THE ROVING EYE
Orwell does America
By Pepe Escobar
Welcome to the sweet abyss of an Orwellian vortex. 2013 increasingly looks like 1984.
In two previous articles, for RT RT and for Asia Times Online I have looked into the superimposed levels of blowback implied by the Boston bombing.
With still so many unanswered questions regarding what took place on the ground in Boston after the bombing, it's time to look at an extra, possible Top Ten list of lingering absurdities. And this without sidestepping other unanswered crucial questions, such as why a bomb drill - organized by Craft - was going on during the marathon at which the bombing took place; and why it was vehemently denied that a bomb drill was going on. For this current set of questions, I'm grateful for the help of Asia Times Online's Bostonian readers.
Pick your Mercedes
1. Will the FBI come clean and admit they knew everything there is to know about Tamerlan Tsarnaev - after five years of monitoring/controlling him - and still lied to public opinion by swearing they knew nothing about his and his brother's identity, posting their photos and asking for the public to act ''as eyes and ears'' to identify those ''suspects''?
2. Since 9/11, the preferred FBI modus operandi is to use informants to lure ''potential'' terra-rists to act. See for example the Fast and Furious Iran cum Mexican cartel plot. There's a strong possibility the Tsarnaev brothers were set up. In this case, is there anyone anywhere among the vast US intel apparatus investigating the FBI investigators?
3. Will the FBI explain a tsunami of false reports by the usual, anonymous ''US officials'' of explosions or ''unexploded bombs'' - at two Boston hotels, a court house, and at the JFK library?
4. A Saudi student, injured at the bombing, who was in the US via a legal student visa, is suddenly deported on ''national security grounds'', even as investigators found ''unusual burns'' on his hand inconsistent with the injuries of other victims. He may have been a member of a Saudi clan notorious for its al-Qaeda connections. The FBI ''investigation'' is suddenly dropped shortly after the Saudi ambassador in the US held an unscheduled meeting with President Barack Obama. Add to it that even before the smoke had cleared, the Israel Lobby and the notorious disinformation website DEBKA were pointing their fingers at ''domestic terrorists with Middle East connections''.
5. The description of the car hijacked by the brothers, a Mercedes E350 SUV, matches the description of their car left at a service station in Cambridge for two weeks prior to the bombing. A mechanic in Cambridge said Dzhokhar, Tamerlan's brother, picked up his "black Mercedes SUV" on Tuesday, the day after the marathon. The two cars may be one and the same; that blows up the whole official ''carjacking'' narrative.
6. Additionally, there's a media blackout on the owner of the allegedly hijacked Mercedes, who in theory managed to escape and call the police, who maintains that the brothers went to three ATMs and withdrew US$800 from his account - not before telling him they were the ''marathon bombers and had killed an MIT police''. The driver said he was let off at a gas station on Memorial Drive in Cambridge. But some witnesses saw Dzhokhar at the station's convenience store - without any driver. Then the narrative of the brothers robbing a convenience store was revealed to be false. Police scanners referred to a "black top" person. Still, the official narrative is that the Tsarnaev brothers were at the same place and the same time of the robbery.
7. The slain MIT police. The initial police scanner report mentions the suspect in singular as ''a Hispanic with a hat on''. This happened on the MIT campus, at a side street, after the officer had responded to the report of ''a disturbance''. Now the whole US law enforcement apparatus takes for granted that the MIT cop was killed by the brothers - with no investigation whatsoever.
8. There's a whole murky story about a ''stolen police SUV with long guns and explosive'' - without any details. It is assumed by everyone the brothers stole it, but nobody can tell when, where and how. The official narrative sustains it to justify the guns that the brothers allegedly used in a firefight with the police in Watertown. Moreover, the chief of Watertown police maintains that the brothers drove into town in ''two separate cars''. The FBI and the Boston District Attorney say the brothers were in the hijacked Mercedes.
9. The whole law enforcement apparatus insisted that there was a heavy exchange of gunfire with Dzokhar while he was hiding in a boat, before his arrest. That is false. He was unarmed, barely moving and the hail of bullets towards the boat came from the police.
10. How come legions of police and mega-weaponized SWAT teams searching a ''20 block'' crime scene perimeter in Watertown simply could not locate Dzhokhar hiding in a street less than two blocks from where he had abandoned his car? Even a simple Google Maps search contradicts the claim that police did not find him for a whole day because the street he was hiding - Franklin - ''was slightly beyond the perimeter''. A number of residents in Franklin street even complained that they were not searched until after the lifting of the curfew and the discovery of Dzhokhar by the boat's owner, who is now a national hero.
Do the martial dance
What the day-long delay in Dzhokhar's arrest indeed made possible was to turn Watertown into a monster dry run for urban martial law - euphemized as ''lockdown'' - in a very near future.
As total militarization of civilian life goes - featuring, for instance, Homeland Security running amok with hundreds of armored vehicles - this was a major success. Meanwhile, on the ''legal'' front, the White House and the Justice Department are firmly on track to finally suppress the Miranda warning; that went into effect already two years ago, when an Obama secret executive order ruled the Miranda warning would not apply to suspected terrorists.
Dzhokhar is a ''suspected'' terrorist - now charged with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, yet already convicted by corporate media. Welcome to Police State USA - where at least everyone still has the right to go out shopping. For now.
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).
He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.
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