Among the most insightful discussions of the Boston bombing case occurred on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. While Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is still unable to speak due to his wounds, a number of themes are emerging in the aftermath of the rampage.
First is the startling revelation (for some) that we may have now migrated from large-scale terrorist assaults to al-Qaeda directed assaults to individuals independently radicalized by violent Islamic jihadism. David Remnick, Martha Raddatz, George Stephanopoulos and Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, had this exchange:
Indeed, the link connecting lone individuals, jihadist ideology and the decision to engage in terrorist activities is so fine, and largely, invisible to authorities that it poses a huge challenge to national security experts. Such individuals are not in any real sense part of al-Qaeda and so the administration (if that is the pattern here) probably had no choice but to utilize the criminal justice system.
Raddatz summed up:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Not going to be eradicated Martha Raddatz, but it does come at a time when the al Qaeda leadership top to bottom has been pretty well decimated.
