Public Enemy #2 captured
Well, unless you were on a desert island yesterday, you probably already know that suspect #2 in the Boston Marathon bombing, Dzokhar (“Jahar”) Tsarnaev, was captured last night alive though wounded.
You may have noticed that I was AWOL from the blog while all this was going on, despite the enormity of the news. You may have thought that I was the one marooned on a desert island—but no, I was actually flying cross country and watching the action on TV but out of computer range, although my fingers were itching to write about it in real time.
A tremendous relief for the city of Boston and for the country, including the fact that Dzokhar has a good chance to live and be interrogated and then tried.
As for me, don’t worry; i plan to keep blogging during this visit.
Once again, so many of the facts are still unknown. What is Dzokhar’s medical condition at this point? When was he shot? Did he and his brother actually rob a convenience store or not? Did they release the guy whose car they commandeered, or did he escape?
But most of all, why did they do it in the first place?
Obviously we know the “why” to a certain extent. The older, less assimilated, less friendly, more religious brother was apparently the leader in the enterprise. They two are Chechens and Muslims, and there is little question that both of these facts were driving forces in their terrorist activities. But how and when did they “turn”—particularly the younger brother, whom everyone seems to describe with words like “friendly,” “normal,” “American” (which is not the usual profile of a terrorist bomber)? Was it during Tamerlan’s recent trip back to Dagestan (with a possible side trip to Chechnya)? If so, how did he influence the younger man?
And especially, what was the extent of any outside involvement or training? Is this the beginning of a new wave of “American” Islamicist terrorists?
Except that they carried out their attack, how is this new? Isn’t there already a good-sized list of Islamic terrorists who are American citizens or long-time legal residents?
Gateway posted that the mother was arrested a few years ago for shoplifting $1,600 worth of clothes from Lord and Taylor. WaPo said the same today. It sounds like a thoroughly screwed up family. And the mom and aunt are blaming the US. Maybe there is a gene for conspiracy thinking.
I also read that the mom seemed to be following her older son’s religious turn. We probably have a bit of Muslin male dominance here. And didn’t Tamarlan run into some trouble for domestic violence?
We have got to stop with this multi-culti baloney. Immigrants need to know that if they come to the US, they play by US rules and they are responsible for instilling our values into their kids.
Grateful but. We’ll be treated to a circus of a trial. At its end, a laughably light sentence because the young man cooperated. His lawyer might even get him put in a nice loonybin. And we all will be a little more acclimated to living in the Surveillance State. Is it worth it? Half of me agrees with Napoleon’s comment after a particularly bloody battle, “One Saturday night in Paris will make up for all this.”
“they play by US rules and they are responsible for instilling our values into their kids.”
Obamacan values being instilled into kids will probably result in the same thing in the long term: violent fervor.
The Left has no interest in fighting Islam or terrorists, since those are their allies. They will only seriously consider fighting the jihad when their closer enemies, the US Constitution and American loyalists, are defeated first. Then they and Islam can fight over what’s left, just like Hitler did with Stalin after Poland.
If there is one thing that has come out for reflection, it’s, as Armchair says, the Surveillance State.
How come back during a saner time just 5 years ago, terrorist attacks were stopped and the frequency seemed rather limited and now people are dying left and right?
It’s almost as if the world hates Obama more than they ever hated America. Or maybe incompetence being voted in has more impactful consequences than just who gets to have a job in the economy.
The older kid is named after Tamerlane. Tamerlane’s wars of conquest supposedly killed about 17 million people, about 5%of the world’s population at the time. Called himself the “Sword of Islam”.
So, if you name your kid that, what are you saying?
These men could have been christianized and saved. But the empty, man-fearing nannies of the Northeast had them and could not reach them. Little or nothing needs to be explained why. I’d rather be a Muslim than a pusillanimous consort.
The same nannies now “decry” the alienation the two men experienced and blame it on Islamophobia.
Travel safely, Neo.
Get a load of this UK Daily Mail story:
Revealed: ‘Relaxed’ Boston bomber partied with college friends two days AFTER marathon massacre
He is also a 9/11 truther who thinks it was an inside job. So then he ends up committing a terrorist act himself. How’s that for irony?
I should rather say these men “might” have been christianized. Their actions were more the actions of “losers,” “blamers,” and “sloths.” Sloths in that they refused to do the hard work to find a place where they could fit in. My point is that a good strong Christian church that preached and practiced fidelity, abstinence, temperance, self-discipline and accountability could have given these men a home and should they have chosen to accept it, a future.
Besides the senseless deaths, the thing that still leaves a bad taste in my mouth is the locking down/”shelter in place” order that shut down Boston and the surrounding areas.
We told a world full of predators that two young, homemade jihadists( likely) could completely paralyze a major city and send citizens to hide in their houses, mostly weapon less.
Did we catch them? Sure.
Did we encourage more attacks? Absolutely. This was the biggest mistake made by the Good Guys. The terrorists were caught or killed in round three but rounds one and two were won by the Chechen brothers.
There is blood in the water now.
neo asks, “Is this the beginning of a new wave of “American” Islamicist terrorists?”
Jim Sullivan states, “Did we encourage more attacks? Absolutely. This was the biggest mistake made by the Good Guys.”
This could be the beginning of more frequent but less spectacular attacks. This was, as Islamist attacks go, relatively small. But it created a big affect on the country and the Boston area. That is the aim of Fourth Generation warfare – cause the target to spend big, while the attackers use minimal resources to create havoc and fear.
I’m surprised the jihadis haven’t gone this route. In fact, I fully expected them to change their strategy after we knocked down the plot to blow up several airliners enroute from Great Britain to the U.S. Spectacular attacks take a lot of planning and more resources than an attack like Boston. I know what I would do if I were in their shoes. I would be trying to carry out frequent, simpler attacks against soft targets done by small groups/cells. However, I would not have my foot soldiers stay near the scene of the crime. The more mobile they are the more the target has to spend in resources to find them. More attacks and more diifficult apprehensions of the attackers = more fear and havoc.
Let us hope that Boston was a one off, not the start of a new strategy.
JJ,
Given the spectacular success of IED’s in Iraq and Afghanistan, I have wondered for years why they weren’t employing this tactic here. the only two answers I can come up with are: 1) there aren’t that many in the US to carry out such a strategy, or 2) they are just too dumb to think of it….. until now.
The tactic has been employed by self-actualized terrorists in the US before. The Times Square bomber’s attack, for example, would have been big. The Tsarnaev brothers simply succeeded where others failed.
These two were smart enough to make bombs that worked but either underestimated the surveillance system, both formal and informal, or wanted to be caught. They also may have over estimated the power of their bombs, thinking it would kill everyone who could have ID’ed them, rather than only blow off the limbs of the majority of victims.
President not-rush-to-judgment-(Trayvon?)-Obama has dedicated the full power and resources of the federal government to answer the question of why these men, who were raised in our community and country, committed these “acts of violence.”
Two little turds with cooking pots closed down a whole city & tied up who knows how much of our counter terror resources chasing them around town. Next time will it be a lost-cost diversion to clear the way for a dirty bomb attack?
But here’s your gov’t catching a public enemy before he kills:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/19/8th-grader-arrested-suspended-for-nra-protect-your-right-t-shirt-with-image-of-gun/
Alternate title: The right way to terrorize
Alternate alternate title: How to raise successful kids
Eric: even if no witnesses nearby had lived, the surveillance cameras would have ID’d them. Authorities could figure out what was ground zero for the bomb placements, and could then go back to videos and see who did it. The eyewitness descriptions probably helped, but they could have IDed them anyway, and I don’t think it would have taken that much time.
I think if the bombers underestimated something, it was the extent of surveillance (official and amateur). But they may have either wanted to be caught, or thought they would inevitably be caught and accepted it, or thought they would be able to get away in time (although they don’t seem to have tried all that hard to get away–except for the carjacking).
It is Islam, not just to a certain extent but the entire extent of why. How does one assimilate to a non-Islamic society with a scimitar hanging over your neck? Islam fortifies and conducts itself through mosques, Islamic centers, Islamic organizations, the WWW, and has the Left and the MSM constantly calling for native understanding of the alien. If you immigrate to Mecca you had better understand Islam. If you come to America you better understand America. If you’re a muslim, don’t bother coming.
On Terror.
Actual:
Abdulrahman al-Rashed – the general manager of Al-Arabiya television:
Headline – “The Painful Truth: All the World Terrorists are Muslims!”
Story – “Our terrorist sons are an end-product of our corrupted culture.”
Virtual:
The West, i.e., LibProgSocs, pundits, luminaries, futurists, apologists:
Headline — “It’s Our Fault”
Story — Your terrorist sons are the end-product of centuries of our culture of, racism, Orientalism, colonialism – and don’t forget the Crusades.
There should be no place in this country, or anywhere in the West, for Islam, mosques, minarets, screeching muezzin, muslims, the Qur’an (except as a source of astonishment and warning), and appeasement.
The only crime defined in the Constitution is treason. Suspect #2 was a citizen, who should be tried by the Supreme Court and, if convicted, executed. The more hullabaloo about it the better, IF we follow through. It won’t happen of course. President Pusillanimous will see to that. OTOH, if the whole thing drags out for three and a half years, and we get a President of the United States, not an Occupiers of the Resolute Desk, it could come to pass. Such a course of action would anger some people, precisely because it sends a message so effectively. Martin Richard’s parents should be offered the right to pull switch on the gallows.
We should learn from Israel:
http://anneinpt.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/yom-hazikaron-2013-israels-memorial-day/
April 15, 2013 was Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism.
Jim Sullivan: “the thing that still leaves a bad taste in my mouth is the locking down/”shelter in place” order that shut down Boston and the surrounding areas.”
This is very disturbing. For all intents and purposes the various agencies involved enforced martial law without the mayor or the governor formally declaring marshall law. In the end it was a private citizen who actually found the second terrorist and this was apparently after her neighborhood was declared ‘safe’.
I would like to know if FBI data bases flagged Tamerlane as a possible suspect within a few hours (if not minutes) after the attack. He had to be in their system because they investigated him in the not too distant past. Overall the entire counter terrorism response does not inspire confidence.
Jim Sullivan I agree.
Those two shut down a whole city, and the spectacle of hundreds or thousands of heavily armed law enforcement people running about town in armored vehicles while citizens were confined to their homes seemed incredible when considering they were chasing around a 19 year old amateur.
In the end after all the kudos the FBI are getting from the media for solving this so fast, they were no where without an eye witness to point them out in photos. Surveillance or not, had that poor guy not survived, nothing seemed to jump out as abnormal about the two brothers. At least not in the short term.
That is another lesson the jihadists will no doubt learn – the FBI isn’t mystical- those two could have been long gone had they wanted to escape.
Neo says: “But how and when did they “turn”–particularly the younger brother, whom everyone seems to describe with words like “friendly,” “normal,” “American”
The more I think about this question, which will be debated from now until Christmas, the more I think it shouldn’t be a mystery – we turned them. We – that is our present culture, facilitated the “radicalization” of these two.
Consider a pair of immigrants today who are raised in a culture that routinely mocks and devalues itself. School curricula which from K to 12th grade value everything but a homogeneous culture for America, a learning environment that places blame on our country for climate change, selfishly using more than it’s fair share of resources, excessive wealth, imperialism, starting wars for oil and indiscriminant killing of women and children. That’s the short list. Popular media and entertainment ridicule conservative thought, romanticize drug use, violence, promiscuity, etc.
I’m not a Puritan by any stretch of the imagination, but for years, formal education, popular culture, and news media rejected patriotism and love of our country and celebrating our successes, in favor of almost exclusive attention to all our mistakes. In fact, the mistakes have been exaggerated and the success denigrated to the point we seem like an empty decadent people. Liberal media and liberal educations have done the job for our enemies; we have shown we hate ourselves as much as they do, and what’s more, we’ve made America bashing fashionable on campuses, in film, in popular music. How hard is it for young immigrants without parental roots here to be turned into bombers and terrorists, when we refuse to promote our country and it’s foundations as something to be proud of? Many Americans traveling abroad are ashamed to admit they are Americans because they’ve been brainwashed in their own country to believe they’re the crap of the earth. I have seen it firsthand.
What do France and England, Holland, and Denmark share in common with us? Blossoming homegrown terrorists and liberal educational and political structures that are all too eager to criticize their own traditional cultures in favor of a “world view”. The one thing they all agree on is WE suck more then they do.
My opinion is we don’t need to look much further than our own lack of courage to stand up for ourselves and for tolerating political correctness. If we’re afraid to instill a sense of pride and accomplishment in our kids about our country, and unwilling to restrain ourselves from never-ending self ridicule, what should we expect?
What will be the answer to these guys’ disgusting behavior? More self loathing, introspection and worrying about how we failed to include or recognize “their culture”. More political correctness, not less -it’s almost guaranteed. If those two brothers had been raised here to believe they were in great place, that being an American was a source of pride, they would not have felt the need to go back to their roots for that pride or sense of belonging.
End of rant.
Electing Leftists like Obama is pretty much a self-declaration of the intent to suicide on a national and historical level.