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33 Comments
Two interesting pieces on the fallout from the manhunt:
1. A discussion of how the perpetrators were initially wrongly identified by Redditors and how this happened.
2. Why we should care that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev did not get his Miranda rights (ie. he has not been told that he has the right to legal representation).
I’m probably wrong, but I thought the point of ‘Miranda rights’ was mainly that anything obtained by the police without the ‘reading’ of same was not admissable in a court?
Seems like a fair enough trade-off to me – if I have it right.
Good collation DEM. Amazing how many different ‘hot’ issues have been pinned onto this event – even in just the frames you’ve included.
Yep, you’re correct, kvd – the evidence obtained thereby is not admissible. But it would be in this case because of the “public safety” exception.
It’s true. The police shut down all of Boston… except the donut stores.
http://www.popehat.com/2013/04/20/security-theater-martial-law-and-a-tale-that-trumps-every-cop-and-donut-joke-youve-ever-heard/
A fantastic collage of events and sequences. The only think missing is the timing and substance of the lockdown. When did it happen and what powers were evoked to make it happen? Was it enforceable and was it enforced?
It was the awkward juxtaposition of the Presidents statement on the over-equipped manhunt with the “now is the time to do something about gun violence” link/graphic on the White House website that did it for me.
Isn’t Boston the only Catholic majority city in the US? So easy to make something of that …
I’m confused by the implication that it was just the Boston PD with all that military gear… The response was joined by military police and federal forces, which explains a lot of the military kit.
And State Police as well, Darren. Everyone was out in their Sunday best, so-to-speak. (What’s the motto on that t-shirt? “ATF: Should be a convenience store, not a federal authority.”)
And bugger all mention of Islam or the fact that these blokes were Moslem.
Henry,
I’m surprised that a man of your talents would have missed the first panel mentioning the older brother was a devout Muslim. Did you also miss the reference to Chechen terrorism?
Mel,
On reviewing online dictionary meanings of ‘bugger-all’ I can see where we are at cross purposes. Only a couple of them define it as very little or nothing which was the sense I used … very little.
The rest define it as nothing at all, the sense you took me to mean. I’m sorry that you misunderstood me.
My statement of #10 still stands.
One bloke is listed as Muslim in his profile as you said and I thought that Chechen terrorists were principally separatist prior to this event.
Folks, surely there is an elephant in this room!!??
Henry 2, personally I’d prefer to wait until we know more about the motivation of the surviving bomber.
I suspect (without knowing anything other than what the media has reported) that militant Islamism was certainly an important motivation as to why they did what they did, but it’s not the sole motivation. As this piece points out, there is a possible sense in which they were like the Colombine massacre kids – alienated and angry young men (particularly the older Tsarnaev). It is probably a complex mix of factors which cannot be easily reduced into an answer.
Henry2:
“Folks, surely there is an elephant in this room!!??”
Nope, that is a crooked old man with liver spots in a bulging trenchcoat.
And what LE says.
ps. do you remember when your hero, Andrew Bolt, cried
wolfMuslim after the Norwegian massacre?Mel this is Bolts first blog after the Breivik massacre.
I took this from it
Yes, you are right that Bolts immediate suspicions were that the culprit was Moslem, but I gather this was based on reports from other sources. He very soon corrects himself when the evidence proves otherwise.
Henry2:
I remember that thread very well. The point is that you should not make assumptions. It is no excuse that Bolt joined a conga line of assumption makers but wasn’t the first in line.
You’ve joined a similar conga line and irrespective of the outcome of investigations, you’re being a small-headed man. Trial by blog is not a noble act and a man of your vintage should set a better example.
[email protected] I was referring to the lockdown which, as one of the commentators linked to pointed out, cities suffering much bigger terrorist attacks did not feel the need for.
[email protected] Chechen separatism has evolved. The longer the struggle as gone on, the more jihadised it has become.
One thing I was reading said that one of the difficulties was that the Soviets destroyed the local Muslim culture, and when the wall lifted, this left young people who had not much knowledge of what Islam involved knowing that they were Muslim but not knowing what that mean. This meant that Chechens were open to the approaches of extremists to fill the void of what Islam meant.
It sounds plausible to me. I have Jewish friends who hail from Russia who say similarly that they knew nothing about their religion when they came out here, and had to learn about it from scratch – that I (a non-Jew) know much more about Judaism than they did when they arrived here.
I guess you still end up dead, whether the bomber is from deep Saud or someone new to the faith radicalised by extremists to fill the void.
This article by Alexander Downer is definitely worth reading on the subject.
Muslim will do it for me.
Many years ago, when all the (modern equivalent of) tie-dye wearing hippies & gullible young bints barely knew how to spell “Islam” I was rather a defender of the faith.
In one (*ahem* very late at night) incident, I strenuously defended Islam when a school headmaster vigorously pressed the case that the entire religion should be exterminated.
My ardour for sticking up for the Islamic faith has now cooled, a helluva lot.
Muslim will do it for me = the brothers Tsarnaev are first & foremost muslims.
1) Muslim.
2) Chechen
3) Young males
4) Violent thugs
5) refugees
6) Left wingers
7) Uni students
8) Naturalised American citizens
Muslim will do it for me = the brothers Tsarnaev are first & foremost muslims.
I reckon your number #4 is obviously the first and foremost.
There is something that should be said about the way the media have treated this. It was widely reported as a terrorist threat before there was any solid information confirming this; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was declared guilty the moment he was arrested.
I’m not defending Tsarnaev I’m just pointing out something about media responses to such sensational cases and their capacity to make the execution of justice according to the rule of law more difficult. Lindy Chamberlain was cause for such a circus back in the day. She was not guilty. And I remember that case and people howling down anyone who spruiked the ‘wishy-washy’ liberal line about fair trials.
The Meeja, ethically it’s kinda shaky.
SATP @21:
Same here. I remember hearing a story about Oz indig persons converting to Islam 25 or so years ago and thinking maybe that was a good thing. Not so sure now …
[email protected], [email protected] Clearly, we have to get more young Muslims into D&D, Forgotten Realms and reading about Drow.
I went to the State Library yesterday, thinking about the religious hostility that seems to be blooming everywhere like a weed with a deceptively flower.
What do I see? Two enormous phrases being installed on the walls in Arabic: On one side the phrase is “It is life.’ On the other it’s “Full of love”. Modern democracies rock.
James Gleick related the following:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/opinion/dowd-lost-in-space.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
An interesting piece in The Slate about the role the parents of the bombers might have played in this.
I remember some research Lorenzo once posted on how Muslim males may have more trouble integrating into Western society than Muslim women, because they are not held to the same standards of behaviour by their families – by contrast, Western society does expect Muslim men to meet the same standard of behaviour as anyone else. And thus Muslim men are more likely to be unemployed than non-Muslim men, but Muslim women are not in the same position.
My mind turns then to the excuses made for the bombers by their parents, the apparent parental indulgence and inability to believe that the boys could possibly have done anything wrong, and the excuses the father made for the elder son’s domestic violence towards his then-girlfriend. No wonder the elder son didn’t fit in to American society. Part of his alienation was perhaps that, contrary to the way he’d been treated by his parents, the general Western world didn’t indulge him just because he was a man, and didn’t make excuses for him. Of course this is just speculation on my part.
The parents’ willingness to buy into conspiracy theories is interesting as well – although I can understand perhaps that they are unwilling to believe that their children committed such atrocities, it shows a lack of ability to face up to the truth of what their sons were capable of.
Lorenzo @ 25 – getting into that kind of stuff doesn’t stop you from being a religious zealot. I knew someone who was into all that kind of stuff as a younger man, but later became an ultra orthodox Jew who, I suspect, wouldn’t go near it now.
[email protected] there’s also a theory floating around about brain damage to the older son thru boxing. Who knows – at this stage?
Regarding your ‘lack of ability to face up’ comment; I hope I never have to face any such trauma; but I think I’d probably refuse to face up to the situation myself – just to preserve my own sanity. It’s normal, surely, in the first instance, to retreat from any sense of ‘facilitating’ guilt?
Maybe later when the lights and cameras and microphones leave them alone they will think about their role?
Re @ 27: or we revert to the theory that the family weren’t religious at all when they came from Russia, but had the religious void filled by a jihadist recently.
[email protected] I wasn’t offering any guarantees 🙂
I just like the essay.
LE @ 13
Henry 2, personally I’d prefer to wait until we know more about the motivation of the surviving bomber.
From here