On April 19, 1993, 26 children were killed at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. Six years and one day later, 12 children were killed at Columbine High School. The Columbine murderers are dead, and the man who illegally supplied them a gun is facing a lengthy prison sentence. But those responsible for the deaths of the children at Waco remain at large.

If, as President Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno claim, the federal government bears no responsibility for the deaths of the children at Waco, why has the federal government worked so hard, and with so much success until recently, to falsify the facts about what happened there?

The lies about how the fire started commenced while the building was still in flames. A Justice Department spokesman in Washington claimed that an FBI sniper using a rifle scope had seen a male Branch Davidian, wearing black Ninja-style clothes and a black hood, pour liquid on the floor behind a piano and then ignite it. The day after the fire, Jeffrey Jamar, the FBI's special agent in charge at Waco, asserted that the agent saw a person "get down with cupped hands and then there was a flash of fire."

(A fertilizer bomb did this? Only in the black-op world where jet fuel can melt 2 skyscrapers...)

On April 19, 1993, in Waco Texas the U.S. government incinerated 86 of it's own citizens for the crime of exercising their constitutional rights of freedom of religion, right to bear arms, and freedom of speech. Timothy McVeigh, who had been at the scene to witness some of the events during the preceding 50 day standoff with U.S. troops, witnessed the inferno erupt on television. Two years later to the day, on April 19, 1995, the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City was destroyed by a bomb blast. McVeigh was arrested a short time later after being pulled over for driving a car with no license plate and possession of an unlicensed firearm. Several days later he was identified by witnesses as one of two people seen getting out of a Ryder rental truck that was parked in front just before the blast. The other suspect was never identified, and his existence was denied by the government even though he was caught on videotape.

We might never learn the motive behind the Boston Marathon bomb attack on Monday, April 15, which is reported to have killed three people and injured more than 170. It could be as simple as an unhinged individual going postal on tax day or a sinister message to Americans from a foreign national illustrating the proverb "You can run, but you can't hide." In any case, the improvised explosive devices (IED) were amateurish and ineffective at causing maximum casualty. According to investigators, the crude IED were made from rigged pressure cookers loaded with gunpowder, nails plus ball bearings, and triggered by egg timers. The clumsy work suggests an unbalanced individual rather than an organization. Nevertheless, all day Monday and Tuesday the United States and world media talked about a "terrorist attack," and the story became the only story. What matters more, however, is the way the incident will be exploited worldwide by policy makers and their media sycophants.

Attorney General Eric Holder (pictured) lies awake at night worrying about the threat to the homeland from home-grown terrorists.

"It's a very serious threat. I think what it says is that the scope, our scope, has to be broadened. We can't think that it's just a bunch of people in caves in some part of the world," Holder told ABC News on Wednesday. "We have to be concerned about the homeland to the same extent that we are worried about the threat coming from overseas."

The threat, as Holder sees it, is increased by the failure of the American people to fear the next attack.

"I worry a little that the American people, from the general population, has become a little complacent that we don't understand or realize that the threats are still real, that the danger is out there, is still tangible, that we still have to be as vigilant as we need to be," Holder told Pierre Thomas of ABC News.

The federal government remains vigilant, Holder proclaims.

The Boston Marathon bombing has provoked shock, grief and outrage from around the world. After decades of conditioning, the public automatically equates such terrorism with Muslim radicals. But the evidence shows that every major terror plot on American soil in the past 10 years has been fostered, funded and equipped by one organization: the FBI.

People around the world watched in horror this week as explosions rocked the finish line of the Boston Marathon, turning a day of sportsmanship and celebration into one of shock, grief and outrage. As with all such events, the desire to discover who was behind this cowardly act has driven many into a speculative frenzy. And, in a sad reminder of the indoctrination that the Western world has been under for over a decade now in the mythical "war of terror," it did not take long at all before the collective finger of the mob was pointed squarely in the direction of Muslim terrorists.

Tonight we are learning more about the Boston Marathon bombing tonight and yet there are still so many questions that have not been answered.

The biggest question of course, who is behind it?

Could it be that the FBI knows more about this attack than they are letting on? Could they have known about the attack before hand?

Ben is looking back at some recent history in order to look forward in a Reality Check you won't see anywhere else.

The U.S. government's military spending excess - when compared with the rest of the world - is down somewhat due mostly to troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan but still accounts for 39 percent of the global total, according to a new international study.

According to a report just released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), world military expenditures in 2012 totaled $1.75 trillion. And, the report revealed that, as in all recent decades, the world's biggest military spender by far was the U.S. government, whose expenditures for war and preparations for war amounted to $682 billion - 39 percent of the global total.

The United States spent more than four times as much on the military as China (the number two big spender) and more than seven times as much as Russia (which ranked third). Although the military expenditures of the United States dipped a bit in 2012, largely thanks to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, they remained 69 percent higher than in 2001.

As usual, the limits of selective empathy, the rush to blame Muslims, and the exploitation of fear all instantly emerge

There's not much to say about Monday's Boston Marathon attack because there is virtually no known evidence regarding who did it or why. There are, however, several points to be made about some of the widespread reactions to this incident. Much of that reaction is all-too-familiar and quite revealing in important ways:

(1) The widespread compassion for yesterday's victims and the intense anger over the attacks was obviously authentic and thus good to witness. But it was really hard not to find oneself wishing that just a fraction of that compassion and anger be devoted to attacks that the US perpetrates rather than suffers. These are exactly the kinds of horrific, civilian-slaughtering attacks that the US has been bringing to countries in the Muslim world over and over and over again for the last decade, with very little attention paid. My Guardian colleague Gary Younge put this best on Twitter this morning:

Juan Cole this morning makes a similar point about violence elsewhere. Indeed, just yesterday in Iraq, at least 42 people were killed and more than 250 injured by a series of car bombs, the enduring result of the US invasion and destruction of that country. Somehow the deep compassion and anger felt in the US when it is attacked never translates to understanding the effects of our own aggression against others.

One particularly illustrative example I happened to see yesterday was a re-tweet from Washington Examiner columnist David Freddoso, proclaiming:

Idea of secondary bombs designed to kill the first responders is just sick. How does anyone become that evil?"

The Federal Bureau of Investigation employs upwards of 15,000 undercover agents today, ten times what they had on the roster back in 1975.

If you think that's a few spies too many - spies earning as much as $100,000 per assignment - one doesn't have to go too deep into their track record to see their accomplishments. Those agents are responsible for an overwhelming amount of terrorist stings that have stopped major domestic catastrophes in the vein of 9/11 from happening on American soil.

Another thing those agents are responsible for, however, is plotting those very schemes.

The FBI has in recent years used trained informants not just to snitch on suspected terrorists, but to set them up from the get-go. A recent report put together by Mother Jones and the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California-Berkley analyses some striking statistics about the role of FBI informants in terrorism cases that the Bureau has targeted in the decade since the September 11 attacks.

• Bloodbath in Boston as two explosions rock finish line of famous Boston Marathon as race was winding down
• Officials urging people at the scene to leave as secondary explosive devices have been found
• Fox News is reporting three people killed; injuries still unknown
• New York City stepping up anti-terror efforts in wake of attack

Up to a dozen people have been killed in a deadly explosion and up to 60 people have been injured after two large explosions went off near the finish line of the famous Boston Marathon today, leaving behind a scene of unimaginable carnage.

Law enforcement sources told the New York Post of the body count, and said that the first explosion happened at the Fairmont Hotel.

Eyewitnesses at the scene said there were two loud explosions about five seconds apart, and emergency vehicles crowded the scene.

Witness Dave Weigel said via Twitter minutes after the explosion: 'I saw people's legs blown off. Horrific. Two explosions. Runners were coming in and saw unspeakable horror.'

Police told the Boston Globe that are they still finding 'secondary devices,' and pleading with anyone still in the area to leave at once.

A controlled explosion was set for outside the city library.