Conspiracy of Silence

No terrorist is an island. In the case of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev there was a wife, there were parents and friends who could have, and should have, passed on information that might have prevented the deaths of three innocents and the wounding of more than 280 others.

His mother, for instance, knew as early as 2011 that he had become an adherent of radical Islam and was sending text messages to family in Russia in which he expressed his willingness to die for Islam, according to sources citing FBI testimony at a recent congressional committee hearing.

Two friends of Tsarnaev’s brother and suspected partner in crime, Dzhokhar, have been charged with removing evidence. Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, of Kazakhstan, allegedly took a backpack and fireworks out of Dzhokhar’s dorm room three days after the bombing. The three, as well as another suspect, were friends of Dzhokhar at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and likely had inside information about the terror attack. Otherwise, what interest would they have had in trying to get rid of incriminating evidence?

And finally, there is Katherine Russell, the grieving widow of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Russell, 24, was born and raised in the United States by a father who is a Yale-educated doctor and a mother who is a Phillips Exeter Academy alumna. She converted to Islam to marry Tsarnaev.

How likely is it that she was completely unaware of her husband’s sudden interest in jihadist videos or in the online sermons of Answar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida propagandist who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2011?

What are the chances that she failed to notice the dog-eared printout of Inspire magazine, opened to the article titled “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom”? According to a report by the Terrorist Explosive Device Center, the pressure-cooker bombs that the Tsarnaev brothers used at the Boston Marathon and the pipe bombs they threw at police during a gunfight four days later were based on instructions detailed in that article.

Investigators have found traces of explosives in the Tsarnaev home — on the kitchen sink and in the bathtub — indicating that the bombs were made under the widow’s nose. Are we to believe that she didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary?

And she didn’t wonder why her unemployed husband purchased not one but three pressure cookers and $200 worth of fireworks — in February?

The Tsarnaev brothers and their accomplices took advantage of America’s hospitality, free society and unprecedented generosity of spirit to perpetrate heinous crimes against innocent Americans like eight-year-old Martin Richard, who was killed in the Boston Marathon attack.

The authorities must take off the kid gloves and fight back.

After terrorists hijacked passenger planes and used them in the catastrophic 9/11 attacks, the United States took draconian action to prevent a recurrence, even though it meant impinging on the rights of tens of millions of innocent travelers. Passengers were forced to come to the airport hours ahead of their flights in order to wait in long security lines, remove their shoes and have their babies’ diapers checked for explosives.

If it is justified to punish so many innocents to prevent terrorism, then it is certainly justified to take action against those in the terrorists’ inner circle who fail to exercise their most elemental civic duty and tip off the authorities regarding an unfolding attack.

By the same token, it is regretful that the legal system treats Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, being held in a prison hospital, as a common criminal and grants him constitutional rights. FBI officials told The Associated Press that Tsarnaev had acknowledged to investigators his role in the attacks before he was read his Miranda rights by federal District Court Judge Marianne Bowler, who came to his hospital bed to inform him that he need not answer questions that could incriminate him.

It is unclear whether in the absence of a clear link with al-Qaida or some other terrorist organization, the administration was legally able to classify Tsarnaev an “enemy combatant.” However, when there is no doubt that the individual in custody was involved in a terror attack and presumably may have information about other pending threats, the notion that a federal judge should personally toss the terrorist a legal life-preserver in the form of Miranda is deeply disturbing.

When the issue is the rights of Tsarnaev vs. the rights of the society he is trying to bring down, there is no question as to whose rights take precedence.

It is high time for Congress  to pass legislation clearly giving investigators the ability to extract information from suspects about ticking bombs without hindrance. Some legal experts have persuasively argued that the Miranda ruling is limited to excluding evidence gathered without due warning from being used against a suspect, but allows the authorities to delay a Miranda warning to gather information needed to ward off other terror attacks.

Only by taking a firm hand against the family and friends of the Tsarnaev brothers will the authorities send a signal to others that they too will be held accountable for participating in a conspiracy of silence that costs lives.

Such a move would serve as an important deterrent in the battle against terrorism.

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