The news of the Marathon Terrorist Attack (MTA) grew slowly. For me I believe it was a video taken by a Boston Globe reporter who was near the finish line which first brought home the enormity of what happened. The gruesomeness and shock of this MTA could not really be felt at home as we watched it; however for most of those nearby it will be implanted on their minds forever and for an unlucky few the devastation to their bodies will be a constant reminder of the happenstance that caused them to stop to watch the runners in the vicinity of this heinous attack. Then, there are the three who are no longer with us, one a young boy of seven who I am told is the grandson of a friend from my youth. Then three days later we lost one other, a young MIT police officer Sean Collier.
The MTA occurred on Patriot’s Day which was celebrated on Monday April 15th this year. Over the next couple of days we were kept abreast of the investigation by news media pushing out stories, some widely false, about what had happened. About 75 hours after the attack, on Thursday, April 18 shortly after 5:00 p.m. the FBI Special Agent in Charge of the Boston Office, Richard DesLauriers stood at a podium and showed us photographs and a video of two men who were believed to be responsible for the attack.
Five hours and several minutes later Sean Collier was murdered by these men; before midnight or thereabouts one of the men, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was dead after he was involved in a shoot out with several brave police officers from Watertown and other departments; it’d take until just before sunset on Friday for the police to capture his brother, Dzhokhar. (I refer to him as Joker — the “er” in a Boston accent is pronounced as “ah”.)
I’ve no doubt the FBI worked diligently putting enormous resources into coming up with the identities of these brothers. For that it deserves much credit. So also do all the police officers who went into the way of danger, even though they trampled over some important rights, but in the moment of an emergency that will happen.
Yet, like with 9/11, there was information out there known only to the FBI that could have prevented this tragedy. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was not unknown to the FBI. For it admits, that it investigated him for three months based on a warning it received from Russia. When people sought more information on this it said the door was closed. It would not comment further although it has used its favorite reporters to put out one explanation after the other to exculpate itself from any blame.
This cannot stand. We have to know what happened. Why is the FBI so anxious to hide the facts? Like Ronald Reagan said to the Russians, we must say to the FBI, “Tear down this Wall” and stop the usual “under investigation” to hide the facts behind it as if the facts were East Germans in 1987 looking to escape.
We have to be able to put what happened into context to see if the FBI is doing its job. President Obama has already cleared it saying “Based on what I can see so far, the FBI performed its duties. . . . But this is hard stuff.” Congress is afraid to challenge it; so we are left as a people with only our voices to demand that we be told what exactly happened.
Here are some of the simple things we want to know: how many warnings did the Boston FBI receive from the Russians in 2011 about someone being a potential terrorist in the area ? (I’ve read about 800 requests come annually to the whole country for financial crimes, cyberattacks, organized crime and terrorism so it seems Boston had less than five.) What exactly was done about it? Show us the file — you said you did surveillance tell us when and how; you said you examined the background; tell us what was done. You said you asked for more information three times and the Russians refused to comply. Who asked? What other information were you looking for? Why did you close the case out in three months? Why not revisit it in six months, a year?
I could go on for each question I come up with another one. But here’s the thing I’m trying to get across with all this, there is a great need for us to know this information. Disclosing it will not affect what is happening now. What was done in 2011 up to April 15, 2013 is all down on paper, and in a file somewhere. The names of the agent or agents who did it are available. They should be inquired of.
We want to tamp down the speculation of some that Tamerlan may have been an informant or worked with the FBI. Do we know otherwise? Was he? Did he? Shouldn’t we know this?
The Boston SAC Richard DesLauriers came to Boston in 2010 so it was on his watch that the information first came in. What did he know about it? It’d be nice if we could find out exactly what happened so we could decide for ourselves if the FBI is doing its job so that if it isn’t things can change and they’ll be no more April 15, 2013s.
All those insightful questions you pose should be answered before a public hearing in Congress? Every individual involved should be named. Still waiting to hear the timeline. When were the two carrying black back packs ruled to be the bombers? Why was that press conference called seeking the publics help? Tamerlan should have been I D ed within hours after the back pack conclusion. Was the delay an attempt to hide the Feds involvement? Or was it bureaucratic incompetence? 2. What type of Justice can one expect from the Federal Court in Boston? Connolly’s letter is considered Obstruction of Justice by two dopey judges ( Tauro and Wolfe) resulting in a ten year sentence but the bombing of a co operating witnesses lawyer’s car is not? Wouldn’t it be morally myopic to consider the first wicked and the latter benign? Remember what John Adams said in 1774 ” there is no more justice left in Britain than in Hell”. The same could be said of that waterfront building. There is as much Justice in Hell as there is at the Moakley Courthouse. 3. The Globe is for sale and a prospective buyer is Bob Kraft. Kraft is a sagacious businessman. He isn’t buying it to lose money as a newspaper. He will put it through Bankruptcy so as to downsize it and escape the legacy costs. He’ll end up with a few hundred employees and sub contract much of the work. He’ll relocate it’s operations to an office complex in Walpole or Foxboro. It will be a much diminished operation but it might break even. Boston will have a new mayor in a few months. He’ll combine with the new mayor and use the Dorchester property to erect the casino he was unable to place in Foxboro. A happy ending for all. 4. With the WB trial approaching one should recall Emperor Hirohito’s statement to the Japanese people re: surrender ” circumstances have developed not necessarily to our advantage”. The opposite may be true for C and B. The trust and belief in government has to be near an all time low with the IRS, Benghazi and AP scandals. A propitious time for the defense.
N:
1. The FBI has no intention of telling us what happened. It has already gone by in the mainstream media. We’re into the celebratory state that overlooks all the mistakes. We’ve done it before and it’ll happen again because no one investigates or tells the FBI what to do. J. Edgar Hoover was so cocky about the FBI getting away with anything that the day after JFK was murdered he announced to the boys there was only one person involved and no one else and if we say so the public will believe it. There are many questions that the FBI should answer but how do force them to do it?
2. The bombing of the lawyer’s car was a state matter so you can’t blame the feds for anything there. It wasn’t considered a terrorist act because it happened back in the old days when the gangsters apparently could murder people without much happening. Did you ever think of the great job the Boston Police and other police forces did back in those days that in only one or two of the 40 to 50 murders there were any convictions. Martorano murdered 20 people and never faced any charges for them. It’s amazing when you look back especially when you figure that they like to blame Billy Bulger for not doing anything about Whitey’s murders when there’s no showing he knew anything about them.
3. Bob Kraft’s commencement address to the Suffolk U graduates got big Globe coverage: http://www.boston.com/yourcampus/news/suffolk/2013/05/robert_kraft_encourages_suffolk_university_graduates_to_help_others_follow_passion.html
You can be sure the people working there are already playing up to him. By the way, what did they do with the old Herald building? As far as the Globe building; there’s a lot of land around it and it’d make a good place for a Casino – maybe Kraft is up to something in taking it over and moving it down to Kraftsville that new town that was cut out of Foxboro.
4. You can take the IRS, Benghazi and AP scandals and add to them the surrender of Nantucket by to a handful of Moslem radicals and ten other scandals and Whitey is still holding a losing hand. Remember when Dorothy opened the door to the Wizard’s castle and saw all the glitz and smoke, well that’s what we will get for a while but behind the screen the executioner waits. Whitey (or anyone else in his position) will be condemned by the company he kept in the past; the long gray line of criminals standing in line waiting to tell how bad he is will ensure his demise. Whitey knows the Fat Lady sang when he was arrested; since then he’s just been trying to delay the inevitable.
Excellent points in your post. Hindsight is always 20/20. But we need to know why FBI agents dismissed Tamerlin Tsarnaev as a security threat after they interviewed him.
Neena:
I agree hindsight is 20/20 but to have that you need to know what went on in the first place. The FBI might have done a wonderful job and should deserve all praise and glory. Our only problem is we don’t know whether it did or not; all I think is it should tell us what happened. To date it hasn’t, and from what I can see we’ll never know about it which is frightening.