You might remember that, shortly after the Boston Marathon bombing, a Saudi man injured at the scene was identified as a “person of interest” but cleared the next day. Since then, several of the dimmer bulbs of the Right have gone overboard smearing this guy as a dangerous terrorist with connections to the White House. They have evidence he has taken the White House visitors’ tour! He also was visited by the First Lady while in the hospital (along with the other victims of the bombing)! He posted photos of himself and the FLOTUS on his Facebook page! Obviously, there’s a dangerous cover-up going on!
(Why doesn’t anyone ever bring a defamation suit against these bozos? I suppose they don’t have enough assets to make it worthwhile, but still …)
On to the real alleged perps — By now it should be obvious to anyone else that the Tsarnaev brothers were not exactly a crack terrorist unit. As Charles Pierce says,
As the days go by, we learn more and more that what we were dealing with here, as deadly as their actions were, was a plot by the Wayne and Garth of terrorism, a couple of guys who could screw up a two-car funeral if you spotted them the hearse.
It’s unlikely these guys were being directed by any global jihadi movement; more likely they were angry and alienated young men acting out their anger and alienation. Which is not to say that angry and alienated men don’t join actual global jihadi movements.
“the Wayne and Garth of terrorism”
You know that’s a cute bit of snark, but if I was one of the many folks whose limbs were blown off or mangled or worse related to one of the dead I would be less than thrilled with such a categorization. I realize Pierce is countering the ignorant over-reaction coming from the baggers but he’s lowering his argument to their level, maybe……
Over at the glaze, beck is so sure he has something that he is putting government files he claims the government tried to destroy in a safe”in case something happens to him” Boston is their new bengazi. He swears this will bring down the nation( off the meds again is my guess). Tell me again why it is wrong for me to want to line all these idiots up and just smack em?
When you look at how they really didn’t bother to disguise themselves much when they were dropping the bombs, and what they did after the bombing – the going to parties, texting, e-mailing – and then, how ill-prepared they were when their identities were uncovered, the lack of cash on hand to make a run for it, and then their Max Sennet meets Quinton Tarantino attempt to escape, the car-jacking, the leaving the hostage in the car when they went into the gas station, their leaving his cell-phone in the car for the cops to use as a tracking device, then the shoot-out with the cops, the younger brother possibly killing the older one when he ran over him, and his subsequent escape and attempt to hide-out in some guy’s boat – it’s almost a miracle that these two didn’t blow themselves up while they were building those bombs.
If these two really were trained terrorists, then we have a hell of a lot less to worry about than so many of our Conservatives, with their loaded assault weapons, and even more fully-loaded Depends, may fear.
Of course the results were deadly, leaving dead and wounded behind, but imagine if this was done by some of the real terrorist masterminds, like the ones who organized the Munich Massacre at the Olympics, or decades of successful attacks in Israel, or Ireland, or England – or, more recent ones?
The result might have been the same, or worse – but the terrorists would have been well disguised, with an escape route planned, a cell to help them, plenty of cash, and fake ID, passports, and Visa’s, to get out of the US.
Or, the results might have been the same, or worse, if they were well-trained and equipped suicide bombers.
This was like some amateur terrrost theatrical production, where two brothers said to themselves, “Gee, Bro, let’s put on a show!”
It’s not that “Lone Wolves” can’t achieve some horrific damage. They just proved they can – it’s just that TRAINED AND ORGANIZED terrorists would have done more damage, and probably had much better success at escaping – if they wanted to.
Yeah, and I bet this kid is having his hospital bills covered by Obamacare. Coincidence?
justme277…I disagree with Beck being off the meds. I’d say it’s more like his bread and butter. He’s tapped into a financial source derived from conspiracy theory and paranoia and he’s cultivating it for maximum gain. I’m not saying he’s tightly wrapped himself, being a mormon convert, but he clearly has an incentive to feed the paranoia.
I’ve got to give him credit for his creativity though..Anybody who can discover Stalinist plots in art deco motifs deserve to be acknowledged.
“Some men see things that never were and ask, why not”
Yeah, I thought the “Wayne and Garth” thing wasn’t funny either, considering the brothers were competent enough to have done such terrible harm.
They sure weren’t criminal masterminds, though. “Angry, alienated and stupid” is what they have in common with the rightie paranoids.
“Anybody who can discover Stalinist plots in art deco motifs deserve to be acknowledged”
Yes that was brilliant for sure! When I need a good laugh I head to the Blaze! The commenters there are a special breed; I think they just switch from WND, Infowars, Blaze – WND, Infowars, Blaze and so on. There are a few brave ‘normal” types that try to dispute the garbage but its mostly futile. Reading a thread there reminds me of high school, ten assholes beating up one dweeb, reason be dammed!
I think Beck can see Stalinist plots in just about anything.
If his wife gets angry with him, he calls the couch in the livingroom, his own personal GULag.
The answer is that there isn’t an answer.
As far as the Wayne and Garth analogy goes I think its a valid way to reduce the stupidity of the Tsarnaev brothers to understandable terms. I had envisioned the Festrunk brothers as being a more suitable approximation of their mentality.
It’s sometimes difficult to come against stupidity or other forms of sick thinking when it finds shelter in tragedy. A case in point would be the recent suicide of Rick Warren’s son..Rick Warren made a statement that he hoped whoever sold his son the gun would seek God’s forgiveness and that Rick Warren had forgiven them. He shows himself as a man of God, a victim of serving righteousness, while putting guilt on somebody else.
When you look at that statement and see the dynamic of what’s happening by the transferal of responsibility and the impartation of guilt for what clearly doesn’t belong to whoever he’s trying to attach it to. It is a shame and a tragedy that Warren’s son took his life, and as human being we want to be sensitive to that pain, but sometimes you have to risk appearing callous to point out or clearify what needs to be understood.
I know it’s just a spoof, but still I couldn’t resist:
Sarah Palin Calls for Invasion of Czech Republic
http://dailycurrant.com/2013/04/22/sarah-palin-calls-invasion-czech-republic/
Paraquat,
The embassy of the Czech Republic in DC has reportedly received many angry phone calls from geographically-challenged dimbulbs pissed about the Boston bombing.
It’s difficult for satire to keep ahead of reality these days.
Even though the Palin thingie is a spoof,the American public indeed gets geography lessons mostly from the defense department. Moldovia, anyone?
Swami, I know you are correct when you point out becks motive for creating a crisis a day..it does make him a healthy profit to feed off the paranoid. And I suppose he had to do SOMETHING to take the focus away from the huge drop in gold prices, which people buy from scamline.com to prepare for the liberal zombie apocalypse he has been predicting for years.
And Paraquat, just be thankful bush is gone. Had he had this kind of information we would have invaded Sweden by now.
Well, if it wasn’t for the Defence Department I would have never known there was a country called Kyrgyzstan. I guess I could have figured out by the “stan” ending where its approximate location was.
When I was a kid I used to have a set of flash cards with all the flags of the countries of the world..and in conjuction with my Golden book encyclopedias I knew every country and their flag. But the world has changed since then and I’m no longer on top of my game when it comes to geography. Although I think I could do a better job with Geography than Sarah Palin.
I did get busted for drugs once in a country that was known as Siam. But it wasn’t called Siam when I got busted in it.
The most complicated thing about Kyrgyzstan is spelling it. Back in the 80’s, I subscribed to a series of Time Life books called “the World’s Wild Places”. One Book was “Soviet Deserts and Mountains”. The featured area was the Caucasus, one of the most fascinating and exotic regions on the planet. The area between the Caspian and the Black Sea. The names have changed a bit. Did you meet the “twins” while in Siam, Swami?
“Angry, stupid and alienated”
I am “off the grid” culturally, so, for what it’s worth:
A lot of people seem to live in the “angry, stupid and alienated” state. It often seems that people feel defined by the things or often, THE THING that makes them the most angry. They express their identity by the thing(s) they hate.
To some degree or another, we’re all “stupid”. It’s like “futureshock”. Maybe a lot of you are smart enough to keep up with the latest developments in science, technology, culture, the economy and politics, but you have to admit, that’s not the same as understanding them.
Alienated? When I get in a conversation with someone about the Rapture Index, the $o&omite Agenda (I thought that might trip the moderation switch), how “socialism” is coming or some other nonsense, I am overcome by the desire to expatriate. At least I would have the luxury of being so befuddled by the language, the craziness would escape me.
If there is a point to this comment, it’s that an awful lot of people seem in the angry, stupid and alienated state of confusion, to one degree or another. Young people, especially teenagers, are probably most likely to succumb to it’s poison and do something stupid or violent. As was get older, we just get used to it. “So it goes.” We get better at dealing with uncertainty and our own limitations. Most of our lives are “remarkably unremarkable” but, most of us learn to accept that. Young people are still bathing in a hormone stew and their brains have just undergone a major reorganization.
But, being the angry, stupid and alienated has become an acceptable lifestyle and tragically a route to political power. This can’t end well.
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We had a brief discussion about cognitive biases, or at least confirmation bias. Cognitive biases are often constructs in the mind that simplify the the processing of information or attempt to offset the lack of information. (Cordelia Fine wrote “A Mind of Its Own” to introduce this concept to those of us who are laymen.) Confirmation bias is the biggie that we all contend with. But, check out “Just World Hypothesis”, or correlation bias. There are many others. Many of these, along with the Dunning-Kruger effect have escaped from Pandora’s box so to speak.
It’s just that thinking is such Hard Work, it’s so much easier to lay back and float on a sea of emotion.
Did you meet the “twins†while in Siam, Swami?
The Winklevoss twins? 🙂