The Boston Marathon bombing, conspiracy theories and some unanswered questions.

No, I'm not really following the Boston bomber news, not carefully anyway, but I did listen to the first part of Scott Johnson's as-usual-conspiracy-focused program, and gave up before the end. He seems to be completely convinced that the FBI set up the whole bombing and that the Muslim brothers were framed, based on the evidence he gave, but I didn't find his evidence all that convincing.  If he's right, which I guess is possible, he didn't prove it to me.  Most of his information seems to have come from Alex Jones' Infowars site, but I didn't go check that out either.  I did pray that God would bring the truth to light.

I just have a few comments and questions from what Johnson presented.  Here's his PDF for this program, which includes a series of pictures of the bomb scene.

First, he did convince me that there is something mysterious about those two figures in the first picture he keeps calling "contractors."   Why he calls them that I have no idea, especially since he also says he doesn't know who they are or what they are doing.   It's mysterious the way they are standing back from the crowd apparently in the area where the bomb was to explode not long afterward, but then appear in another picture after the explosion standing out in the street looking toward the explosion site.  The idea is that they apparently left the bomb area just before the bomb went off, but the timing in the pictures isn't given, and I can't be absolutely sure it's the same two men although they are dressed similarly.  It probably is but I can't be sure.  One of them has gray hair in the first picture and I can't see that in the second.  Anyway, if it's the same two, the question does occur how they happened to move away from the area where the bomh was to go off and now are standing rather nonchalantly, so it appears, back from the site.  Not excited, not upset, not rushing to anyone's aid, etc.   But perhaps this is long enough after the event for people to be calmer, the timing isn't clear from one picture to the next, or I missed it if it is.

Then in subsequent pictures they are closer to the bombed area, next to an SUV with something on its roof Johnson identifies as "communications" gear, then involved with investigating something under the bleachers across from that area, and then others dressed similarly are also now present.  The black jacket, the black backpacks.  The original two seem to be talking to a female FBI agent in one of the pictures.

So, yes, I'd like to know who these guys are, and as Johnson, or maybe first Jones, asks, why, since they appear to have some kind of official function, aren't they wearing some kind of identifying information?  The FBI agents have "FBI" on their jackets, the marathon security people are wearing yellow jackets.  And so on.  But these guys are in nondescript black.  Who are they?

Then Johnson goes on to assert that the second accused bomber, the younger brother whose name is apparently pronounced "Jahar," is shown walking away from the scene with his backpack still on his back, which supposedly proves he didn't have anything to do with the bombing.

Well, I can't see a backpack on his back myself, but then I'm having monitor problems and there may be something there, but the background is black, and Johnson seems to think his backpack is also black, so who knows.  I don't see anything anyway. 

He also says his backpack is the same as those being carried by the "contractors" identified above.  He claims it has exactly the same white patch on it theirs have.  Now THAT is an intriguing prospect if so.  I looked at those patches close up and they're all white and shaped sort of like Saturn with its rings in outline form.  So I went back to the original pictures released by the FBI of the two brothers walking toward the area just before the bomb was set off, looking for that mark on the backpack.  But guess what?  No mark.  The older brother Tamerlan's backpack was dark, maybe black, but I saw no white patch on it.  The backpack Jahar was carrying wasn't even black, it was white or at least light colored, and he wasn't wearing it on his back, he was carrying it slung over his right shoulder.  No similar marking, not even the same color, and if he left the scene wearing one that looked like those worn by the "contractors" he'd have to have acquired it after the bombing.  But I don't even think there is a backpack in that picture.  If there is, then we have a whole nother mystery than the one Johnson has in mind.

I did have the thought that that white hat he wore stands out in the crowd to such an extent that one could easily suspect it was part of a set up, if there was one.  That's of course Johnson's theory, a set up, they were framed.  Well, that's what the brothers' parents think, and they must be right, right?  I have trouble finding a motive for a set up myself, but I'm not claiming to know anything here, a set up is still possible, it's just that Johnson's facts aren't supporting the idea very well so far.

Since Johnson thinks it was a setup and that Jahar probably didn't have anything to do with actually planting the bomb, I have to assume he didn't see the news coverage about a Jeff Baumann who was standing right next to the bomb and had his lower legs blown off by it, who notified the authorities from the hospital that just moments before the bomb went off he had looked the guy in the eye who put it there.  He saw him put down a "bag," that's the word he used, not "backpack" though that may in fact have been what it was, he looked him in the eye while he was putting it down, and then a short time later it went off.  He was identifying him in response to the pictures the FBI had released earlier, and I believe it was Jahar he identified rather than the older brother.

Speaking of those first pictures, the video from the surveillance cameras of the two brothers walking toward the marathon finish line area, the younger following a few steps behind the older:  How did those two get singled out of that crowd?  I'm sure the FBI are well trained to identify suspects, but did someone sit watching the film over and over and over, and out of that whole moving crowd of people thought those two suspicious enough to send out their pictures as actual suspects?  I admit my question may have to do with simple ignorance of how such sleuthing is done.

And I have one more question about the bomb site.  Why haven't we heard anything about the other bomb?  The first pictures of the bombing caught the first bomb AND the second, the second on the other side of the street and farther away.  I have to suppose nobody got hurt at that location but it's still a question.  One question is how did either of the two brothers get to that location, across the street and back in the direction they had originally come from, after the first bomb went off?

There are also unanswered questions about their doings after that day, and how they got involved in that shootout and so on.  There are no photos of any of that.  Also how the boat Jahar was eventually found in could have been riddled with bullets and he still be able to get out of it without help.  Just questions it would be nice to have answered.

Was it a setup?  What could the motive have been?  It's certainly disturbing to have to wonder if the FBI would actually have set up an attack that would kill and maim Americans.  And who ARE those guys Johnson calls "contractors" anyway?

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UPDATE 4/28:
Looks more and more to me like the general media presentation of the situation is the correct one, not that there may not be points here and there to dispute.  I'd still like to know who those two men are that Johnson calls "contractors" and the others who showed up later in the same garb.

But the story of the Chinese man who wants to be called by his American name Danny, whose car was hijacked by the two brothers, is credible, including his account of how he got away from them.  That's where we find out they were thinking of going to New York probably to do another bombing.  They seem to have loaded some paraphernalia for such a purpose into the hijacked car.  And how it all unfolded after the driver got away is credible too.  The authorities were alerted and the shootout followed in which the older brother Tamerlan was killed and the younger, Jahar, escaped to the boat in a backyard. 

In all that there doesn't seem to be room to add in anyone else, just the two brothers on their own having concocted this crime.

But very possibly, even probably, with the encouragement of their mother, who along with Tamerlan was identified a couple years ago as a possible terrorist.  She's also wanted for theft in the US.  Since they are planning to come to the US I suppose she can be arrested for that. 

4/29  They seem to have changed their minds about coming to the US.