Senseless

The bombing in Boston at the marathon today is horrific.  Three dead, 144 injured at this writing.  The reaction around the country is to tighten security because people think its much more likely that one terrorist attack will be followed by others.  It's very possible.

But what happens is that over time we relax our vigilance and the opportunity for another attack will eventually present itself to those who would use terror to try to influence the course of events.  Which leaves us with two choices.  We can vow to remain ever vigilant, expend precious resources to raise our awareness and security and eventually we will live in an armed camp environment.  Or we can recognize that living in a free society means that we will take an inherent risk daily of being attacked.

We chafe at many of the restrictions of the "Patriot Act" until something like this happens and then we blame the intelligence community for not giving us warning that someone was planning something.  We can't have it both ways.  We must learn that we will live in a free society with at least some liberties and rights to privacy, or we can learn to exist in an Orwellian nation where we may be totally safe from attack but at what cost?

Personally, I'd like to have whoever did this lined up in the sights of a rifle and put a couple of rounds into his gut so he could die slowly and painfully.  Terrorists are cowards,  Pusillanimous sorts who probably never get laid and pervert religion or other things to serve their own sick and twisted agendas.

However, eithersomeone thought this attack out quite well, or they got incredibly lucky.  The bombs went off when the race was just over four hours old.  That's one of the busiest times at the finish line of a marathon.  The "elite" runners are long since finished but many of the average racers that make up the bulk of that huge crowd at the starting line are just reaching the milestone of finishing at that time.  Reports are that whoever made these bombs did not use plastic explosives, and they packed the explosive devices with ball-bearings to inflict maximum wounding.

I'm not going to monitor the media any longer.  After a 12 hour day in the office where I was able to learn little about this act of cowardice, I've spent the last hour or so doing nothing but watching and reading about the attack.  I'm done for now, until those who seek to bring these assholes to justice have gathered more information and can give us some definitive information.

But the victims and their families will remain in my thoughts and in my heart.