Boston Marathon Comments -- Russ Wellen

My long-time cyber-friend Russ Wellen's comments about Monday's bombing reflect my own sentiments exactly. 

Domestic Attacks Like the Boston Marathon Bombing Add Insult to Injury
By Russ Wellen, April 16, 2013

The best way to honor the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing is by preventing its re-occurrence. 

Along with those killed in the Boston Marathon bombing, the numbers tossed around of how many will lose limbs are in the dozens. It's tragic enough when veterans return from foreign wars with limbs missing. But, as Iraqis, Afghans, not to mention Cambodians, know, limbs lost on one's home soil only add insult to injury. 

If the Boston Marathon bombing is the result of an attack by a nation's own citizens, it reflects poorly on that nation's security and its civil society. If it's the result of an attack by foreign extremists, we're enraged by the harm that comes to innocents and humiliated that our security has been breached. If 9/11 has any small favor to thank goodness for, it's that the lethality of its component incidents left us without many walking wounded to inflame the wound and rub our face in the security failures. 

Should the Boston Marathon bombing be the work of foreign extremists, much as I personally am enraged by thought of their supporters celebrating, we need to be on guard against hate crimes and refrain from profiling. Nor should we surrender to the fear that engulfed us after 9/11 and enact yet more layers of security and measures that further limit civil liberties. Whereas those responses are on the back end -- the reactive and defensive -- we need to respond with the leading edge: foreign policy. 

Should the suspects prove to be from the Middle East, retaliatory drone strikes or JSOC attacks will only add fuel to the fire. Meanwhile, the immediate aftermath of a tragedy is no time to interject commentary that even hints at blaming the victim. But our first line of defense is acknowledging that U.S. policies -- such as stationing forces on Arab soil, failing to pressure Israel to halt their oppression of Palestinians, invading Iraq invasion, and unleashing drone attacks on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen -- stoke fires and create enemies. 

Ultimately, our best defense is not a good offense: it's keeping the number of people we need to defend ourselves against to a minimum.