On January 30, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the federal government would seek the death penalty against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bombing suspect. The media by and large did not seem to find the move worth scrutinizing.
At WhoWhatWhy, we disagree. Since the first week following the tragedy, we’ve been raising issues about the way in which a story riddled with improbabilities, anomalies and question marks (see, for example, this, this,this, and this.) was turned quickly into a “solved crime” and a done deal—with nary a question about whether a government that has lied to the American people time and again over the years could possibly be up to something.
One thing we pointed out: We ought to be wary of claims that the brothers should be given the ubiquitous moniker of “lone wolves”—even if it is proven that they planted the bombs. This is especially true, given the confirmed pre-Marathon interactions between the Tsarnaev family and the federal government (including contacts with the FBI), an uncle tied to the CIA, Russian intelligence interest, complaints from the parents that their children were set up, and more.[amazon asin=1608190064&template=*lrc ad (right)]
We also noted how the only people who could shed light on what actually happened were being silenced, by fate or design. First, Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a hail of gunfire. Then his brother Dzhokhar was nearly killed in a massive strafing of the boat in which he was hiding, unarmed. Then a friend of Tamerlan’s, Ibragim Todashev, was killed in a still-unexplained shooting while unarmed and in FBI custody. Then Todashev’s girlfriend and friends were told to stop talking about what had happened or be deported, and then harassed, and, in at least her case, actually deported.
The bottom line is that the official story put out through leaks to friendly media during the early hours and days after the bombing has become the unquestioned account, with no apparent serious and open-minded investigation having followed, as best as we can tell. Legal authorities have blocked public disclosure of documents that normally should see the light of day.
