Here are a few quick thoughts about the Boston Marathon atrocity, which may hopefully help to explain at least the large context of events

First, one might see this as being in some respects blowback from the destruction of the Soviet Union, although in this case, unlike the case of the Taliban, bin Laden, and Al Queda, where the U.S. and the CIA funded and provided logistical support for the "freedom fighters" who then proclaimed their holy war against the U.S, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin, also hailed by U.S. cold warriors, may very well be the prime culprit

First, as the Soviet Union collapsed from above, strong man Yeltsin supported anti-Communist elements who attacked the Chechen Soviet.   Then when these elements, led by the anti-Soviet adventurer and warlord Dzhoker Dudayev( whose first name is that of the killer whom the police are currently hunting, perhaps a coincidence, perhaps not) sought a separatist state in a region important for pipelines, Yeltsin invaded the region, destroyed its capital, Grozny, which hugely escalated the conflict and also brought in rightwing Muslim clerical elements  with Saudi connections. Dudayev has been dead for years but the conflict remains with terrrorist attacks against Russian targets and Russian retaliation. 

At this point, little is really known about the two brothers who carried out these atrocities.  The initial reports from family members and friends are contradictory, 

 They  from these reports apparently participated in the ego tripping world of "social media "both here and in Russia..  A news report states that their father, who was a car mechanic here went back to Russia.  Their  reported social media posts proclaim support for Islam in a completely superficial and non belligerant way, like old fashioned U.S. Christian commercials like "the family that stays together prays together" 

Much, much more has to known about their and their families background and experiences in Chechnya, and their  and their families activities in the U.S., their sources of income, connections, etc, all of which are legitimate questions for police/intelligence services to investigate..  Although I am not in any way sympathetic to the present Russian government, (one of the killers comments on Russian "social media" which have been reported in the press is that  the two most important things are "career and money" which would fit int perfectly with the "new Russia of Yeltsin and Putin)this might be an area in which the U.S. and Russian governments could engage in fruitful cooperation

But there are other points which we on the left should make and make now.  Attempts by Republicans to use these events to attack immigration reform are two faced and baseless.  These individuals have nothing to do with the millions of exploited undocumented workers who form a substrata of the U.S. work force.

They came to U.S. legally, even benefitted according to press reports from athletic scholarships to Boston high schools and were not distinguishable from the general teen-age consumer demographic that our advertisers appeal to. 

If there is a bigger picture  to this, besides the sociopathic response of two youths, it is first in the events that led to the destruction of the Soviet Union, which our Republicans hail as the triumph of liberty and democracy aka capitalism, and the existence of a mass market in weapons in the U.S. which make guns particularly as easy to get a hold of as they probably are in Chechnya, policies that the Right Republicans continue to front for,

  Even though I am aware that some Chechen nationalists blame the U.S. government for not supporting them against Russia(as if any sane person anywhere would not understand that the U.S. government would have no interest on any level in antagonizing the anti-Communist government in Moscow, the first government in power in Moscow that it could support since 1917, on behalf of regional separatists) there is no evidence at this time that there was any connection between these groups and the killers. 

And the same is true concerning rightwing Muslim groups who engage in terrorist attacks, that is, the targeting of innocent bystanders to make political points.   If there is any connection here, it is an example of tradional blowback, but as of now nothing has been discovered along these lines

 In this case, the fact that these individuals made no such pronouncements makes them at this time look more like sociopathic serial killers, pyromaniacs, etc, for whom the actual act of destruction is their only real goal, along with fame, not any political cause,

Finally, as the story unfolds, the Obama administration deserves a good deal of credit for not doing with the Bush administration most certainly would have--fan the flames of hysteria to advance their political agenda, put the nation on full alert, point to various foreign powers and connections and make threats of major military action.  Terrorism is a police matter first and foremost and as of now, as I am writing, with one of the killers dead and the other being hunted in an area of Boston where hopefully he will be captured, the police have done a good job 

In the weeks though we must join the ideological struggle against those who have already crippled the attempt to create more effective gun and weapons control in the nation and will be attempting to use this example of what our lack of weapons control leads to in order to  cripple immigration reform legislation.