The Recruiting Center Bombing: Who's Making A Point?

Maybe the blast at the military recruiting center in Times Square was perpetrated by a “foreign terrorist group,” as Senator Clinton’s office suggests.  And maybe the bombing is tied to two other bombings — one from October outside the Mexican consulate, and another dating back three years outside the British Consulate — as reflexively and conspiratorially mentioned in many of the news reports.

On the other hand — although nobody seems to have considered the possibility — maybe someone (maybe even domestic!) got out-of-control over the way America has exercised it’s military might in a massive, thoroughly unilateral and unprovoked way in Iraq, and (just two weeks short of the 5 year anniversary of the invasion) decided to target an armed-forces recruiting center (re-branded a career center, by the way) for the specific reason that it happens to be an armed-forces recruiting center.

In contrast to the photo that accompanied the update at the City Room blog, Patrick Andrade’s shot (above) which ran in Thursday’s NYT “Pictures of the Day” is much more suggestive.

For the election year fear mongers (in both parties), the shattered glass door and the uniform peering suspiciously out from the pitch is just the right taste of Baghdad, an echo of the Rovian “if we don’t fight ’em there, we’ll be fightin’ ’em over here.”  And then, of course, we have the “takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’ Uncle Sam who, although a little yellowed, and despite the cracks and the broken glass, looks completely ready to (roll back a withdrawal pledge or two, and) kick more ass.

Blast Damages Times Square Recruiting Station (NYT City Room)

Statement of Senator Clinton on Blast at Times Square Armed Forces Recruiting Center (Clinton.Senate.gov)

Pictures of the Day, March 6th, 2008 (NYT Multimedia)



(image: Patrick Andrade for the New York Times. March 6, 2008.  linked image: Chip East/Reuters. nytimes.com)