by John Spritzler

None of the following proves that what actually happened at the Boston Marathon was different from what the FBI says happened. But the fact that terrorist events make the public more obedient to the rulers (as indicated by the understandable willingness of everybody in Boston and surrounding towns to remain indoors when instructed to do so by the authorities, in the name of public safety) constitutes a cui bono (to whose benefit?) reason for at least being skeptical of the FBI's account of things. Specific reasons for skepticism are recounted here.

The FBI's video evidence for the guilt of the Marathon bombing suspects is presented in a Fox News video here (and the FBI site's video here) that includes surveillance photo images of the suspects and a news conference given by the FBI. Two things are notable about this press conference:

1. The FBI spokesman says emphatically that no other images than the ones displayed by him in this press conference should be used by anybody, because it would only confuse things.

2. The video shows the two suspects at the scene (presumably) of the explosions wearing black backpacks [the authorities had previously reported that evidence from bomb residue indicated the bomb had been inside a black bag of some kind] that supposedly contain bombs, but--and this is extremely strange--there are no images of the suspects subsequently NOT wearing these same backpacks. (In one section of the FBI video it may look as if the suspect wearing a white hat has no backpack on but as he disappears from view on the left one can see the backpack slung on his right side.) In other words there is no evidence that these suspects placed their backpacks on the ground and then walked away. For all one can tell from these images, the two suspects merely were at the location of the bombing wearing backpacks, much the same as many other people. We are given no reason for singling out these two particular individuals from the others in the area wearing black backpacks. Why not?

It is not as if no other people in the area were wearing black backpacks. What about THIS GUY shown in this video? This video (I wonder how long it will remain online) shows a man (black top and tan pants) at the scene initially with a black backpack and subequently without it, and his backpack has markings found in the remnants of the bomb explosion. It shows the man suspiciously looking in a different direction from everybody else in the crowd around him. How come the FBI doesn't want people to look at this video, with actual evidence that its subject may have been a bomber, and wants us to look only at images that do not constitute evidence the subject may have been the bomber?

Did the FBI single out the two Chechen men as the suspects for a very different reason than the one they told the public? They told the public they singled out these men based only on the video images. The public was led to believe that the FBI had no knowledge at this time of who the men were, not even what their names were. We were led to believe that there was no prior connection between the FBI and these completely unknown (to the FBI) individuals.

But it turns out (based on this CBS News story days after the FBI press conference) that the FBI knew these individuals very well. The FBI had actually interviewed** the elder brother suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, two years ago.

Here's another anomaly. According to Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis the authorities had no advance warning of any terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon this year. Yet there was far more security--including bomb-sniffing dogs, sharp shooters on roofs and announcements that "this is just a training exercise"-- at this year's marathon than at previous ones, as reported by this local television newscast (in this video) shortly after the Marathon explosions. How come?

Why did the two Chechen brother suspects behave* as if they were guilty? One explanation, of course, is that they were indeed guilty of setting off the Marathon explosions. But this is not the only explanation. Consider the following hypothetical scenario: After the FBI interviewed the elder brother two years ago it decided these two young men were the kind of people who could be induced by an undercover FBI agent posing as a radical Muslim to do something stupid, like planting a terrorist bomb. (We know that the FBI does this kind of thing, as reported here and here for example.) Suppose, however, that by April of 2013 the FBI was a bit embarrassed by all of the reporting of its "saving" Americans from evil terrorist bombings "just in the nick of time" when it was the FBI itself supplying some stupid dupe with the "bomb" in the first place. Suppose the FBI felt it was time for a real bomb to go off, to reinvigorate that "old time obedience" to America's rulers that 9/11 had so wonderously produced but was now wearing thin. Suppose the FBI managed to persuade the Chechen brothers to be present at the Marathon with backpacks, but that it couldn't persuade them to set off bombs. Suppose the FBI arranged for somebody else (such as the man with the backpack wearing a black top and tan pants) to set off the bombs. And suppose that the Chechen brothers, upon seeing on T.V. that they were doomed as the accused terrorists no matter what they did, decided that if they were doomed they may as well at least be martyrs for the cause, strap something with shrapnel (that the FBI undercover agent had provided to them) around their bodies, and go down fighting as martyrs. [See postscript #7 for discussion of how something like this may have happened and postscript #8 for discussion of a past event that makes it seem plausible that an innocent person would act like a guilty one in similar circumstances.]

Postscript #1 April 20: More video images of the suspicious "black top and tan pants" man that the FBI ignored.

*Postscript #2 April 20: It turns out that the Chechen brothers were not the ones who robbed the 7-11 store. Since the MIT police officer who was killed at this time was reportedly killed by the people who had robbed the 7-11 store it is not clear that the Chechen brothers were the ones who killed the MIT police officer. What motive would the Chechen brothers have for killing the police officer?

**Postscript #3 April 20: A Globe and Mail article reports on the strange nature of the FBI's interview of the elder Chechen brother:

'The state news agency RIA Novosti quoted the father, Anzor Tsarnaev, about the FBI agents close questioning, “two or three times,” of Tamerlan. Anzor, who lives in a five-storey, yellow brick building in a working-class neighborhood of the city, recalled that the agents told his son, “We know what you read, what you drink, what you eat, where you go.” He said that they told Tamerlan that the questioning “is prophylactic, so that no one set off bombs on the streets of Boston, so that our children could peacefully go to school.”

'Those comments, he said, disturbed him. “This conversation took place a year and a half ago. But there is a question, why would they talk about it then?”

Another report of FBI monitoring of the elder Chechen brother is here, and here, in which the men's mother says,

“They used to come [to our] home, they used to talk to me…they were telling me that he [the older, 26-y/o Tamerlan] was really an extremist leader and that they were afraid of him. They told me whatever information he is getting, he gets from these extremist sites… they were controlling him, they were controlling his every step…and now they say that this is a terrorist act!Never ever is this true, my sons are innocent!”

Did the FBI run Tamerlan and his younger brother as patsies? Were the two Chechens at the marathon because they thought they were helping the authorities carry out the drill that we now know was going on at the marathon?

Postscript #4 April 20: The Daily News reports that the younger Chechen, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, went to UMass-Dartmouth where he was a sophomore and 'attended a party two days after Monday’s bombing. He hit the gym. And he went to his dorm room at UMass-Dartmouth for a night’s rest, according to reports. “He was just relaxed,” a student who claimed to be at the same party Wednesday night as Tsarnaev told The Boston Globe.' Does this seem like the behavior of a person who had just committed a heinous crime and who--since it was not a suicide bombing--would presumably be making his escape?

Postscript #5 April 21: The man whose car was allegedly carjacked by the Chechen brothers allegedly "told police the brothers said they were the marathon bombers and had just killed a campus officer." How strange is that?

Postscript #6 April 21: In the video of the FBI press conference the FBI spokesperson declares that they "are working methodically and with a sense of urgency to identify those responsible for the bombings...Today we are enlisting the public's help to identify these suspects....We are releasing photos of these two suspects." But as we know now (and as the FBI knew then!) the FBI already knew perfectly well who the man in the black hat was--they had a long term relationship with him (based on here and reports in Postcript 3 above.) This proves that the FBI was lying to the public, to cover up the fact that this latest bombing fits into the pattern: whenever a terrorist event happens (or almost happens) in the United States, it involves individuals with a prior relationship with the FBI. How strange is that?

Even the Boston Globe notes something fishy here. In itsarticle today, headlined "Russia alerted US about Tamerlan Tsarnaev," it writes of the FBI: "The bureau declined to answer questions Saturday about whether it revisited its 2011 investigation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev after the Marathon attack, or why the bureau was unable to identify the suspects in race day security footage two years after interviewing him and his family."

Postscript #7 April 21: It is strange that there has been no identification of, or reported interview with, a key eyewitness--the man whose car was allegedly carjacked by the Chechen brothers--and we are only told that he said the Chechen brothers told him they were the marathon bombers and had killed the MIT police officer. Could it be that this "victim of a carjacking" was not what the authorities are claiming he is? Could it be that he was actually an FBI agent--the handler of the Chechen brothers--who told the Chechens that they had better fight like hell to avoid capture or else they would die by a bullet or be executed, and could it be that this FBI agent provided the Chechens with the weapons and explosives they used in their attempt to flee? Is this why the "carjacking victim" has dropped out of sight from the news reporting, remains unidentified, and leaves behind only the strange claim that the Chechens told him of their guilt? Afterall, the press is identifying other eyewitnesses to these events, such as "resident Jennings Aske, at 66 Laurel Ave." who saw the shootout near his home in Watertown and who was quoted in a Boston Globe article; why not identify the "carjacking victim"? (Another article identifying Aske is here.)

Postscript #8 April 21: It is not hard to see why an innocent person might act like a guilty one if they thought there was no way to prove their innocence. Gore Vidal discusses in great detail in his article in Vanity Fair about Timothy McVeigh why he thinks McVeigh was innocent but nonetheless claimed to have committed the Oklahoma bombing:

'Many an “expert” and many an expert believe that McVeigh neither built nor detonated the bomb that blew up a large part of the Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995. [This video gives evidence of this.--J.S.] To start backward—rather the way the F.B.I. conducted this case—if McVeigh was not guilty, why did he confess to the murderous deed? I am convinced from his correspondence and what one has learned about him in an ever lengthening row of books that, once found guilty due to what he felt was the slovenly defense of his principal lawyer, Stephen Jones, so unlike the brilliant defense of his “co-conspirator” Terry Nichols’s lawyer Michael Tigar, McVeigh believed that the only alternative to death by injection was a half-century or more of life in a box. There is another aspect of our prison system (considered one of the most barbaric in the First World) which was alluded to by the British writer John Sutherland in The Guardian. He quoted California’s attorney general, Bill Lockyer, on the subject of the C.E.O. of an electric utility, currently battening on California’s failing energy supply. “‘I would love to personally escort this CEO to an 8 by 10 cell that he could share with a tattooed dude who says—“Hi, my name is Spike, Honey.”’ … The senior law official in the state was confirming (what we all suspected) that rape is penal policy. Go to prison and serving as a Hell’s Angel sex slave is judged part of your sentence.” A couple of decades fending off Spike is not a Henley hero’s idea of a good time. Better dead than Spiked. Hence, “I bombed the Murrah building.”'

Postscript #9 April 22: "Did Watertown's Top Cop Tell a Big, Big Lie?"

Postscript #10 April 22: This Reality Check TV news show video discusses the pattern of FBI prior involvement in previous domestic terror plots, and wonders if the FBI had prior involvement in the Boston Marathon bombings as well.

Postscript #11 April 22: Another skeptic explains why he believes, "something definitely stinks about this whole Boston Marathon bombing story." And here's another one.

Postscript #12 April 22: "FBI Releases Fake Boston Bombing Surveillance Video" as demonstrated here.

Postscript #13 April 22: "Video of Tamerlan Tsarnaev NAKED, Handcuffed, Walking Alive! How did his Body End up Dead and Beaten?" Taken together with Postscript #9, this suggests that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot after being taken into custody naked and handcuffed. Also see more photos here of Tamerlan when arrested. The mass media now report that the police claim the naked man was not Tamerlan. Then what is his name? They don't say.

Postscript #14 April 22: The official FBI "Criminal Complaint" against Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev online here (pdf) does not accuse him of killing the MIT police officer and, in contrast to all previous news accounts (such as this one), does not say that the carjacking victim heard either Chechen brother say he had killed a police officer. Furthermore, this official document asserts that there is photographic evidence that, at 2:45:15 pm Bomber Two (as he is called) "can be seen apparently slipping his knapsack onto the ground. A photograph taken from the opposite side of the street shows the knapsack on the ground at Bomber Two's feet." (The document also asserts that Bomber Two is Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev.)

I have searched online for the photographic images cited in this document and have not found them. It will be very interesting to see them if and when they are made public. One can only wonder why the FBI has not made them public as yet.

Postscript #15 April 23: There is a screenshot of a Facebook posting by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger Chechen brother suspect, in which he writes: "This will be the last message before the police get me. I never done it. They set me up. Father please forgive me. I am sorry it has come to this." This screenshot is posted here. Are these legitimate or fake? Hard to say. But one's opinion should be based on evidence, not merely assertions by government authorities, no?

Postscript #16 April 23: Here is a NYT report on the questioning of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger Chechen brother suspect, as he lies in his hospital bed with a throat injury briefly described in this Christian Science Monitor article. On the one hand we read in the NYT article:

Uttering the word “no” once, but mostly nodding his responses, the suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was charged in a brief but dramatic bedside scene in the intensive care ward of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he is recovering from multiple gunshot wounds sustained during his capture last week....

“You can rouse him,” the judge told the doctor.

“How are you feeling?” asked the doctor, identified in the transcript as Dr. Odom. “Are you able to answer some questions?” He nodded.

Judge Bowler then read Mr. Tsarnaev his rights. Also present were two United States attorneys and three federal public defenders, who will be representing him. Judge Bowler asked if he understood his right to remain silent, to which he nodded affirmatively, according to the transcript.

The only word Mr. Tsarnaev uttered, apparently, was “No,” after he was asked if he could afford a lawyer.

Judge Bowler said, “Let the record reflect that I believe the defendant has said, ‘No.’ ”

And yet we are also told in the same NYT article that:

In the course of questioning him about whether he knew of any other active plots or threats to public safety, he admitted that he had been involved in laying the bombs that killed three people at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

He said that he knew of no other plots and that he and his brother had acted alone, and he said he knew of no more bombs that had not been detonated.

Does this seem like accurate and believable reporting to you? Here is a transcript of the official proceedings held with Mr. Tsarnaev at his hospital bed. There is no mention of him saying anything other than "no" to the question if he can afford his own lawyer and "nodding affirmatively" to questions about whether he understands what is being said to him.

Postscript 17 April 23: There has not been a single post 9/11 terrorist event in the United States prior to April 15, 2013, in which the culprits (would-be culprits, to be more precise) did not have a prior relationship with the FBI who provided them with the "bomb" or otherwise instigated a crime that the FBI "discovered just in the nick of time" to prevent. In 1993 the FBI allowed theWorld Trade Center bombing to occur.

Postscript 18 April 23: The Washington Post reports that "The 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings has told interrogators that the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan motivated him and his brother to carry out the attack, according to U.S. officials familiar with the interviews." Note that the article doesn't name the "officials familiar with the interviews" and it doesn't provide any direct quote of what Mr. Tsarnaev actually said. Why be so vague about something so important? Here is the Boston Globe report of the supposed confession. It adds no more detail about the confession, but does add the curious report that the "carjack victim" (still unidentified) says the Chechen brothers not only told him they had bombed the Marathon and killed the MIT police officer, but also that they were headed to New York City. Why would they tell somebody where they were headed?

Also curious is the fact that the mass media reports what the "carjack victim" said he heard the Chechen brothers say as exact quotations, in full quotation marks, but the quotation varies from article to article. The Boston Globe gives it as, "We just killed a cop. We blew up the marathon. And now we’re going to New York. Don’t [expletive] with us.” CBS here gives it as, "Did you hear about the Boston explosion?," one of the suspects allegedly told the victim. "I did that."

Postscript 19 April 23: Articles like this one are telling the public that the Boston Marathon Bombers (who, they say, taking the FBI's word for it, are the Chechen brothers) were motivated by anger at the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. What these articles do not say is that it is the very purpose of these wars to produce this anger, in other words to produce an anti-American enemy that will give credibility to the Orwellian war of social control that is the War on Terror. The drones, for example, are well known to produce far more enemies than they kill, which is their actual purpose, as discussed here. This video about how the FBI snared a US teenager in a "terror" sting illustrates once again that the FBI feels it necessary to lure people into doing something that will provide the FBI with "terrorists" with which to frighten Americans into obedience. Obedience means not just taking our shoes off at the airport and doing whatever else we are ordered to do in the name of "national security," but also forking over (as our tax dollars) billions of dollars to enrich weapons manufacturers claiming their weapons are protecting us from terrorism. Here's a video of generals spending public money on such weapons and enriching the arms dealers.

Postscript 20 April 23: As John Kerry and Joe Biden demonstrate, "Calling it terrorism means never having to say they're innocent until proven guilty."

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by John Spritzler

Note: this is being continuously updated with important "postscripts": http://newdemocracyworld.org/culture/marathon2.html

www.NewDemocracyWorld.org