Who would have thunk it? Stayed up last night until 3:30AM, enthralled by the running gun battle with police in Boston.
Well one good thing, I suppose, is that the left were desperate for the bombers to be extremist white guys, and the right were desperate for them to be Muslims. Everybody wins!
Not desperate. Resigned.
The only desperate I was about whom it could be was, “Please don’t let it be someone enough like me that they ban ME.”
I have to confess: when I first saw their images, I despaired; when I first heard their names, I rejoiced. You nailed it, Sebastian!
What are the odds going to be for the immigration reform legislation/conversation now……? If these two came thru the front door, what’s coming (FLOODING) thru the backdoor?!?!? Seriously, this should be a serious pause for discussion and analysis regarding our immigration policy writ large.
I would bet a ham sandwich that Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran’s Rev Guard, et al have easily penetrated our porous borders in the north, and the south in particular.
So, do we really want to have an amnesty program……..? This, too, needs to be the next losing issue for BHO and Co.
Just Sayin’
W
To be more specific, they are from Chechnya – where the majority religion is in fact Islam.
Correct.
At the Sig Academy course, “Civilian Response to Terrorist Threats” we were taught that the new “face” of Islamic Terrorism in the U.S. could very well be white-looking foreigners (from Chechnya).
The idea is that no one would suspect that they are terrorists because they do not fit the traditional “profile” of a dark-skinned middle eastern person.
There were a few Chechen fighters when I was in Afgahnistan. They tended to be involved in the crazier suicide attacks on our FOBs.
There was a lot of gunfire earlier at the site of the poss second bomber so police may have gotten him. Reaction in the Oval Office will be swift, ” good now I can go golfing on Saturday”
C’mon, it doesn’t matter if they get the other one or not. Golf is happening.
Rest assured that BHO & company will utilize some aspect of this tragedy against us. Lord help us if they bought reloading powder on the Internet for the bombs. We are not out of the woods by a long shot.
My wife was complaining about the deployment of SWAT and the militarization of the police in response to this, and I pointed out that these guys committed an act of war, and calling out the Guard would be appropriate (and even the federales if you could find a judge to certify the necessary suspension of Posse Comitatus). However, the police are more likely to have the investigative skillset necessary to find the survivor.
While I’m pretty okay with calling out the big guns in a case like this since it is someone who is trying to hurt or kill the most number of people possible just for kicks rather than some kind of standard criminal situation where the goal is not to build up a body count, I do question their overreactions. I was watching last night where they arrested at least one – maybe two, but it was confusing – guy just because he was young and may have had a backpack. I mean we’re talking about a city filled with colleges just before finals, it’s a bit unreasonable to reduce arrest standards down to “has a penis, has a backpack.” I’ll accept the big guns in this case, but not the wanton detention of people who clearly should not be suspects just because they happen to live in the area.
That’s a general police problem, not a militarization of police problem. And a HUGE problem it is, too.
Yeah, this is one instance I don’t mind them bringing out all their toys.
You just gotta know that Russian President Vladimir Putin is saying, “See, I told you!!!!”, given they are Chechens.
Just to join the minimally informed conversation, I am trying to figure what the motives of these guys was. I have not been aware that Chechens have any direct beef with the United States, unless it is that we have gotten too cozy with the Russians — as chilly as our relations with Russia may be, currently.
I will also display my broad ignorance of Muslim culture, by observing that these guys do not appear to have Muslim given names. I had a vague impression that was a requirement of the religion. Is that only with certain sects? I worked with a guy (Polish-American) who converted to Islam to marry an Algerian wife, and he changed his name. Which is a roundabout way of saying, I’m not sure yet these guys are Muslims, even if they are Chechens.
Anecdotally, when I was in the very Roman Catholic, ex-Soviet country of my ethnic origin some years ago, people there were very proud that four women snipers from that country had just died fighting the Russians alongside the Chechens in Chechnya. The Russians have a few hundred years of atrocities to answer for, that are well-remembered by any number of ethnic oral histories, and it would be tragic if we somehow got hit by the spinoffs from their history.
Here’s my own entirely half-assed theory: These guys heard stories of heroism in the battles against the Russians back home. Being young and high-testosterone, they envied the gallantry and heroism. They began studying the technology of guerrilla warfare as practiced at home and became somewhat skilled at it. Then, with no place to aim it, the “All Dressed Up With No Place to Go” phenomenon took over, and they cobbled up an irrational excuse for launching an attack here.
That’s wild-ass speculation, just trying to be a bit different.
I do not think they were part of any (much) greater conspiracy, or they would have had an escape route and means in place, that would have had them out of Boston hours before the FBI released their picture. For that matter, they probably wouldn’t have struck in their home city, where it would be guaranteed that they’d be recognized. So their expertise was limited.
[Set uninformed speculation off]
More wild-assed speculation, because I have to modify my thoughts above about “Muslim names.” I got to wondering, as soon as I heard it, if there was a significance to one of them being named after Tamerlane.
Unless adaptations of “Tamerlane” are very common in Chechnya, it would seem his parents may have named him after a Muslim hero in history.
And note Timur-i-Lenk (Tamerlane to you dhimmis) was Turkic, not Arab.
Who is/was paying for these two brothers to live and attend school here? Time to follow the money.
Political refugees angling for resident/citizenship, IIRC. Nothing particularly sinister there
I agree. This is going to turn out to be just one more variation of the insanity and irrationality that has been the reason behind all of the recent attacks on mass targets. Just a different brand of insanity.
I’m wondering when the reports on the firearms they possessed are going to start coming out.
Additional speculation — but interesting if it explains a motive, no matter how convoluted:
Did Repression in Chechnya Breed the Boston Bombing?
“Some Chechen Muslims suggest that Russia and the United States reached an understanding whereby the US would not pay attention to human rights abuses in Chechnya as long as Russian forces were fighting radical Muslims.”
Oh, good lord, are we already excusing these stains? Their daddy didn’t love them enough?
Oh, wait. Interviewing the father, he seems to be a bit… levelheaded in his response to the news. It’s not like his kids have been implicated in a major terror attack or anything. Then shot and killed cops in a running gun battle.
No. He’s perfectly fine with threatening more people if his precious seed gets smeared.
Sounds like a bunch of winners so far.
“Oh, good lord, are we already excusing these stains?”
There is never excusing the initiation of violence, especially deadly violence. But there is a great deal of value in explaining it if that can be done. That includes trying to understand even irrational explanations the perpetrators may have embraced. That may enable us to anticipate and avoid similar tragedies in the future.
We don’t know yet whether their heritage and connections have anything to do with anything. But if people are going to default to bullshit explanations like “they hate us for our freedom,” that will be useless. So, lacking any handle at all on their motives, I say any educated speculation at all may be valuable. Is it true the U.S. turned a blind eye to Russian atrocities in Chechnya? If so, I’d like to know that. If it’s false, I want to know that too.
Russians? I think they are Chechnyans. Or: extremist Muslims of the kind who had no problem blowing up hundreds of school kids in the past. Interesting that they shot cops, took their weapons, an nothing in Obama-Manchin-Toomey would have prevented the marathon explosion or manhunt.
Oh, and one report indicates they arrived in 2002 – at the height of the Chechyan war and right after 9/11. Wonder what this is going to do to the prospects of Obama passing his immigration bill. Especially if there is a whole house full of them.
And, the press has been ordered out of the area. These guys are gonna be blown apart – but I think it’s better to take a Barrat 50cal and blow their hands and feet off. We need at least one alive to torture and get info out of. Oh wait, Boston doesn’t approve of guns.
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