Tweet
How would a discussion of the suspect on Casebook prejudice a future trial? It would have to be capable of influencing a jury...!!!
Phil
Phil
-
-
Best to be safe. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. The rest of you will have to make your own decisions.Comment
-
What a stupid thing to say!Originally posted by Beowulf View Post
A Belfast Republican in 1972: "Well, what do you know. They're Protestants."
A Belfast Unionist a week later: "Well, what do you know. They're Catholics."
I consider Stephen Stills and Neil Young to be two of the most contemptible persons to have ever stepped into the limelight, but truer words were never spoken when Buffalo Springfield sang "Nobody's right if everybody's wrong".Comment
-
Yes, they're Muslim. But there is a pretty good chance they are Sufi, which is not exactly some violence mongering sect.Originally posted by Beowulf View PostWell, what do you know. They're Muslims.
While some on the Left speculated that the Boston bombing was the work of right-wing domestic groups, we now know that the two brothers who planted the bomb — the now deceased older brother Tamerlan Tzarnaev, and his younger sibling Dzhokhar — considered themselves to be religious Islamists as well as defenders of the Chechen cause.
On Dzhokhar’s Russian Facebook page, a drawing of a bomb has the heading “send a gift,” and on his sibling Tamerlan’s You Tube page, as Robert Spencer points out, are “two videos by Sheikh Feiz Mohammed. According to a report published in The Australian in January 2007, in a video that came to the attention of authorities at the time, Mohammed ‘urges Muslims to kill the enemies of Islam and praises martyrs with a violent interpretation of jihad.’”...The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.Comment
-
I share this sentiment. Unfortunately, some in the United States do not. Since the rise of the Tea Party movement in 2009, there has been an element of the US left (almost entirely in the media...not among politicians who have a better sense of decorum) who has jumped to blame every mass-shooting or attack on the far right. It's as if they hope the far right will discredit itself through violence.Originally posted by Limehouse View Post
Of course, every attack has turned out to be done by somebody so deranged that it is useless to speak of their politics (including the ricin attacks earlier this week).Comment
-
The far right in America discredits itself every day on their own. They need no assistance from the left.Originally posted by Damaso Marte View Post
JMComment
-
At the Boston Marathon, flags from all over the world representing the nations of the participants line the parade route.
I just read that one of the bombs was placed under the Russian flag.
That seems deliberate, and therefore somehow symbolic in the minds of the bombers.
But being from Chechnya, resenting Russian domination and the long Chechnyan War, then blowing up Americans doesn't make much sense.
Best regards,
ArchaicComment
-
Even if the surviving brother lives, I suspect we'll have to wait a long time before we are clear on motive.
The fury of their fight to survive suggests some determination, yet why stay in the Boston area after the bombs went off? That defies belief and begs capture - or a final fight. Not suicides but suicidal, it seems!!
Why so amateur - no getaway car - one had to be highjacked? Why rob a convenience store? To draw attention to themselves?
PhilComment
-
Hi Archaic,Originally posted by Archaic View Post
I would agree with you, as the Russians put down the Chechyans in two wars (during which there were several violent terrorist acts against the Russians). However, the Americans have been in the vanguard of the Iraqi, Afghani, and Pakistani wars, and in police actions against Somali pirates. We have been involved in lesser positions in North Africa in Libya. Even if we have begun disengagement we are aware that many Shiite and Suni extremists disapprove of our activities. And they will not agree to see it from our point of view at all (i.e., we are not going to tolerate killing twenty five hundred people by destroying two skyscrapers and four planes, and hitting the Pentagon). In fact, I sometimes wonder if there was a secondary message in the 9/11 destruction of the twin towers (the second terrorist attack on those buildings in a decade, by the way). Their precious Sharia law mandated that only buildings owned by Mohammadans could be above a certain height.
Further, America (aside from a few vague protests), did not rush to Chechnya's aid when it tried to become independent. Probably because we did not want a crazy situation with Russia.
As for hurting the jury pool by publishing our thoughts on the internet, given the activities so well chronicled on the news of this precious pair of brothers I think the jury pool may be tainted already - and there is little that the surviving brother and his lawyer can do about that!
JeffComment
-
As I recall, Jeff, the Chechin situation blew up at a time when the break-up of the USSR was still in progress - under Yeltsin.
Given the geographic location of Chechnya it woukld have been very difficult, not to mention politically dangerous in many ways, for a western power to become involved one way or another. Besides it was a particularly awful civil war with little to chose between the belligerents.
The former Russian republics are a strange lot, some dictatorships, others deeply corrupt - as with Georgia I cannot begin to imagine what the world view might be of someone from, brought up in, or of ethnic descent from one of those countries.
The brothers in the Boston case seem to have been intelligent (at least the surviving one is said to be) and they have grown up in, and had at least 10 years to take in the American perspective. I wonder what it was that made them, for all the USA might offer, prefer a sort of martyrdom.
They seem to have been separated from family - no mention of mother, father back in Asia, uncle apparently distanced. Were they lonely? Alienated in some way/
I find those the important questions, rather than religious ones (which can just be the colouring). Surely what we need to know is what makes youths like this (in any country) susceptible, vulnerable, open to the allure of the fundamentalist or the terrorist.
One thing that I have asked myself - in terms of home-grown UK terrorism - is this: in an age of large scale migration and large ethnic minorities in many countries, where does the fundamental loyalty lie?
A Pakhistani born and living in the UK (or equivalent nationality in the US): does he or she regard themselves as British or American, or do they see themselves as remaining basically a memeber of their family home/parent nation, and as only residing in their adopted birthplace/ therin may reside an issue that needs to be tackled.
PhilComment
-
Hi Phil,Originally posted by Phil H View Post
As far as your point about migrating ethnic minorities and fundamental loyaties goes, it is not such a new phenomenon. On another thread I pointed out that in the age of the Ripper many Irish-Americans were avid supporters of Irish independence from Britain, and they were so anti-British that in 1884 and 1888 they helped sway two Presidential elections due to an unrepudiated slur against them in the former year, and a cleverly laid trap for a relatively stupid British diplomat (asked whom he thought would be better in the White House for Britain's sake) in the latter year.
In England the revolution of 1789, the Reign of Terror, the Napoleonic Wars, the revolution of 1830 (in France), the revolutions of 1848, and the coup-d'etat of Napoleon III in 1852 led to massive refugee problems from the continent, and many of the refugees were more concerned with their former homelands than Britain. Two classic examples: Victor Hugo fled Napoleon III as he was one of that gentleman's biggest critics. Hugo settled on one of the Channel Islands to be near France. When he wrote his novels, his comments on Britain were rarely friendly. He returned to France as soon as the Franco - Prussian War and the Paris Commune were over. He never regretted his views about his host nation. The other example was the mess in 1858 concerning Felice Orsini's plot against Napoleon III. The assassination plot (concocted by Orsini in London) required bombs. He got them in Birmingham, through the offices of Dr. Simon Bernard. After Orsini struck and killed over a dozen passersby, and was arrested, tried, and convicted, Napoleon III tried to get the good Dr. Bernard extradited. Prime Minister Palmeston seemed prepared to say yes, but Dr. Bernard was acquitted by a trial, and Palmeston's actions appeared to be to pro-French to be tolerated - so he was briefly thrown out of office.
The alien problem in England and the empire kept resuming every now and then. But it was not a new problem.
JeffComment
-
Jeff
Excellent and learned post, if I may say so.
But the problem remains?
PhilComment
-
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is in "serious but stable" condition, so it sounds like he will live to face trial.
There were signs that Tamerlane was coming under the influence of extremist views. I'm much more puzzled as to how the younger brother, Dzhokhar, came to be radicalized. Every person who knew Dzhokhar said he was just "a normal American college kid". His friends all said that he was a kind and considerate person. Dzhokhar seems to have fallen under the sway of his older brother. Perhaps this had something to do with the dynamics of their fractured family?
In the midst of the firefight with police, the older brother, Tamerlan, got out of his carjacked vehicle and walked straight towards police officers firing his gun, Hollywood movie-style, as if he was deliberately seeking "a martyr's death". The police fired back but still wanted to take him alive if possible, and an officer was able to come from the side, tackle him, and bring him to the ground.
Tamerlan was on the ground being handcuffed by a couple of police officers when Dzhokhar suddenly jumped into the carjacked vehicle and drove it "pedal to the metal" straight at the cops handcuffing his brother. The two cops barely had time to leap out of the way, and Dzhokhar struck and ran over his own older brother, actually dragging him for a short distance. Apparently it was being run over by Dzhokhar that created the massive open gash across Tamerlan's body and killed him. The police & rescue workers tried to resuscitate Tamerlan, but due to the multiple traumatic injuries were unable to do so.
Now I'm wondering if Dzhokhar intended to kill his older brother?
I'm thinking maybe Tamerlan had told Dzhokhar something to the effect that he "didn't want to be taken alive", and that's why he walked straight towards the police - he wanted to "die a martyr's death". Then when it looked like the police really were going to take Tamerlan alive, Dzhokhar got in the car and deliberately ran him over to kill him.
The strange thing to me is that Dzhokhar didn't try to go out in a similar 'blaze of glory'; he fled. He was wounded, and the target of a massive manhunt, so had virtually no hope of escape, yet he hid all day in a parked boat. Even when he was totally surrounded, he didn't commit suicide. I've read reports that he actually surrendered. The police were able to take him alive.
It makes me think that Dzhokhar didn't have the same ideological desire for "martyrdom" that his brother seemed to have. - Which leads one back to the question, why did "a normal college kid" go along with his older brother's incredibly violent plans in the first place?
Best regards,
ArchaicComment
-
Thanks Phil. My comment (although dealing with Britain) about the problem remaining I stand by. Think of a number of years back and the attack on the underground by terrorists. I don't recall but I think a few were living in England as immigrants. If I am wrong please correct me.Originally posted by Phil H View Post
JeffComment
-
Hi Archaic,Originally posted by Archaic View Post
We may never be totally sure about why Dzhokhar killed Tamerlan. He may have felt that Tamerlan might say something to the authorities that compromised their mother and sisters. Or he may have felt that Tamerlan would still have his martyr's death this way. Or he may have been furious that his elder brother involved him in so many deaths and crimes and felt like getting back at him (after all, even if your non-Islamic enemies have arrested you, if you are killed by being run over by a car that really isn't being martyred as it is supposed to be). Finally, there is an interesting if slim possiblity in here that may come out.
It is just possible that Dzhokhar hoped to somehow shake off the police dragnet and search and lay low long enough to somehow get back in touch with his mother and sisters, and that he hoped to find a place to recover to continue his jihad campaign elsewhere. When the two brothers stopped a car and forced the driver to drive at top speed, they wanted to get out of the state of Massachusetts and head for New York City. They said so. They did have all those additional bombs. Because of the chase they used the bombs against the police, but had they avoided the chase somehow they would have been armed enough to continue their campaign. Dzhokhar may very well have hoped he'd avoid capture, recover, and somehow reach his next destination for destruction. That (to me) is a slight possiblity.
JeffComment
Comment