Boston Marathon explosions
Either this person didn't plan this very well, or it was intentionally designed to gain lots of attention while minimizing the body-count. I'm no criminal mastermind but I can see HUGE holes in this. For instance, if the person/organization that perpetuated this attack wanted to maximize the body-count, then why didn't they place the bombs at the START line?
If the bombs had been placed at the start line, there would have been just as much media coverage and the number of potential victims would have been far greater because all the runners are bunched together at the beginning. By the time the runners get to the finish line, the bodies have been distributed over the length of the course. This greatly reduced the number of targets available. Also, if for some reason the bomber HAD to use the finish line, why wouldn't the explosion have taken place when the winner crossed the finish line instead of hours afterward? A lot of the potential victims had left the area by the time the explosions took place. Another reason to not use the finish line would be the availability of medical personnel and first aid equipment: LOTS near the finish line, with nearly nothing at the start line. Why set a bomb off in a location where a quick medical response is most likely to happen? It doesn't make sense, does it?
The other thing I noticed was that the explosion seemed to be coming from the inside of the buildings facing the street. Yes, I know that the official word is that the bombs were placed in trash cans, but that's not what it looked like. It looked like the blast was "shaped" outward into the street as if it was escaping through the glass windows of a storefront. Very little of the blast, from what I saw, seemed to extend upward. Assuming I'm right about the placement, placing the bombs inside a building that faced the street would have allowed the building to absorb a significant portion of the blast. This would have further mitigated the lethality of the blast. Why would a terrorist do that?
The media has mentioned the improvised shrapnel that was incorporated into the bomb, but I wonder if that was merely a red herring to make it appear that a higher lethality was desired. Why incorporate shrapnel but then place the bomb in such a poor location unless you only wanted to APPEAR to have deadlier intent? The public understands the concept of shrapnel well enough, maximizing the fear-factor, but probably doesn't understand how much worse this could have been if a different location was used.
Am I the only person having trouble buying the official story?
If the bombs had been placed at the start line, there would have been just as much media coverage and the number of potential victims would have been far greater because all the runners are bunched together at the beginning. By the time the runners get to the finish line, the bodies have been distributed over the length of the course. This greatly reduced the number of targets available. Also, if for some reason the bomber HAD to use the finish line, why wouldn't the explosion have taken place when the winner crossed the finish line instead of hours afterward? A lot of the potential victims had left the area by the time the explosions took place. Another reason to not use the finish line would be the availability of medical personnel and first aid equipment: LOTS near the finish line, with nearly nothing at the start line. Why set a bomb off in a location where a quick medical response is most likely to happen? It doesn't make sense, does it?
The other thing I noticed was that the explosion seemed to be coming from the inside of the buildings facing the street. Yes, I know that the official word is that the bombs were placed in trash cans, but that's not what it looked like. It looked like the blast was "shaped" outward into the street as if it was escaping through the glass windows of a storefront. Very little of the blast, from what I saw, seemed to extend upward. Assuming I'm right about the placement, placing the bombs inside a building that faced the street would have allowed the building to absorb a significant portion of the blast. This would have further mitigated the lethality of the blast. Why would a terrorist do that?
The media has mentioned the improvised shrapnel that was incorporated into the bomb, but I wonder if that was merely a red herring to make it appear that a higher lethality was desired. Why incorporate shrapnel but then place the bomb in such a poor location unless you only wanted to APPEAR to have deadlier intent? The public understands the concept of shrapnel well enough, maximizing the fear-factor, but probably doesn't understand how much worse this could have been if a different location was used.
Am I the only person having trouble buying the official story?