Boston Marathon Bomber Gets Death, So Why Not Death for all Bombers?

By Joe Clifford

May 16, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - The Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death, despite the requests of the victim’s families. In light of this nation’s history, this is no surprise. We are the most violent country to ever inhabit the planet. Consider in our early history we exterminated and ethnically cleansed the Native Americans from this county, and then followed up by turning to blacks and enslaving their entire race, and in the course of many years killed hundreds of thousands, and no one was ever held accountable. But Tsarnaev will be killed. Currently police are allowed to kill blacks pretty freely, as in Baltimore by severing the spine of Freddy Brown, while in Cleveland police killed a 12 year old in a playground in less than 2 seconds after getting out of their police car. When the end of WWII approached we used atomic bombs, not once but twice, on civilian cities, which, according to many historians was totally unneeded. We justified our mass murder of civilians by saying the bombs were dropped to quickly end the war, but the Japanese were already quite willing to surrender, yet we had to cloak our dropping of atomic bombs as a humanitarian effort to save lives. Duhh!!

Thankfully we are the only country in the world who has been willing to use nuclear weapons. In addition we have threatened many nations around the world with nuclear weapons, and in light of our history those threats must be taken seriously.

Then we moved into South Vietnam for no good reason but on trumped up accusations much like the WMD of Iraq. That war finally ended with the loss of 57,000 Americans, but also cost the lives of about 3 million people in Southeast Asia. For what I ask? Why did we make war on Vietnam and the other nations of Southeast Asia? What was gained in the killing of over 3 million people? Who was held accountable for 3 million deaths? Tsarnaev killed 3, but will be killed for his action.

Then the endless war parade marched into Iraq and Afghanistan on more bogus claims. Most Americans after more than 10 years of war on Afghans and more than 20 years of war and bombing Iraq, can’t find either on a map. But the killing continues in both countries. Not being able to locate either country on a map is one thing, but ask the average American why we are fighting in in either Afghanistan or Iraq and you cannot get a reason for either. But the killing goes on. Well over one million people in Iraq have died as a result of a vicious attack on that nation over many years. Four presidents have seen fit to bomb and kill Iraqis. Numbers of deaths in Afghanistan are hard to assess but a conservative guess would be 21,000 civilians.

Tsarnaev killed 3 and will be put to death, while in Iraq and Afghanistan we have killed millions with bombs and no one is accountable.

Recently we reduced Libya to dust and anarchy with 7 consecutive months of bombing and are now bombing someone in Syria on a regular basis. We have encouraged the Saudis with their bombing of Yemen and provided that nation with “cluster bombs”, called “Weapons from hell”, and outlawed by more than 100 counties, the US not one of them. In addition, we have given the Saudi’s their targeting information and have provided midair refueling to their bombers. Since 9/11 we have bombed 14 countries. But all these bombs and all these deaths do not seem to count as much as the one Boston Marathon bomb which took 3 lives; how come?

So back to Tsarnaev. Is it really a surprise that we would kill him? No, because that’s what we as a nation do. We kill. If he is to be held accountable for the deaths of 3 people, shouldn’t someone be held responsible for the 3 million deaths in Southeast Asia by our bombs? Shouldn’t someone be held accountable for the more than one million dead Iraqis, and the bombing of that country for more than 20 years? How about the extermination of Native Americans? Was no one held accountable for the enslavement of an entire race of people? Why is Tsarnaev being held accountable for his bombing, while others are not? Three million dead in Southeast Asia and over one million dead due to bombs in Iraq, and no one has, or will, be held accountable? Some would argue that the Marathon bomb killed innocents. What crime I ask, did the 3 million in Southeast Asia, or the one million in Iraq, or the countless numbers of innocents in Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan commit? The US bombed 8 separate weddings parties in Afghanistan killing hundreds. Thinking about the content of the note Tsarnaev left in the boat before his capture might be instructive. He wrote: “The US government is killing innocent civilians…. Stop killing our innocents and we will stop”. Is there really a difference between killing innocents at a road race vs a wedding? If bombs kill, then shouldn’t all bombers be punished equally?

Joe Clifford lives in Rhode Isalnd