Boston conspiracies or the triumph of human stupidity

Sooner or later it always happens. After any tragedy -or feat- created by man there is always a group of people waiting to jump to talk about conspiracies. It happened and happens whether with 9-11 or the Moon landing. The Boston bombings weren’t going to be less and in the Internet age, just in a week we have all kind of theories.

Personally, I am very skeptical of the skeptics. For others, it is easier to see conspiracies.

A website has compiled “evidence” that, according to the author, shows that everything that happened in Boston was orchestrated. There are some that are based on physical similarities, such as arguing that Jeff Bauman is actually a double amputee Iraq veteran named Nick Vogt. However, beyond a certain physical resemblance, they are two clearly different individuals.

Others say that the Chechen eldest brother was alive when arrested. As proof, they show a video posted online in which they say the naked person being escorted by police is the oldest of the Tsarnaev.

This however conflicts with the testimony of dozens of neighbors. And a very obvious fact: Tamerlan Tsarnaev had a hairy chest (seen both in old photos and in post-mortem pics distributed by the police), while the guy in the video is shaved.

Other theory suggests that a private security company (Craft International) is the one that planted the backpack-bombs. Some even claim that the same three individuals of that company who were in Boston were also in Sandy Hook after the shooting that killed several children and adults in a local school.

If so, these three men would be doing a lot of overtime. It is hard to believe that a security firm has only three men in charge of doing all the dirty work of conspiracies.

On the other hand, is not so hard to believe that just as in the case of Bauman-Vogt it is just a physical resemblance. Nor is it hard to believe that in the birthplace of capitalism it is normal to hire external companies to do the work of the police and take over part of the security of a public event.

Quite another thing is to think that there are private security companies that want to cash in the misfortune of others. That's not a conspiracy; it's as real as life itself. Vultures are everywhere, but taking advantage of disasters does not mean they want to nor have the ability to provoke them.

There are many more theories. Like the one that puts a wounded Saudi citizen as a terrorist involved in the attack who spoke to Michelle Obama at the hospital, implying it was all a Government plot and a false flag attack.

Conspiracists forget to mention that the First Lady also visited many more people wounded in the attack in the same hospital as part of a visit by the President and her. Maybe the President and the First Lady visiting wounded people in a terrorist attack seems like a weird thing to these conspiracists too.

But even if we accept for a moment that any of the theories raised could be plausible –which they aren’t-, to do this for the simple fact of doing it, for fun, would make no sense. The question to ask is not who, but why. The motive behind the actions is what gives us more information about an event in itself.

Who wins here? Not the Obama administration, for starters. The bombers didn’t use assault weapons but handmade devices, which does not serve to promote legislation for gun control as the U.S. government wants to do.

It has not been either an enemy country behind the attack, no matter how Muslims are the Chechens. In fact, in the past Chechnya has been a great tool to poke Russia and Putin in the eye, for their violent handling of the problem. Russia has told many times America to mind their own business and let them take care of their “internal affairs” alone.

It makes no sense to organize this now and be forced to agree with Russia that the Chechens are terrorists, nor is viable an invasion in Chechnya (Russian territory).

In the end, many of the conspiracy theorists, and many of those who jump on the bandwagon with them, are the same who commit serious blunders in other matters. From using the attack to defend their personal causes (such as the possession of firearms or the legality of torture of detainees) to order the stupid idea of an invasion of the Czech Republic (which forced the Czech ambassador to issue a statement reporting that Chechnya and the Czech Republic are in fact two different entities and geographically separated).

The youngest of the brothers, now that he has begun to talk, will certainly further clarify things.

Meanwhile, I personally find the tinfoil hatters have a vast the imagination. But in the end, in these cases it is best to apply Occam's razor: the correct solution is the simplest. In this case probably the brothers Tsarnaev were lone wolves acting alone.

A possibility, by the way, that should be even more frightening. In a more or less organized group, even if it is based on cells, it is easier to control what will happen. If we are fighting lone wolves that can act independently and at any time, everything gets much more unpredictable and dangerous.