I am dismayed at yet another seemingly senseless act of violence aimed at maximally bringing fear and suffering to innocents. As much as anybody, I wish for the initiators of this act to be discovered and prevented from engaging in the execution of further horrors. And I wish to know what motivation drove these attackers, that others moving along similar lines of thought might be dissuaded through reason.
This is not intended as a response to haqiqat, but I have been reflecting on much the same question. But my thinking has reflected more upon the
location of this attack, and the
date of it, than its methods. Timing is important. It is thought in some quarters that the September 11 attacks were carried out on that date in answer to the September 11, 1683 battle in which the King of
Poland and his armies rebuffed the armies of
Islam, at the acme of Islam's expansion into Europe. From that date and for the next three hundred-plus years onward, Islam would govern an ever-shrinking territory in the Western world. The date was up to then of no especial significance to Americans, but to Islamic expansionists, it represented a poignantly symbolic counter to centuries of historic deprivation of European land. That same date was then chosen for the 2012
Benghazi attack which killed several American diplomats.
But this date,
April 15, is of no great significance to Islam. It is not one of the dates for which experts and analysts suggest extra security because an attack on this date would be significant to Islam. But what April 15 is, is
Tax Day. And it falls within a week of dates of significance to an entirely different set of terrorists. The FBI launched its final move in the siege of the
Branch Davidian cult compound in Waco Texas on April 19, 1993. On the second anniversary of that attack,
Timothy McVeigh and his cohorts executed the
Oklahoma City bombing.
And then there is the target.
Boston. Islamic terror attacks and plots have tended to be directed against landmarks having political and commercial significance, instead of being targeted against events. Reports abound of plans to attack
New York,
Washington, D.C., and occasionally
Los Angeles. But as storied as the city is in the minds of Americans, the choice of Boston as a target is more in line with historic homegrown attacks in places like
Austin,
Atlanta,
Indiana, and the aforementioned Oklahoma City bombing.
Christian terrorist
Eric Rudolph, for example, bombed the
Olympics in Atlanta, and (with the aid of a like-minded network) bombed an abortion clinic and a lesbian bar. Boston, naturally, has some significance when it comes to taxes, for it is there that the original
Tea Party occurred, an attack in protest against British taxation. And so, a Tax Day attack in the city of an historic anti-tax attack has immediately apparent symbolic value.
What then to make of the methods, and their resemblance to those seen in fighting 'insurgencies' in the Islamic countries the United States has occupied of late? One thing which strikes me in all this is that my recollection that though Oklahoma bomber McVeigh had chosen his date and target in response to Waco, he had picked a truck bomb as a method because that is what Islamic terrorists had tried in their first attack on the
World Trade Center, in February of 1993. Simply put, those who wish to make their trade in terror can learn of one another's methods.
Naturally, none of this excludes the possibility that this is indeed an attack from a group originating outside the United States, or even the truly dreadful possibility of a joint operation of, for example,
Christian (or other 'patriot') and
Muslim terrorists united by a hatred of American government. As unlikely as such an alliance seems, there is just no plumbing the depths of insanity which can allow a human being to act so against others. The only thing that we can be certain of is that those who have done this thing will be discovered and captured, if at all, not through the methodology of any religion, but through
science.
----
Node auditing proceeds thusly:
passport is
on page 11 of 27
Pseudo_Intellectual is
on page 4 of 31
Segnbora-t is
on page 4 of 34
And
pukesick is
on page 4 of 29.
In the queueueu:
avalyn;
BookReader.
Blessings, all!!