Just as national politics is a sport in which our liberal Commonwealth is mostly a spectator, the war on terror seems lately to be something with only weird, oblique connections to our everyday life. Sure, several years ago it was all about Boston - one of the 9/11 planes left from here, and we had the shoe-bomber trial. But these days, it's never so clear-cut: Planes headed to Boston get diverted to other places to protect us from dangerous graffiti and former pop singers on board. Today, the Globe reports on another way in which Boston might be involved with global terrorism, maybe: Michael Sullivan, our local United States Attorney (who graciously shares his name with the mayors of Cambridge, Holyoke, and Lawrence), filed charges against a Canadian for providing weapons and chemicals to Al Qaeda and other anti-American forces in Afghanistan. What does this have to do with New England? The US Attorneys aren't telling, but maybe once the suspect is shipped into twon from Toronto and trial gets going, we'll find out. In the mean time, those in our area wishing to play a greater role in the global war on terror can feel happy knowing that the federal government may well be illegally eavesdropping on their international calls and e-mails already.
Image: It's a Minuteman, see? To represent New England? And Bin Laden represents terrorism? Get it?
add to digg
add to stumble upon
add to reddit