, the British Isles and Europe have faced long term resistance movements which used all kinds of terror tactics, including bombings, over the years, and there was a time when such tactics were not unknown in this country as well.
But terror tactic bombings have been so infrequent in the recent past, Americans are shocked and stunned when they happen, making Americans surprisingly vulnerable to the terror such tactics produce. The British came to accept the fact that the Provisional IRA was going to plant bombs in various locations like pubs and parades and the bombs would go off and innocent people would be maimed and killed; it was taken as something that would happen, there was little could be done about it -- except to round up ever more Paddys and torture them. That's what Her Majesty's Government did in reaction to the IRA bombings, and I'm sure they believed it was "working." They wouldn't have done it otherwise, would they?
Of course, it never occurred to the British Government to quit Northern Ireland or even to mitigate their harsh regime there that gave rise to the resistance... It was a vicious circle that was only broken when some clever dick realized that this relatively low-key, relatively permanent terror-war between the British and the Irish wasn't really necessary. It was stupid and counterproductive and cruel. How about trying something else? So they did, and now, while the conflict is far from resolved, at least they're not blowing each other up and murdering and torturing one another with glee and abandon the way they once did.
In the case of the Boston Marathon Thing, however, it's all very peculiar, so peculiar that it doesn't make the least bit of sense. There is no Chechen resistance movement in this country; at least none that I'm aware of. The Chechens have a long-time animosity and resistance toward Russia, and for cause, too. This is no idle matter. The Chechens have been horribly abused by Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union, with all of the panoply of state terror applied to them on a routine basis. Grozny was completely destroyed, hundreds of thousands of Chechens murdered, millions put to flight. All to ensure Russian control of Chechnya in perpetuity and to suppress the Chechen independence movement as thoroughly and completely as possible.
The excuse, of course, is suppression of Jihadi Islamism, as is the case practically everywhere state terror is employed these days. Must stamp out Jihadi Islamism or Civilization Is Doomed. Or something.
Yes, yes, but what's this got to do with Boston, with the Boston Marathon specifically, with the United States in general, and with these two purported bombers who created extraordinary levels of mayhem and chaos -- shutting down an entire major metropolitan area -- for what?
For what? What was this all about?
From beginning to end it was just bizarre, and I for one am not about it accept it as yet another advance in the New Normal.
The Ratchet Effect was absolutely in play, but that's the routine reaction of the US Government to any and all security events. That has been the New Normal for years, and there's apparently no way to reverse course.
We saw repeated "gunfights" in the streets of Watertown, Massachusetts -- whether there were actual gunfights or merely extreme levels of police gunfire at the fugitives (or potentially at nothing at all) we'll leave for historians to sort out. There were claims that the fugitives threw crude bombs and grenades at the police as they tried to make their escape -- after carjacking a citizen's Mercedes (but then, one of them was also said to own a Mercedes so who knows...?) If it was a carjacking, how did they cart around all their bombs and grenades, crude as they were? And what has become of the carjack victim? What's become of the Naked Guy? What's become of the student who was repeatedly shown spreadeagled on the ground -- supposedly a suspect -- as the manhunt continued. People who were witnessing and reporting what was going on behind the police tape in real time saw and reported gunfire, multiple arrests and interrogations, and much else, most of which never made it to the mass media news.
What's become of the people who were so directly affected by the zeal of the manhunt?
We saw an entire major city and its suburbs put on lockdown, something unprecedented in the history of the United States [correction: apparently this is the first time a major metropolitan area was put on lockdown due to a fugitive hunt, but according to reports, this is the third time Boston has been put on lock down in recent times, the previous two being due to storms -- the most recent a blizzard, the previous one Hurricane Sandy], while one fugitive was unsuccessfully sought by authorities. The fugitive was found by an alert civilian minutes after the lockdown was lifted, so what was that all about, anyway? My own sense was that the lockdown of Boston and its suburbs was a trial run -- a remarkably successful one at that -- for the eventual imposition of a kind of National Martial Law to control a suddenly restive and rebellious People. The authorities wanted to see if the people would comply with arbitrary orders like "shelter in place," and behold. For the most part they did, and once they saw how harsh and humiliating was the treatment of those who failed to comply, few very few dared leave their "shelter" for the duration of the order. It worked. Amazingly. People not only complied, they seemed to be eager to do so.
The lockdown of Boston and its suburbs was a form of martial law without a declaration, and that -- like the whole concept of "lockdowns" -- may become a New Normal that Americans just accept without question, though it is something that runs completely counter to American values and culture. If an entire major American city and its suburbs, a state capital at that, can be put on indefinite curfew and placed under undeclared martial law at the command of the governor (who was acting at the behest of whom?) then there is no effective limit to the imposition of state power under the current regime.
Those who claim this development does not represent the further evolution of the American Security State into a full on Police State are akin to other sorts of denialists. Those who express their worshipful admiration of the authorities under the circumstances -- and who question none of what's gone on -- seem to me to have fallen down the rabbit hole into a fantasy world.
No, this was something new and dangerous.
While the reaction of the American authorities can be rationalized as something they were prepared to do given the right cues, the bombing itself still seems inexplicable. Some "experts" have been trying to draw conclusions about it from the Chechen connection, and it just falls to pieces. Americans are not the targets of Chechen resistance, at least they haven't been up till now, and there is no sign whatsoever that the Boston Marathon Bombing was in any way connected with the Chechen resistance. So, what the fuckity fuck?
I'm sure there are plenty of conspiracy theories and there will be many more, most of them (I'm convinced) spun by operatives and apparatchiks.
Another issue is the usefulness of "crowd-sourcing," something engaged in enthusiastically and sometimes disastrously by a wide range of enthusiasts on the internet during the course of the pursuit.
There were several widely publicized misidentifications due to enthusiast efforts to find the perpetrators of the bombing based on FBI and other pictures.
On the other hand, it was a civilian who noted blood on a tarp covering his boat -- after he was released from lockdown -- who located the surviving fugitive and reported it to the police. Had civilians been free to leave their "shelters", the fugitive might have been found much sooner and there might have been much less mayhem and chaos as well.
There will be questions about these incidents for years to come. On the other hand, if there are no rational answers, it may just fade away into the background noise of terror and counter terror.
They say the surviving young bomber-suspect was shot in the throat, is intubated and cannot speak, so there is little that can be learned from him at this point. There may not be a whole lot to learn from him in any case.
But I'd sure like to know what the hell was going on.
Terror bombings per se are quite rare in the United States, comparatively speaking, though they have been remarkably frequent overseas (and not just in Baghdad) wherever and whenever resistance movements are engaged with a weak state -- or one that's not necessarily weak but is perceived to be vulnerable to violent terror tactics. Certainly, the British Isles and Europe have faced long term resistance movements which used all kinds of terror tactics, including bombings, over the years, and there was a time when such tactics were not unknown in this country as well.
But terror tactic bombings have been so infrequent in the recent past, Americans are shocked and stunned when they happen, making Americans surprisingly vulnerable to the terror such tactics produce. The British came to accept the fact that the Provisional IRA was going to plant bombs in various locations like pubs and parades and the bombs would go off and innocent people would be maimed and killed; it was taken as something that would happen, there was little could be done about it -- except to round up ever more Paddys and torture them. That's what Her Majesty's Government did in reaction to the IRA bombings, and I'm sure they believed it was "working." They wouldn't have done it otherwise, would they?
Of course, it never occurred to the British Government to quit Northern Ireland or even to mitigate their harsh regime there that gave rise to the resistance... It was a vicious circle that was only broken when some clever dick realized that this relatively low-key, relatively permanent terror-war between the British and the Irish wasn't really necessary. It was stupid and counterproductive and cruel. How about trying something else? So they did, and now, while the conflict is far from resolved, at least they're not blowing each other up and murdering and torturing one another with glee and abandon the way they once did.
In the case of the Boston Marathon Thing, however, it's all very peculiar, so peculiar that it doesn't make the least bit of sense. There is no Chechen resistance movement in this country; at least none that I'm aware of. The Chechens have a long-time animosity and resistance toward Russia, and for cause, too. This is no idle matter. The Chechens have been horribly abused by Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union, with all of the panoply of state terror applied to them on a routine basis. Grozny was completely destroyed, hundreds of thousands of Chechens murdered, millions put to flight. All to ensure Russian control of Chechnya in perpetuity and to suppress the Chechen independence movement as thoroughly and completely as possible.
The excuse, of course, is suppression of Jihadi Islamism, as is the case practically everywhere state terror is employed these days. Must stamp out Jihadi Islamism or Civilization Is Doomed. Or something.
Yes, yes, but what's this got to do with Boston, with the Boston Marathon specifically, with the United States in general, and with these two purported bombers who created extraordinary levels of mayhem and chaos -- shutting down an entire major metropolitan area -- for what?
For what? What was this all about?
From beginning to end it was just bizarre, and I for one am not about it accept it as yet another advance in the New Normal.
The Ratchet Effect was absolutely in play, but that's the routine reaction of the US Government to any and all security events. That has been the New Normal for years, and there's apparently no way to reverse course.
We saw repeated "gunfights" in the streets of Watertown, Massachusetts -- whether there were actual gunfights or merely extreme levels of police gunfire at the fugitives (or potentially at nothing at all) we'll leave for historians to sort out. There were claims that the fugitives threw crude bombs and grenades at the police as they tried to make their escape -- after carjacking a citizen's Mercedes (but then, one of them was also said to own a Mercedes so who knows...?) If it was a carjacking, how did they cart around all their bombs and grenades, crude as they were? And what has become of the carjack victim? What's become of the Naked Guy? What's become of the student who was repeatedly shown spreadeagled on the ground -- supposedly a suspect -- as the manhunt continued. People who were witnessing and reporting what was going on behind the police tape in real time saw and reported gunfire, multiple arrests and interrogations, and much else, most of which never made it to the mass media news.
What's become of the people who were so directly affected by the zeal of the manhunt?
We saw an entire major city and its suburbs put on lockdown, something unprecedented in the history of the United States [correction: apparently this is the first time a major metropolitan area was put on lockdown due to a fugitive hunt, but according to reports, this is the third time Boston has been put on lock down in recent times, the previous two being due to storms -- the most recent a blizzard, the previous one Hurricane Sandy], while one fugitive was unsuccessfully sought by authorities. The fugitive was found by an alert civilian minutes after the lockdown was lifted, so what was that all about, anyway? My own sense was that the lockdown of Boston and its suburbs was a trial run -- a remarkably successful one at that -- for the eventual imposition of a kind of National Martial Law to control a suddenly restive and rebellious People. The authorities wanted to see if the people would comply with arbitrary orders like "shelter in place," and behold. For the most part they did, and once they saw how harsh and humiliating was the treatment of those who failed to comply, few very few dared leave their "shelter" for the duration of the order. It worked. Amazingly. People not only complied, they seemed to be eager to do so.
The lockdown of Boston and its suburbs was a form of martial law without a declaration, and that -- like the whole concept of "lockdowns" -- may become a New Normal that Americans just accept without question, though it is something that runs completely counter to American values and culture. If an entire major American city and its suburbs, a state capital at that, can be put on indefinite curfew and placed under undeclared martial law at the command of the governor (who was acting at the behest of whom?) then there is no effective limit to the imposition of state power under the current regime.
Those who claim this development does not represent the further evolution of the American Security State into a full on Police State are akin to other sorts of denialists. Those who express their worshipful admiration of the authorities under the circumstances -- and who question none of what's gone on -- seem to me to have fallen down the rabbit hole into a fantasy world.
No, this was something new and dangerous.
While the reaction of the American authorities can be rationalized as something they were prepared to do given the right cues, the bombing itself still seems inexplicable. Some "experts" have been trying to draw conclusions about it from the Chechen connection, and it just falls to pieces. Americans are not the targets of Chechen resistance, at least they haven't been up till now, and there is no sign whatsoever that the Boston Marathon Bombing was in any way connected with the Chechen resistance. So, what the fuckity fuck?
I'm sure there are plenty of conspiracy theories and there will be many more, most of them (I'm convinced) spun by operatives and apparatchiks.
Another issue is the usefulness of "crowd-sourcing," something engaged in enthusiastically and sometimes disastrously by a wide range of enthusiasts on the internet during the course of the pursuit.
There were several widely publicized misidentifications due to enthusiast efforts to find the perpetrators of the bombing based on FBI and other pictures.
On the other hand, it was a civilian who noted blood on a tarp covering his boat -- after he was released from lockdown -- who located the surviving fugitive and reported it to the police. Had civilians been free to leave their "shelters", the fugitive might have been found much sooner and there might have been much less mayhem and chaos as well.
There will be questions about these incidents for years to come. On the other hand, if there are no rational answers, it may just fade away into the background noise of terror and counter terror.
They say the surviving young bomber-suspect was shot in the throat, is intubated and cannot speak, so there is little that can be learned from him at this point. There may not be a whole lot to learn from him in any case.
But I'd sure like to know what the hell was going on.
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