The Boston Marathon Bombing

Crazy People are Crazy

Spidergoat said:

Right. That and Islam.
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The problem with this approach is that it is not simply inconsistent, but also seems a willfully exclusive standard. When white Americans in Oregon plant a bomb and then issue a series of demands to police, it's not terrorism. When a white American flies an airplane into a federal building, it's not terrorism. We don't inquire about their Christianity, or their patriotism nationalism.

When a white American shoots up a cinema, and leaves bombs to kill the police investigating his trail, it's not terrorism. It's not religion. It's not nationalism. It's just a crazy guy.

When a white American shoots up a high school, it's not terrorism; it's merely murder.

When a white American shoots up an elementary school, it's not terrorism. Indeed, we don't freak out and start suspecting survivalists, tinfoils, and apocalyptics.

When a white Christian attempts to destroy a medical clinic as a protest against health care procedures, it's not terrorism. We don't go around investigating Christians, making their faith reasonable grounds for suspicion. No matter how many bombings, shootings, and arsons, white people in the United States making political statements through violence is not considered terrorism unless there is some toehold for exploitation. Muslim, immigrant, leftist ... as long as you're part of the American tradition—white, Christian, jingoistic, &c.—we'll make excuses in order to treat you better than other terrorists.

The fact is that crazy people are crazy; the only question of Islam, Christianity, nationalism, or any other such issue is how it affects the expression. When one is murdered, the reasons why cease to matter at the time of death, keeping importance only as a torch to guide those who remain through their diverse but predictable psychological responses.
 
Tiassa said:
The problem with this approach is that it is not simply inconsistent, but also seems a willfully exclusive standard. When white Americans in Oregon plant a bomb and then issue a series of demands to police, it's not terrorism. When a white American flies an airplane into a federal building, it's not terrorism. We don't inquire about their Christianity, or their patriotism nationalism.
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Err, people certainly do call it terrorism, and they certainly inquire about their Christianity, along with their political beliefs (right or left) when these offenses are committed by members of some definable group with a philosophy they demand to inject into legislation and/or the common political zeitgeist. What do you mean by 'their Christianity'? When they shoot up a high school, what are their reasons given for doing so?

You seem to split your proposition in the last paragraph, so that now intention is irrelevant: I assure that it certainly is relevant to those who come after. They are not unimportant.
 
pjdude1219 said:
Right because any and everything done by a Muslim is because of their faith. Why don't you just keep quiet until you get your bigotries in check.
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(CNN) -- Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has told investigators his older brother Tamerlan was the driving force behind last week's attack and that no international terrorist groups were behind them, a U.S. government source said Monday.

Preliminary interviews with Tsarnaev indicate the two brothers fit the classification of self-radicalized jihadists, the source said. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, wounded and held in a Boston hospital, has said his brother -- who was killed early Friday -- wanted to defend Islam from attack, according to the source.

...

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/22/us/boston-attack/index.html
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:shrug:

Now, if you want to argue that the justification was contemporary Islamist philosophy rather than Islamic theology, fine. It doesn't change the contemporary dynamics of Islamist terrorism, however.
 
Tiassa said:
The problem with this approach...
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When a Christian bombs an abortion clinic, they don't just happen to be Christian, Christianity is the source of their rage, and their faith is reasonable grounds (for me) to be suspicious. Alone, it may not be legal grounds for law enforcement, but that isn't my concern. I also don't care about how the label terrorism is applied. It's certainly possible that our legal system has a double standard. It's also possible that our system of liberal religious tolerance is incapable of handling the phenomenon of jihad. The fact is, there is a correlation between devoutness in Islam and religious violence. These people aren't crazy in any clinical sense, like Jared Lee Loughner. You may belittle the observation as a mere psychological response, but it's more important than that. Knowing the root cause of any such attack will only help us in the future, when it happens again.
 
spidergoat said:
When a Christian bombs an abortion clinic, they don't just happen to be Christian, Christianity is the source of their rage, and their faith is reasonable grounds (for me) to be suspicious. Alone, it may not be legal grounds for law enforcement, but that isn't my concern. I also don't care about how the label terrorism is applied. It's certainly possible that our legal system has a double standard. It's also possible that our system of liberal religious tolerance is incapable of handling the phenomenon of jihad. The fact is, there is a correlation between devoutness in Islam and religious violence. These people aren't crazy in any clinical sense, like Jared Lee Loughner. You may belittle the observation as a mere psychological response, but it's more important than that. Knowing the root cause of any such attack will only help us in the future, when it happens again.
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I'd go so far as to say that Islamic devoutness leads to decreased thresholds for the incidence of violence or - more commonly - the holding of violent sentiments, such that risk of becoming an 'Islamofacist' (as a binary descriptor) increases sharply with increasingly devout belief in Islam. This would presumably describe high proportions of conservative sentiment in surveys of socio-religious belief in Islamic countries.

At the same time, of course, there are individuals who have increased devoutness but would not be described as 'Islamofascists', and these represent the other side of that binary description. Sufis would presumably be increasingly represented in this group, assuming much of a distribution of belief among Sufis. (My impression was that they're all fairly devout, which would result in strong right-skew in the resulting risk regression for that subgroup.)

In comparison to other religions - for whatever reason, be they social, sociological, theological, economic or other - I think the corresponding risk curve in Christians or Jews would be different to the above, so that the risk of violent actions from 'Christofascists' (or whatever the common term is) or 'Judeofacists' (some would probably put Zionists or Israeli nationalists in this group) would be lower over the range of the distribution and not rise as sharply with increasing devoutness.

Sorry if this is a bad description; I don't usually work with risk models. It's been ages.
 
Voluntary Home Searches?

I heard about this yesterday but was waiting for video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_Gb6i5DF9k

I wonder if any people came home to find their doors busted in.

The 'everyone is a suspect' mentality that has been drilled into police heads has got to stop. If they come to your house they wont take no for an answer. Poor people... lead to believe you should open your locked door for the police.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LrbsUVSVl8

At least they didnt shoot the dog this time.
 
Islam isn't the reason for this, and neither is it fear and rage. It's extremist Islamic theology. PJ, you can't ask for validation and then dismiss it; or at least I'm hoping you're not doing that.
 
milkweed said:
The 'everyone is a suspect' mentality that has been drilled into police heads has got to stop. If they come to your house they wont take no for an answer. Poor people... lead to believe you should open your locked door for the police.
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So you prefer biased and blindered police over fair and open minded police and police who are led by evidence and reason?
 
Seen on the news that the Russians warned the FBI prior to the attack about the danger the main suspects posed and that they were also interviewed back in 2011, don't know how true any of that actually is, but if it is true then it seems they had plenty of opportunity to prevent it. More worryingly perhaps than that particular revelation is the idea they didn't have any idea what had happened to start with, which does kind of make you wonder just how many other things are in the pipelines they are clueless about.
 
Gorlitz said:
Seen on the news that the Russians warned the FBI prior to the attack about the danger the main suspects posed and that they were also interviewed back in 2011, don't know how true any of that actually is, but if it is true then it seems they had plenty of opportunity to prevent it. More worryingly perhaps than that particular revelation is the idea they didn't have any idea what had happened to start with, which does kind of make you wonder just how many other things are in the pipelines they are clueless about.
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Not really, according to the FBI they received notification from the Russian government that the older brother had been radicalized. The FBI conducted an investigation and found nothing. Even now his parents are denying their sons had anything to do with the bombings. In the US, under our Constitution, the government needs proof to further investigations or to conduct criminal proceedings. We are after all a nation of laws.

And then there is the question of money, how much money are Americans willing to spend on law enforcement? Tailing people and investigating people is not a cheap enterprise. Even now we have a partial shutdown of the FBI caused by the budget sequester.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/04/fbi-sequestration-wall-street_n_2807338.html
 
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pjdude1219 said:
Even if true it still doesn't mean Islam is the reason for this. Anger fear and rage are.
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The religion itself is not to blame.

What is to blame is the extremist faction who do push out the drivel that are often pushed out by some individuals who have their own agenda.

The older brother was someone who was a very talented boxer, had wanted to represent the US at the Olympics. He was studying music I believe. And then he became radicalised. From what I understand, it was the mother who pushed the older brother to become more religious and it all spiraled from there. She apparently encouraged this individual to teach her older son about Islam:

Family members reached in the US and abroad by The Associated Press said Tamerlan was steered toward a strict strain of Islam under the influence of an Armenian Muslim convert known to the Tsarnaev family only as Misha.

After befriending Misha, Tamerlan gave up boxing - he had once wanted to represent the US - stopped studying music and began opposing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to family members, who said he turned to websites and literature claiming that the CIA was behind the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"Somehow, he just took his brain,'' said Tamerlan's uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Maryland, who recalled conversations with Tamerlan's worried father about Misha's influence.

Tsarni also claimed claimed that the brothers' mother, Zubeidat, allowed Misha into their house to give one-on-one sermons to Tamerlan over the kitchen table during which he claimed he could talk to demons and perform exorcisms.

"Misha was telling him what is Islam, what is good in Islam, what is bad in Islam," added Elmirza Khozhugov, the former brother-in-law of the Tamerlan and Dzhokhar, who sat in on some of the conversations.

"This is the best religion and that's it." Khozhugov told the Associated Press.

"Misha was important. Tamerlan was searching for something. He was searching for something out there."

[Source]

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Couple this with the plethora of conspiracy sites on the net...

The younger brother, as well as the older one, literally had the world at their feet. And they radicalised themselves. The younger one apparently rarely attended their local Mosque and the older brother had been thrown out of the Mosque for disrupting the services because he was becoming more radical..

Extremism, regardless of the religious affiliation, will breed fear and contempt for others.

It happens amongst especially Abrahamic religions. There are some Christians who gladly embrace and accept being referred to as Christian terrorists when it comes to bombing abortion clinics, etc. They are extremists in all shapes, sizes and forms.

When I read about these two brothers, it saddens me, because here we have two normal kids, who grew up in the US (well the younger one did), who were intelligent, talented and quite literally, had the world at their feet.. And they went on to commit a terrorist act.. I think the mother has a lot to answer for and 'Misha', whoever he is has a lot to answer for. The older brother alienated himself from the rest of his family because of his growing extremist views and it is not unexpected that the younger brother would be influenced by the older one. The younger brother's friend still cannot seem to believe that he was involved in this, because this was not who he was.. So much so that even when the first photos were released, they joked about the resemblance but dismissed it completely, because it was so uncharacteristic..

I suspect that terrorists are weak minded and lonely individuals who are searching for something and can be easily influenced to act outside of the norm and commit such acts. Reading through some of these extremists sites, it is clear they prey on the weak with conspiracies and the scary thing is, reading some of the comments beneath some of these conspiracy inspired articles, just how many people buy into it.
 
Islam isn't the reason for this, and neither is it fear and rage. It's extremist Islamic theology.
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Outside of the outer label or tag on the guy, I haven't seen anything from this bombing that seems specifically Islamic at all, much less some kind of extreme and specialized "theology".

Seems like he'd fit right in with the Aryan Brotherhood, the KKK, the Army of God, the standard American terrorist setups.
 
GeoffP said:
Err, people certainly do call it terrorism, and they certainly inquire about their Christianity, along with their political beliefs (right or left) when these offenses are committed by members of some definable group with a philosophy they demand to inject into legislation and/or the common political zeitgeist. What do you mean by 'their Christianity'? When they shoot up a high school, what are their reasons given for doing so?

You seem to split your proposition in the last paragraph, so that now intention is irrelevant: I assure that it certainly is relevant to those who come after. They are not unimportant.
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Actually, as the name suggests, an act of terrorism is to terrorize the public based on some political objective. In the case of spree shooters, they usually work alone and usually commit suicide, hence they have no intention of terrorizing for some political objective.


Remember when I said that Islamists always claim responsibility? Haha, I've got an excuse.

Apparently, the Tsarnaevs were planning more attacks, a follow up, which would cause great terror and impact daily life.
Presumably they would've announced some sort of political objective afterwards.

Dzhokar said his bro wanted to defend Islam, which is too vague, I think the real reason was to protest against American operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Heck, there were tons of people mentioning that when news of the Boston bombings broke out.

"Ohh, Americans weeping over 3 deaths while we get bombed by your forces everyday..."
 
GeoffP said:
Interesting.

In human psychology, there's probably never any one reason for something like this. Religion, alienation, alienation resulting from religion, and so forth. But then again I saw a lot of reports about how well integrated these two actually were; girlfriend, social interactions, and so forth. Were they alienated? Doesn't seem so. All that social media stuff suggests they were liked and noticed. Trudeau opined recently that they were alienated; but frankly he's another brainless rich kid, so fuck his non-intuition from the get-go. (And I think we've seen enough bad examples of daddy-baby inheritance in the political process, thanks.)

Let's say they really were on the outs, though: do we burn them anyway for their crimes? Where do we start forgiving people for their evils based on their experiences? Should we? Everything in human interaction seems to come down to a ratio of power vs moral responsibility anyway.
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Perhaps he suffered from a mental illness of sorts. Most of these terrorists, spree shooters probably have some kind of mental issue.

And these mental terrorists recruit like minded mental people and use religion to justify it. Not really necessary, but they're all nuts anyway.
 
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