Terrorist Acts in Boston: A Show with an Unknown?

Looking at the passion surrounding the April 15 terrorist acts in Boston, one involuntarily catches oneself thinking: The U.S. is not mourning so much as reveling in the show around the tragic explosions. And, it would seem, we have a happy ending. One of the villains is shot, the other is caught. In fact, it is only a plot.

Giving his written testimony, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the half-dead terrorist, says that he can hardly hold the pen in his hands. And he probably does not even realize that in his weakened hands, he holds a collection of plot threads which could send the whole show in one of a number of directions. Now, much depends on who is named the villain. If it is the mythical al-Qaida, the story will take one direction. And if it turns out to be North Korea, well, here comes a nuclear war. Or maybe there will be a nod to some Arab “regime” not tolerated by America.

Do not think for a minute that we will find out the whole truth from Tsarnaev’s confession. A half-dead and terrified person will say whatever sounds best, and he will confirm anything. The technologies of psychology have been described and tested repeatedly.

It is hardly likely that the organizer of the nightmare in Boston will turn out to be Doku Umar, who supposedly had links to the older brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan — not because that just cannot be true, but because that would repudiate the work of the American propaganda machine for 20 years. It would turn out that the U.S. Department of State and CIA supported the “bad guys.” And that means that they would have fallen into the same old trap again — the U.S. once supported both al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. On one hand, they are used to it. On the other hand, why bring shame on oneself once again?

“A number of radical Chechen groups have become part of jihad, organized international terrorism … they are trying to carry out a huge terrorist operation on U.S. territory,” Professor Mike Nat, former adviser to the U.S. Department of Defense, said days ago on the BBC.*

Dealing with terrorists is a thankless job. Take, for example, U.S.-backed al-Qaida. The Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan and, suddenly, the support was gone. And the organization has strengthened, expanded and opened new branches. Their former benefactor has become an enemy. Could the bandit, left without support, declare jihad on the U.S.? Why not?

U.S. intelligence agencies have also not appeared in the best light. The activities of the FBI, for example, will be the subject of an investigation in Congress. There are questions for the investigative agency. For example, we know that in 2011, the older Tsarnaev brother was questioned by the FBI when it was discovered that Tamerlan was a follower of radical Islam and was in a position to join underground groups. Did the FBI worry about this? Yes, of course. Two years later.

Will they exaggerate the “Russian trace” in the actions of the Tsarnaev brothers? Opinions on this point differ. For example, Vladimir Zhirinovsky believes that they will. In the opinion of vice-chairman of the State Duma, the U.S. needs a catalyst to build a missile defense system and take other hostile actions against Russia. The lobbyist, in this case, is the military-industrial complex, which sees whipping up hysteria as advantageous to its obtaining billions of dollars in contracts.

By the way, another great American crime had this very same “Russian trace” — the 1963 murder of JFK in Dallas. The murderer, Lee Harvey Oswald, lived for some time in the USSR, in Minsk, and had a Russian wife. Tsarnaev’s wife is half Italian; he had spent even less time in Russia than Kennedy’s murderer — only about 10 months.

There is one more slippery and alarming point in this whole story. The mother of the Tsarnaev brothers, Zubeidat, has confirmed that Tamerlan, the older brother, phoned her after the explosions and said that he had been contacted by the FBI and asked to appear for questioning. According to the mother, Tamerlan refused. The FBI immediately rushed to refute this information categorically. Well then, I guess we should think that the grief-stricken mother has invented it all for the entertainment of journalists.

But I want to believe that this story was not just a conspiracy. And there were two immigrants who, having lived in the “Land of the Free,” realized that the rest of their lives would be exactly the same — they would not be quite satisfied with it. And a 19-year-old would not want to put up with this, right? No, nor a 26-year-old. And the two decided to create a show, to go down in American history — to become heroes, albeit with the prefix “anti.”

And these two youths (although one apparently took special training in a mountain camp) managed to bring a U.S. megalopolis to a real collapse, escape from the scene of the murder, run from the chase. So? They were young, they were naïve. They wanted adventure. For some reason, this is the explanation that I want most of all to believe.

*Editor’s note: This quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.