Who’s Behind the Boston Marathon Attack?
Two lone nuts – or a conspiracy with overseas connections?
The investigation into the Boston Marathon terrorist attack is now focused on what is the most important question: Did they act alone? In my view, the answer is no.
To begin with, the brothers engaged in a firefight with police and held their own, throwing bombs at the police as they attempted to flee. Tamerlan was killed in a fusillade of gunfire, but Dzhokhar managed to get away. At least one of them was very familiar with firearms and knew how to use them. Neither has any known military experience: somebody trained one or both. The question is: who?
Tamerlan traveled to Dagestan two years ago, where his father now resides, and together they went to Chechnya. Six months later, Tamerlan returned – and began posting jihadist videos on his Youtube page. Dagestan, a former Soviet “republic” in Central Asia, has been torn apart by a Muslim fundamentalist insurgency for years, and is one of the most dangerous countries on earth.
There are unconfirmed reports that the explosive devices which caused such mayhem at the marathon were set off by a sophisticated triggering mechanism, which, according to an unnamed law enforcement official, aren’t the kind of thing you can jigger from information garnered from a Google search. The same unconfirmed report says authorities are frantically trying to uncover what they believe is a “12-man sleeper cell,” and although this seems like an extravagant claim – how did they come up with the number 12? – I wouldn’t discount it entirely.
Initial speculation as to the motives for the attack centered around the brothers’ ethnicity and religious views, and these indeed seem to be important. Nineteen year old Dzokhar had a Twitter account, where he posted the usual trivia one might associate with a typical American teenager – along with a few comments explicitly expressing his religious beliefs and his frustration with people who believe all Muslims are terrorists. His tweets, usually light-hearted, took on a darker aspect just prior to the Boston attack: on April 15 he tweeted: “Ain’t no love in the heart of the city, stay safe people.”
The content of Dzokhar’s Russian Facebook page includes a video dramatizing the persecution of Muslims in Syria, and another one featuring some kind of religious discussion. There is also a video of Tamerlan, who is speaking in Russian, mocking the various accents he encountered in Central Asia. There are also links to Dzokhar’s favorite internet sites, including salamworld, an Islamic version of Facebook, and various similar sites.
Tamerlan was undoubtedly a devout Muslim at this point in his life. His relatives all point to a period starting about two years ago when he became very religious: he was reportedly asked to leave the house of one of them when he went to visit them in Dagestan. A friend of his wife describes him as “intense,” “controlling,” and “manipulative” in her account of his growing religiosity and his insistence that his wife convert to Islam, wear the hijab, and behave like a good Muslim wife.
Nearly unnoticed in the dramatic denouement of Dzokhar’s capture: the apprehension of three people, including Dzokhar’s alleged girlfriend, in nearby New Bedford. The three were later released, but authorities reappeared at their apartment complex on Saturday and apparently detained two of the same men, who are reportedly from Kazakhstan: a van with consular license plates had earlier turned up in front of the complex, and a young woman was seen entering the van in a hurry. The Tsarnaev brothers weren’t lone nuts: they had help.
One important detail is that the Russian security apparatus asked the Americans to investigate Tamerlan before he made his trip to Russia two years ago. Here is the FBI statement, with its ass-covering final paragraph averring “The FBI requested but did not receive more specific or additional information from the foreign government.” However, according to a senior congressional aide cited by the Boston Globe, the fault lies with the FBI: “The FBI had this guy on the radar and somehow he fell off.” And the Daily Mail reports:
“Russia reportedly asked the FBI to investigate one of the alleged Boston bombers just six months ago after he was seen meeting an Islamic militant six times – but the agency never responded, it has emerged.”
In addition, Tamerlan reportedly came to the attention of the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Boston, probably on account of his altercation, three months ago, with the head of a local mosque, who threw him out for expressing radical views. The Tsarnaev brothers’ uncle, who lives in the US, has said this has nothing to do with Chechnya, or the Chechen independence movement, and that it’s simply the fact that the brothers were “losers” which explains their actions: yet he also points to alleged “mentors” who supposedly radicalized Tamerlan in the United States – he specifically referred to an Armenian convert to Islam who purportedly lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Yet this information, if true, hardly rules out an overseas connection: he may have been radicalized in America and sought out compatriots on his Russia trip, where he reportedly met with a known Chechen “militant.” (“six times,” according to the Daily Mail).
Aside from these religious and regional connections, there is a link to criminality that may or may not be significant. Tamerlan – a boxing champion who represented New England in the Golden Gloves competition – once introduced the owner of his gym to one Brendan Mess, whom he described as his “best friend.” Mess was murdered on the afternoon of September 12, 2011, in his apartment, with two others: all three had been stabbed to death, their bloody bodies left covered in marijuana. Mess was 25: he had been arrested prior to that for possession of marijuana with intent to sell, and at least one of the other two had arrests for petty crimes, like assault, and, like Tamerlan, were into physical fitness. At the end of the above-linked news article, a neighbor is quoted: “According to her, five men lived in the apartment and they were frequently coming in and out. One of the men drove a Mercedes-Benz, she added.” Tamerlan drove a Mercedes, according to this account: was he one of the five men who lived at that address? Or did he just spend a lot of time there, so much that the neighbor thought he must live there?
In any case, there was apparently some kind of drug-dealing business operating on the premises, but whoever killed Mess and his two friends left the drugs behind, ruling out a pecuniary motive. What’s more, they were stabbed with what appeared to be a pick axe or similar weapon: all three died from massive cuts to the neck. A symbolic beheading? A gangland hit? Did a newly converted Tamerlan suddenly turn on his “best friend”? The murder is unsolved to this day.
If Tamerlan’s best friend had a drug-dealing/gangland connection, and if the elder Tsarnaev brother – undoubtedly the dominant figure in the bomb plot – was involved in some manner, then that is interesting in and of itself.
The Chechen insurgency is deeply involved in the sale of illegal drugs, and the Chechen Mafia, known as the Obshina, has an ideological as well as a criminal character. A good account of the big overlap between the Obshina and the Chechen guerrilla movement can be found in the late Paul Klebnikov’s Conversations With A Barbarian, which consists of extensive interviews with Chechen Mafia chieftain Khozh-Akhmed Nukhayev, whose career included financing pro-rebel newspapers as well as forcing the Russian Mafia out of Moscow and taking over its illicit empire. The late Boris Berezovsky, the exiled Russian oligarch whose recent suicide made headlines, made good use of the Obshina in his efforts to dominate the Russian car dealership market. In return for their protection, the oligarch financed pro-Chechen propaganda and other activities.
Boston’s Chechen community is the largest in the United States, and the Obshina has a presence extending as far West as Portland. According to one study, in addition to the Russian Mafia, “at least 150 ethnic-oriented Russian criminal groups had also been identified, including Chechens, Georgians, Armenians, and Russian-Koreans, of which at least 25 were active in various parts of the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America.” Unlike these other Russian-based criminal gangs, the Chechens have an ideological – and religious – coloration: there are reported links between Al Qaeda and the Chechen Mafia.
So what do we have here? The answer, I’m afraid, is a clear-cut case of carefully premeditated Islamist terrorism with an overseas connection. Tamerlan clearly went to Dagestan, and then Chechnya, where he received training and instructions. He returned to America, recruited his brother, and together they carried out the plan. Whether this operation was coordinated by Al Qaeda, or some other group – possibly some Chechen fundamentalist faction, which outsourced the operation to the Obshina – may seem irrelevant, except for the fact that if there is an organized crime connection then we really have a problem on our hands.
The lessons to be drawn from all this? First and foremost, the idea that we can invade other countries – indeed, that we must invade countries like Afghanistan – so as to prevent terrorists from acquiring a “safe haven” is absolute nonsense. We tried that, and it didn’t work. Boston is the proof.
The second lesson is that American officialdom is comprised of hysterics, whose overreaction must have the terrorists chortling in their Chechen lair. A nineteen year old punk succeeded in shutting down a major American city: whoever organized the Boston atrocity can surely count that as a victory.
The third lesson we can draw is that Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham are opportunists of unusual talent and perspicacity. No sooner had Dzokhar been caught then these two were all over the media demanding he be tried as an “enemy combatant,” presumably in secret, and denied a lawyer. If we ever see a police state imposed in the US – and are we very far from that now? – McCain and Graham will go down in history as two of its Founding Fathers. The sooner these two are involuntarily retired, and driven out of American political life, the better are our chances of preserving what’s left of our old republic.
As the hunt for Dzokhar went on, I saw a lot of denial on Twitter amongst liberals who resisted – and still resist – linking the Boston bombers’ motives to either the Chechen independence movement or radical Islamist ideology. Yet the evidence is staring them right in the face: they simply refused to see it because it didn’t confirm their own politically correct biases.
That simply will not do. Antiwar activists, and those who rightly resist the often violent wave of Islamophobia that has swept the country since 9/11, are going to have to face facts, and fight accordingly. Anti-interventionists are actually given more intellectual and political ammunition on account of this incident, as pointed out above: the invade-the-world strategy hasn’t worked. And unless Senators McCain and Graham are going to be advocating a US invasion of Chechnya and Dagestan, it’s clear the War Party hasn’t got an answer for this one.
On the other hand, civil libertarians are going to have a harder time of it: Sen. Graham’s invocation of the New Tyranny’s slogan – “the Homeland is the battlefield” – is a creepy reminder that we are on the brink of establishing a police state in this country. The irony is that the police state methods “legalized” by legislation like the Patriot Act didn’t pick up on the Boston conspirators’ plans. For all their snooping and sneaking around, prying into our emails and investigating supposedly “subversive” individuals and groups – including myself, I might add, and this web site – they were caught flat-footed.
If and when a connection to Chechen terrorist groups is established, I would think that the West’s longstanding support for the Chechen cause would be called into question. The US State Department under both Bush and Obama has routinely sided with the Chechen separatists, and Britain, in particular, has been their invaluable ally, granting asylum to Chechen terrorist leaders as well as their Russian oligarch sponsors, such as Berezovsky. The growing cold war between Russia and the US no doubt squelched any real cooperation between Moscow and Washington in tracking terrorists: that’s the real explanation for the FBI’s failure to take Russian warnings seriously. And besides that, they were too busy monitoring Antiwar.com and other Americans engaging in legal and constitutionally protected activities to bother with the brothers Tsarnaev.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
I’m having great fun on Twitter these days, and I urge you to join me on this wonderfully interactive site: you can do so by going here.
I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Forward by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).
You can buy my biography of the great libertarian thinker, An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), here.
Read more by Justin Raimondo
- Aiding Dzhokhar’s Syrian Comrades – April 25th, 2013
- The Russians Warned Us – Why Didn’t We Listen? – April 23rd, 2013
- Making Stuff Up – April 18th, 2013
- Eisenhower’s Reprieve and the Descent Into Fiscal Insanity – April 16th, 2013
- The Great Deformation – April 14th, 2013
RickR30
April 21st, 2013 at 9:33 pm
One still wonders to what extent the FBI was involved. Did the brothers come up with the plan on their own or did the FBI through some of their (Chechen) contacts offer help? We already know the FBI loves finding "losers" that they then can manipulate to do stupid stuff. Do that often enough and they might encounter a loser that ain't much of a loser and next thing you know the event is in motion and the FBI geniuses can't swoop in and save things.
What happened to the two arrested acquaintances of the brothers? Are they also being denied Miranda rights? Are they already being tortured somewhere?
It is comical to hear Lindsey boy demanding we deny rights to Dzhokhar in order to gather intelligence. Somehow he and the senile bastard McCain and Obama couldn't care less about gathering intelligence when we are drone-bombing and assassinating everyone in sight all over the world. Wouldn't it have been nice to capture Osama instead of killing him (allegedly)? Imagine how much intelligence we could have obtain from him.
I still don't get these guys suddenly deciding to pull this off which they must have known is basically a suicide mission, when their online activity basically shows them as people with aspirations and with plans for the future.
Regardless, it is indeed the American people who will lose. Less liberties, less rights, more (incompetent) expensive, invasive "security" measures. At the very least, Boston will turn like NY into a city law-abiding folks will have to stay away from. As retards like McCain understand this cowardly new world, we are at "war", the Constitution isn't in effect, instead we are under "the law of war", whatever the hell that is supposed to be- I guess it just means the government gets to do whatever the hell it wants and the people better take it. Kinda like Israel does with US politicians.
Guest
April 21st, 2013 at 9:34 pm
Let's have a police state. They have a very fine record for destroying countries and the US certainly needs a reset. Two hundred years and out.
False Flag
April 21st, 2013 at 9:41 pm
{hat’s the real explanation for the FBI’s failure to take Russian warnings seriously.}
False Flag Operation.
paulBass
April 21st, 2013 at 10:05 pm
as far as i am aware dagestan, is a russian province and not a country.
p.s. the terrorist license plate thing really seems odd.
Johnny in Wi.
April 21st, 2013 at 10:05 pm
The Neocons have long loved the Chechiens and the Kosvars. They hate Putin, because he cracked down on their Russsian Isreali Mafia friends. They also consider him a Stalinist. It is the same reason they support the Kosovars and Bosnians. They thought Milosivic was a old Stalinist. They love Muslim terrorists in Europe but hate them in the Middle East and Cenral Asia. Lets get the hell out of all these places. We are only making more terrorists everyday.
musings
April 21st, 2013 at 10:12 pm
Let's hypothesize here. I think I have skin in the game, because I was recently called in a reverse 911 to "shelter in place" and simultaneously, my brother was in Cambridge visiting from the West Coast, but he could not make his meeting because the college he was going to had also been placed in lockdown. You'd think I'd be scared and grateful to the authorities, but silly me, I just start searching all over the internet once I get bored with the stupidity of the newscasters and the background information about the suspects. I wander into the "forbidden" in a short time, going from the Atlantic's "Do Not Look" (unless you like slasher movies) section to real hardcore conspiracy sites where Rebel spies have filmed the backstage prep for the disaster, suiting up and making up for the show of the people soon to be minor celebrities. I am now semi-convinced of the deepest hardcore sites: it was a fake and drill. The reason the hospitals take part is that they have been warned of worse such as real suitcase nukes, dirty bombs, bioweapons or bio-spills, and subway bombers a la London. They WANT a drill, they aren't so worried about the truth or falsity.
And here's a hot tip: since the bad brother is "dead" now, the living brother who will be indicted is already being called "brainwashed" by his elder brother, a real Patty Hearst. Plus, he seems to have created a lot of goodwill during his wonder years in the Affleck/Damon alma mater, Cambridge Rindge and Latin. In fact, he's been called an "angel" by some. And since he never killed anyone, I guess he well may be that.
The cop who died and the one who was shot? Well, I don't say I have solved the whole puzzle, or even a part of it.
What was the purpose of this? I think part of it was to train me. I can wonder about the cops forgetting to use sniffer dogs to end the "search" for the missing younger brother in less than the 24 hours of lockdown/sheltering in place. But I know that the public was taught the sit-stay command that day, and as with TSA, the imperial war on terror was reinforced and dependency on the authorities without regard to one's personal rights was strengthened.
Army Strong? No, Boston Strong. We Will Never Forget. Thank you men in blue. You can just tie that yellow ribbon round the old oak tree and see you in Iran.
musings
April 21st, 2013 at 10:22 pm
I started to wonder a bit how we knew the truth ethnicity of the brothers. And where they really grew up. I would have wanted to touch Jesus' wounds too.
We accept they are Chechen on what basis? How about Greek? Kurd? All have similar Y-DNA (J-2), and all of them have people in their culture who look like those big-eyed icons in Greek Orthodox churches. Their Islam facade seemed to come on in recent years and never be continuous. What if they are Russians? In fact, my bet is on that.
Why be so perverse? Because I have reason to reject the narrative. Maybe I adhere to the gospel according to David Mamet (the earlier Mamet, not the apocalyptic Mamet). Like those guilty-looking parties analyzed on Marathon Day, I intend to walk against the flow, cut through it, think different. I hope you will too, in your own way. Let your perspective change from time to time, do not throw out inconsistencies but entertain them a bit. Play with these impressions for the moment. And resist the groupthink.
musings
April 21st, 2013 at 10:23 pm
Boston Strong? Nah. "Eleutheria."
john g
April 21st, 2013 at 10:51 pm
Seriously? You don't think these guys were patsies in a false flag operation?
Until I see hard evidence that there really was a shootout, grenades being thrown etc i have to believe it was an obvious set up.
Articles like this make me wary of Antiwar.com. They really do.
mike
April 22nd, 2013 at 12:40 am
"So what do we have here? The answer, I’m afraid, is a clear-cut case of carefully premeditated Islamist terrorism with an overseas connection."
*NO*, not by any means, if you consider US often WORKING with said groups, and the fact that the FBI and others were IN CONTACT with at least one brother, and people had tabs on them.
if anything, we have a US asset participating in a FALSE FLAG, where the COVER STORY (you need those, right JR?) is "international terrorism".
do you think these "hardened" and "trained" terrorists would choose to bomb the fucing FINISH LINE, complete with a huge number of special forces, mercenaries, swat, police, and BOMB sniffing dogs and bomb spotters?
not to MENTION the fact that they would get IDed and recorded there? come OFF it.
THAT is why all these obvious connections, posts, and other things are so IN YOUR FACE. it is the effing clumsily and obviously manufactured backstory!!!!!
dig deeper JR…. i know you can do it.
police state
April 22nd, 2013 at 12:53 am
You should remember that people presumed innocent before proven guilty in the court of law, but you all have tried these two young men in the media and convicted them, like Raimondo. The two persons if wanted to bomb a place then why Boston Marathon with thousands of security agents, camera, and media to kill two or three? They could have done it somewhere else with much less problem. You must ask the question: WHO BENEFITS from this crime? What did happen after 9/11? Bush and the war party invaded number of countries killing millions of people with your support idiot. Your crimes against humanity have been registered with people for the rest of their lives and generations to come. Do you know how many people you killed in Iraq alone? You killed more than 3000 innocent Iraqis on one Saturday alone? Then you rub each other behind and rape Iraqi women in mass orgy. The real terrorist is YOU and FBI, the biggest terrorist org. in the world.
Don't be gullible
April 22nd, 2013 at 1:39 am
{Articles like this make me wary of Antiwar.com.}
I am with you. I feel I am reading from a page written by the government.
We have been told: people presumed innocent unless proven guilty. Unfortunately, these two young men have been tried in the media and convicted to incite genocide against Muslims, like what happened after 9/11 where Muslims were framed and killed by millions without giving any evidence for the charges made against them by the war criminals at the white House, yet ICC, a western tool for regime change, not only has not arrested any of the war criminals in the west responsible for war crimes against humanity, but has cooperated with them against the victims of Zionism/imperialism aggression where are mainly Africa and Asia. ICC has NO CREDIBILITY. The judges themselves are complicit in a crime where should be arrested and be punished.
FBI has already killed one suspect and shut the other one in the neck so his voice has been silenced. The media reported that he is in a critical condition. It is possible that they keep him alive for a bit longer and later his voice is silenced forever.
james
April 22nd, 2013 at 3:51 am
To put things in perspective, the marathon attack is a non event for the rest of the world. Only American media along with the dubious BBC made an event out of pressure cookers 24/7 for more than a week. These media have successfully duped dopey Americans and some freaks in Britain. You should see the freak carrying a banner in solidarity with Boston during the London marathon, the same freak that cheered on his criminals while slaughtering Iraqis in Basra.
These media have succeeded in even luring smart people like Justin here to dedicate a column and keep the fire burning.
Mark
April 22nd, 2013 at 4:08 am
With the FBI's record of recruiting hapless losers into sting operations, it's hardly an angle that can be dismissed out of hand. Perhaps this time the recruited some guys with a little "hap".
Smithboy
April 22nd, 2013 at 4:22 am
As GW Bush opens his library, a W library…what a joke, we see clearly, as JR points out, the uselessness of the two wars Bush and his neocon handlers started. Resources devoted to our own security instead that of Iraq and Afghanistan might have prevented our own citizens from being maimed and killed. So this middle finger salute is for you Mr. Bush and all of your accomplices.
musings
April 22nd, 2013 at 4:31 am
When I heard about the grenade story, it seemed this must have been like a law school hypothetical where someone does something that brings in the Feds. For the kidnapping/carjacking you've got the FBI on the case. For the grenades, you have ATF on the scene. The photos at the Marathon were not going to suffice, you had to have action. I'm not sure the role of two transit policemen (the MIT guy was trained in the MBTA (Metropolitan Boston Transit Authority Academy)) – one killed and one injured. But it insured that certain parties came into it who otherwise would not. These were exceedingly dumb criminals, who invited the wrath of several agencies down on their heads. There was an attempt to explain this not as crazy but as an evil attempt to take out as many good guys as possible, to create a trap. But I'm not buying it.
Just thought of something else: we know there were two explosions fairly close together on the street. We hear that the boy, Martin Richard, was killed at one of them and his sister lost her leg there, while his mother got a serious head injury which might make her totally disabled, leaving only his father, a community organizer. Presumably other people were hurt there to account for the hundred plus injuries to spectators and runners. However nobody ever sees a picture of that site, only of the one across from reviewing stands occupied by Newtown parents and supporters. Am I right?
The whole section of Boylston Street involved is being held shut for the foreseeable future. I wouldn't be surprised if the Library itself weren't on the chopping block, since it is basically a drop-in location for homeless people who wash up in the restrooms and who sleep on the chairs with their heads on the tables. Plus, who reads books anymore, huh? They'll save the antique side of the Library, and trash the other one. Just a thought.
I'm not denying that, per Raimondo's thought, Tamerlane might have been a Russian mafia figure and that he might have something to do with the murder of some pothead former college students in over their heads in Waltham (that is a horrible crime – had it been three girls, someone would have been on it sooner), in a very peaceful and cute immigrant neighborhood (I love Waltham, seriously love it). This might possibly make him expendable for his brutality. Maybe they already shipped him back to Russia – which would explain how those "mistaken arrests" – two at least – in Watertown were made. Maybe it is really his body on the slab too, with unaccountable injuries.
Why have I gone out on a limb here, pretty far out too? Because I saw those photos of the "injured" getting into their make-up. If they are real, this is a total game. Yes, it's easy to explain away all the choices made by authorities – such as shutting down six towns within Route 128 – by supplying them with good rationales for it, protection for us all.
I am not a prepper, a truther or a nut. I am simply skeptical and not Boston Strong.
musings
April 22nd, 2013 at 4:35 am
Notice how the FBI stings usually get stopped? The purpose is to implicate Moslems apparently. The first WTC bombing was the one exception. Everything else was miraculously thwarted – except this big thing.
JoeEd
April 22nd, 2013 at 4:46 am
Absolutely. The FBI knew who these two were — they finally admitted to having investigated and interviewed the family in 2011. They would not need to release pictures to the public to identify them — that cannot possibly be true. The FBI had to be involved in this
musings
April 22nd, 2013 at 5:09 am
Doesn't look like you meant to reply to me here. I totally think the brothers are not what they seem.
musings
April 22nd, 2013 at 5:12 am
Opening one library and closing another.
richard vajs
April 22nd, 2013 at 5:14 am
So much for "We are fighting them over there so that we don't have to fight them here" malarkey – not that anyone will be so gauche as to bring that up. Before this is all over, the boys will be tied to Hamas, and will be agents for Iran. This "opportunity" will not be wasted.
musings
April 22nd, 2013 at 7:35 am
Strike that. I AM a truther. What got into me. What I reject is someone else's tying it all up with their own bow. I'm evidence-based.
tinkersailor
April 22nd, 2013 at 7:44 am
Let's keep our powder dry here……… and watch, as this show unfolds… Act two scene three, the fallen gladiators, the quick and the dead…… We are the audience… This show is only for US!!. Whether the bombers were Al Quaeta or by the FBI and it's endless stooges and or patsys… It's aimed at US…… There are bound to be more twists and turns as we are "entertained" by the authors and those who arranged the show. So stay tuned, stay alert and focused… The slight of hand is sure to expand and engulf the land, and the world……. Don't get overly invested in any likely scenario. Try this: http://imgur.com/a/sUrnA/all so you may have something more than the MSM, NPR perspective.
This: http://www.prisonplanet.com/claim-boston-bomber-l…
Lasy and certainly NOT least: http://www.prisonplanet.com/17-unanswered-questio…
musings
April 22nd, 2013 at 7:51 am
Of course the people inside the beltway of Rte. 128 were participants in the psychological priming, being made to share the burden of the injured, maimed and killed by a forced Bad Friday "sheltering in place".
Police dogs were kenneled rather than sent out to look for the suspect, even after the abandoned car was found. That was because it was the people who were being taught sit-stay commands by their masters.
They swarmed out of their homes and dorms and applauded the heroic police when it was all over, mission accomplished, when instead, like the Burghers of Calais, they should have appeared openly with leashes around their necks, challenging the narrative.
RickR30
April 22nd, 2013 at 8:01 am
How do regular folk get their hands on grenades anyway?
CanuckBC
April 22nd, 2013 at 8:01 am
I know for fact that JR is sometimes wrong. Deadly wrong. This may be one case of it, just as he was wrong in "Hagel's heroic fight with AIPAC". JR called to my surprise anybody who does not believe whole official truth about 9-11 "conspiracy nut". When one take to account only that "Hagel's theater" alone one must wonder if AIPAC people do not control even "Antiwar" when they profit so healthily from control of "War" side. It would make a lot of sense. Like a good cop versus a bad cop.
Phil Giraldi
April 22nd, 2013 at 9:52 am
There are lots of folks pleased about a new terrorist incident in the US. Patrick Clawson of WINEP said recently that an incident might be needed to sharpen American resolve against Islamic terror. Benjamin Netanyahu's leading adviser has said that Boston will be good for Israel. And then there is the possible backdoor involvement of the neocons in the Chechen "revolt." The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, an anti-Russian wholly owned neocon outfit if there ever was one, includes Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, Midge Decter, Frank Gaffney, Michael Ledeen and James Woolsey.
Rusty
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:02 am
I will be pleased about this terrorist attack if it ends our insane immigration policy of attempting to change the historic population demographic of the USA. But sadly I imagine this will only cause the powers that be to double down on that goal.
Articles for Monday » Scott Lazarowitz's Blog
April 22nd, 2013 at 10:13 am
[...] Justin Raimondo: Who’s Behind the Boston Marathon Attack? [...]
musings
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:15 am
Lovely. Thanks for the negatives, troll.
musings
April 22nd, 2013 at 11:15 am
I guess someone thinks I am not Boston Strong. Enjoy your bundle of sticks, fascist.
Casey
April 22nd, 2013 at 1:52 pm
Justin —
"His tweets, usually light-hearted, took on a darker aspect just prior to the Boston attack: on April 15 he tweeted: “Ain’t no love in the heart of the city, stay safe people.”"
Is incorrect — he tweeted this after the bombings (at 5:04 PM, according to the timestamp). Additionally, "Ain't no love in the heart of the city" is a lyric from a very popular Jay-Z song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QePjIIBI-sI), a detail which may be irrelevant but also may make the comment seem less "dark."
Vojkan
April 22nd, 2013 at 2:26 pm
There are indeed. Indignated, condemnating, but having a hard time concealing the drool leaking from their mouths. Over an eight years old's dead body and his little sister's limb. Sickening. But you have a lot to reproach yourself too, Mr Giraldi.
Vojkan
April 22nd, 2013 at 2:37 pm
You have used us to better than this, Mr Raimondo. Sometimes it is more advisable to remain silent than to voice an opinion having so many rough edges in a dire need of a serious smoothing effort.
Don_Bacon
April 22nd, 2013 at 2:56 pm
Exactly — all or nearly all of the domestic "terror plots" to date have been FBI-instigated, with confused young men as the targets for prosecution so as to make the Feebers look good.
I'm really surprised that Raimondo didn't consider this angle as a strong posibility, given that the FBI knew Tamerlan long ago, and his mother has said that the FBI maintained contact with him (and set him up, she says).
djosha
April 22nd, 2013 at 3:43 pm
What we have here? From the beginning, we can safely put aside any government story, because this source of information is not credible. This source constantly lies, adjusting facts to political needs of the US government.. I think that they will lie even when truth is better for them; because this is the way they work.
So , all information about these kids, names, fights with police, type of explosive, – all that I can´t accept at a face value. I need confirmation from some better source.
But, there is one information that is unequivocal: Russian authorities contacted FBI about some potential terrorists 6 month ago. ThaT IS THE CRUX OF WHOLE THING. I think this a point, from which story can be told. My take is that one energetic guy, in the search of the meaning of the life, went accidentally to Chechnya, and there met somebody who explained him everything, complete theory of God and man , that gave young man strong purpose in his life. In the process, he was definitely noticed by Russian FSB, because recruiter of Tamerlan was their asset. And here , I think, international politics goes in. In the world of murky political deals, they love finding some patsy that is easy to control. And Chechen, living in America, and bent on jihad – that is good for someone who wants to manipulate. Now see what is happening in US-Russia relations lately… Putin openly said that foreign "human rights" organizations in Russia are getting BILLIONS of dollars for their work in Russia – which is destabilization of the whole country, RUSSIANS KNOW IT, AMERICANS KNOW IT. No need to explain why, I presume. So, we have a situation where one government is attacking another almost openly, while at the same time smiling and speaking about friendship and "reloading" . How do you think Russian leaders feel about that? Then comes one patsy, FSB routinely takes him under control, sends him back to USA already conditioned. After that , Russian authorities call US, and tell them to pay attention about that guy. FBI doesn´t take it seriously, Russians smile because now they can´t be blamed for anything, and maybe help patsy in the final technical preparations? Maybe yes, maybe no, that will never be known. Finally, there are explosions, panic, search for the terrorists, and so on. In that picture, FBI doesn´t look great, isn´t it? Which is a whole reason, I think, for all that shebang. What FSB did, was to shoot back for once – they were, and are on the receiving end of CIA operations for decades., so they basically say : don´t mess with us, we can do you as you are doing us. And everything very nicely camouflaged , very correct, after all, what they could do more, they warned Americans, isn´t it?
They are simply asking clean deal showing that they are worth of it. If all this looks like some mafia story, its because all power organizations work in the same ways, methods are the same.
YOU must be strong , if you want to be respected. SO, what is a better way to show Americans that they are strong, and deserve respect?
Cui bono? Somebody had to profit, and I don´t think anybody did, except Russia. Or all thing just happened accidentally ? Maybe, but that Russian warning send to FBI, denounced some organization.
Sorry for polluting internet, but I will like to hear alternative explanations of Boston bombing
Strider55
April 22nd, 2013 at 3:56 pm
The same way the Colorado theater shooter got his hands on tear gas — with help from someone in the government.
And the Colorado theater shooter (an unemployed college geek) used a federal education grant to get the money needed to acquire that huge weapons cache.
Saba
April 22nd, 2013 at 8:11 pm
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was arrested with no bullet shot at the scene. HE WAS STRIP DOWN naket, handcuffed and taken away. http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2013/04/breaking…
the Boston Police Dept’s arrest of suspect bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev – the video clearly shows the 26 year old being escorted to BPD vehicle whilst handcuffed and not wounded, which in total contradiction to official reports which claim the suspect was shot by police and then run-over by his younger brother in a stolen SUV in Sommerville, MA.
Tamerlan was taken by FBI, but later he was pronounced dead due to gunshot! When he was taken away he did have any injuries and shortly after he was dead!
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2013/04/eyew…
Raimondo : Who’s Behind the Boston Marathon Attack? | My Catbird Seat
April 22nd, 2013 at 9:00 pm
[...] Antiwar [...]
Jaime
April 22nd, 2013 at 9:22 pm
How true. I thought this disgrace would make Americans reflect about what they and their government do -carnage on a daily basis- all over the world, but it was too much to expect from a stupefied populace. Now they are the victims. That these evil brothers used a pressure cooker filled with nails to create greater harm? Much more sophisticated and weighing in at 1,000 pounds, the CBU-87/B warhead is in the category of "combined effects munitions". This is indeed a pressure cooker in large scale.
20 Clues to the Foreign Connection of the Boston Bombings | cartelism
April 23rd, 2013 at 2:58 am
[...] Raimondo, Antiwar.com, on why fundamentalist Islamists were behind the Boston [...]
Vojkan
April 23rd, 2013 at 4:05 am
Allow me to speculate and propose you an alternative scenario. Six or eight backpacks were initially deposed. Only two exploded. The other didn't because the GSM calls that would have detonated them didn't pass. So, from then on, for the real culprits, the mission objective morphed into "cover our a**es".
First step, remove the undetonated backpacks.
Second step, drop the idea of issuing a fake claim for responsibility.
Third step, since it could no longer be the work of awful international terrorists. find scapegoats. Let's see who we have in our files who was there at the moment. Yeah, Tamerlan Tsarnaev's has a neat loser profile. Problem, his younger brother hasn't. But they probably didn't have the time to check.
Fourth step, lock inhabitants in their homes to reduce the possibility of having undesirable witnesses who'd tell a different story than the official one.
Fifth step, make the brothers incapable to talk.
Finally, if one of them has the poor taste of surviving, make sure he'll never talk, eventually torture him into a plea bargain.
Vojkan
April 23rd, 2013 at 4:10 am
Either that, or the younger brother is an unseen yet form of psycho.
musings
April 23rd, 2013 at 5:40 am
I am predicting a plea bargain because the Mayor Menino of Boston has weighed in early on the matter by stating that the younger brother was "brainwashed" by his elder, Tamerlane. This begins to look like the Patty Hearst story in which, yes, she is caught on tape at the bank robbery after her kidnapping, she appears to have joined the radical organization which took her, but somehow people think of her as just a vulnerable 19-year-old among hardened criminals. She did spend time in jail but ultimately I believe she was pardoned.
I expect to see a narrative emerging in which the brother Tamerlane morphs into the worst kind of man, a complete loser and terrorist recruit. They are even planning to tie him to an unsolved drug murder in the Boston suburb of Waltham (a place where Route 128 high tech businesses draw on the skills of Latin American factory workers and Indian computer engineers). Tamerlane is going to turn into a monster pretty soon, while his poor brother will seem the abused innocent who was possibly even tricked by him into planting a bomb (or alternatively who was so spaced out he "partied" back at school while events unfolded).
The authorities are keeping their own powder dry on this one. They could go either way with Joe-Kar. But my bet is that the mayor's view will prevail in the long run, and the kid will never be in any danger of execution.
FBI lies
April 23rd, 2013 at 7:02 am
According to Craig, former US Ambassador, human rights activist says the Boston Bombing ‘does not make sense”. Will gullible people who copy FBI lies pay attention?He said: We are asked to believe that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was identified by the Russian government as an extremist Dagestani or Chechen, and they were so concerned about it that in late 2010 they asked the US government to take action. At that time, the US and Russia did not normally have a security cooperation relationship over Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008. But now this gets utterly incredible. In 2012 Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who is of such concern to Russian security, is able to fly to Russia and pass through the airport security checks of the world’s most thoroughly and brutally efficient security services without being picked up.He is then able to proceed to Dagestan – right at the heart of the world’s heaviest military occupation and the world’s most far reaching secret police surveillance – again without being intercepted. He then flies out again without any intervention by the Russian security services. This scenario is simply impossible in the real world.
musings
April 23rd, 2013 at 8:31 am
Unless his family really isn't Chechen. Then it kind of flows.
For your consideration: We forget so quickly, don't we? The Boston area is filling up with Russians like you wouldn't believe. It is a huge immigrant community here. In the midst of this development, a Russian sleeper cell begun maybe twenty years ago was busted in Cambridge close to where the Tsarnaev family lived. Yes, they were pretty upscale types – couples with false identities as Canadians, who raised children born in the USA, though they were ordered by KGB to marry and pose as ordinary couples. What they were doing as they attended the Kennedy School or sold real estate (Russian women make formidable realtors and probably know their way around the credit industry)? I don't see them as of the same class as the Tsarnaev's but perhaps there was a muscle component, an enforcement division if you will. If would be hard to connect these people except geographically. But my mental map of Central Square Cambridge is reading hot, like something radioactive with KGB activity. And the Tsarnaev's were right there.
musings
April 23rd, 2013 at 9:27 am
But let's pretend we're playing Risk or something. If we attack Iran (Tehran is on the Caspian Sea), then its old ally Russia will be put out. Chechnya is also on the Caspian – Grozny and Tehran are linked by water. If Russia can be bogged down with Islamists in Chechnya, there is less it can do in Iran (or Syria for that matter).
Posing this problem for them – the story of a man who says he is an Islamist (while dead men tell no tales, you can load them up with a story).
I am thinking there are conflicting narratives in the US. Those who want war with Iran and who want a surrogate fight with Russia in Syria, will be quick rouse Russia to an Islamist crackdown in Chechnya. Others will try to limit the damage the boys caused to something local and petty.
My contribution to this is a thwarted attack on Lord and Taylor, the store which humiliated their shop-lifting mother. The reason I am so cynical? I don't believe the official story.
A. G. Phillbin
April 23rd, 2013 at 9:39 am
If this was an FBI sting, then why did the bombing succeed?
A. G. Phillbin
April 23rd, 2013 at 9:43 am
Well since you now believ3e that everyone (including antiwar.com & JR) is "in on it," why don't you just crawl into a fetal position and have yourself aborted? The whole world is against you, so you might as well get it over with, paranoid.
liberranter
April 23rd, 2013 at 9:51 am
The investigation into the Boston Marathon terrorist attack is now focused on what is the most important question: Did they act alone? In my view, the answer is no.
Do I read correctly into this that Justin is seriously treating this as an actual (i.e., non-U.S. government-sponsored) "terrist" attack? PLEASE tell me that this is satire, or that Justin is just having an off day.
A. G. Phillbin
April 23rd, 2013 at 9:54 am
The video doesn't even show his face. How do you know that's Tamerlan Tsarnaev? By osmosis?
brenda
April 23rd, 2013 at 10:33 am
If they were dealing in drugs, maybe the Tsar brother didn't kill his friend but someone else did, the pot put on them, burial, the brothers may have put that there themselves, why else would you leave it behind? Boston Bombing payback? It's all speculation of course, but what was up with the Saudi guy they were making a big deal of?
Vojkan
April 23rd, 2013 at 10:39 am
Can't agree more, I wrote a similar comment earlier.
Saba
April 23rd, 2013 at 10:57 am
He was identified by his aunt who lives in Canada. This person was forced to lie down for long time and everyone was referring to him as the suspect who was finally captured.
All Bostonians who were watching the “show” saw this part on TV. I think deliberately this part was darker than other parts. At least 50 or more FBI agents, Police were aiming at him. If he was not the "suspect" why so much fuss? They also brought bomb disposal equipment and dogs to make sure he does not have anything bomb on under his clothing. He was naked, then taken him to a vehicle and run off. The irony is none of the dumb reporters asked any question regarding this “suspect” any more and shortly after he was pronounced dead. The dumb reporters continue to spread police propaganda report for mass consumption. It showed how a POLICE STATE works in a society where majority are brain washed.
brenda
April 23rd, 2013 at 11:03 am
Funny, I tried finding those names associated with them and can't. (seems this neocon conspiracy is making it's rounds) Seems lots of pages on the net have been updated recently. It's not that I find it unimaginable, considering John McCain, but he is just a senile mouth and face for lot's of dem's who pat him on the back too.
Ruhi
April 23rd, 2013 at 11:11 am
{but what was up with the Saudi guy they were making a big deal of? }
They intestinally injected The “Saudi man” to fix people’s min on Muslim and Islam. They run this FAKE story over and over and over. They claim this mans “is not a suspect” but “person of interest”, but they were standing in front of an apartment complex in REVERE where he lives. They even went to his apartment #50, but he was not there (apparently FBI was interviewing him!!!), yet they said we mean NO HARM. idiots
Mustafa
April 23rd, 2013 at 11:11 am
I'm surprised how much thought is given to the question. It shows how easily people are distracted. Now, as for the implications, they have already been effected, to wit. See, people who rely on what they hear on the news for these types of incidents are accepting hearsay as fact. In actuality, there's no way to know what's really going on. But, we can all take note of what results from a putative "xyz incident." See, we don't know anything for certain about what happened on 9/11 as far as perpetrators are concerned. Now, we do know who the perpetrators and benefactors are of killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and maiming millions. That's wanton mass slaughter. While we are not sure of the particulars, we can be damn sure of drawing inferences about the usurpation of our most basic rights. Try to think outside of the box
brenda
April 23rd, 2013 at 11:18 am
Maybe someone else framed them because the FBI supposedly spoke to them. Maybe the Obama admin is using some other gangland retaliation as a way of going after others, look at all the news stories and how messed up they get when they want to frame the debate to hang the wreath of shame and guilt by association on some groups neck.
Mustafa
April 23rd, 2013 at 11:18 am
What's really going on? Well, you have opportunistic psychopaths who don't really care about the events in their own right
Mustafa
April 23rd, 2013 at 11:21 am
… these opportunists shape policy and public opinion to suit their agenda. The average American doesn't even realize how bankers and Zionists could, if they so wanted, prop up a financial system based in health entirely on fraudulent practices. They don't realize if Israel so wants, it can declare war between The US and Iran. They don't realize that the people who are sitting in the high perches, visible and invisible, have used decoys and deflections to consolidate their power. The Muslim world is rich in natural resources. It has nothing against, say, South America. The same isn't true for its relationship with Israel. Seriously, people are confusing the cause and effect. Let's grant that it was a rag-tag group that did 9/11. Then, by all means, inflict twice the damage on the perpetrators and the countries in league with them. You say 3,000 were killed on 9/11
Mustafa
April 23rd, 2013 at 11:22 am
so, suppose the US sends a message. It kills 6,000 civilians in cold blood. It sends a clear message: stomp on my foot and I'll break your jaw. But another reality has emerged. According to this reality, people will be gradually inculcated into a state of eager aggression, wrapped up in a mythology as grand as grand as the wonders of the world. Meanwhile, everything has been put in order; radical islamists seek to commit atrocities against our own people because their ideology says so. No, there's absolutely no such thing. If anything, illegal invasions and massacres have made them hostile toward the aggressors. Ongoing acts of brutality include unleashing UFOs to strafe their people. No, if you think Muslims despise America due to immanent religious hatred in their culture, just answer one question.
WHAT KIND of toy do you want with your happy meal?? Willful ignorance is self-destructive self-delusion.
Sori
April 23rd, 2013 at 11:57 am
{WHAT KIND of toy do you want with your happy meal?}
Destruction of Muslims and their society to enrich 1% elite zionist behind lickers to establish "greater Israel" using FALSE FLAG operation with the help of the "progressives".
Please view the following to see WHO IS THE REAL TERRORIST AND WHO ARRANGE AND IMPLIMENT ALL THESE False Flag operations?
After "9/11" where no one presented any credible "evidence" for the phony charge they made against Muslisms, now to keep their lies alive, they are building a “HOLOCUAST museum" in NY to keep the propaganda alive for plasticization of all societies.
Muslims and real progressive people in the world MUST BE UNITED against war criminals and their phony "progressives" who act as enablers.
http://www.juancole.com/images/2013/04/relviolenc…
brenda
April 23rd, 2013 at 12:04 pm
They all seem to like the bombings and killings in Syria, so much so we give them money and training, same people but we call them rebels when they are in a different country until they do something against america then they are terrorists, it's confusing even to me. We call the people over there freedom fighters fighting against assad, but would Obama or anyone in Congress or elsewhere in the US want people in this country doing what they are doing over there? If McCain supports a bomber over there would he support one here? Would he support a group of rebels overthrowing the Senate (regardless of whether or not we could use it :) Anyway, we do make lots of problems for ourselves.
Gun battle in Boston, 1 Suspect in custody. Breaking Now ! - Page 218
April 23rd, 2013 at 12:10 pm
[...] had also been identified, including Chechens, Georgians, Armenians, and Russian-Koreans, of Who Sign in or Register Now to [...]
Vojkan
April 23rd, 2013 at 12:31 pm
It wasn't him. Conspirators conspired to lure conspirationists. Sarcasm inside. Let's stick to facts and logic. They are damning enough as they are for US authorities.
musings
April 23rd, 2013 at 12:36 pm
Lies, lies, lies.
There's been some death lately that must be explained. The "Chechen" brothers got hooked to the MIT police shooting because they were supposed to have murdered Sean Collier, the MIT cop right after the knocked over a 7-11 across from City Hall Cambridge on Mass. Ave exactly one mile away.
The CEO of 7-11 responded that not only were they not the suspects in a hold-up there, but the video (which doesn't really look like either brother) isn't from the particular store. Plus some eyewitness to the shooting of the MIT cop (whose cruiser wasn't even on the street but on a path between two buildings on the campus now covered in memorial flowers) did not identify anyone matching the description of the alleged bombers.
Lacking all relationship to the events which preceded the shooting, and not even placeable in the area in which an odd carjacking took place (one which left the kidnap suspect in the passenger seat and involved a trip to a gas station – hint: kidnappers avoid lights and they don't fill up gas tanks to go a few blocks; when they have a hostage, one of them pushes that unhappy person deep into the back seat holds them down so they can't be seen or yell for assistance – how did they know the guy was going to be so passive??? any allegations of holding a weapon on him – no, I don't think there are). You only fill up if you want your face on a video to put you in the area.
This is a big lie. I suspect it is about another war – perhaps one in which Russia could get involved on the other side if they are busy putting down their own Chechens.
It's such a convoluted story by now that it has Byzantine politics written all over it. Who has the patience for that? Not Americans. That's why we are always the last to know. The Great Chessboard indeed.
Yonatan
April 23rd, 2013 at 1:39 pm
The Chechen terrorists are supported by NATO (ie the US) have safe bases in Turkey. The US is using them to stir up trouble in Russia, just as they used the jihadists in Afghanistan. So now the US has had two episodes of direct blowback from its murderous actions against Russia. All the gory details are available at Sibel Edmonds' website
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/04/19/usa-th…
Police State
April 23rd, 2013 at 2:07 pm
Tomorrow, Boston and Cambridge are under Curfew again.
musings
April 23rd, 2013 at 2:26 pm
My supposition is that tying down the Russians so they cannot interfere in Iran is the goal. The Russians were always an obstacle to that. Considering that Grozny and Tehran are linked by the Caspian Sea (more or less, seeing the Caspian as a clock face, Tehran is at six o'clock and Chechnya at nine o'clock), then if the Russians cannot move anything out of their current puppet state of Chechnya,and they have Georgian opposition in Tiblisi; or from Azerbaijan at Baku (at eight o'clock on the dial), they are tied up and cannot easily thwart whatever is being done in Tehran by Israel and the US. It's been a long term goal and apparently "It's on."
Of course, people will have some sympathy for the Russians as once again they slaughter Chechens, because we were so brutally and wantonly "attacked by these animals".. But no matter, If it gets the job done – the job of making Moscow a hellhole of Chechen terror, it will allow things to proceed more smoothly for the invaders…
Risk is not just a board game. But there is always a loser as well as a winner, and nothing is a foregone conclusion. North Korea and Russia are allies too.
djosha
April 23rd, 2013 at 2:31 pm
Exactly, that what I am saying! Russians played some good cards lately, and game is going on . Its like Putin is saying to Obama : see, instead of supporting some bandits attacking my country, maybe you should look more near home? Don´t bullshit the bullshitter?
Vojkan
April 23rd, 2013 at 2:43 pm
Believers do not ally with the devil against other believers. If they do, they are not true. That simple.
musings
April 23rd, 2013 at 3:10 pm
You're kidding aren't you?
A. G. Phillbin
April 24th, 2013 at 5:30 am
Hand grenades are even easier to fabricate than pressure cooker bombs. Gun powder is easy to make, and is what the bombs were made of. Reality is not a plot invented by the government in order to get us to stop dreaming.
Guest
April 25th, 2013 at 2:55 pm
There are no "terrorists", because if there were, they would have done something by now which would produce real damage, not just a media frenzy at the expense of a few unfortunates in the wrong place at the wrong time. For just one example: a dozen good shots with elk rifles could bring this country to its knees in 15 minutes, with almost no risk of capture. I'm not going to spell out how, first because I have no desire to be accused of giving anyone any ideas, and second because anyone whose model of reality is based on something besides mainstream propganda horseshit knows it already anyway. Let's just say that it is extremely unlikely that there would be any video cameras within miles of the attackers, and even if there were it wouldn't make much difference because in the aftermath an awful lot of folks won't be watching any TV for quite some time.
Just in case you missed it the first time, I'll say it again: THERE ARE NO "TERRORISTS". There is only FBI, MI6, CIA, Mossad, DHS, FSB, NSA, ISI, MI5, et cetera, et cetera, et-fucking-cetera.