Yesterday I pointed to the many questions that remain unanswered about the Marathon Terrorist Attack (MTA). I told how the FBI is now in shut down mode. I said we’d never get the answers to our questions.
The reason why is there is no one that controls the FBI. It does what it wants to do without oversight. A look at a couple of events in Boston shows this.
The Boston Globe talking about the Marathon Terrorist Attacks reports: “US Representative Stephen Lynch, whose district includes parts of Boston, said Saturday that he has a number of questions for US and Russian officials about what they knew about the brothers, and when.”
That couldn’t be the same Congressman Stephen Lynch who was concerned about the FBI’s use of Mafia Bigwig Mark Rossetti as a Top Echelon informant after the FBI told us at the end of the debacle involving Whitey Bulger that it wouldn’t do such things anymore. When it was revealed that the FBI in Boston told this Mafia chief that its job was to keep him safe, the Globe reported: “Lynch said in an interview yesterday that he has demanded a briefing from the FBI’s Washington offices on the guidelines the agency must follow in handling informants, particularly those with criminal histories. The request was granted and is being scheduled, he said.”
That Globe report was on August 11, 2011. 20 months ago. He still hasn’t had a briefing on this simple matter. 20 months of being pushed around by the FBI. Lynch has lost interest. Apparently it is easier to run for US Senate than to take on the FBI. His opponent now has similar concerns but he too has feared holding the FBI to account.
Lynch went on to say according to that article, “he believes Congress must ultimately play a role in getting more answers and determining if the attack could have been stopped.” We all believe that, Congressman. But the actions of yourself and your fellow Congressmen tell us it will never happen since it will involve questioning FBI actions which you fearful of doing.
Remember 9/11? Remember the 9/11 commission report. Here’s what the N.Y. Times said about what it found. “Information sharing within the F.B.I. . . . is sluggish, in part because the bureau’s field offices have excessive autonomy and in part because the agency is mysteriously unable to adopt a modern communications system. The F.B.I. is an excellent police department, but that is all it is. Of all the agencies involved in intelligence and counterterrorism, the F.B.I. comes out worst in the commission’s report.” As far as it now appears, nothing has changed.
We can argue until the cows come home whether the FBI could have stopped 9/11; but it seems with the Marathon Terrorist Attack there’s some real concerns that must be addressed. I asked some of the many obvious questions yesterday.
Yet we’re again facing a shut door. How can this be in a free country that the people have waited 20 months to find out why the FBI is still protecting guys like Rossetti and now won’t tell us anything that it did with respect to protecting us from guys like Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
How can it be in America that the one group that is supposed to control the FBI, our elected representatives in Congress, is afraid to confront it? I’ve listed in my book Don’t Embarrass The Family fifteen steps that should be taken to make the FBI a better agency. Had some of them been done, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
What about our president, Barack Obama? Won’t he help us beyond his nice words? This MTA happened on his watch. It happened under the leadership of the present director who seems to have done little to change that detective agency since 9/11.
Obama must appoint a new strong director who will straighten this agency out and open the doors? If he keeps the same one who is already two years beyond his statutory limit he is content to give us the same type FBI we saw under J. Edgar Hoover, one that protects itself and not the people.
Let me remind Obama of what he said: “My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.”
What is it Obama? Will you walk the talk or take a walk. The fat is on the fire. Do you want a strong America for the people or one where our leaders hide from the people for fear of embarrassment? If mistakes were made, admit them so they won’t happen again.
We have four dead Americans and many seriously maimed and injured. We want to know if this could be prevented. We don’t have 20 months or more to wait. We have to know what is going on behind the walls of the FBI.
Yeats: “The worst among us are full of passionate intensity” the best relatively silent. I don’t see how HOmeland Security deceiver Janet napolitano can declare early inthis investigation; No foreign involvement. I hope the Mass State Cops and Boston,Cmbridge and Watertown cops investigate ever rich Turk who was supplying the Brother Bombers with cars and cash. Every possible suspect, accomplice, abtter must be exhaustively vetted. Of course the19 year old is going to thinkhe and his brother did t all. They’ve all been brainwashd and they’ve all been given alibis and deniability beforehand. I’m afraid, as with Fast & Furious, and the John Connolly Dreyfus Affair,the FEDS are going to SCAPEGOAT a few red herrings and put the rest us to sleep with their doldrums. This time, we are not going to shut up, we are not going to follow anyone’s orders,we are not going accept the FEDS BS and we are not going gently into that good night. Weare going to rage against the machne and rage against thedyingof the light and rant, rave and rage against our increasingly secretive anti-American government. We are MAD. We are mad as hell nd we are Not going to take it anymore! Trust me!
Bill:
Yeats: “I fight for a country I do not love, I fight against those I do not hate.
When I heard the uncle of the murderers speak with such fearlessness about their cowardly acts I thought about how rare it is nowadays for us to speak with such passion and lack of concern for what others might think. We pay for our inability to speak our minds to each other without filtering and worrying about what the neighbors will think.
Hopalong:
Yes, he seemed like a no excuse tell-it-like-it-is guy. But he was angry that his nephews had disgraced the Chechen people who are really appreciative of what America has done for some who have come here. You’re right we’d all be better off if we spoke more candidly.
Dear author, How many people who have run and won a race for public office want to quote unquote rock the boat , look for trouble? Would former Senator Kerry have enhanced or decreased his chance at being Secretary of State if say he had been the one to push on Rossetti? The Congressman from South Boston is not the party favorite for the Senate seat, why demand answers from the FBI regarding Rosetti or the tragic events in Boston? I asked you on this blog I believe where were longtime Boston elected officials such as former Mayor Kevin White and Senator Kennedy regarding holding public office during the Whitey Bulger era? I do not believe anyone would come out and question the FBI, after all for the negative things they do that get reported the positive things they do a lot of the time go unreported. It will be interesting to see what transpires as far as the release of information. Hope everyday life starting to return to normal after the tragic events, regards
Norwood:’ I agree with what you say. Few people want to question the FBI. No doubt it has done lots of good and it has built up its image so well over the years that many think it’d be a fools errand to go against it – but it seems now a few are realizing that perhaps it has been given too much leeway.
Matt, here is the third part (LAST PART) of a letter a hand-delivered to the FBI office in Boston. As you know, I witnessed the bombings from across the street. For the past seven years or so, I’ve walked Boylston almost weekly and had coffees in that Starbucks at least once a week. I know a lot of people in that area of town. Anyway, the last paragraph addresses the suspicious person I saw in Starbucks on Saturday (April 13, 2013). When the New York Post published the picture of two Middle Eastern men watching the parade, I instantaneously recognized the one (not in the green shirt) as the man I saw and heard talk with his girlfriend and over a cellphone. They were seated four feet away from me. I thought nothing of them till after the atrocity! Even though I saw only part of his face, I saw him walk and move, and in the letter I describe him quite accurately (even though it was before I saw the photo in the NY POST.) I was dismayed when the FBI reported there were no more suspicious persons they were investigating. Here’s the letter’s ending, which follows descriptions of events on Sunday and especially Monday (I also dropped off a CD with @ 50 pictures of Marathon Monday, I did so in part at the suggestion of BPD LT. Paul Barry O’Connor (a friend):
“SATURDAY: MARCH 13 (slight chance it was Fri, as I was therebothdays.) Around Noon-3:00P.M. Stopped for coffee at Starbucks; Young woman (20-24) 5-4, med complx; (Moroccan, Afr-Am. Latino; Meditteranean; Middle Eastern-looking; attractive; sits in red chair in front of me; I’m facing toward street; we’re in Middle of Starbucks; a few minutes later a man (5-10-to 6-00) thin to med build; wearing drk grey orblck waist-lgnth jacket with large hoodie, covering all his face except nose, eyes, brow; I guess he’s African_American or drk skn Latino or drk skin Middle east or Moroccan. They speak quietly; he’s animated, excited, even breathing a bit rapidly; catching breathmaybe; they’re four feet away; at one point she hands him a cellphone and I recollect she says the word “New York”. He was scary (I actually thought then and there that he may explode a bomb then and there; I got an eerie feeling from him; she was nice and natural ( I thought then: “Here’s a young college girl getting mixed up with a psycho screwball left-wing radical hippie. Probably a druggie! Wearing a hoodie, trying to scare people.”)
SO, there’s my impressions as accurate as I can recall them; I began recalling them, of course, after the atrocity, the attack by mass murderers, vicious evil killers of innocents. Hope this stuff is helpful!”
Did you mean April 13th as opposed to March above?
Bill:
Tamerlan’s wife always word the hijab so the woman you saw in Starbucks must not have been her. The man in the hood you did not get a good look at so what can the FBI do about that? I’m sure if they came up with other things they may try to follow up but right now there’s other avenues they’re looking at.