The lockdown of Boston & its environs is terrifying. But it doesn’t even come close to Baghdad or Kabul or Mogadishu or Aleppo or Gaza & the West Bank. Boston isn’t being bombed & there is no occupying army. But it’s scary enough to give a sense of what a war zone is like--something most in the US have been sheltered from by the media & even in our history books.
The alleged bombers are extremists & reportedly Muslims. Their violent extremism resonates with US government foreign policy more than with religion. It serves institutions like the Pentagon & war propaganda but not social transformation & is by no means a political answer to Islamophobia.
Once again, the terror we feel watching events in Boston should be used to marshal active antiwar opposition rather than increase the quotient of hatred that creates terrorism.
Demand the US end its wars & occupations! Demand the end of drone bombing sieges!
(Photo of police patrol through Watertown, a suburb of Boston, searching for suspect in the Boston bombings by Charles Krupa /AP)
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