COWBOYS AND INSANITY

This past seven days the world has watched transfixed on the events in Boston. The devastating detonation of two home made '' Pressure cooker'' bombs; which took the life of 23 year old Lingzi Lu, a Boston University graduate student, Krystle Campbell a 29-year-old restaurant manager and Eight-year-old Martin Richard of Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood.  They died for simply showing up at a marathon to cheer on the participants. It is excruciatingly sad. The bombing also left more then 170 people wounded; many of them with severed limbs. These events are alleged to have been perpetrated it was later learned by two brothers. One of the Brothers was killed in a gun fight early Friday morning and the second was captured in the early evening of that same day. I won' t mention their names in this blog or where they are from as in my mind it is irrelevant. If the are actually guilty (only one will eventually face trial) then they deserve no further recognition for the carnage, pain, devastation and destruction they have caused. The ones who deserve consideration are the ones mentioned who lost their lives or who have forever had their lives altered. My thoughts are with them.

This Blog is about a few issues that seemed to go unnoticed or certainly under reported during the 5 day media orgy. While they spent hour after hour tripping over themselves, drooling, speculating, drawing conclusions and generally just confusing the hell out of everyone; three very important issues either got no attention, the wrong attention or very little attention.

1. The number of law enforcement officials on the ground to apprehend one 19 year old suspect. 9000 vs 1.

2. The number of terrorist attacks elsewhere in the world during the same 7 day period from day one of the bombings to the capture of the final suspect.

3. The notion of  ''self radicalization'' as it relates to foreign nationals who immigrate to the United States compared to this same phenomenon which occurs with born and bread US citizens.

Lets start by the first one.

1. It was repeated over and over again as the events of Friday played out that law enforcement had over 9000 '' boots'' on the ground, searching and trying to apprehend the final suspect. The cameras saw them at every turn; trucks, cars, vans, armoured personnel carriers, helicopters, officers everywhere; guns drawn, ready for action. The number of participants from various agencies was simply staggering. Boston Police, Watertown Police, Cambridge Police, State Troopers, FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, ATF, National Guard, The Hostage Rescue Team from Quantico. These were the Agencies with agents on the ground. It has also been reported but not confirmed that elite teams from both Delta, Rangers and yes the famous Seal Team were also present ( in this case Team 5/ Team 6 was the one that got Bin Laden) . Think about this for a minute. This was an event (two homemade bombs) allegedly perpetrated by two individuals. That's two people, not 20, 40 or 70 organized individuals who executed multiple elaborate attacks against the United States. It was two guys; one 26 year old and one 19 year old. The media wasn't doing any analyses of what this meant, about how this completely lopsided ratio highlighted a major weakness in the US ability to mange these types of attacks. At the end of the evening on Friday, once the final suspect had been apprehended the representatives from all the agencies mentioned above where back slapping and applauding one another as each of them took to the microphone in front of a worldwide audience during the press conference. It struck me as ridiculous. In my mind it was like saying, '' there is this small lake 1km square and we put 9000 fishing lines in it to catch the one fish left, what an amazing feat we accomplished when we actually caught it''. No doubt there was incredible dedication, resiliance and determination demonstrated by all these men and women. That they are all heros (an MIT officer lost his life). The simple fact though, like it or not, it took way to many of them.

There is a bad, bad message that was sent here. While all the agency heads are busy celebrating their ''catch'' and the President is congratulating everyone within ear shot. They have failed to realize that they have sent a dangerous message to the hostiles in the world. The message they wanted you and me to believe is, ''we will do whatever it takes to bring those to justice' who harm, kill or injure our citizens''. Its a noble statement and a noble ideology. It is what they are supposed to do. How they did it however, is flawed to its core. What it really sent as a message is, if you attack us in multiple regions at the same or different times we will eventually not have the required resources to hunt you down. That in fact you can paralyze some of the biggest cities in the world grinding every semblance of normal life to a complete standstill. Mass transit, commerce, education, finance and so on. The statement '' shelter in place'' is self explanatory. It tells everyone that you can shut it all down and paralyze the greatest superpower in the world (ok we can debate if that's still true considering China but that's for another blog). The message which was sent as the media drooled over itself and in many cases acted like a dog in heat was not the message you want to sent to your enemies. Especially those you cannot see or find. In the final analyses the back slapping and self congratulations will go on. Its what Americans do, its what they need to do. Its how they move forward and tell themselves they are safe and freedom and goodness will always prevail. If I was them I would be worried, very worried.

2. During the same 7 days which just passed in Boston there were 140 people killed in worldwide terrorist attacks. Yes you read that right, 140 people lost their lives and countless hundreds were wounded in Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, India, Afghanistan and other places in the same 7 day period. I am sure some of you will point out that many of the places where these terrorist attacks occurred where in places in the world where this is ''normal''. Regardless of the fact that we might consider it normal I can guarantee you that the families who lost young children or young adults or family members do not consider those attacks anywhere near, ''Normal''. Did you hear of any of these attacks? In one of them 54 people were killed by one terrorist bomb, in another 18 by a terrorist bomb at a church. Did you hear about any of those? Most probably you didn't. I bet however, that you could basically get around Boston now without a GPS or road map based on all the media coverage you watched. What is the message here? There certainly is. It is this; If the world is under attack by terrorists then nowhere is safe. Not in the US, England, France, Canada or anywhere else. As long as it predominates in one place the risk is it will occur in any place is very likely..

3. ''Self radicalization'' Did you hear the media carrying on about this as a way to appease those searching for the answer, ''why''. Why would two seemingly normal young men who basically grew up in the United States perpetrate such a heinous act in a Country that welcomed them with open arms. The question itself is justifiable and understandable. However the question was being asked with a religious or ethnic slant. This is where it goes wrong. Not everything can be written off to a global hatred for the United States. Not everything can be written off to Foreign policy or 911 or Iraq or Afghanistan. The fingers cannot always be pointed in this direction. In fact if you consider the most recent political climate in the United States you can actually see how close they walk this '' self radicalization''  line. You see it in the political propaganda that today is the media in the United States. There is no more unbiased reporting. Each 24hr news channel is either left or right. All politics today is left or right. On one side is the, ''crazies'' and the other side the ''normals'' and whichever side your on the title is interchangeable. You can feel this in the recent, '' right to bear arms'' debate currently ragging. The 2nd amendment zealots who you know could just as easily '' self radicalize'' if ever they thought their rights to own guns was in jeopardy. The United States has seen this home grown phenomena before. You need only mention the names of Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, Michael & Lori Fortier, Eric Rudolph. These individuals are born & raised Americans who ''self radicalized'' and together through their two acts killed 169 and injured 791 American citizens in Oklahoma City and Atlanta. Look at the devastation these individuals caused. They were not ''naturalized'' Americans. They were not from a war torn part of the world, they did not practice a religion often identified as the axis of evil. No, they were Americans and they had no problem ' self radicalizing''. The truth be known. There are bad people everywhere. People who need to make a statement, to destroy, to attempt to manipulate, to create chaos. They can just as easily be two young men naturalized from a foreign land as from right at home. It does not matter how they got to where they got in executing their evil. What does matter is they will always be amongst us and to attempt to write it off as simply an issue from a foreign land is an insult to everyone's intelligence.

Time will march on. It always does, The families and friends of those devastated by the Boston bombings will move on. Painfully slow, time will march on for them without those they love. The scars and burden of the destruction will live on forever in the bodies and minds of those injured by this terrorist act. It is the unfortunate reality of the world we now find ourselves in. Perhaps we could find and invest the same type of energy that 9000 individuals did on Friday in finding a way to make the world a better place where this kind of atrocity does not need to happen and where the media actually focus on something more then a game of Cowboys and Indians on steroids.

Rob