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Searching for a Motive

Bombing motive: far from obvious.
– Politico.com

Seeking a motive behind the Boston bombings.
– MSN.com

Search for motive begins in Boston bombings.
– KTLA.com

We really don’t know who did this…It was Tax Day.
– David Axelrod, Obama strategist

Might be some other kind of right-wing extremists.
– CNN’s Peter Bergen

 We don’t know anything yet of course, but it is tax day and my first thought was all these anti-gov groups.
– Huffington Post’s Nida Kahn

Normally, domestic terrorists, people tend to be on the far right.
– MSNBC’s Chris Matthews

Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American.
– Salon’s David Sirota

There are two kinds of mysteries – things we don’t know, and things we don’t want to know.
After the Boston Marathon massacre, the police, the FBI, and the media went out of their way not to blame Islamist terrorism. The ethnic and religious background of the bombing brothers was revealed. The elder brother’s 2011 six-month visit to Russia – and probably violence-ridden Chechnya, the land of his ancestors – came to light. But officials and the mainstream media took care not to “jump to conclusions,” in President Obama’s words.
But could we at least stroll to conclusions? Or even crawl to conclusions?
● The World Trade Center bombing in 1993 was treated as a domestic crime. Little effort was made to get to the root of the problem. So like cancer, it recurred in a more deadly form on 9/11.
● EgyptAir Flight 990 went down in 1999 when its copilot crashed it into the Atlantic. But the Egyptian government rejected the possibility of suicide. Our government, not wishing to offend the Egyptians, refused to link the crash with terrorism.
● After 9/11, anthrax was spread through the U.S. Mail to senators and news media offices. Five people were killed and 17 others infected. The source was never proved.
● An Egyptian national had lived in America for 10 years. He objected when someone displayed an American flag after 9/11. He felt that Americans in America should adapt to him. He put up a sign saying, “Read the Koran.”
On July 4, 2002 he went to El Al Airlines at Los Angeles International. He opened fire, murdering two people and injuring others, before a security officer killed him. The FBI questioned whether the killer had family or financial problems. Who doesn’t? The Los Angeles Times headline read, “FBI Looks for Motive in LAX Attack.” Hint: He didn’t shoot up British Airways on the Queen’s birthday. He shot up the Israeli airline on U.S. Independence Day.
● In 2006 a man entered the Seattle Jewish Federation and opened fire, killing one and wounding five. Survivors heard him say he wanted to kill Jews. The Los Angeles Times reported, “An FBI official said the gunman, who was identified only as a U.S. citizen and a Muslim, apparently acted alone. We believe at this point that it is just a lone individual acting out of some sort of antagonism toward this particular organization.”
The man was a naturalized citizen of Pakistani origin. He could have attacked Catholic Charities or the Salvation Army. Instead, he just happened to have “some sort of antagonism toward this particular organization.” Not toward Jews, as witnesses heard him declare. Just toward “this particular organization.”
● Later in 2006, a man of Afghan origin mowed down 15 people with his car, two (one a child) in front of the San Francisco Jewish Community Center. One died. The mayor said, “This was so senseless and inexplicable.” The words “terrorism” or “hate crime” were not used.
● Also in 2006, Toronto police arrested 17 would-be terrorists. Two weeks later, seven would-be terrorists were arrested in Miami − with photos of Chicago’s Sears Tower. In a short time, 24 terrorists were arrested in the U.S. and Canada, but they disappeared from the news.
● In 2007 a man walked into a mall in Salt Lake City and shot as many people as he could, before an off-duty police officer from another city stopped him. He was five when his family fled the war in Bosnia and came to America.
The mosque where he worshipped was rarely mentioned. The murderer’s father said, “Somebody got (the guns)…and maybe (they were) training him and tell(ing) him (to) go shoot somebody.” This remark was not widely reported. The fact that the attack was stopped by an armed citizen was not discussed. But was the mall murderer’s motive really a “mystery,” as the FBI, the police, and the media told us?
● In 2009 Major Hassan murdered 14 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, while shouting “Allahu akbar!” The total is usually given as 13, but one victim was pregnant. Hassan had been expressing extremist views for some time, but this was ignored, and he was promoted. To this day, the government refers to the attack as “workplace violence.” Then what was 9/11? Urban renewal?
● In 2009 four men were arrested in New York for plotting to bomb two synagogues and a Jewish community center, as well as to shoot down U.S. military aircraft.
The men expressed hatred of Jews and Americans. One was born a Muslim. The other three converted to Islam in prison. What will happen if terrorists from Guantanamo are transferred to U.S. civilian prisons and come into contact with other prisoners? It will be no surprise if more terrorists are recruited.
The plot was called “homegrown” in the press, and New York City Police Commissioner Kelly declared that the men were “criminals acting alone.”
But what does “alone” mean? Does it mean that the men had not received orders from Bin Laden personally? Does it mean that they were not card-carrying members of Al Qaeda, as if it were the only terrorist organization? If so, “alone” is appropriate.
On the other hand, does “alone” mean that the four men dreamed up their hatred of Jews and Americans spontaneously? Does it mean that they never saw radical Muslim propaganda on the Internet? Does it mean that their infection of hatred had not been contracted from other haters? No, “alone” is inaccurate – even deceptive.
We can’t respond to danger if we don’t understand what is happening. We are told that these are “isolated incidents.” What if only one plane had been hijacked on 9/11, and only one of the Twin Towers had been knocked down? It would have been an “isolated incident” – but it would also have been international terrorism.
This is hardly a complete list. There are more “isolated incidents.” But can anything constitute a pattern of Islamist terrorism?
Are we being fed sanitized news so as not to be politically incorrect? Are we being given sugarcoated news to allay our fears? Are we being intentionally misinformed to avoid embarrassing officials who dropped the ball? Or are we being unintentionally misinformed by people who can’t handle the truth, even when it hits them in the face? They may have spent too much time in bureaucracies, where “not making waves” is more important than actually doing the job.
If repeated “isolated incidents” don’t add up to a pattern, what does?
Clearly, we do not need to be told information that would alert our enemies. In these cases, simply say, “The investigation is ongoing.” But apart from that, tell us the truth. And if you don’t have people who can tell the truth, or even recognize the truth, then get some who can before it’s too late, and we have another 9/11 − perhaps a nuclear, biologic, or chemical one.
In order to “connect the dots,” one first has to recognize that they are dots.
Author’s Note: Regarding the Boston Marathon attack, did you notice that the elder brother’s first name was Tamerlan? My first choice for a boy’s name would not be the name of Tamerlane, a bloodthirsty Mongol conqueror who referred to himself as “the sword of Islam” while erecting a pyramid of 90,000 skulls. Does this reveal something about the upbringing of the bombing brothers?
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