Boston Marathon bombings

[tbm3fan]

My age approaches that of curmudgeon....

Nonetheless a lovable one. How could he not be? Look at that mug...

[Officer of Engineers]

I have one niece who went to University of Toronto

She was in the bosom of the Maple Leafs? And your family didn't disown her? And actually paid for her boarding? Oh, the horror.

[Albany Rifles]

She was in the bosom of the Maple Leafs? And your family didn't disown her? And actually paid for her boarding? Oh, the horror.

Yeah well she grew up in Buffalo, sir

Enough said.

And she married a Canadian who doesn't care about hockey.

Thank God my brother played piano in a whorehouse to bring some respectability back to the family name.

[Double Edge]

Long thread and i've not been available to post earlier. Given some of the coments i read that might have been a good thing. So here are the thoughts i had over the past few weeks about this incident.

First thing i look at is death counts, in this case its low, real low, wiki has it at 5(!). A lone shooter or pileup on the interstate would have killed more. That number allows me to reduce a lot into just a number. Tangible and meaningful. It serves as a degree of severity. Having read of so many attacks over the years this is an easy way to classify severity to me.

When i heard of pressure cooker style, bomb, immediately thought of 2006 and thought must be a subcontinental behind this. Course the deaths in that incident were a great deal higher because the bombs were in an enclosed space as opposed to these which were in the open and they had RDX.

Later on i learn its not a south asian but a chechen. Curious. Next question, where were the Russian targets ? No where. It turns out.

Why would a Chechen want to bomb Americans, that too in the US proper ? they gave him a second chance at life, a platform maybe to raise funds to send back to fighters at home. That will not happen now. Worse, he's turned the Americans against the Chechens. One of cypok's posts indicated the bombs were placed in front of Lord & Taylor and the mother previously had a run in with that shop. heh, so were they trying to get L&T.

Why did they do this. Getting radicalised is all well & good but choice of target matters a lot. What is the message here. None of the usual suspects are saying much.

Recall, Zawahiri saying some time ago that the people doing the dirty business are going to be lily white from now on. No more easy to spot middle easterners or south asians. So i guess he got one with this. As far as terror goes, this worked well, got the whole city locked down. Zawahiri can claim its still possible to attack the US and this may help in recruitment and maintaining momentum. Good PR even though the actual damage is light. Bombs still work well for terror. The psychological impact dwarfs everything else put together.

Now we get to see how the Americans will deal with this sort of attack which has been quite common in India & elsewhere over the past years. Always possible to hit the US with something new, the first time. The difficult bit is repeating it. So if the same policing success record is repeated as other incidents, i do not expect to see a repeat of the same anywhere in the US again. Just because i'm confident they'll throw everything incld. the kitchen sink to ensure that. The good news is that this was not homegrown, it still requires foreigners. Geography helps too. It continues to be difficult to raise terrorists and keep them motivated in the US.This is the only edge the US has over countries like UK, Israel or India.

[USSWisconsin]

While the death count was low for a terrorist attack, the number of injured and maimed was quite high - nearly 200. This attack will have lasting reminders, with all those people living with their wounds. It was a stab at the heart of America, a traditional amateur sports event. It seems like these punks wanted revenge for their mommi's shoplifting arrest. They were very nasty punks indeed and stupid too. The younger one ran over his vicious brother while he was escaping, and dragged him to death under the car (self imposed poetic justice?). The "crowd source" attempts to solve the case was another development - self important idiots jumping to feeble conclusions and getting those conclusions shown on TV and in the papers, followed up with moronic attempts to glorify that fiasco's "success". In the conspiracy theorist camp - it was Obama's fault - again and the Boston police too. The whole thing highlighted our lazy and incompetent news agencies - anything for a story before press time... Overall it was sickening, evil and pointless.

[Officer of Engineers]

And she married a Canadian who doesn't care about hockey.

They're called the Toronto Maple Leafs.

[Albany Rifles]

They're called the Toronto Maple Leafs.

I know who they are, sir. The Bruins beat them 5-2 last night.

[Officer of Engineers]

Hoping for a Bruins-Habs series but doesn't look like it will happen. Very much history in that one.

[Albany Rifles]

Hoping for a Bruins-Habs series but doesn't look like it will happen. Very much history in that one.

Want that bad....

[Agnostic Muslim]

Your question was

The answer is whatever the border agent decides it to be.

Which is still not an answer to the question, and I believe Bladmaster has expounded on why the answer is flawed.

[Officer of Engineers]

All that means is that you trade one bureaucrat for another who can still say no to your entry before he stamps your papers.

[tuna]

I'm thinking that some of these self radicalized islamists are just plain idiots who want to blow stuff up and hurt people and hide behind the terrorism angle to make themself seem dangerous / competent / bigger than what they are.

Pipe bombs being considered WMD now? Come on - half the males in this country have set off homemade explosives. Usually you do it at the sand pit or woods where no one will get hurt (maybe a mailbox for those who want to live dangerous and break a federal law) - because we like to blow stuff up. If explosions weren't fun - the 4th of july wouldn't have fireworks.

America gave these two clown a second chance at life and they tossed it away.

Americans risked their lives to save MUSLIMS during the Balkans - and get bombs for thanks.

[Agnostic Muslim]

All that means is that you trade one bureaucrat for another who can still say no to your entry before he stamps your papers.

Again, I didn't ask for a restatement of existing bureaucratic arbitrariness - I asked USSWisconsin how he (or any other American for that matter) would define 'demonstrated contempt for the US' ...

[Agnostic Muslim]

Americans risked their lives to save MUSLIMS during the Balkans - and get bombs for thanks.

Your statement implies Muslims, Muslim thought and Muslim behavior is monolithic and somehow indicative of a 'single being'.

[chanjyj]

Your statement implies Muslims, Muslim thought and Muslim behavior is monolithic and somehow indicative of a 'single being'.

If the peaceful Muslims are not going to stand up to the militant Muslims, they will eventually get lumped together, like it or not.