My earliest recollections of the news was of the troubles in Northern Ireland. The bombings. The deaths of Protestants and Catholics and British Soldiers. The injuries to thousands. The huge destruction of property and the hatred between the communities and their politicians.
We also had the bombings on the UK mainland. Birmingham, Guildford, Brighton, Warrington and London, among others. The nearest I came to it was when I lived in Abingdon in Oxfordshire, when I first started work. The constituency's MP, Airey Neave, who had escaped from Colditz in World War 2, was killed by a bomb within the Houses of Parliament in 1979.
Thankfully, some semblance of normality is returning to Northern Ireland, but as the recent events over the Union Flag flying from Belfast City Hall showed, its going to take a few decades for the province to resemble the rest of the UK. But at least the pointless bombings and killings are as good as eradicated.
So...
When the 2 bombs went off at the Boston marathon in the United States on 15th April, 3 died and over 260 people were injured.
The US is not used to such terrorist assaults on their own territory. I guess the last was the 11/9 assault on the Twin Towers in New York.
What followed was almost reminiscent of the Wild West as the man hunt for the bombers started. I went to bed that night thinking that the only ones behind it was North Korea. Kim Jung-Un has been raising the temperature and threatening to hit the US with his missiles. As he is somewhat loopy, all I could think was that this bombing would be used as propoganda in his home country that he had hit the US mainland with his missiles.
The US within 24 hours were somewhat surprised that they still hadnt caught the perpetrators. And then we were treated to the spectacle of the Tsarnaev brothers.....Tamerlan was killed and his younger brother Dzhhokhar was eventually found, alive...just.
Boston was put into shutdown and it was interesting to see how America reacted.
To me...I had seen over the years, many bombings on TV and in the press, in Northern Ireland and in the rest of the United Kingdom. Many died and in my opinion, for no reason reason. Why should Protestants and Catholics want to kill each other seemed so pointless.
I suppose I got hardened to the bombing as it must have gone on for over 30 years. Thankfully, those days are hopefully behind us now from Ireland, but we also saw the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005 in which 52 we killed, as well as the 4 suicide bombers.
But the US's reaction seemed to be one of complete shock. How can ANYONE have the temerity to attack and kill on the US mainland?
As I said, I guess us Brits are more hardened to bombings, but then I remembered that every year, the Irish Republican leadership would go to the St Patricks Day marches in the United States and funding to the IRA was made by Americans, through NORAID, the Boston-based organisation that would serve as Irish Republicanism's US arm during the 20th-century "Troubles".
So from being a base to finance the IRA, Boston, 20 years later would itself become a victim of a terrorist attack.
The posse that hunted down the Tsarnaev brother's was quite a spectacle to watch and whilst they have not been found guilty in a court of law, the evidence does seem to be overwhelming and suggests they were the guilty party. So I am glad the US have got their people and hopefully, peace and tranquility can return, but its a shame they had to do this in the first place. For what ?
Yesterday I was reading that the funeral director is finding it difficult to find a cemetery in which to bury Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
I must admit, the more I read about the US, the more I cannot understand the country and how it can call itself "Christian".
In the end, the Boston bombs were as pointless as the ones we saw in the Northern Ireland troubles. Nothing is achieved by all the deaths, injuries and destruction of property.
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