Day Two: About All We Know Is That the Attack Succeeded

It’s a fine spring day in Boston, and the area around Copley Square has been turned into a police-military encampment. Barricades have been erected, National Guardsmen are on the streets, and anybody trying to get access to their office or home has to show identification.

To someone who was living in downtown Manhattan eleven and a half years ago, that sounds sadly familiar. Thankfully, the scale of the damage and the casualty list isn’t anything like as big now as it was then. The tally of dead and injured could easily have been much larger. But a terrorist attack isn’t just about numbers: it’s about creating fear and terror and anger, and it’s about grabbing attention. With much of central Boston in a state of lockdown, normal business in Washington largely suspended, and the media in full-on saturation coverage mode, the attacks have already achieved their aims.

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