People gather on Centennial Common at Northeastern University moments before the 2:50 p.m. moment of silence commemorating the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings.
Tag: Boston Marathon
The Russian government’s literally incredible behavior
News Dissector Danny Schechter retweeted this blog post by former British diplomat Craig Murray, who questions the notion that the Russian government warned the United States of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s radicalism in 2010.
I will confess that I know nothing about Murray. But what he writes is the simple truth about the official story: After raising a warning flag about Tsarnaev, Russia allowed him into the country in 2012 and let him stay for six months, then leave again. Murray’s gloss on those facts also seems worth thinking about:
In 2012 Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who is of such concern to Russian security, is able to fly to Russia and pass through the airport security checks of the world’s most thoroughly and brutally efficient security services without being picked up. He is then able to proceed to Dagestan — right at the heart of the world’s heaviest military occupation and the world’s most far reaching secret police surveillance — again without being intercepted, and he is able there to go through some form of terror training or further Islamist indoctrination. He then flies out again without any intervention by the Russian security services.
Murray adds: “That is the official story and I have no doubt it did not happen.”
The New York Times today reports on Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s time in Dagestan. This passage pretty much sums up the paper’s findings:
During his six months in Makhachkala [the Dagestan capital], according to relatives, neighbors and friends, he did not seem like a man on a mission, or training for one. Rather, they said, he was more like a recent graduate who could not quite decide what to do with himself. He slept late, hung around at home, visited family and helped his father renovate a storefront.
We are at the very beginning of what is likely to be a long investigation. But these reports are relevant at a moment when — as the Boston Globe reports — Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham are despicably calling for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to be treated as an “enemy combatant,” and when Republicans are already describing the Boston Marathon bombings as a breakdown in intelligence.
Not only do we not know that, but early indications are that such irresponsible speculation is not in accord with the facts.
The Miranda exception and why I’m not concerned
I’ve been debating on Facebook with several people whose views I respect about the decision by law-enforcement officials to invoke the “public safety” exception and question Dzhokhar Tsarnaev without first reading him his Miranda rights.
I think it was the right call. The idea behind the public-safety exception is that the investigation must take precedence over the prosecution — that the paramount interest is to obtain any information that could protect the public. Consider:
- There have been reports that the Tsarnaev brothers may have planted other bombs. Pete Williams of NBC News reported that police detonated an IED near the Berklee College of Music on Friday morning. Are there more? Where?
- The Tsarnaev brothers may not have acted alone. Last night, police took into custody three people in New Bedford to question them about their possible ties to the surviving brother. Was the Boston Marathon bombing part of a larger plot?
- We need to know what if any ties the Tsarnaevs might have had to foreign extremist organizations. We know that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had spent quite a bit of time overseas. The New Yorker’s David Remnick paints a chilling portrait of both brothers, and of Tamerlan in particular.
Despite all this, Emily Bazelon of Slate writes that even though she supports the public-safety exception, she opposes it in the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Her argument is inconsistent and illogical. If it’s all right to use it in investigating a major terrorist attack, and we just experienced a major terrorist attack, then what is the issue exactly?
Now, I’m not going all Dick Cheney here. If Tsarnaev’s lawyer argues later that his client’s non-Miranda-ized statements shouldn’t be used against him at trial, I will probably find myself in agreement. In any case, Tsarnaev could likely be convicted solely on the basis of the physical evidence.
But the whole purpose of the public-safety exception is to keep Tsarnaev talking and not plant the idea in his head that he ought to shut up. Not while there are so many unanswered questions about dangers that may still be out there.
Our “greatest day” turns to horror
I was going through my Twitter feed Monday morning when I came across this: “Happy greatest day of the year, #Boston!” And so it is. Or was, until about 2:50 p.m., when explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon transformed a celebration into a scene of carnage.
What matters now, needless to say, are the victims — the dead, the injured and their families and friends. But if you are looking for some insight into Boston at this horrible moment, it helps to understand why our marathon matters and where it fits into our civic psyche. Why it was, until Monday, our greatest day of the year.