Rabbit hole...

The Boston bombings are proving a strange fascination. They are being investigated by federal prosecutors. Their abiding metaphor, at least in public, seems to be “rabbit hole”. The only man who could have unravelled their mystery, who could have said why the bombings happened, is dead.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older brother, seems to have been the instigator of these acts. He is described as being “self-radicalised”. The evidence of his internet browsing and mosque attendance shows a man who became attracted to a hard line, literalist interpretation of islam around three or four years ago. But that is not evidence of terrorism. There is nothing in islam that advocates bombing massed crowds. Terrorist acts are secular acts. Terrorism is the most oblique form of war. When people resort to terrorism it’s because of their military/political weakness.

In terms of politics he did take an interest in Chechenya. But that begs the question, why attack crowds in Boston? Tsarnaev was also known to have propagated conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks. The centre of various conspiracy theories was himself a conspiracy theorist. When the elder Tsarnaev was interviewed in 2011 by the FBI at the Russian state’s request he was found to have no actual terrorist connections.

The younger brother appears to be an even vaguer character. It is a strange thing when a 19-year-old effectively sacrifices his life without any compelling reason why. Could it be Dzhokhar was kept somewhat in the dark by his brother? Perhaps he was just a fool. We may yet find out. Mystery abounds.

One thing is for sure, it is practically impossible for any society to physically defend itself against so-called lone wolf attacks, including supposedly apolitical, non-terrorist acts, like the Sandy Hook or Columbine massacres. Even if they ‘worked’ before no crackdown is going to guard against this kind of thing happening again. The only substantial defence lies is asking why. Why do these things keep happening?