The bombing in Boston is a tragedy, and everyone should condemn the actions of people who have destroyed the lives of people enjoying themselves watching the marathon.

But last week in Afghanistan a US airstrike killed eleven children and several women. This Afghan bombing is only one of many that are killing civilians every week.

In Iraq bombs go off in crowded areas regularly. A wave of bombings across the country yesterday left at least 75 Iraqis dead.
And in Syria too, there is a daily repetition of carnage that is killing countless civilians.

Judged by the media coverage, it is hard not to conclude that western lives are valued much more highly than those of people in Afghanistan or the Middle East, and that bombs in the middle of major US cities are regarded as more newsworthy than those in the Afghan countryside or in Baghdad.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has made a series of public statements ostensibly in mourning for the 25-year-old Foreign Service officer Anne Smedinghoff - one of five Americans, including three soldiers, killed in a Taliban car bomb attack in Afghanistan's southern province of Zabul on Saturday.

The death of someone so young is tragic, as it has been for nearly 2,200 American troops killed in 11 years of war and occupation. Yet Kerry's remarks aim not so much at comforting grieving family members and friends, as at justifying and defending the war that cost this young woman's life.

He said that the death presented "a stark contrast for all of the world to see between two very different sets of values." On the one hand, he said, was "a brave American ... determined to brighten the light of learning through books written in the native tongue of the students that she had never met, but whom she felt compelled to help," while on the other, were "cowardly terrorists determined to bring darkness and death to total strangers."

The same day that Anne Smedinghoff lost her life, a US airstrike killed at least 18 people, including 11 children ranging from a few months to eight years old. Six women were badly wounded in the attack. Kerry uttered not a word of sympathy for the loss of these young lives, nor for the parents left to grieve them. Needless to say, the death of 11 children received not one one-hundredth of the coverage given to that of the American diplomat in the US media, which, as always, is contemptuous of Afghan lives.

Leading US senators have urged President Obama to get involved directly and use military force in the two years old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria. It isn't that UK and US haven't been involved so far; it's just that both imperial powers have used their proxies to oust Assad from power. The proxies doing the bidding of the western powers are mainly Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey.

Syria has traditionally remained under Russian influence and has relied on Russian military equipment as most of the Arab countries bought military hardware from the western powers. Russia has had a naval port facility in Tartus, Syria, since 1971. Intriguingly, why is Russia, by its inaction, absent from the Syrian scene, despite the presence of its naval force at Tartus when the western powers unite to shore up insurgency against Asad's government?

"Russia is not looking to oust Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and wants the conflicting parties to negotiate and stop the 'massacre', putting an end to the 'catastrophe' in Syria", President Vladimir Putin recently told a German broadcaster in an interview. "We do not think that Assad should leave today, as our partners suggest. In this case, tomorrow we will have to decide what to do and where to go" Putin said. Instead of asserting itself forcefully, the Russian response to the ongoing insurgency in Syria is apathetic. Once Assad goes and the western powers install their proxy in Syria, Russia will have to vacate the naval port there. It seems Russia's withdrawal to self-isolation after its misadventure in Afghanistan continues.

The human suffering in Syria, which has escalated from crisis to disaster over the past two years, is the nefarious work of Western governments and their regional allies. It is a simple, provable, glaringly obvious truth. Yet, the thought-control Western mainstream media manage to somehow turn reality on its head, and make a virtue out of something vile and unspeakably villainous.

Western imperialism has created a human tsunami of suffering in Syria. And rather than making any effort to mitigate this suffering by delivering on much promised refugee aid, the Western powers seem to exploiting the massive misery for political advantage to further undermine the Syrian state and government. This tactic of enforced human deprivation is straight out of the Middle Ages, when invading armies would hold siege of cities by enforcing starvation on the occupants.

Two reports this week testify to the above conclusion - albeit indirectly. The first comes from various United Nations relief organizations for refugees. The UN agencies say that food, water and other basic provisions to some 1.3 million refugees that have poured out of Syria and to more than 4 million remaining within the war-torn country will soon no longer be afforded. The dire situation is because only a fraction of the $1.5 billion pledged earlier this year by international donors has actually been received.

Reuters cited Panos Moumtzis, the UN refugee agency's regional coordinator for Syrian refugees, as saying: "The speed with which the crisis is deteriorating is much faster than the ability of the international community to finance the Syrian humanitarian needs".

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.

A letter addressed to Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss, tested positive for ricin poison, says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

The envelope, which was intercepted at an off-site Capitol mail facility, tested positive three times, according to the Associated Press.

Senators were briefed on the threat in a closed-door meeting Tuesday night. Coming a day after two blasts killed three and wounded 176 people at the Boston Marathon, the ricin-tainted letter spurred renewed fears about terrorism.

Senator Claire McCaskill said authorities have a suspect, but she did not say if an arrest had been made. Terrance Gainer, the Senate sergeant-at-arms, said in an emailed message to Senate offices that the envelope had no obvious suspicious outside markings, bore a Memphis, TN., postmark and had no return address.

Adding further heartbreak to utter tragedy, the last mile of Monday's Boston Marathon, which was rocked by at least two explosions resulting in an unknown number of injuries and casualties Monday afternoon, was dedicated to the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting massacre. Boston Athletic Association president Joanne Flaminio said before the race that had a "special significance" because it was 26.2 miles long and there was 26 victims in the Newtown attack. There was also a group of Newtown parents running as part of a group called Team Newtown Strong who were raising money for local charities. A banner honoring the victims, hung at the end of the 26th mile, can be seen in the photo above.

"In the first twenty miles we're honoring the twenty Sandy Hook first graders," Laura Nowacki, a spokesperson for Newtown Strong, explained to WBUR Boston. "When we crest Heartbreak Hill, and we're coming back towards Boston, we run the final six for our six fallen educators, including their lives, to protect our children."

There was a 26-second moment of silence for the victims before the race started.

Update, 4:07 p.m. Eastern: Newtown families were reportedly seated in the VIP section right by where the explosions went off. There's no word whether they are among the 23 injured and two dead from the explosions. Click here for updates.

Israeli regime's spy agency, Mossad, has threatened to assassinate officials of the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas.

Israel Radio quoted a Hamas spokesman as saying that Israel's spy agency, Mossad, has sent warning messages to Gaza officers and security forces, threatening to assassinate those fighting against the regime.

The threats came after Hamas said last week that its security forces arrested a number of people on suspicion of espionage for certain Western and Arab spy agencies in the Gaza Strip.

Six more innocent Britons were thrust into the international murder plot of a Hamas leader after it emerged yesterday that their identities had also been stolen.

The revelation means at least 12 British identities were cloned to carry out the audacious hit on Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai.

Dubai police yesterday identified 15 new suspects over the attack at a luxury hotel, bringing the total number to 26.

The assassination, which bears all the hallmarks of a spy novel, is widely believed to be the work of Israel's feared secret service Mossad.

Among the six new Britons named yesterday is Gabriella Barney, 23 - whose father Michael was among the first group of 'suspects' to be named.

The father and daughter live in Israel on dual passports.

Relatives of those named yesterday expressed their fear and worry over the development.

The other British passport owners were named as Daniel Marc Schnur, 32, Roy Allan Cannon, 62, Stephen Keith Drake, 54, Mark Daniel Sklar, 30, and Philip Carr, 35. Three Irish passport holders, three Australians and three French were also on the list.

Al-Mabhouh was electrocuted and suffocated in his hotel room on January 20.