A Boston Bloodbath

Terrorism itself so flies in the face of the most basic human understanding of what should and shouldn’t be that it is impossible to get used to it, even as a bystander. Especially because terrorists are resourceful and are constantly in search of opportunities –– like water that will find a hole.

The terrorist attack in Boston brings something new to terrorism’s treasure chest: that peaceful spectators were murdered and many were maimed during a sporting event. A marathon is also a crowd of people who watch the athletes from the sidewalks. They attacked a peaceful crowd. Revolutionary wrongdoings have darkened the course of sporting competitions before –– remember the 1972 Munich Olympics and the murder of Israeli athletes by Palestinian patriots. There, at the very least, the target was clear, and it was possible to take precautionary measures to protect the Olympic Village and Israeli citizens, as they were targets in particular. Here, it didn’t matter who the victims were. It was purely bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed. When a crime is entirely irrational, it is one hundred times harder to stop it. And in the case of peaceful citizens who gather to enjoy sports competitions, it is entirely unclear how to prevent it. Maybe if no more than three people get together and watch it on TV.

That is what the planners for future Olympics, FIFA World Cups, etc. will be thinking –– and thoroughly. Valuable terrorist experience can travel like wildfire. If doctors, reporters, etc. without borders involves more and more self-promotion, then terrorists without borders is more than serious.

So that it isn’t too lonely for the terrorists without borders, they are accompanied by conspiracy theorists without borders, who always know who planted the bomb, even when responsibility is unknown or already taken. For the true villain is always known: the government. Speaking to this, if practically everyone recognizes the well-known differences between American and Russian authorities — even if there is a competition of opinions about who benefits from these differences — then the conspiracy theorists completely erase them. “The FSB* blows up homes.” “The CIA blows up the Twin Towers.” “The FSB blows up the subway.” “The CIA blows up Boston.” One gets the impression that these frightful revelations are thought up by the same group of friends, given the extent of the similarities in logic and ways of reasoning. The only difference is that one group is fighting with an all-powerful Chekism,** and the other is fighting with an even more powerful golden devil –– but the record is the same.

Sometimes it is the case that a synthesized version of the song appears: “The FSB blows up America.” This was played in 2001 and also today: A theory that the Russian secret police — having long felt at home in the U.S. — set off a bomb in Boston to cover up the theft of funds designated for the construction of Sochi’s Olympic staging. After the Boston marathon, bombed by the FSB, people in a panic all over the world will begin to turn away from sporting events, the 2014 Olympics will not take place as a result of a global force majeure, and Sochi’s builders, who haven’t built anything, will avoid the consequences.

Liberating fantasies are patriotic, except that their authors can never answer the simplest question. Assume that for the FSB and the CIA, human blood is precious water that they are ready to pour out not by the bucketful, but by the tankful. Such evil people exist –– it can’t be helped. But who can explain how these evil intelligence agencies have never had a single traitor in their midst — and by traitor I mean an honest person — who would expose their burning secret. Over the centuries, experience has affirmed the German proverb, “Was wissen zwei, wisst Schwein” (What two people know, the pig also knows), and why on earth would the pig not know anything when it comes to the misdeeds of the CIA and FSB? A single office clerk can make himself useful and sell information to interested persons, but not a single clerk has ever done so. An enigma.

Sometimes it is hard to know who elicits the most disgust –– the revolutionary extremists who set off bombs in crowds of peaceful people, or the incredibly predictable sages who crank up their eternal, “The FSB and CIA are blowing up Russia and America,” in the wake of fresh carnage.

* Editor’s note: The FSB is the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation.

** Editor’s note: Chekism refers to the de facto control of society by the secret political police in the USSR and contemporary Russia.